Elizabeth Beyer:

Caire, UW-Oshkosh and Madison Area Technical College are hashing out a dual enrollment partnership that would allow students to gain college credits while in high school and potentially earn an associate degree, too, which could be used to transfer to a UW campus or an institution outside the System.

The idea may even go beyond dual enrollment, he said, with some students potentially able to earn a bachelor’s degree at the end of five high school years due to the school’s longer, three-semester schedule.

“This will be a revolutionary exercise in education,” he said.

Former Wisconsin governor and current UW System interim President Tommy Thompson, who has been a supporter of Caire and One City for years, was present at the Wednesday signing.

Students in grades 4K-4 are currently learning on the third floor of the new facility, purchased by One City Schools in March through a $14 million donation from American Girl founder and philanthropist Pleasant Rowland. Caire said his plan for the 157,000-square-foot office building, on the campus of WPS Health Solutions in Monona adjacent to South Madison, is to build a full K-12 charter school with an enrollment of nearly 1,000 students by the 2024-25 school year.

Mandates, closed schools and Dane County Madison Public Health.

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Joanne Jacobs:

The pandemic has accelerated a push to ease grading and homework policies, writes Washington Post columnist Jay Mathews.

“Schools have stuck to an outdated system that relies heavily on students’ compliance — completing homework, behaving in class, meeting deadlines and correctly answering questions on a one-time test — as a proxy for learning, rather than measuring the learning itself,” editorializes the Los Angeles Times.

Mathews asked four experienced public school teachers what they thought.

None of them assign much homework, except as a way to complete work begun in class. They don’t emphasize one-time tests.

But when it comes to making sure everyone is behaving in class, they are firm traditionalists. Class time to them is vital because, in their minds, the give-and-take between students and teachers during those precious hours is the essence of what they do.

. . . D’Essence Grant, an eighth-grade English and language arts teacher at the KIPP Academy Middle school in Houston, said, “My content requires meaningful conversations about the text to help support text comprehension and character development. . . . Making claims, supporting claims with evidence, and listening, building and challenging other student claims verbally is just as important as writing them on paper.”

Under “mastery learning,” students demonstrate a skill or subject-matter knowledge, then move on. Greg Jouriles, a social studies teacher at Hillsdale High School in San Mateo, California, thinks students need to practice academics as they do sports. If doing something once was good enough, “a basketball coach would end practice after each player made one free throw,” he told Mathews.

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Betheny Gross:

In a year of educational crisis, fall report cards brought more worrisome news. Failing grades are on the rise across the country, especially for students who are learning online. The results threaten to exacerbate existing educational inequities: students with failing grades tend to have less access to advanced courses in high school, and a failing grade in even one 9th-grade course can lower a student’s chances of graduating on time.

A national scan of news reports and school district documents, combined with data from educator surveys, shows:

• Rates of failing grades have increased significantly across the country.

• Students from low-income households, students who are learning English, and students learning online are often most affected.

• Many teachers had to navigate a shift in district grading policies with limited support.

Addressing the problem won’t be easy, but school systems should be wary of quick fixes like credit recovery programs, which can further diminish students’ learning opportunities. Instead, schools must rethink student progress and dramatically increase support for those who are falling behind.

Dramatic rise in Fs can be seen across the country.

Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled

Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).

Molly Beck and Madeline Heim:

which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.   

While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state. 

Channel3000:

The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.

The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.

“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”

Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.

All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.

Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Assembly against private school forced closure.

Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration

AnnaMaria Andriotis and Orla McCaffrey:

Robert Rodriguez and Migdalia Wharton, a married couple in Orlando, Fla., have been out of work for more than a month and can’t afford to pay their credit-card bills.

When they called Capital One Financial Corp. to explain, the bank told them they could skip their April payments. But they doubt they will have money in May. Ms. Wharton, a school-bus driver, was told she wouldn’t get paid until school reopens. Mr. Rodriguez, a cancer survivor, is worried for his health and has stopped driving for Uber.

Notes, links and commentary on Madison’s planned 2020 tax and spending increase referendum plans.

“The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”.

Madison has long spent far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 school districts.

Scott Girard:

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

In addition, Madison recently expanded its least diverse schools.

