Open enrollment allows students to go to schools outside their district. If “school choice” and “vouchers” are the buzz words popping into your head right now, you’re probably not alone. When the legislation passed in 1997, it was in the same ballpark as those two old Republican saws. Open enrollment supposedly introduces choice to the public education “marketplace,” forcing districts to compete and get better.
Democrats typically see such policies as the first step toward balkanizing the public schools into the haves and have-nots, when they should be a hallmark of a society in which any kid can become president.
Open enrollment has not shown a particularly good light on Madison in recent years. More kids have been transferring out than in, with the net loss last year 435 students. The resolution the school board passed Monday calls on the state to allow districts to limit the students that could leave under open enrollment “if the school board believes the fiscal stability of the district is threatened.”
Clearly, district leaders feel open enrollment is a fiscal threat; their analysis shows it created about a $2.7 million hole in the district budget last school year.
Much more on the Madison School District’s attempt to limit outbound open enrollment here.
However, the Board did NOT vote to endorse this. Am I reading Rickert wrong? He is saying they voted to endorse this WASB proposal….or do I need more Jamaican this morning?
“Define is” đ
Ed Hughes describes the Madison School Board’s vote here:
http://edhughesschoolblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/open-enrollment-board-says-no-to-recommending-3-cap/
The key section from Ed’s post:
“and that it also support limits on open enrollment for school districts whose school boards believe that the districtâs fiscal stability is threatened by the number of students leaving through open enrollment (which isnât the case in Madison).”
Our elected officials, particularly at the state and national level often seem to vote for or against an amendment that may have more than enough votes to pass. Later, they will vote for the final bill (perhaps in a voice vote) that contains an amendment that they previously opposed.
Does preservation of a District put student interests first?
The recent Washington, DC mayoral election, where the Teacher’s union spent $1M to defeat education reform supporter Adrian Fenty informs citizens.
http://www.schoolinfosystem.org/archives/2010/09/learning_from_t.php
In other words, the BOE voted AGAINST the proposed 3% cap on open enrollment, but FOR allowing limits when a district feels its “fiscal stability” is threatened.
Ok. Cool. Now i get the nuance. I guess it’s a double-edged sword. They want as much money in the coffers as possible for the existing students, but whether or not that translates into “putting students first” depends on how said money is used in the first place. It wil be interesting to see if, when education finance reform finally happens in Wisconsin, whether a WASB proposal such as this flies.
Wow, this is a strange turn of events. Here we have the school board voting decisively to oppose any reduction in open enrollment, and as Ed Hughes sums up the board’s discussion, it “revealed a clear consensus that our focus needs to turn more toward efforts to address the issues or conditions that are prompting families to seek open enrollment out of the district.”
This is great news for citizens who feel the schools need to be more innovative, more attuned to the needs of parents and students, and less prone to jam all kids in the same programs out of a misguided sense of equity.
Yet the impression conveyed of the board’s action online, in the air and in newspaper commentary is just the opposite–that the board wants to stifle open enrollment. (This is supposedly so because of an incidental vote dealing with a situation that has a snowball’s chance in hell of ever happening in Madison.)
Ed Hughes is right to bemoan the loss of news coverage of board meetings. In its absence, people just seem to pick out whatever facts reinforce their existing opinions and ignore everything else.
I voted with my colleagues on the board, and was one of the members who was clear on the need to change how the district operates. I cannot speak for other board members, so here is the gist of my vote:
1) These are votes on WASB resolutions, not more and not less. If WASB adopts these resolutions, it means that WASB is on record and will do some lobbying to change the laws. Given the speed at which educational laws change in Wisconsin, this doesn’t feel like a particularly powerful moment.
2) Talk is cheap. We’ve heard a lot of talk about change, doing things differently, etc. The people who post here represent a range of views, not all of which believe that the rhetoric is matched by reality. I fall into that category.
We now have several task force reports that the board has approved and yet the recommendations of those reports have gone begging for implementation in most cases. In one case, administration rewrote the findings after the board adopted the report and recommendations, gutting the heart of implementation. The language was restored, but since that area is now down three active and proficient staff, there is a new reason why implementation is likely to drag.
We have new issues that are being “studied.” And, having hit major cynicism — which I am willing to change when I see implementation and results from implementation — I take that to mean that there will be a long study, followed by laborious deadly prose, followed by debate about minor details, followed by a vote to adopt and implement. And, if what is being implemented is to the liking of staff, something might be implemented. Or, there might be more study and more reports, and then pretty soon more study and more reports.
