Wisconsin State Journal Editorial:
If Madison is to maintain the high quality of its public schools, the community must solve a growing problem. But first, Madison must distinguish what the problem is from what it is not.
It is not a dramatic increase in the number of minority, immigrant and low-income students requiring extra services. That is not a problem. That is a fact.
The problem is the community’s response to the stunning change in the student population. We must find ways to cost-effectively educate the new and vastly more diverse generation of Madisonians.
Frankly, I couldn’t quite figure out what WSJ editors were saying.
It may be my thin skin, but I believe that what they were saying was that you and I should quit complaining about things like resources for TAG kids. We live in a different world now and classes like honors english are relics of an old world on their way to the history books. We need to learn to accept this inevitable change. After all, can’t be polishing the silverware when the house is burning down around us.
I was afraid that was the message. In other words, those folks UW wants to attract to its new biotech center best buy in Middleton or get their kids into a private school.
So much for academic excellence.
Actually, I took away a different message from this editorial.
I think that the editors at the State Journal are saying that we have to maintain the excellence of our schools, while at the same time thinking creatively about how we meet the needs of our changing school population. I see them encouraging the District to discard programs that don’t work or are not cost effective, e.g., Reading Recovery. I also take away from this editorial and the editorial that accompanied this piece a call to the community to take more responsibility in supporting our students and preparing them for school. They make a strong point that parents matter.
Professor Donna Ford has made this point in her recent visits to Madison. I’m only sorry that more people did not have the chance to hear her speak.
A much more positive message, Jeff, if your read is right.
However, given that the editorial is published after an intense BOE race and also while there has been active discussion on the dismantling of academically challenging programs, eg., West’s English 9/10, it’s hard not to read it the way Celeste did.
Again, I ask, what do we see as the mission of our public schools?
My impression was much the same as Jeff’s. Essentially, the WSJ is stressing the importance of parental (or guardian or grandparental)involvement in education because the MMSD alone cannot educate children.
The editorial misses the critical importance of a leader or leaders to make change happen. None appear among the administration or board majority. I haven’t heard any of those folks articulate a vision for what the Madison schools are or could be. For example, what exciting initiatives did the administration propose in the new budget? None. Consequently, we’re doomed to repeat the status quo over and over and over until retirements or new elections bring new leaders. So sad.
I read it like Jeff did. I think the WSJ is trying to involve the community (business, parents, county agencies) to improve the MMSD. But I also see Ed’s point. Our district has not done anything innovative nor productive in order to address the current issues. It is too top heavy and concerned with maintaining a fascade of greatness until certain people retire.
(edited repost)
I’d like to pick up on a phrase Joan used: “After all, can’t be polishing the silverware when the house is burning down around us.”
First, is the house burning down?
I don’t really think so, but the house is changing, maybe even warming up.
The recent publicity and the tone of many posts here have contributed to a sense that it is burning. I guess I have to ask (one and all), do you think it is burning and if so how and why?
The other thought that phrase brings to mind is that yes, as a district, as a community and as a society we need to put challenges in perspective and have priorities. For me, continuing combating continued racial stratification and extending educational opportunities across economic and demographic lines rate a heck of a lot higher then trying to assure that high achieving students have consistently scintillating 10th grade English discussions. If there is a fire, it isn’t the lack of Honors English, it is the students in 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th…grades who are functionally illiterate. In terms of pure self interest, we will all pay a price for this, but for me what is more important is that we are all in this life together and we owe it to our fellow humans to help them in some basic ways. Call me a bleeding heart; I’ll wear it on my sleeve.
We’ve seen many quote from the MMSD Graduation/Drop Out analysis. I haven’t seen any one cite the statistic that “less than 15% of the graduating group” lives in “mother only” households. I read that and think maybe I’m wrong, maybe the house is on fire and maybe we all need to join a bucket brigade to get this under control and forget about the silver and everything else till it is done.
TJM
It is rather difficult to know what to make of this editorial. It was pretty vague. We should write them letters encouraging them to make themselves more clear in a follow-up piece. The early childhood and parental responsibility parts I understand. But they didn’t give any examples of what kind of programs need to be examined and discarded if not working. Since these people write for a living, I tend to interpret any lack of clarity on their part as deliberate. But maybe they just don’t know of any examples of the kind of programs they are referring to. I suppose that they might be talking about constructivism just as easily as grouping for high ability. They did endorse Lucy and Maya so I suppose Jeff must be right.
Actually, TJM, Celeste Robarts coined that phrase.
However, I agree with her viewpoint. I just don’t believe tossing out academically challenging programs, those that engage our top students, is the path toward improving performance of those in poverty or laboring under other handicaps. We should be expanding the more rigorous classes, not eliminating them, raising expectations, not lowering them. I also believe we need to offer those who are not interested or able to do college level work real alternatives, job training, to prepare them for honorable, valuable work outside of academia.
We need to take a long, honest look at just exactly what schools can accomplish in the face of poverty, low expectations, etc. I’m a strong supporter of early childhood programs especially as a path to preparing kids from families overworked, stressed, undereducated, etc and who thus lack either the skills or time to get their kids ready to learn. On the other hand, absent strong motivators at home, kids easily go off track, especially in their teens when peers become the most important factor.
Kids have to buy in to school being important to their future. They have to believe that all that hard work and delayed gratification is worth it. That’s going to come from home, primarily. Absent that, I’m skeptical that any new programs will make the achievement gap disappear.