Logan Wroge:

To help students make the transition to a higher-intensity setting, two Madison School District teachers spend time at Goodman South instructing courses with solely STEM Academy students and some with a mix of traditional college and high school students.

“We thought it was really important to have high school teachers be part of the program, teachers that kind of know 16-year-olds well and may already have relationships with students,” Green said.

MATC also has two resource specialists working with the students at Goodman South, acting as academic and career advisers.

Green said the district and college have been intentional about structuring the student schedules so they are on campus between about 8 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. This is designed so students can continue to participate in sports or after-school, extra-curricular activities, she said.

“We felt it was important for them to still have a connection to their home school,” Green said.

Miranda, the La Follette High School student, makes it back to the Southeast Side school three days a week to participate in three different clubs.

“I just felt like I left part of my high school experience or teenage experience back there, even though I have friends here,” Miranda said. “At the same time, I really do like this environment because it does fit with being mature and having your own independence.”

2008 (!) A
history of parent attempts to implement credit for non taxpayer supported Madison School District credit.

“The district and the union also have quarreled over the role of MTI members in online learning for seven years. Under the new agreement, ANY (my emphasis) instruction of district students will be supervised by Madison teachers. The deal doesn’t change existing practice but confirms that that practice will continue.”

You are quite new to the MMSD. I am EXTREMELY disappointed that you would “cave in” to MTI regarding a long-standing quarrel it has had with the MMSD without first taking the time to get input from ALL affected parties, i.e., students and their parents as well as teachers who might not agree with Matthews on this issue. Does this agreement deal only with online learning or ALL non-MMSD courses (e.g., correspondence ones done by mail; UW and MATC courses not taken via the YOP)? Given we have been waiting 7 years to resolve this issue, there was clearly no urgent need for you to do so this rapidly and so soon after coming on board. The reality is that it is an outright LIE that the deal you just struck with MTI is not a change from the practice that existed 7 years ago when MTI first demanded a change in unofficial policy. I have copies of student transcripts that can unequivocally PROVE that some MMSD students used to be able to receive high school credit for courses they took elsewhere even when the MMSD offered a comparable course. These courses include high school biology and history courses taken via UW-Extension, high school chemistry taken via Northwestern University’s Center for Talent Development, and mathematics, computer science, and history courses taken at UW-Madison outside of the YOP. One of these transcripts shows credit for a course taken as recently as fall, 2005; without this particular 1/2 course credit, this student would have been lacking a course in modern US history, a requirement for a high school diploma from the State of Wisconsin.
The MMSD BOE was well aware that they had never written and approved a clear policy regarding this matter, leaving each school in the district deciding for themselves whether or not to approve for credit non-MMSD courses. They were well aware that Madison West HAD been giving many students credit in the past for non-MMSD courses. The fact is that the BOE voted in January, 2007 to “freeze” policy at whatever each school had been doing until such time as they approved an official policy. Rainwater then chose to ignore this official vote of the BOE, telling the guidance departments to stop giving students credit for such courses regardless of whether they had in the past. The fact is that the BOE was in the process of working to create a uniform policy regarding non-MMSD courses last spring. As an employee of the BOE, you should not have signed an agreement with MTI until AFTER the BOE had determined official MMSD policy on this topic. By doing so, you pre-empted the process.

An emphasis on adult employment

Madison Teachers, Inc.

The Joint MTI/MMSD Safety Committee is charged with evaluating the “implementation of and compliance with the District’s Behavior Education Plan(s) (BEP)” and periodically reporting to the Superintendent and MTI Board of Directors. Over the course of the 2014-15 school year, the Committee met multiple times and designed, conducted and analyzed a Survey of all school-based District staff. 1,589 employees (42% of District employees) completed the Survey, and over 600 took the time to add personal comments. A summary of the Survey findings, as well as policy recommendations (not comments), are included in the Joint Committee’s Report which can be reviewed on MTI’s website (www.madisonteachers.org).
In summary, the Report highlights significant challenges with the BEP.

