4 thoughts on ““Stand Up Against the MMSD High School Reform””

1. A kind reader forwarded this link to the Facebook Group:
   http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=160520040639025
   If the link fails to work, go to Facebook and search (it appears that you must be logged into Facebook):
   Walk-Out Against MMSD High School Reform
   Madison School Board members Arlene Silveira and Lucy Mathiak have posted a few comments there.
   Note: The logged in aspect of Facebook, and other sites is often referred to as a “walled garden”.
   An email sent to Madison’s high school staff:
   October 12, 2010
   Dear High School Staff:
   We are writing to you today to ask you to take a moment to read about something that we think is of vital importance to the district, to meeting the needs of all of our students, and to closing the achievement gap swiftly and surely.
   When we embarked on our journey with the Smaller Learning Communities (SLC) grant we knew that we do a great job with many students and we struggle with many others. The achievement gap remains in stark contrast to all of the things that we do so well.
   We are saying that now is the time to think anew and differently about these issues. It is crucial that we come to grips with the fact that this gap means so much more than a yearly data comparison. What the continuing gap means, unless directly addressed, is that we will remain party to raising a segment of our population who will not have the skills to pursue adult lives that are self determined.
   We currently have an opportunity to effect change that we cannot squander. The $5.2 million dollars given to MMSD through the SLC grant by the U.S. Department of Education has opened the doors to a real discussion about today’s students and tomorrow’s needs. We have taken full advantage of the last two years to talk, learn how to collaborate, and have dipped our toes in the waters of change.
   But, we should no longer be lulled by our past successes. We should be made restless and uneasy by our graduation rates, our disproportionate suspension and expulsion rates, and by our state’s first place status nationally in incarceration rates of African American males.
   So we are writing to you to inform you that we will undertake a systemic shift in the way we address learning opportunities at the secondary level. We are asking you to digest a plan that responds to both the accelerated students and those who struggle. We ask that you suspend cynicism of past endeavors that forecast, in your mind, failure, and our tendency to remain static.
   We sincerely suggest that this could be everyone’s finest hour.
   We have long believed, and still do, that Madison has the capacity needed to eliminate the achievement gap and serve our accelerated students well. We will be sharing details of this idea with you soon, but we wanted to foreshadow that there is a true urgency attached to this conversation. Your past work as teacher leaders, as innovation team members, and as critical consumers of professional development, will hold you in good stead as we ask you to move into this discussion.
   There will be plenty of room for your voice as we move forward, but the parameters will be clear. Educational research clearly shows that true change needs to be systemic and implemented with fidelity. Research also shows that defining student outcomes is the science of teaching. The art of teaching still rests with you, the individual
   Dan Nerad Pam Nash
   Superintendent Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Schools

2. Long ago, my mother-in-law taught at a private school in CA. She’d often brag about the high test scores their students achieved as they graduated. Thing was, the school had an admissions test, that is, they were selective in the kids they admitted based on strong aptitude scores. She didn’t like when I pointed out kids testing well at the end of their tenure only proved the school hadn’t harmed them.
   It’s alot like West. Smart kids in, still smart on the way out (discounting the 25% high scoring minority kids who drop out along the way) if smart is measured by standardized test results or the PSAT.
   The kids staging the walk-out seem most concerned about losing the English menu at West, and it is an excellent selection, to be sure. But let me ask which kids are opting for that Shakespeare class—are those courses especially diverse as measured by race or ability? It wasn’t in our family’s experience.
   What the students should be worried about is the lack of a strong science curriculum at West. Standardizing the high school curriculum across the district might get West brought into the 21st century in the sciences. If the protesting students aren’t pursuing science when they get to college they may not notice but if they do enroll in those college science courses what they’ll find, at non-UW schools anyway, is that nearly everyone else will have had AP Biology, Chemistry and Physics, in fact, will have probably used that freshman text in their h.s. AP course. Good luck with learning fresh what your peers are now merely reviewing. (Just as an example, after two years of physics at West, a number of years ago, to be sure, a student wouldn’t know much about electromagnetism. Had there been an AP curriculum, that would have been covered.)
   I don’t understand the objection to an AP curriculum–it is developed by some of the top educators in the country, it’s not cookie cutter, it is an agreed-upon instruction insuring the most important principles are thoroughly covered. That teachers have to be certified is a good thing, it insures they know the subject or at least can teach it to a high standard, see West physics example above. Standardization does not equate with mediocrity, indeed, it means a course that meets or exceeds most college introductory classes in the subject.
   The West protest organizers place alot of stock on an article by a Stanford professor outlining the evils of tracking—if you notice, it was published in 1994, and much has been written since then to debunk it. But I can tell you from direct experience, the kids who go to Stanford have had AP prep, almost to a person, especially in the biological sciences for which Stanford ranks first and for good reason.
   I’m sure I’ll hear about the West students who went on to be successful in science. When you report back on that be sure to tell me whether their only science experience was limited to West, no enrichment, no UW classes, no parent on faculty in that area.
   The achievement gap won’t be closed by making everyone take the same classes. Celebrating differences recognizes there are different learners for whom there should be a differentiated curriculum. AP isn’t the enemy. Preconceptions are.

3. Ms. Knoebel’s comments are almost too ludicrous to believe: holding out West Physics as an example of how the MMSD is failing its students?!
   The physics teachers at West (no, I am not one of them) are an exceptionally qualified, talented, dedicated, and collaborative group of professionals that any school in the country would be proud to have. Three of them are National Board-certified. All of them routinely give presentations and workshops at state and national meetings. They work closely with the UW Physics department AND School of Education. They understand that teaching science is as much — or more — about instilling critical thought, inquiry, and communication skills as it is about preaching particular paradigms, and this they do with the utmost care and concern for students. Their professional judgment in this regard is spot-on and research-based. Want to know about electromagnetism? Declarative knowledge is cheap. Read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetism. Want to be a citizen educated about the methods and processes of science, able to sort valid arguments from invalid ones, and ready to incorporate theories like electromagnetism into a coherent cognitive framework? Take physics from a teacher at West.
   The MMSD does face many challenges, but a poor physics curriculum at West is not one of them.

4. I have no idea what expertise exists among West’s current faculty, our two graduated a number of years back. But what I wrote was accurate, your wiki snark notwithstanding. I don’t know if you have had experience with college science curricula. I can’t speak to UW (a three-degree alum, including graduate work in science, and still think highly of the place but my experience there is even more dated than West), but I can speak to private schools my children and their friends attended–AP Science was the norm among their peers. I don’t understand the resistance to the AP science curriculum. Please tell me how it would constrain West’s science faculty. Without the snark next time.

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