My frustration boils down to the cycle of endless study with little or no tangible change at the level of the students, families, or staff who are in the front lines at our schools.
If I am right, and if this continues, we can also expect the exodus to continue. Remember – open enrollment is only one option among many. Home schooling, private schools, and moving out of the district are already part of the picture. In the first two cases, MMSD gets the property tax dollars, albeit with some tweaks to the state formula because “membership” (what a sane person would call enrollment) is down. In the latter, MMSD and the city and the county get nothing.
It may be that the problems are ‘perceptions’ and a nice glossy brochure will get all of us thinking right. Or, it may be that the problems are real and past due for resolution.
Personally, I’d rather not ignore possible problems and gamble on this all being a simple PR problem that would not exist if we all just said nice things about the schools.
But then again, I’m just a parent who made the hard decision pull my kid from MMSD for 4 years because I “perceived” that the district was unwilling or unable (does it matter) to meet his needs.
Thank you for your comment here, Lucy, and especially for the excellent statements you made recently on your blog.
Have the Board of Education and Dr. Nerad forgotten how blind-sided they were when an unanticipated 170+ parents tried to pack into the Hamilton LMC last November to hear what the District would provide for TAG students? How about the look of shear frustration and sadness on the parents’ faces in the packed to the gills breakout session with Dr. Nerad and the TAG Coordinator?
Did Dr. Nerad and the BOE think the parents came to hear what, hypothetically, MMSD would do for future generations of children?! Parents were there to hear what was going to happen NOW. For their kids. After so many years of waiting.
Since then, many of the people I know who attended that meeting have chosen to move out of town, or send their children to private schools.
How will a glossy brochure fix the problem? Even suggesting it as a fix shows little understanding of the problem. I find the idea patronizing.
Lucy, I believe your last statement above was said in sarcasm, but it irritates me, because, of course, you are more than just a parent: You are a board member who can effect change. And if members of the BOE feel that impotent, I have to ask – WHY? If you and the majority of other board members are not running the show, who is?
The Fine Arts Task Force is one of the task forces Lucy refers to in her comments. The recommendations of the Fine Arts Task Force were approved for implementation by the School Board in July 2009. The recommendations of the task force, which were based upon responses from more than 1,000 participants in a survey, go begging for implementation. The administration laid out an implementation plan but then did not put in place the pieces necessary for implementation to occur including a working group community committee.
I am one member of a seven member board. When the board majority is willing to hold administration accountable for demonstrating clear progress toward implementing the various plans and reports that have been brought forward, change is not likely to happen.
Simply put, there are a range of opinions on the board. The most important, from where I sit, relate to governance and what an elected board is. Having recently argued to amend a proposed policy to reflect that, as a body, the board is an employer — not an employee – of the school district, I have my own thoughts on how the governance outlined in state statute is working out here.
If one is an administrator that doesn’t want to embrace changes voted into effect by a sitting board, this fundamental gap in perception of board roles is a very helpful thing. It means that accepted reports can be boldly rewritten to remove key wording (TAG plan year 1, a revised plan has now appeared on line without having been brought back to the board for discussion).
Or, as of last night, a second end run at rewriting the student Code of Conduct to undermine the levels of offense and consequences that were carefully worked out with district staff less than five years ago. The rewrites were rejected by the board a few months ago after the board, followed by staff, requested more time for input on the changes. We were supposed to get revisions — and discussion with principals and other staff — sometime in late 2010/early 2011. Instead, we received last night proposed amendments that were supposed to reference the new abeyance program. A closer read revealed that those seemingly innocuous amendments sought to achieve the unfettered discretion that the board had rejected this past summer. (NOTE: the purpose of creating tiers of offense and set consequences was to get away from an arbitrary system that meted out very different consequences that correlated with demographic factors.)
The Math Task Force, Fine Arts Task Force, and now the Equity Task Force report are being similarly rerouted or deep-sixed. Who is running the show? At this time, I think it’s pretty clear.
Is it healthy for the district? I would argue that the open enrollment numbers speak to the wisdom of this direction. The reports referenced were developed with an eye toward making changes that would make the district more — not less — attractive to families and to a diverse and highly skilled staff.
Information without the will to make necessary change is just more words.
“When the board majority is [not] willing to hold administration accountable for demonstrating clear progress toward implementing the various plans and reports that have been brought forward, change is not likely to happen.”