While a majority of respondents (78%) understand the approach to behavior set forth in the BEP, only 18% agreed that the practices aligned with it have had a positive impact on student behavior. These results are even more pronounced among teachers at the secondary level where only 10% of middle school teachers and 9% of high school teachers agree that it has had a positive impact on student behavior. Also of major concern is that only 17% of respondents agreed that “when a student is returned to class following a behavior incident, he or she is ready to re-engage in learning”. Only 40% of respondents agreed that their school has a clear behavior support system when a student is struggling. The Survey findings reinforce employee concerns that there is insufficient staffing to support students with significant behavioral needs, and there is insufficient behavioral consequences, and insufficient training to ensure that ALL staff provide a consistent and coherent application of the BEP. Survey results also indicate that District staff believe safety in school and student behavior is at a critical stage.

Madison Teachers, Inc.

It’s that time of year when Administrators send emails, memos and letters outlining “required” trainings, professional development, and other meetings during the summer months. Often, staff are encouraged to attend meetings and trainings wherein administrators use language that does not clearly indicate that any attendance during the summer or the voluntary days for returning staff is entirely voluntary.

Addendum G of the Collective Bargaining Agreement is clear and provides that attendance at any District offered staff development opportunities during the summer recess be compensated, either with Professional Advancement Credit (PAC), extended employment salary, or payment for graduate credits (if such is offered). Addendum G also requires that such communications “clearly convey the fact that teachers will not be penalized or suffer harm for choosing not to volunteer .”

Anyone with concerns about a memo or notice from administration that seems to indicate your attendance is compulsory on a non-contract or voluntary day should contact Jeff Knight (knightj@madisonteachers.org) at MTI. MTI does not discourage voluntary participation; however, it is out of respect for MTI-represented individuals that the Collective Bargaining Agreement is clear and direct regarding one’s participation or lack thereof.
For the 20

Madison Teachers, Inc.

MTI’s Election Committee has tallied the ballots cast in last week’s MTI teacher bargaining unit general election and has certified the election of MTI officers: Andrew Waity (Crestwood) as President Elect; and the re-election of incumbents Art Camosy (Memorial) as Vice-President; Greg Vallee (Thoreau) as Treasurer; and Elizabeth Donnelly (Elvehjem) as Secretary. Officers will be installed at the May 19 meeting of the MTI Faculty Representative Council. The MTI Board of Directors consists of ten members – six officers who are elected by the general membership and four at-large representatives elected by the MTI Faculty Representative Council.

Elected to the MTI Bargaining Committee are: High School Representative – Larry Iles (West); Middle School Representative – incumbent Michael Hay-Chapman (Spring Harbor); Elementary School Representative – incumbent Emily Pease-Clem (Schenk); At-Large Representative – incumbent Susan Covarrubias (Stephens); and Educational Services Representative-High School – Karyn Chacon (East). The MTI Bargaining Committee consists of 15 members. One from each of the referenced areas is elected each year.

Mary Spicuzza:

The University of Wisconsin System cannot charge high school students taking courses offered in their schools for college credit, known as concurrent enrollment classes, the state’s attorney general says.

“This opens a lot of doors, basically. This is a good deal for kids and parents,” said John Johnson, spokesman for the state Department of Public Instruction. “The bottom line is that parents and students won’t be on the hook for costs.”

In an opinion released Thursday, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen also said the state’s Department of Public Instruction — rather than UW System — should determine concurrent enrollment program costs for UW System and school districts.

“Impact on UWS (the payments it will receive) and the resident school district (the payments it will make) will be decided by DPI,” Van Hollen wrote. “Not only does the student no longer pay any tuition for a concurrent enrollment course, his application to attend a concurrent enrollment court cannot be denied on the ground that it might impose ‘an undue financial burden’ on his resident school district.”

A look at credit for non-Madison School District courses.

Jay Matthews:

In a compelling piece for the Washington City Paper, D.C. high school teacher Rob Barnett has confessed his anguish at passing students who haven’t mastered the content of his math courses and described his radical solution.

It’s called mastery learning. Barnett recorded all of his lessons, put them online and let each student move through them at his or her own pace. “They must show they understand one topic before advancing to the next,” he said. “I think of myself not so much as a teacher but as a facilitator of inquiry.”

