Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Editorial: More and more kids are arriving at school in Milwaukee with a bellyful of anger, which they vent by lashing out at teachers, other staffers and fellow students. Intensifying violence is bedeviling the Milwaukee Public Schools, distracting the system from its main mission: education. Advertisement Buy a link here Journal Sentinel reporter … Continue reading Making Education Safe
Sarah Carr: An 18-year-old punches his school’s football coach and grabs his genitals. • Two middle-school age sisters jump a police officer called to calm a disturbance. • A grandmother charges a group of students at an elementary school, and then strikes the principal. • A boy tries to sell a gun to his friend … Continue reading Milwaukee Public Schools Violence Intensifying
The “Stuyvesant of the East” has become one of the most sought-after public schools in the city. It got that way by leaving much of the public out. Jeff Coplon: As light faded on the first arctic day of winter, a band of 40 die-hard parents huddled on Seventh Avenue, outside Region 9 headquarters of … Continue reading A public school with a private-school mission
Sue Arneson, Jason Delborne, Katie Griffiths, Anita Krasno, Dea Larsen Converse, Diane Milligan, Sich Slone, Grant Sovern, Lara Sutherlin: Dear School Board Members: A group of neighbors from the Marquette and Tenney-Lapham communities met this morning with Enis Ragland, Assistant to the Mayor. While we didn’t claim to represent any organizations, many of us have … Continue reading Letter to School Board Members & a Meeting with Enis Ragland
There has been bitterness, surprise and resentment over my vote with respect to the Lapham/Marquette consolidation. I would like to let people know why I voted to move the alternative programs to Marquette. I have a mix of emotions several days after the storm and hope you find it helpful to understand the process from … Continue reading Lapham Marquette Statement
Tracy Dell’Angela: For the second time in a decade, Chicago Public Schools leaders are making a push in Springfield to restrict the power of local school councils to hire and fire principals. Board President Rufus Williams and other district leaders met with key legislators last week to discuss possible changes to the 1995 School Reform … Continue reading Chicago Public School Leaders Seek Governance Changes
A letter to the editor from The Capital Times: Dear Editor: With the multitude of challenges it’s facing, the Madison Metropolitan School District needs all the friends it can get. But the district is alienating central city neighborhoods that value quality public education and the people who are willing to pay for it. At election … Continue reading School district biting hand that feeds it
Mara Altman: Imagine that your boss wants you to sign a document accusing you of something you don’t believe you did—a fireable offense like assaulting someone at work, for example—and your response is not only to refuse to sign, but to let loose a damning accusation that your boss was making up the allegation. And, … Continue reading Class Dismissed: NYC’s Rubber Rooms
Development on the isthmus continues, according to two two stories in the news today, making the prospect of closing central-city schools rather shortsighted. From a longer story by Mike Ivey in The Capital Times: E. Dayton Apartments: In other action Monday night, a plan from developer Scott Lewis and architect John Sutton for a five-story, … Continue reading Isthmus growth continues; closing plans shortsighted
Jay Matthews: Some critics decry the way the Knowledge Is Power Program presents itself as the savior of inner city education. My answer: KIPP doesn’t do that. We sloppy journalists do. Let me present Exhibit A: The latest annual report card from the KIPP Foundation in San Francisco. It has 93 pages of remarkable data. … Continue reading Looking at KIPP, Coolly and Carefully
David Herszenhorn: The deal would increase base pay by 23 percent, compounded over nearly seven years, and add 15 minutes to principals’ and assistant principals’ workdays. The contract would also revamp how principals are rated on their performance each year, discarding the blunt thumbs-up or thumbs-down system under which they are labeled either satisfactory or … Continue reading NYC Schools New Deal with their Principals
Sandra Svoboda: No one talked about — unless asked, and then only in hushed tones so the 238 children who attend school there couldn’t hear — the Detroit school board’s recent vote to close the building at the end of this academic year and to relocate students and staff. “It’s always in the back of … Continue reading Schools out: Detroit closures complicate education, economics