I think you meant to put in the word not – not willing. With the addition of that word, I would agree with this statement. It requires the majority of the School Board to make any decision and to hold the administration accountable to their decisions.
Lucy is right. There are different opinions on the Board. Different Board members also apparently have different recollections about facts.
Here’s my recollection of the issues surrounding the proposed changes to the Student Code of Conduct that the School Board considered and rejected on a 4-3 (or, depending on your view, 3-4) vote last night, which Lucy describes in her comment. .
We expel too many students. As part of a response to this, the administration developed the Phoenix Program, an abeyance model that is designed as an alternative to expulsion. At our June 9, 2010 meeting, the Board on a 6-1 vote authorized the the implementation of the Phoenix Program beginning this school year.
In connection with the June vote, the Board was supplied a 74-page packet of information supporting the recommendation for creating the program. Those materials may be found here: http://boeweb.madison.k12.wi.us/files/boe/Appx%2012-5_1.pdf
The following description of the procedures for the program was included in the materials:
“A regular education student may be offered the abeyance option after an Assistant Superintendent approves the recommendation for expulsion. A student with special education needs may be offered the abeyance option after an Assistant Superintendent approves the recommendation for expulsion and a Manifestation Determination has been conducted and it is determined that the behavior in question is not a manifestation of the student’s disability. The Expulsion Hearing Abeyance Contract must be signed before the student can participate in the abeyance program.
“The Director of Innovative Programs and Alternatives will meet with families and students, as part of informed consent, to review the students options including, the Phoenix Program. At this meeting expectations around attendance, achievement and behavior will be clearly defined. Any other specific requirements related to the misbehavior such as alcohol and other drug assessment or counseling and conditions for revocation will be established.
“The Phoenix Program will not be available to students who have been recommended for expulsion based on certain behaviors: aggravated sexual assault, possession or use of a firearm; possession of any weapon plus any threat to use, attempt to use or actual use to cause harm. In addition, in other circumstances, the District may choose not to offer an abeyance option (e.g. extremely violent behavior, certain drug transitions [sic]).”
Also during this time period, the Superintendent recommended significant changes to the structure and design of the Code of Conduct. The Board thought that the proposed changes hadn’t been sufficiently vetted with principals and other stakeholders, and declined to adopt the proposed changes.
So, the Phoenix Program has been approved and has been implemented in the District, but there is no mention of it in the Code of Conduct. To remedy this, the administration recommended amending the Code to include references to the program.
The specific change that the Board was asked to approve last night would have added the following paragraphs to the Code:
“ABEYANCE PROGRAM FOR POSSIBLE EXPULSIONS
“An abeyance program is an educational program that is an alternative to proceeding to an expulsion hearing. Students who are eligible to participate in an abeyance program will have their expulsion case placed on a conditional hold (abeyance) once they begin their participation in the abeyance program. In the event that a student does not remain in compliance with all of his/her conditions associated with his/her participation in the abeyance program, the Superintendent or instructional Assistant Superintendent may terminate the student’s participation in the abeyance program. If a student’s privilege of participating in an abeyance program is terminated, the expulsion hearing that was “on hold” will proceed and the student may be expelled.
“To the extent that the District offers and implements an abeyance program option that allows for the conditional abeyance of possible expulsion, the decision to offer expulsion abeyance to a student in a specific case prior to an expulsion hearing shall be at the discretion of the Superintendent of Schools or the appropriate instructional Assistant Superintendent acting as the designee. No student shall have a right to insists that the District offer or agree to abeyance as an alternative to possible expulsion. The decision to offer abeyance in any specific instance shall include an assessment of the specific nature of the conduct giving rise to the expulsion recommendation, as well as an assessment of any ongoing threat to health, safety, property and/or the District’s ability to provide a functional educational environment. However, conditional abeyance of possible expulsion shall not be offered by the Superintendent (or his/her designee) in any case involving the following offenses:
(1) Serious sexual assault (suspension code 407);
(2) The possession of a firearm (suspension code 401d);
(3) possession of any weapon combined with any threat to use, attempt to use or actual use to cause harm (suspension code 401c; or
(4) the possession of a bomb or other significant explosive device combined with the actual or attempted detonation of the bomb/device (suspension code 405).”
Other than the addition of actual or attempted detonation of a bomb as a code violation that would not permit the abeyance option, the proposed addition to the Code tracks closely the description of the program that the Board approved in June. I thought the proposal to add the language to the Code was a fairly routine housekeeping matter, intended to update the Code to reflect the new Phoenix program that the Board has approved. That is also how the superintendent and our legal counsel described the change.