This method is not new. I remember a Virginia high school that tried it 20 years ago. Barnett identified charter schools in Yuma, Ariz., and Chicago that are having success with it. It is a logical way to deepen the education of our children and, as Barnett discovered in his classes, inspire initiative. “They learn to assess their own understanding, to ask for help when they need it, and to teach themselves and their peers without my guidance,” he said.

But mastery learning is almost completely at odds with American school traditions. Barnett had difficulty, for instance, dealing with the required annual D.C. tests that assume everyone learns at the same pace.

A parent I know in Michigan found his public school system helpful at first, but it eventually reacted to his daughter’s fast pace under a makeshift mastery program as though the child had violated the dress code.

Related:

English 10

TAG Complaint

credit for non MMSD courses

WILL:

The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) and School Choice Wisconsin (SCW) released a new report examining amount of special needs students in Wisconsin’s choice schools serve students with disabilities. Serving All: Students with Disabilities in Wisconsin’s Parental Choice Programs shows that schools in Wisconsin choice programs serve far more disabled students than previously reported by Left-wing blogs, media outlets, and even the Department of Public Instruction (DPI).

Our findings match a non-partisan five-year evaluation of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program conducted in 2012 by the John Witte (University of Wisconsin) and Patrick Wolf (University of Arkansas).

­­­­­

The Quotes: Will Flanders, PhD, WILL Research Director, said, “As public support and enrollment in choice schools grows across Wisconsin, so do efforts to discredit and destroy the program. In response to desperate and outrageous reports disparaging the ways choice schools serve Wisconsin students, WILL and SCW are providing the facts.”

Nic Kelly, President of School Choice Wisconsin, added, “This report puts to bed one of the many lies opponents of parental choice use to slander Wisconsin’s programs as discriminatory. Choice schools work with parents to create a positive learning environment for students — and often do so without extra funding public schools have access to.”

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Kayla Huynh:

But Cramer warned not all students attend schools that promote such courses. 

“The distribution of who’s participating isn’t really equal across the state,” he said, adding that those who live near colleges that promote dual enrollment are more likely to have access to it. UW Oshkosh and UW-Green Bay, for example, have the highest number of students taking advantage of their dual enrollment programs among UW System schools, he said, while UW-Madison has few dually enrolled students. 

Gateway Technical College also has a large proportion of students in dual enrollment. While the college made up just 6.5% of the technical college system’s student population in 2022, it accounted for around 11% of WTCS’ dually enrolled students.  

Given the large growth in dual enrollment, Cramer said it’s an opportune time for schools to ensure the rigor, consistency and quality of their courses. 

“As dual credit participation increases, it becomes all the more important to make sure these programs are effectively serving students across the state and doing so equitably,” the report concludes. “In addition, saving time and money may benefit students in the short run, but it is also important to make sure that quality and outcomes are being maintained.”

Curiously, credit for non taxpayer supported Madison School District courses has been an issue for years…..

Wisconsin coalition for education freedom:

Wisconsin Watch has released its third article in a series attempting to discredit the great work choice programs do in Wisconsin. Their latest article misrepresents admission policies of choice schools while ignoring the fact that public schools often engage in admission practices that would be illegal for schools participating in the state’s choice programs.
Wisconsin Watch is again making false claims.

• In their most recent article, Wisconsin Watch again misrepresents school choice admission practices and now adds a false narrative that schools “expel” students with disabilities at will. Their claims don’t match reality, nor is a single example provided.
• Fact: Schools in Wisconsin’s choice programs may not discriminate against any eligible family based on a student’s disability.i
• As with many individual public schools, individual private schools are not required to provide a full range of disability services. Parents who choose to enroll their student do so only after being fully informed of available services.
  Some Wisconsin public schools have admissions processes that would be illegal for private choice schools.
• Public school districts often have specialty public schools, in addition to their residentially assigned schools. Public schools are permitted to create admission requirements for these schools.
• Public schools having admission requirements is not a new phenomenon, with the practice being documented in Wisconsin for decades.ii (Link)
• Today, specialty schools like those in Milwaukeeiii (Link) use a points system to admit students based on their report card scores, attendance, standardized test scores, and an essay. In Green Bay,iv (Link) students must complete a test for admission to a school for the gifted.
  1
• Choice schools must admit students on a random basis if there is excess demand with few exceptions, primarily related to being in the same family as an existing student.v (Link)
  Public schools reject students in the public school full-time open enrollment program.