Denis Doyle: The case for national standards is so self-evidently powerful that I am always surprised that it has to be made. Indeed, for years I have expected national standards to emerge spontaneously, with state after state seeing the wisdom of pooling resources rather than re-inventing standards 50 times over. After all, America is rich … Continue reading “Time for National Standards”
Please write the School Board about what is important to you and your state legislature about funding our public schools. Following is a copy of my letter to the school board on Grade 5 strings: Dear School Board Members (comments@madison.k12.wi.us), I am happy to serve as a member of the newly created Fine Arts Task … Continue reading Grade 5 Strings – Letter to School Board
From Marj Passman’s Web site: Thank you Madison voters: This campaign began, in my mind, for the children of Madison. ALL the children. It wasn’t about the parents – let me repeat – it was about our young people. Every single person who came on board and worked their hearts out did it for the … Continue reading Thank you from Marj
Ruth Robarts, who supports Maya Cole and Rick Thomas for School Board, wrote the following letter to the editor: I voted no on Carol Carstensen’s proposed three-year referendum for several reasons. First, a referendum requires careful planning. Two weeks’ notice did not allow the School Board to do the necessary analysis or planning. Second, the … Continue reading Ruth Robarts: Let’s take school closings off the table, start the planning needed for another referendum
A year ago, I joined other volunteers to help with the recount of the votes in Maya Cole’s slim loss to Arlene Silviera. After the recount had been going for a while (I can’t remember whether it was the second or third day), the process clipped along smoothly with volunteers and the city clerk’s staff … Continue reading Keep the board functional: Vote Cole
Dear Mr. Rainwater: I just found out from the principal at my school that you cut the allocations for SAGE teachers and Strings teachers, but the budget hasn’t even been approved. Will you please stop playing politics with our children education? It?s time to think about your legacy. As you step up to the chopping … Continue reading An open letter to the Superintendent of Madison Metropolitan Schools
On March 26, I voted no on Carol Carstensen’s proposed three-year referendum for several reasons. First, a referendum requires careful planning. Two weeks notice did not allow the Madison School Board to do the necessary analysis or planning. Ms. Carstensen—not the administration—provided the only budget analysis for her proposal. The board has not set priorities … Continue reading Yes to strategic planning, no to last minute referendums and school closings
Nancy Donahue, one of the organizers of The Studio School, sent this message to SIS: I have had the opportunity to talk with Maya Cole twice in the past two weeks and I am convinced that she would be an excellent addition to our school board …someone who can see the big picture and incorporate … Continue reading Nancy Donahue: Cole not “beholden”
Alan Borsuk: The Progressions program of the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra, which gives kids mostly from Milwaukee Public Schools a start on classical instruments, is one of many arts programs in the city that are benefiting from a new $1 million fund created by the Milwaukee School Board. That amount is being matched by private … Continue reading Milwaukee Public Schools / Milwaukee Symphony Arts Program
Diana Jean Schemo: States and school districts nationwide are moving to lengthen the day at struggling schools, spurred by grim test results suggesting that more than 10,000 schools are likely to be declared failing under federal law next year. In Massachusetts, in the forefront of the movement, Gov. Deval L. Patrick is allocating $6.5 million … Continue reading A Longer School Day?
PBS: Imagine the sight and sound of American nine- and eleven-year-old children performing Shakespeare’s Hamlet or Henry V — and understanding every word they recite. Imagine them performing well enough to elicit praise from such accomplished Shakespearean actors as Ian McKellen and Michael York, and to be invited to perform with the Royal Shakespeare Company … Continue reading The Hobart Shakespeareans
Jason Shephard: As a teacher-centered lesson ended the other morning at Midvale Elementary School, about 15 first-graders jumped up from their places on the carpeted rug and dashed to their personal bins of books. Most students quickly settled into two assigned groups. One read a story about a fox in a henhouse with the classroom … Continue reading How can we help poor students achieve more?