As my kids went through the MMSD, I saw lots of programs and special attention given to kids in need. Yet I saw very few of those kids in the graduation photos in the yearbook. Now maybe they moved to another school or another city. But I don’t think that accounts for the nearly complete absence of these kids at the end of the process.
So what will MMSD do differently this time around to change the outcome? And central to that discussion is whether those changes require the extirpation of advanced classes in high school, the extension of the K-8 failed model into the years where kids who will go on to college really need to get prepared, not in the basics of reading and math, but for advanced work in science and humanities. Their college classmates are doing that everywhere else in the country. But here in Madison, we’re telling those kids they’ll just have to catch up in college, because right now we need them to teach their classmates the basics.
Sorry, I don’t see why those families should remain in MMSD. And if they leave, it won’t be pretty. Ask yourself how it is that MMSD is already at 40% minority/low income when the city is at something less than 15%. Perhaps those families have more kids. But perhaps bright flight has already taken place in significant numbers.
When our schools go over 50% at-risk/minority (not automatically a joined statistic, but true here), a tipping point will be reached. And when our city is more heavily populated with condos filled by empty nesters, ask whether there will be the political will to pay for programs that I doubt will do any better job motivating the undermotivated.
Sorry to be so negative, TJM. I’d like to think it’s reality I’m discussing, not some warm, fuzzy idea of how to make life better for the less fortunate among us. It’s not that I don’t care about those kids, you know. It’s that I think our schools can’t convince them it’s worth it. That has to come from their families and friends. Until then, we’ll watch the slow motion trainwreck of what used to be a school district dedicated to academic excellence.
I’ll say it again–what do we want our schools to be? What can they be?
I came across an interesting article in the Phi Delta Kappan, see http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/k_v86/k0504bur.htm
It’s about a school district in New York that wanted to get the pass rate on Regents exams up for minorities and low income. The district is different from MMSD. The minority and poverty rate are significantly lower, so the effect David Rusk notes, that rubbing shoulders with middle class peers raises test scores was probably much more pronounced than it would be here. The district started putting all high school students into the same college prep classes and eliminated the low track stuff. The results on Regents exams are truly astounding. A couple of things which are really significant here. First, the classes were not changed to accomodate the differing learning styles of these kids. They didn’t substitute discovery math and project based biology for traditional classes. Or if they did, it was not made clear in the article. These kids have to take the same traditional stuff the middle class kids take. What they did get was lots of extra support. Extra time both during and after school for additional instruction. Maybe their differing learning styles were addressed during the extra sessions?
If this effect is real, not illusory, then it is worthwhile to attempt. It’s just that in our elementary school at least, all the classes are brought down to reach these kids, not the kids forced to reach up. The middle class kids no longer get an appropriate curriculum, and at our school, these kids don’t seem to learn anything after all the years they spend here and the disruption they cause. So I can’t see the gain, only losses. If there is a program that causes real gains, then let’s do that one.
Tom,
Yes, I believe the MMSD is burning while the board majority and administration fiddle. They have no vision for what the MMSD could be, so they lurch from issue to issue without any guide to what would help them reach their vision.
Take the lurch toward the newly proposed charter school, as one example. An aggressive group brought the idea to the board, and now the board will debate whether to support the group’s grant application to DPI. The debate will rage without any context of whether this particular proposal fits into the district’s vision. A better approach would be to create a vision and then ask for proposals on charter schools that would advance the district toward the vision.
Ditto on Johnny Winston’s recent invitation to groups he chose to apply for money from Fund 80. Rather than state a vision and ask groups to make proposals, Johnny just thought these groups were worthy.
To take a more specific example, 20% of the West sophmores cannot read at grade level, and the district has absolutely no shame about it and no plan to help them other than saying “we’ll give them extra help during their lunch break.” That’s a fire.
Rather than struggle to envision excellence, the administration and board rotely repeat “the district is the best in the country” and then repeat the status quo over and over and over without introspection or innovation.
I have hope, however. The board majority is a majority by only one vote and two of the majority stand for re-election next year. Additionally, retirement will eventually replace key administrators (the sooner, the better).
Tom,
Here’s another fire: the constant assault on strings and, even more importantly, the stonewalling refusal of the board majority and administration to work with community groups to expand and improve a successful program.
Let’s just say the editorial could be exhibit A in how not to write an editorial. It means exactly what anyone who reads it wants it to mean.
I’m pretty negative about this district, but not because of the changing demographics of the students in the schools. What bothers me most is the racism and classism of the administration’s approach to these changes. Dumbing down and coddling kids is not the way to engender knowledge, self-respect and upward mobility. Expecting and encouraging these kids to achieve and providing them the opportunity for advanced courses and early fine arts training is a far more productive approach.
I hate to agree with anything uttered by George Bush and his cronies, but when they attacked “the soft racism of low expectations” they could have been talking about the MMSD.
Donald, you are so “right on” with that point! Thank you for making it so baldly. Low expectations are crippling. What you are describing is one of the most insidious and oppressive forms of racism and classicism. It absolutely permeates the District’s thinking and planning. I have seen it in action in our schools over and over and over again — in my conversations with principals over the years, in the many classrooms I have volunteered in, and in the conferences and IEP meetings I have attended with my “mentee’s” mother these past several years. I will never forget what this mother said to me after the first IEP meeting I attended with her. What she said to me was “they’re different when you’re there.” As we talked more, it was clear what she meant. She meant that the teachers and other school staff who attended were more engaged in what they were doing and more respectful at that meeting than they had been at any previous meeting she had had with them. To this woman’s credit, she made sure that the school’s bilingual resource person told the school principal about her experience and observations.