Phoebe Petrovic:

As an advocacy specialist at Disability Rights Wisconsin, Joanne Juhnke regularly finds herself on the phone with parents concerned about their children’s treatment at school.

Most complaints concern public schools, which enroll the majority of students. State funding for special education has shrunk, forcing districts to struggle to provide services, and disparate treatment of students with disabilities at public schools persists. But in public school, families have a state body to appeal to: the Department of Public Instruction.

DPI is far less helpful in disputes with private schools, which under state law can legally discriminate against students who need certain disability accommodations — or even kick them out. This applies even to private schools that receive taxpayer-funded tuition vouchers to educate students.

The calls Juhnke receives from voucher families often contain the same story. A family has enrolled a child with disabilities in a private school. Administrators have begun pressuring the student to leave or have kicked them out, something public schools cannot do. The parents are shocked. They’re sure the schools can’t do that.

Many times, Juhnke has to tell them: Yes, they can.

“You went into this school choice program thinking that you were the one, as the parents, who have the choice,” she said. “Really, on the other end, the school holds more choice cards than you do, and you’re coming out on the wrong side of that.”

I find the timing of Wisconsin Watch’s articles curious, amidst budget season. Ideally, the writer might dive deep and wide into the effectiveness of our well funded k-12 system. Reading would be a terrific place to start.

This Wisconsin Watch article was referenced in a recent St Marcus (Milwaukee) podcast. St Marcus operates an extraordinarily successful choice school on the City’s near north side. Read more, here.

Governor Evers’ most recent budget proposals have attempted to kill One City Schools’ charter authorization……

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Olivia Herken:

Board members Gomez Schmidt, Ali Muldrow, Laura Simkin and Nicki Vander Meulen voted against eliminating stand-alone honors classes. Board members Nichelle Nichols, Maia Pearson and Savion Castro voted in favor of eliminating them.

Stand-alone honors classes are meant to be more academically challenging. Students can also earn honors credit in some general classes by excelling in them.

“Rigor should not be synonymous with honors,” Pearson said. “Rigor and high expectations should exist in all of our classes and should be accessible to all of our children.”

Parents told the board they felt there was little transparency in the district’s proposal. One parent said it felt like the decision had already been made.

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Dylan Brogan:

The “time is now” to eliminate standalone honors classes in Madison high schools, according to Superintendent Carlton Jenkins. At a Dec. 5 school board meeting, Jenkins said a “racist attitude” underlies support for keeping separate classes that offer more rigorous coursework to students. 

“We are no longer going to uphold what is considered to be a segregated mentality,” Jenkins said. “We should work together to get it done.”

To replace traditional honors classes, Jenkins wants to expand the district’s current Earned Honors program to all core classes — English, math, science and social studies — offered to Madison freshmen and sophomores. Earned Honors started in 2017 and is at different stages of implementation at each high school. The program allows students to receive an honors credit on their transcript by doing extra work while enrolled in a non-honors class. 

District officials first informed the board in April 2021 that they were planning to phase out traditional honors classes for 9th and 10th graders. But administrators in February “hit pause” on that plan “to allow for more time to review this strategy, obtain student and community input, and board involvement.” This fall, however, staff began moving forward with plans to expand Earned Honors while sunsetting standalone honors classes for freshmen in 2023 and sophomores in 2024.

The policy shift didn’t need board approval but, according to The Capital Times, members Christina Gomez Schmidt and Nicki Vander Muelen requested a vote. Board president Ali Muldrow now says it’s “likely” the board will vote on two issues at its meeting on Dec. 19: whether to expand the Earned Honors program and whether to eliminate standalone honors classes. 

Deja vu: one size fits all: English 10.

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Olivia Herken:

His stand-alone classes didn’t give him that much deeper of an understanding of a subject than earning honors did, Hernandez said.

In his general Western civilization class, for example, he had to read an additional book to earn his honors credits, which allowed him to gain more knowledge than he normally would have.