According to a report from the Madison Police Department: On 3/22/07 at 10:02 a.m. there was a large disturbance at LaFollette H.S. A school administrator had noticed a large gathering of students and hostilities between some wanting to fight. It was later learned that the disturbance was caused by three females confronting three other females … Continue reading Fight and arrests at LaFollette
TJ Mertz: In this morning’s Wisconsin State Journal there is a story that again misrepresents the place of Madison School Community Recreation and Fund 80 in the district and the community. The chart comparing Fund 80 levies in Madison to those in other districts ignores the fact that most or all of those locales have … Continue reading Madison’s Fund 80 & Elections
The Economist: The hard lessons of segregation WAYNE CLOUGH, the president of the Georgia Institute of Technology, has just moved into a new office. The workmen are still in the corridors outside, generating noise and dust. A few years ago the site, in Atlanta, was full of drug addicts and prostitutes. The hotel across the … Continue reading Fixing Dixie’s tricksy schools
Thank you for your service and thank you for your request to hear from the community. My name is Shari Entenmann and I’m here as a parent of 3 young children entrusting you with their school experience. As you move forward with the budget process there are three things I’d like you to commit to: … Continue reading Testimony asks for three commitments
(This letter is being distributed to parents of Franklin-Randall students, but should concern everyone in the MMSD and Regent Neighborhood) SCHOOL FUNDING CRISIS: Don’t get mad, get active!! March 16, 2007 The School Board recently announced sweeping budget cuts for the coming school year that will have a severe impact on Franklin-Randall, as well as … Continue reading Budget Impacts at Franklin-Randall–Don’t Get Mad, Get Active!!
Andy Hall: The Madison School District’s struggle to handle a $10.5 million budget shortfall moved into a new stage Monday night, as 17 people spoke out against proposed cuts and a School Board member urged her colleagues to turn to voters for more money. The School Board began struggling with the budget cuts following Superintendent … Continue reading Parents Balk at Proposed Cuts
Sarah Carr: But in choosing to send her children to a middle school, Allen is part of a declining breed of parents in the city. Next year, Milwaukee Public Schools officials expect about 8,750 middle school students, down about 10% from this school year and nearly 35% from four years ago. The School District has … Continue reading Middle schools giving way to K-8 programs
Doug Erickson on the 2007/2008 $345M budget (up from $333M in 2006/2007) for 24,342 students): As feared by some parents, the recommendations also included a plan to consolidate schools on the city’s East Side. Marquette Elementary students would move to Lapham Elementary and Sherman Middle School students would be split between O’Keeffe and Black Hawk … Continue reading “Bitter Medicine for Madison Schools”:
07/08 budget grows 3.6% from 333M (06/07) to $345M with Reductions in the Increase
Diana Jean Schemo has been at this article for awhile: The program, which gives $1 billion a year in grants to states, was supposed to end the so-called reading wars — the battle over the best method of teaching reading — but has instead opened a new and bitter front in the fight. According to … Continue reading Madison’s Reading Battle Makes the NYT: In War Over Teaching Reading, a U.S.-Local Clash
Joseph Berger: The Intel is more than a gimmicky contest that garners publicity for its chipmaker sponsor. It genuinely prompts hundreds of students to plunge into vanguard research. This year, 1,705 students from 487 schools in 44 states entered, said Katherine Silkin, the contest’s program manager. High school seniors in the United States and its … Continue reading Intel Competition Is Where Science Rules and Research Is the Key
James Barron: Rich Cronin, the president and chief executive of GSN, said he was not just thrilled to watch the competition, he was euphoric. “One person will be the ‘American Idol’ of vocabulary,” he said. (In the end, after an afternoon with its share of technical difficulties and dashed hopes, the winner was Robert Marsland, … Continue reading 18 Year Old Madison Resident Wins National Vocabulary Championship
March Madness is approaching! On the board level, madness can be characterized by the large assortments of topics and decisions that have been or will need to be made such as the superintendent search, budget, and other serious issues that require time, analysis and public discussion. I would like to give you a brief report … Continue reading March Madison BOE Progress Report
Teacher Voices: In Philadelphia last week a teacher named Frank Burd, wound up in the hospital after two students assaulted him, apparently because he had confiscated an iPod during class. After class, according to a report on NBC news, the two students were waiting for Burd. One punched him and the other pushed him. As … Continue reading Making Safety a Piece of the Pie
In the context of the Madison School District’s financial challenges, it’s easy to understand why creating a new program may seem unthinkable. Yet creativity can prove a strong ally in times of adversity. Take the prospect of the latest charter school idea to come before the Madison School Board, and consider these points: As a … Continue reading School Board Vote on the Studio School Tonight
