Newly elected Madison School Board member Lawrie Kobza was wise to move to use $240,000 in money made available by insurance savings to revive Lincoln Elementary School’s Open Classroom Program and to restore “specials” – music, art and gym classes at the elementary schools – to their regular sizes. And the board majority was right to back her move to maintain broadly accepted standards of quality in the city’s public schools.
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I’m torn….
Those of us who are fiscal conservatives are probably asking “Why are we spending the money anyway?” Madison citizens voted not to increase property tax, the Wisconsin State Budget is being debated and federal mandates are not being properly supported/funded.
The open classroom, from listening to parents and respecting the staff of this classroom seems to work well. However, student academic achievement is not higher than that of our typical classroom. This is 1 elementary school out of 30 serving the MMSD. Perhaps instead, the administration and Lincoln community should look at their resources and see if they could manipulate their allocations to maintain this program.
One has to wonder why the two strongest board advocates didn’t recommend restoring the MMSD Elementary Strings Program? Heck, there was ~$600,000; right? Strings affects more students and music is a proven factor in academic success, leadership, patience and focus. Why is the board spending funds on so few students compared with the district as a whole?
The restoration of specials – music, art and gym classes does affect a larger elementary population…yes. But during the budgeting process allocations were re-done to consider classrooms of less than 30-40 students; not a true doubling of classroom size.
The only board member to consistently vote against additional spending was Bill Keys! WOW! … That’s an eye opener for the fiscally conservative. The member known to be to the far left voting no because of our current financial situation. Way to go Bill!
I’m reviewing decisions and the consistency of the votes being made by individual board members. I recommend contacting them yourself to ask questions and help develop an understanding. I will be…Will you?