“(Stand-alone) honors does feel slightly more rigorous, but usually still manageable,” West High senior Holly Wright said.

Wright said she liked the earned honors format, though, because it allowed her to dive deeper into classes and subjects she enjoyed without it feeling like too much additional work.

Honors classes are often seen as precursors for Advanced Placement, or AP, classes that students take later on, but the two are separate.

AP classes are designed by the College Board to give students the chance to earn college credit when they perform well on the exam given at the end of the course. Students have the option to take the test or not, and AP courses are most often offered to juniors and seniors.

Deja vu: one size fits all: English 10.

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Olivia Herken:

“Historically, the concept of advanced learning and honors has served to segregate students based on race, socioeconomic status and special education status,” School Board member Savion Castro said. And when these students do access the advanced classes, they often report feeling “isolated, feeling tokenized and experiencing a white-washed curriculum.”

“I think we all agree that disparities at this level are unacceptable, and change is needed,” board member Chris Gomez Schmidt said. “In my opinion, our focus should be on addressing the barriers to access and preparation for these courses instead of dismantling the courses themselves.”

“Stand-alone and earned honors can coexist to create more opportunity for more students,” she said.

Multiple parents contacted by the State Journal weren’t willing to be quoted for this article, saying the contentious issue had become toxic.

Green said honors courses are just a “singular point” in advanced coursework, which includes expanding advanced classes and more experiential learning and internships.

Regardless of whether the stand-alone honors courses are still around next year, the district plans to implement a universal approach to the earned-honors credits. All ninth-graders will be required to take an advanced course, which could include a course that offered earned-honors credits.

2007: Madison West High School English 10: One size fits all.

Madison West High School: Small Learning Communities

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Dylan Brogan:

The Madison school district is delaying its plan to eliminate standalone honors classes at its high schools.

The district hasn’t publicly announced the policy shift or if it’s considering scrapping the plan entirely. At its Dec. 6 meeting, school board members were told by Director of Advanced Learning Sharon Alexander that the district was on track to end standalone honors classes for 9th graders starting in the 2022 fall semester and 10th graders in 2023. Isthmus learned the plan was being delayed from a high school teacher in January. It took district spokesperson Tim LeMonds three weeks to confirm what administrators had already told teachers. 

“Standalone and earned honors will still be available for 9th and 10th graders next year,” wrote LeMonds in a Feb. 8 email to Isthmus. “We have put a pause on the removal of standalone honors to allow for more time to review this strategy, obtain student and community input, and board involvement.” 

District administrators informed the Madison school board at an April 5, 2021, board meeting they were planning to phase out traditional honors classes for 9th and 10th graders. These courses are for core subject areas like biology, English, and history. There are no exams or other requirements to get into these classes and any student is allowed to enroll. Instead of standalone honors courses, the district was going to focus exclusively on the “Earned Honors” program. Begun in 2017, this program allows students to receive honors designation in non-honors classes if they complete “predetermined criteria.” 

Administrators at the April 5 meeting enthusiastically endorsed eliminating standalone honors classes. 

“This is an anti-racist strategy. Earned honors supports our commitment to truly becoming an anti-racist institution. It allows us to set a bar of excellence for all of our students, for 100 percent of our students,” said Kaylee Jackson, executive director for curriculum. “[Standalone honors classes] are an exclusionary practice in which only some students within our high schools are receiving this rigorous instruction and capable of receiving honors credit.”

According to the latest data from the district, 41 percent of students in standalone honors classes are students of color. White students represent 43 percent of the total student population in the district, but make up 59 percent of standalone honors classes. 

Most school board members expressed support at the meeting for eliminating standalone honors, although no vote was taken to either move forward or reject the idea. Board member Ananda Mirilli said she was “100 percent behind” the plan, a sentiment echoed by board member Savion Castro.

Chris Rickert:

Under a plan proposed by administrators last year, beginning with the 2022-23 school year, ninth-graders would only be able to earn honors credit through the district’s “earned honors” program, which places all students in the same classes but allows those who want to earn honors credit to do so if they meet a set of criteria showing mastery of the content. The same would apply to 10th-graders beginning in the 2023-24 school year.