Milwakee Journal-Sentinel Editorial: Too many grads of the Milwaukee Public Schools wind up in remedial classes in math when they pursue college. Key educational leaders in the city have come up with a proven plan to reverse this alarming trend – a plan Gov. Jim Doyle has proposed to finance with $15 million in state … Continue reading Closing the Math Gap
Steven Malanga: In football, a quarterback’s blind side is the side of the field opposite his throwing arm—the left side of the field for a right-handed quarterback, for instance. One shouldn’t confuse the blind side with a blind spot, which is what our policy-makers and media often have when discussing American poverty: it is a … Continue reading Parenting vs. Poverty
Susan Troller: Watch the candidates' video presentations here. At first glance, the three primary candidates seeking the seat that Shwaw Vang is leaving open on the Madison School Board appear far more similar than different. Beth Moss, Rick Thomas and Pam Cross-Leone are all married, white, middle class parents of students who attend Madison public schools. … Continue reading Madison School Board Seat 3 Primary Overview
John Nichols noted that Madison’s Mayoral challengers have not raised substantive questions of the incumbent Mayor’s (Dave Cieslewicz) record, including schools: No. 2, he has failed to offer much in the way of a vision for how this rapidly changing city should approach the future. How green should it be? Where does mass transit fit … Continue reading Mayors and Schools
Dee Hall: Now that the lakes have finally frozen over, longtime Madison residents may gaze (if their eyes don’t tear up too badly) over the bleak landscape of Lake Mendota and reminisce about that fateful February 28 years ago when the Statue of Liberty came to town. Of course it wasn’t the real statue (which … Continue reading New Jersey Math Teacher Leon Varjian Discusses his Madison Roots
School closings need to be considered in light of the long-term (5-10 years or more) outlook – a 3-5 year outlook, yet alone 1-2 years, is not nearly long enough when considering a measure whose impact lasts for many years, at a student/family level, as well as financial. What muddies this school closing picture is … Continue reading School Closings & the Long-Term Outlook
A story by Sol Stern posted on City Journal highlights the success of Reading First and includes striking parallels to our superintendent’s response to the program: Reading First, though much maligned, succeeds in teaching kids to read. . . . A comprehensive study by an outside evaluator will appear in 2007, measuring Reading First’s influence … Continue reading This Bush Education Reform Really Works
Amy Waldman: The storm ravaged the city’s architecture and infrastructure, took hundreds of lives, exiled hundreds of thousands of residents. But it also destroyed, or enabled the destruction of, the city’s public-school system—an outcome many New Orleanians saw as deliverance. That system had begun with great promise, in 1841, as one of the first in … Continue reading New Orleans’ Schools: Reading, Writing, Resurrection
Dan Sebald: I’m somewhat incredulous about the comments from the Madison School Board President Johnny Winston Jr. in Susan Troller’s article about Monday’s meeting. Do I understand correctly? The School Board packaged the new west side elementary school with two other spending items to ensure its passage as a referendum on last November’s ballot, and … Continue reading Comments on the 2006 Madison Edge School Referendum & Possible Closure of a “Downtown School”
Jesse McKinley: It would have seemed to be a perfect fit: an academically ambitious plan for an ambitiously academic city. But after weeks of debate occasionally tinged with racial overtones, the Palo Alto Unified School District decided early Wednesday against a plan for Mandarin language immersion, citing practical concerns as well as whether the classes … Continue reading Palo Alto School Board Rejects Classes in Mandarin
George Will: Fifty-seven years later, Sumner Elementary School in Topeka is back in the news. That city’s board of education is still wrongly preventing the right people from getting into that building. Two educators wanted to use Sumner for a charter school, a public school entitled to operate outside the confinements of dictated curricula and … Continue reading A Tide for School Choice
Marc Fisher: Somehow, when good, bright people get serious about the fact that thousands of children emerge from this city’s schools year after year without knowing how to read well enough to get a decent job, those good people end up busying themselves with little boxes on a piece of paper. Both say the schools … Continue reading Notes on Washington DC’s School Climate
School spending has always been a puzzle, both from a state and federal government perspective as well as local property taxpayers. In an effort to shed some light on the vagaries of K-12 finance, I’ve summarized below a number of local, state and federal articles and links. The 2007 Statistical Abstract offers a great deal … Continue reading School Finance: K-12 Tax & Spending Climate
Susan Troller: Is there another school referendum in Madison’s immediate future? If it means saving small schools in the center of the city that face closings or consolidations in the path of this year’s $10.5 million budget-cutting juggernaut, some neighborhood advocates argue it would be well worthwhile. Matt Calvert, a Lapham-Marquette elementary school parent, said … Continue reading Spring, 2007 Madison Referendum?