Lucy describes the proposal as part of a pattern of nefarious schemes, as “a second end run at rewriting the student Code of Conduct to undermine the levels of offense and consequences that were carefully worked out with district staff less than five years ago,” and as an attempt “to achieve the unfettered discretion that the board had rejected this past summer.”
I confess to being baffled by these accusations. I also couldnât follow the discussion at our meeting last night and remain unclear as to whether the opponents of the Code modifications were concerned that the changes would lead to too few expulsions or too many. Nevertheless, a majority of the Board voted to reject these proposed changes, so I assume that I must be missing something here.
Thanks, Ed…
I hope it all gets straightened out.
Sorry. I’m missing the mystery. Let’s start with the fact that the Board of Education – charged with establishing and enforcing the Code of Conduct in state statute — NEVER asked anyone to rewrite the Code of Conduct. But rewritten it was, with no input from the board, from front line staff, from hearing examiners, or anyone else.
When the Code of Conduct was last brought to the board, the majority refused to approve the changes without input from core staff on the proposed changes and how those changes would affect their schools.
Administration agreed to get more input from principals and to hold off on revisions until later in the year.
Last night the board was asked to approve a document that ostensibly inserted some minor clarifying language about the Phoenix program. That language went much farther and de facto reintroduced the revisions that were objectionable a few months ago.
Setting aside the faux issue of concern for the number of expulsions, or whether we create a nicer impression of our schools if we stop expelling students, the issue for me has to do with trust. Simply put, what we were told would happen, what we expected to happen, and what happened last night did not match.
At the heart of the objections to the revisions put forward this summer and last night, are concerns that go far beyond whether “too many” students are expelled. Staff have expressed concerns for the loss of the guidelines that help them to make decisions now.
Staff and board members have repeatedly expressed concern over the absence of equity in treatment of students of different ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, the disproportionate number of African American students who end up in the expulsion process, and the lack of evidence that leaving it all in the hands of administrative discretion, would in any way address the disproportionality in WHO gets expelled.
That is a problem.
In addition, the selection of four mandatory causes for expulsion, without consultation with the board members who must decide whether to expel or advice from principals who must deal with issues affecting safety and the learning environment, is just plain bizarre.
And to make rare, and thus far fictional, bomb threats mandatory cause for expulsion, while leaving drug deals — or even repeated drug deals — or battery leading to medical treatment, as expulsion at the discretion of administrators, is completely at odds with the positions that the board has taken in the past, or the feedback received from principals.
No mystery here.
Lucy is right about something else. Revisions — some of them quite major — were made to the TAG Plan (originally passed by the BOE in August, 2009) as last school year was ending (a familiar MMSD tactic) and the revised Plan has been posted online and is being “lived” WITHOUT EVER HAVING BEEN PRESENTED TO OR DISCUSSED BY THE BOARD.
I did happen to watch the board discussion on this topic earlier this summer. While I am not clear on all the details, or nuances, of these discussions, I seem to remember that School Board members directed that a next step needed to include …”input from core staff on the proposed changes and how those changes would affect their schools.” Listening to those discussions, it appeared to me this step was very important to a number of board members.
It would seem that step still needs to take place.
Barb is right. The Board expressed a lot of concerns about the substantial revisions to the Code that were proposed in June. The Board asked for a more extensive review process for the proposed changes. That, presumably, will take place. Proposed substantive revisions to the Code will come back before us. That’s not what the proposed changes we considered last night were intended to be.
At the risk of repetition, the Board expressly approved the Phoenix abeyance program in June. Specific code violations that would disqualify a student from eligibility for the program were set out in the materials we received prior to our June vote. If Board members disagreed with that component of the plan, our meeting in June would have been an appropriate time to raise the objection. To suggest that these changes were sprung on us last night simply ignores the facts. I included the actual language from our materials from June and from last night so anyone interested can read the materials and come to his or her own conclusion whether last night’s language tracks the language in the materials before us in June when we approved the program.
One might wonder how the proposed changes “reintroduced the revisions that were objectionable a few months ago.” I have no idea. It remains a mystery to me.
If Lucy is concerned that not enough code violations are listed as disqualifiers for the abeyance program, like “drug deals” or “battery leading to medical treatment,” that means she wants more kids expelled and out on the street rather than in the off-school-site educational environment that the Phoenix program is designed to provide. That’s not a view I share. In fact, it’s not a view I think anyone on the Board shares, which is why I was surprised at Lucy’s comments last night and repeated here.