The shift away from stand-alone honors classes was pitched by administrators as a way to boost racial equity, as students of color historically have been less likely to take honors-only classes, although they are open to all students. Those racial disparities have been closing in recent years.

Mandates, closed schools and Dane County Madison Public Health.

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Chris Rickert:

“As a community, we should be extremely concerned over a 13-year-old driving a stolen car, during rush hour, while high on (marijuana),” Hanson wrote. “Everybody’s kind of numb, and we can’t be,” he added during the interview with the State Journal.

The vehicle was reported stolen on Monday, police spokesperson Stephanie Fryer said, and an investigation into the Tuesday crash was ongoing.

Hanson used the incident to highlight a $125,000 federal grant the department has received that could help deter similar crimes in the future, as the Madison area has for years been experiencing a rash of stolen vehicles and home break-ins by groups of teens and young adults. The vehicles are often used to go steal other vehicles and break into other homes, where credit cards are sometimes taken and used at local stores before cardholders know they’re gone, police have said.

The grant comes after Madison police sought ideas from the community last year for how to stem repeat juvenile crime, and as a result, the department is working with a four-year-old Madison nonprofit called RISE to “provide resources directly into the homes of our most familiar teenagers committing violence in our community,” Hanson said.

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Bethany Blankley:

As school choice bills continue to make their way through state legislatures, a report on student achievement published by the University of Arkansas’s Department of Education Reform argues that the more educational options are afforded parents, the better statewide test results are.

“We find that higher levels of school choice are significantly associated with higher National Assessment of Education Outcomes (NAEP) achievement levels and higher NAEP achievement gains in all our statistical models,” the report states.

According to the Wall Street Journal, 50 school choice bills have been introduced in 30 states so far, designed to create or expand vouchers, tax-credit scholarships and education savings accounts, among other measures.

“This is a banner year for the educational choice movement. Hundreds of thousands of children nationwide will now have greater access to educational opportunities,” Jason Bedrick, director of policy at Ed Choice, a national nonprofit organization that promotes state-based educational choice programs, told The Center Square.

Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled

Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).

Molly Beck and Madeline Heim:

which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.   

While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state. 

Channel3000:

The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.

The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.

“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”

Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.

All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.

Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Assembly against private school forced closure.

Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

Molly Beck:

One of the most influential lawmakers over the state budgeting process said he wouldn’t support increasing funding for the state education agency because its new leader elected Tuesday was heavily backed by Democrats and teachers unions. 

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, made the statement just an hour after Pecatonica School District Superintendent Jill Underly was elected state schools superintendent, a position that oversees the state Department of Public Instruction.  

Vos went to war with Underly immediately after her election after outside spending fueled by Democratic groups set a record for state superintendent races, which are supposed to be nonpartisan but aren’t as more political groups spend to back candidates and state parties promote them. 

“… the teachers union owns the DPI; not the parents or the students or the taxpayers. Count me as someone who isn’t going to support putting another nickel into this unaccountable state bureaucracy,” Vos tweeted on Tuesday, an hour after the Associated Press called the race for Underly over former Brown Deer School District Superintendent Deb Kerr.

In response, Underly said she wants to work with the Legislature and Gov. Tony Evers to “help all kids — no matter how their parents vote.”

“I think it’s clear from yesterday’s results that supporting our local schools and our children isn’t a partisan issue,” she said in a statement. “There’s plenty of common ground here, as I’ve already said I want resources to flow to schools, to help with mental health, credit recovery, staffing, and more.”

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

Erin Richards:

This year, after a lot of research about COVID-19 and schooling options and after the district announced it was starting virtually, Ludtke withdrew the girls and enrolled them in a state college that offers online classes. They’re earning both college and high school credit in English and math. (Because the girls are 12 and 13, the college administrators asked to interview them first – then offered them a grant toward tuition.) 

Ludtke resigned from her principal role and stepped back to teaching, which leaves her time to home-school her daughters in their other necessary subjects, such as social studies and physical education. The girls hadn’t learned much in the spring when Clark County moved to remote instruction, she said, and the combination of college classes and home-schooling seemed to be the most rigorous option.

The upshot: The girls are learning, but they’re no longer enrolled in any school district.