Stephen Jay Gould: My life has recently intersected, in a most personal way, two of Mark Twain’s famous quips. One I shall defer to the end of this essay. The other (sometimes attributed to Disraeli), identifies three species of mendacity, each worse than the one before – lies, damned lies, and statistics. Consider the standard … Continue reading Stretching Truth with Numbers: The Median Isn’t the Message
Diane Ravitch: They Protect Teachers’ Rights, Support Teacher Professionalism, and Check Administrative Power. We live in an era when leaders in business and the media demand that schools function like businesses in a free market economy, competing for students and staff. Many such voices say that such corporate-style school reform is stymied by the teacher … Continue reading Why Teacher Unions Are Good for Teachers and the Public
Leo Casey: Edwize has obtained a copy of the RFP [Request for Proposal] for “Partnership School Support” that the New York City Department of Education has hidden from the general public in a remote precinct of its website accessible only to private vendors with passwords. In it one finds the details of one of the … Continue reading Notes on Outsourcing Public Education
What does it take to truly create a school where no child is left behind? That question defines what is probably the most pressing issue facing American public education, and a high-poverty school on Madison’s north side west of Warner Park seems to have figured out some of the answers. Mendota Elementary is among a … Continue reading Madison’s Mendota Elementary School beats the odds
The Madison Board of Education is faced with several great challenges over the next few months. One of the biggest is the announcement that Superintendent Art Rainwater will retire at the end of the June 2008. The board will be working with a consultant to assist in hiring the next superintendent. Another board challenge is … Continue reading Late January School Board Progress Report
Sherrilyn Ifill: was recently trying to list the 10 most encouraging initiatives by black people in 2006 and I thought I’d share one with you. It’s the Baltimore Algebra Project, a group of African American inner-city teens who’ve evolved from tutors to activists in an effort to force change in the failing Baltimore City School … Continue reading The Baltimore Algebra Project
Chandra M. Hayslett: It’s also different from American math in that fewer topics are taught in an academic year, giving the instructor the opportunity to teach the concept until it is mastered. “There’s a tendency in the United States to teach a topic, then it’s never seen or heard from again,” said Jeffery Thomas, president … Continue reading Singapore Math is a plus for South River students
Mark Hicks: The reorganization is part of the district’s controversial plan to shutter 47 schools this summer and five more during summer 2008 in a bid to save $19 million. The struggling district lost nearly 12,600 students last fall after a teachers strike, and more than 50,000 have left in the last eight years. The … Continue reading Parents Sound Off on Detroit School Plan
Andy Hall: Madison school officials were heartened Monday by a bipartisan state study panel’s backing of a measure that would allow the School Board to raise more than an additional $2 million a year. That would cost the owner of an average city home about $25 a year. If approved by the Legislature, the proposal … Continue reading State Legislative Panel Supports Increased School Spending Limits & Property Tax Authority
Gena Kittner:blk. Throwing a punch on high school grounds here will get you arrested, removed from school and in some cases could land you in jail. After two significant fights at Sun Prairie High School in December, one involving as many as six students, the city’s high school has changed the way it deals with … Continue reading Sun Prairie High School Tightens Fighting Policies
Nancy Keates: Some of the nation’s most competitive schools are changing their homework policies, limiting the amount of work assigned by teachers or eliminating it altogether in lower grades. There also is an effort by some schools to change the type of homework being assigned and curtail highly repetitive drudge work. The moves are largely … Continue reading Schools Turn Down the Heat on Homework
Tom Moore: IN the past year or so I have seen Matthew Perry drink 30 cartons of milk, Ted Danson explain the difference between a rook and a pawn, and Hilary Swank remind us that white teachers still can’t dance or jive talk. In other words, I have been confronted by distorted images of my … Continue reading Classroom Distinctions
Charles Murray posted three articles this week on Education and Intelligence, a series that generated some conversation around the net: Intelligence in the Classroom: Our ability to improve the academic accomplishment of students in the lower half of the distribution of intelligence is severely limited. It is a matter of ceilings. Suppose a girl in … Continue reading Education & Intelligence Series