OMG. MATHIAK WANTS MORE KIDS EXPELLED!!!!!
Get a grip, Mr. Rove.
The issue is, was, and remains, the exclusions and other language that make it irrelevant to revise the code by instituting the changes without the input and discussion requested.
It’s called democracy and governance. Something that we heard a lot about during the numerous public forums and PTO panels that were part of our lives during the 2006 and 2007 campaigns.
I know it can be scary, but the idea that informed discussion by elected officials should precede changes in policy is hardly a reactionary call to kick more kids out. It is a call to be responsible in policy making. A call that is, by the way, informed by feedback from staff outside of the Doyle inner sanctum. Worth a try sometime.
Ed’s burst of concern for expulsions is heartening, however. I look forward to his enthusiastic support the next time someone on the board is arguing for better alternatives to expulsion and for appropriate treatment and services in lieu of expulsion. That would be a refreshing change.
The whining about being people not asking question on Mr. Hughes personal timeline? Hey. Democracy’s a real bitch ain’t it? Especially when practiced in a governance setting.
Just like all those annoying moments when board members insist that administration actually implement reports and recommendations as written and as approved by a board vote. How awful. How unethical. How unreasonable. Not.
Mr. Rove? A little over the top, maybe?
It sounds to me like the Code of Conduct can be changed at anytime. The Administration may have asked the BOE to update the Code to allow more students to be eligible for the Phoenix Program. It sounds like most BOE members support referal to expulsion.
Sweeping changes like those Lucy is referring to can still be vetted and adopted but it may take some time to do that.
While it can be fun to add sarcasm to your posts, I have to say it is unbecoming.
What I am most concerned about, after reading all of this, is that the MMSD administration operates independently – regardless of the Board of Education’s directives. Why is this tolerated?
Members of the Board of Education are elected officials. Is it not true that MMSD administrators are expected to follow the decisions of the BOE and the laws of the State? It is clear to me now, that some of those administrators have been doing neither (see the BOE approved TAG Plan from August 2009 and compare that with what the administration has actually been willing to do as well as the revisions they’ve made without BOE approval). If these administrators choose to be lawless and do as they please, and if the BOE will not hold them accountable, then what should parents of TAG kids, who have not been served well, do? Should we sue?
If you want administration to respect the board’s governance function, start reducing the staffing positions under those administrators. They’ll come around.
Hi Ed,
Let’s talk about last Monday’s Board vote on the Behavior Code.
Let me offer why I voted with the âmajorityâ – I found the code change to be one example of why we cannot do piecemeal revisions of a Board Policy.
In the original discussion of the Phoenix program the following sentence was added onto the Level 4 exceptions to abeyance:
In addition, in other circumstances, the District may choose not to offer an abeyance option (e.g. extremely violent behavior, certain drug transitions [sic]).”
Here is the wording of the policy we received on Monday:
However, conditional abeyance of possible expulsion shall not be offered by the Superintendent (or his/her designee) in any case involving the following offenses:
(1) Serious sexual assault (suspension code 407);
(2) The possession of a firearm (suspension code 401d);
(3) possession of any weapon combined with any threat to use, attempt to use or actual use to cause harm (suspension code 401c; or
(4) the possession of a bomb or other significant explosive device combined with the actual or attempted detonation of the bomb/device (suspension code 405).”
Where is: “In addition, in other circumstances, the District may choose not to offer an abeyance option (e.g. extremely violent behavior, certain drug transitions [sic]).”
Why did the absence of this one sentence cause me to vote against the code revision?
I felt this sentence helped our Principals and Vice Principals with some discretionary power that they so badly need at the school level. Extremely violent behavior can be more accurately documented in the schools. It essentially means that our students and staff can be more protected in certain circumstances. Remember, that we did not accept the new revisions of our Behavior Code because we wanted more input from the very people that were again eliminated in the code offered to us last Monday evening.
Let me also add that I did not vote against this revision because of a âschemeâ or even because of what could be a lesser accusation – the mere innocent error of the omission of one sentence – one that was extremely important to me.
I voted against it because of just such mistakes occurring when we attempt to changed policy in any way other than a complete and thorough going revision that the Board asked for.
We could have covered a legal notification by sending a letter or email to all our studentsâ homes.
When I vote against something like this it is because I feel it is my obligation as an elected official to do the right thing for the students and staff of this District.