Marc Eisen: I could rattle off a half-dozen reasons why it’s a good thing that Art Rainwater is resigning as Madison’s school superintendent in 18 months. But I won’t. I wish instead that he was staying on the job. Rainwater’s lame duck status and the uncertainty over his replacement come at a particularly bad moment … Continue reading Notes on Madison Superintendent Art Rainwater’s Reign
The Economist: As Mr Bloomberg campaigned for mayor in 2001, it was clear that New York’s school board was failing its 1.1m students. The board, removed from the city’s budget process, had little control over school finances. The consequences were dire. Many high schools were losing more than half their students before graduation. Mr Bloomberg … Continue reading Mayors & Schools
Diane Cardwell: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg laid out ambitious new plans yesterday to overhaul the school system by giving principals more power and autonomy, requiring teachers to undergo rigorous review in order to gain tenure and revising the school financing system that has allowed more-experienced teachers to cluster in affluent areas. The plan, which would … Continue reading NYC Mayor Moves to Give Principals More Autonomy
Ted Widerski: The Talented and Gifted Division of MMSD is busy organizing ‘MathFests’ for strong math students in grades 4 – 8. These events are planned to provide an opportunity for students to interact with other students across the city who share a passion for challenging mathematics. Many of these students study math either online, … Continue reading Financially Support Madison Schools’ Math Festival
On a sunny September morning in 2005 Preston Hollow Elementary School hosted Bike to School Day. Dozens of grinning children with fair skin played and talked outside in the courtyard, relaxing happily after rides through their North Dallas neighborhood of garish mansions and stately brick homes. Parents shared tea and fruit, capturing the smiles of … Continue reading A judge says Preston Hollow Elementary segregated white kids to please parents. The reality is deeper and maybe more troubling.
Madison Superintendent Art Rainwater’s recent public announcement that he plans to retire in 2008 presents an opportunity to look back at previous searches as well as the K-12 climate during those events. Fortunately, thanks to Tim Berners-Lee’s World Wide Web, we can quickly lookup information from the recent past. The Madison School District’s two most … Continue reading Notes and Links on the Madison K-12 Climate and Superintendent Hires Since 1992
At its November 21, 2006, meeting, the MMSD Student Senate discussed many issues of interest to this blog community (e.g., completely heterogeneous high school classes, embedded honors options, etc.). Here is the relevant section from the minutes for that meeting: Comments and Concerns: regular classes don’t have a high enough level of discussion students who … Continue reading View from the MMSD Student Senate
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Editorial: Looking for the path to effective education, leaders of the Milwaukee Public Schools have long slogged through the wilderness of school reform only to end up where they started. All used to be centralized at MPS. Then decentralization became the watchword. Now centralization is again in. This lunging between two opposite approaches … Continue reading More Notes on Milwaukee’s Plans to Re-Centralize School Governance
A story by Kayla Bunge in The Monroe Times reports: MADISON — With a new legislative session beginning in just about a week, the issue of school funding is certain to receive more attention. And two local legislators — 17th District Sen. Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center, and 27th District Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton — already … Continue reading Work to change school funding already begun
Larry Sandler & Sarah Carr: Milwaukee taxpayers accidentally got a $9.1 million tax break – and city and Milwaukee Public Schools officials now have a $9.1 million headache. Because of a paperwork snafu between MPS and City Hall, the property tax bills mailed this month inadvertently left out a tax increase that the School Board … Continue reading Milwaukee School Property Tax Error
I’ve added 3 additional declared candidates to the election site, via the City Clerk’s office: Seat 3 (Shwaw Vang’s seat): Pam Cross-Leone vs Beth Moss vs Rick Thomas. Seat 4: Johnny Winston, Jr. (Incumbent) Seat 5 (Ruth Robart’s seat): Maya Cole vs Marj Passman. Links and notes on running for School Board can be found … Continue reading Spring 2007 School Board Election Update
Happy Holidays to everyone! Despite the cold weather, the Madison Board of Education continues its work.
The arrival of local property tax bills signal the onset of tax season. Accordingly, there has been a number of recent articles on Wisconsin’s tax climate: Barbara Miner: More than 16,000 private properties in Wisconsin pay no property taxes. As a result, everyone else pays more. Why? In Milwaukee, for instance, almost 20 percent of … Continue reading Tax Climate Notes & Links
If Jason Shepard is correct, West will stay as is during the review process, heterogeneous classes is the goal and the study committee will not include parents or teachers.
If the BOE doesn’t step in right now, it’s all over. I hadn’t quite understood what Ed Blume has been writing about here structurally as much as I do at this moment. This process will be driven to Rainwater’s foregone conclusions. The BOE must frame the questions and decide who is on this committee. And if it’s truly a tabula rasa, let’s put West on the same footing as East, that is, undo the changes the Rainwater administration shoved through.
Daniel Wakin: Two pillars of the classical musical establishment, Carnegie Hall and the Juilliard School, have joined forces to give birth to a music academy whose fellows will go forth and propagate musicianship in New York public schools. The city’s Education Department is opening its arms to the new program, seeing an inexpensive but valuable … Continue reading New Project to Send Musicians Into Schools
Ian Austen: In the good old days, students simply used technology like cellphones to cheat on tests. Now, they’re posting what happens in their classrooms on YouTube. Two students who attend the equivalent of Grade 9 at a school in Gatineau, Quebec, a city across the river from Ottawa, were sent home last week after … Continue reading Telling Tales Out of School, on YouTube
Paul Tough: The schools that are achieving the most impressive results with poor and minority students tend to follow three practices. First, they require many more hours of class time than a typical public school. The school day starts early, at 8 a.m. or before, and often continues until after 4 p.m. These schools offer … Continue reading “Still Left Behind”?
The prime motivator for taking MMSD’s high schools from an academically rich curriculum to the one-room schoolhouse model has been to close the minority achievement gap. Thus, I read with interest the following NYTimes letters: A Racial Gap, or an Income Gap? (7 Letters) Published: November 24, 2006 To the Editor: In emphasizing race-based achievement … Continue reading Does Closing the Minority Achievement Gap Require a Downward Rush to the Middle
Campbell Robertson: There have been programs promoting theater involvement in New York City schools for years, but Fidelity Investments, together with the Viertel/Frankel/Baruch/Routh Group, the Broadway producing team behind “Hairspray” and “Company,” and Leap, a 30-year-old non-profit organization dedicated to arts education, have announced one of the broadest programs yet. Other organizations, like Theater Development … Continue reading New Program in Schools Takes Students From Playwriting to Performance
NYT Letters to the Editor regarding “As Math Scores Lag, a New Push for the Basics“: s a middle school tutor, I’m always amazed at the pride many schools feel because their middle school curriculum includes topics in pre-algebra/algebra. This sounds like good news until it becomes clear that it’s not pre-algebra that students find … Continue reading NYT Letters: The New New Math: Back to Basics
Tim Holt: Madeline Levine is a Marin psychologist who in her private practice sees a steady stream of overprotected suburban teenagers. (They’re the subject of her best-selling book, “The Price Of Privilege.”) Because of parents’ exaggerated fears, the explorations of these suburban teens are often restricted to a short distance from home, according to Levine. … Continue reading Over-Scheduled, Over-Protected Children May Need to Break Out on Their Own
A story by Susan Troller in the Cap Times reports: Two elementary schools at opposite ends of the Madison Metropolitan School District are bursting at the seams and may face boundary changes next year to deal with crowding. Lake View Elementary on the northeast side of the city and Chavez Elementary on the southwest side … Continue reading Boundary changes for Lake View & Chavez?
Alan Borsuk: The key players involved – a group that you would not have found at the same table often in the past – are the GMC, which is generally composed of business and civic leaders; the Milwaukee School Board; schools Superintendent William Andrekopoulos; and the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association, the union representing more than … Continue reading Civic, Business Leaders and the Milwaukee Public Schools
Susan Black: In many classrooms, science textbooks add to children’s misconceptions. William Beaty, an engineer who designed an electricity exhibit for the Boston Museum of Science, discovered “a morass of misconceptions, mistakes, and misinformation” in grade school science textbooks. In fact, he couldn’t find a single book that explained basic electricity correctly. North Carolina State … Continue reading Is Science Education Failing Students?
Jason Shephard: One of the better-kept secrets in Madison is that the school district currently offers more than 100 online courses for city high school students. The program is called the Madison Virtual Campus. “It turns out Madison is a leader in this technology,” says Johnny Winston Jr., the school board president. “My first question … Continue reading Madison School District Virtual Learning
I would like to thank our community for their passage of the referendum on November 7th. This referendum will build a new school in Linden Park, finance the cafeteria and remodeling of Leopold Elementary and refinance existing debt…
From Solar Energy International: The Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD), the nation’s largest community college district, plans to produce enough of its own electricity to take its nine campuses “off the grid.” The LACCD believes that it is the first community college district in the nation to plan to generate all its own electricity. … Continue reading LA Community College District to be Powered by the Sun
Support Smart Management: Wisconsin State Journal Editorial Board: Taxpayers in the Madison School District should demand that the School Board be smarter about managing the district’s money and resources. On Tuesday’s ballot is a school referendum containing three smart proposals. That’s why the referendum deserves voters’ support. More important than the referendum, however, is what … Continue reading A Few More 11/7/2006 Referendum Links
On November 7th, voters will be asked to approve a referendum allowing the Madison Metropolitan School District to build a new school and exceed its revenue cap. After very careful consideration, the Board of Education unanimously decided to ask the question. I fully support this referendum and urge you to vote yes. Our community is … Continue reading THOROUGH ANALYSIS SUPPORTS “YES” VOTE ON SCHOOL REFERENDUM
Stacey Childress, Richard Elmore and Allen Grossman writing in the Harvard Business Review: One of the biggest management challenges anywhere is how to improve student performance in America’s urban public schools. There has been no shortage of proposed solutions: Find great principals and give them power; create competitive markets with charters, vouchers, and choice; establish … Continue reading “How to Manage Urban School Districts”
Dan Sebald: The Nov. 7 school referendum is about more than the question of whether Madison needs a new elementary school. It’s about the placement of the proposed site and its associated inefficient land use. I see a “yes” vote as a vote for the same poor growth model of civic design that has been … Continue reading 11/7/2006 Referendum: “Vote No To Stop Sprawl”
Jay Matthews: This should be a shining moment for education schools. Never has the nation paid so much attention to improving the quality of teaching. Yet the institutions that produce teachers have never faced so much criticism. “Teacher education is the Dodge City of the education world,” said Arthur Levine, former president of Columbia University’s … Continue reading Breaking Down The Ivory Tower: Study Finds Ed Schools in Poor Shape
Carla Rivera: By the end of the day one thing was clear: Parents, teachers and community organizations want an equal say in determining how the district will be remade. illaraigosa acknowledged as much in his opening remarks to the group of 100 or so people, who represented church groups, businesses, human services agencies, city and … Continue reading Seeking an equal say in schools’ future
The “tax freeze” continues. Alan Borsuk: At the heart of a decision by Milwaukee Public Schools officials to increase property taxes for schools by 7.7% was a choice not discussed in public: Millions of dollars that had been freed up within the $1.15 billion budget for the 2006-’07 school year could be used to hold … Continue reading Milwaukee Property Taxes Increase 7.7%
Now, six years later, we were alone as we discussed Vang’s reasons for not seeking reelection to the school board in April 2007. While I had heard rumors of his decision, our discussion made it public and official. Vang’s life had changed in six years. His job at Kajsiab House as the resource development director … Continue reading Vang won’t run for re-election