As parents nationwide tread through a wildly different education landscape this year, many kids, like the Ludtke sisters, disappear from the rosters of their public schools. Clark County schools are down about 10,000 students this year, a loss that will translate into a reduction of about $61 million from the state of Nevada, though the impact won’t be felt right away.

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration

Benjamin Purvis:

One of the world’s major credit-rating companies fired a warning shot regarding the U.S.’s worsening public finances on Friday, just as lawmakers in Washington contemplate spending more to combat the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

Fitch Ratings revised its outlook on the country’s credit score to negative from stable, citing a “deterioration in the U.S. public finances and the absence of a credible fiscal consolidation plan.” The country’s ranking remains AAA.

“High fiscal deficits and debt were already on a rising medium-term path even before the onset of the huge economic shock precipitated by the coronavirus,” Fitch said. “They have started to erode the traditional credit strengths of the U.S.”

Unemployment has skyrocketed and the U.S. economy just notched up its worst quarter on record, with pandemic-related shutdowns helping drive an annualized gross domestic product contraction of 32.9% in the three-month period through June. And with infections still spreading rapidly in many states, the virus’s damaging impact on output looks set to continue.

“

Teachers have access to materials in their classrooms that are not available at home,” – despite million$ spent on Infinite Campus

Costs continue to grow for local, state and federal taxpayers in the K-12 space, as well:

Let’s compare: Middleton and Madison Property taxes:

Madison property taxes are 22% more than Middleton’s for a comparable home, based on this comparison of 2017 sales.

Fall 2020 Administration Referendum slides.

(Note: “Madison spends just 1% of its budget on maintenance while Milwaukee, with far more students, spends 2%” – Madison’s CFO at a fall 2019 referendum presentation.)

MMSD Budget Facts: from 2014-15 to 2020-21 [July, 2020]

Property taxes up 37% from 2012 – 2021.

– via a kind reader (July 9, 2020 update).

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration

Craig Franklin, via a kind email:

1.       The total 2019 tax levy for City of Madison property is $713,571,544.19.  This amount includes lottery, school levy and first dollar credits paid by the State of Wisconsin. The total tax outstanding, from City of Madison property owners, as of May 31, 2020 (the date of the last settlement) is $69,035,668.53. [9.6%]

2.       Of the 76,048 parcels in the City of Madison, 12,077 are currently utilizing the installment method of payment (as of the May 31, 2020 settlement). [15.8%]

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results. [the Madison School District administration has been planning a substantial 2020 tax & spending increase referendum].

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration

“The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”.

Chris Rickert:

All 16 of the school districts completely or partially within Dane County have waived or loosened at least two academic standards to help seniors graduate at a time when schools have been shut down since mid-March due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Information from the districts and the state Department of Public Instruction also shows that the poorer and more diverse a district’s student body, the more likely the district’s leadership sought graduation requirement waivers from the state and lowered other standards.

The Wisconsin State Journal asked the districts to report whether they had:

• Changed grading standards after schools shut down;

• Reduced the number of credits needed to graduate;

• Sought waivers of the state’s civics exam, minimum instructional hours and educator effectiveness requirements;

• Made any other changes to help seniors graduate.

Every district had loosened requirements in at least two areas, and two districts — Middleton-Cross Plains and Sun Prairie — had loosened them in six, including waiving the requirement that students complete a certain number of community service hours to graduate.

The county’s largest district, Madison, reported reducing the number of credits needed to graduate from 22 to the state minimum of 15, moving to a pass/fail grading system and getting state waivers for the civics test and minimum number of instructional hours.

DPI had made clear at the beginning of school shutdowns that it would not seek to deny waivers of the civics, minimum instructional hours and educator effectiveness requirements. Some districts did not need waivers for the civics exam because it had already been administered by the time the schools were closed.

Linn Posey-Maddox, an associate professor of educational policy studies at UW-Madison, said the pandemic exacerbates existing racial inequities in education

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration

Roger Koppl:

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, you’re not paying attention to the experts. Epidemiologists tell us that if we do not hide in our houses with the door securely locked, hundreds of thousands will surely perish. Economists tell us that if we do not return immediately to work, civilisation will collapse. Good luck figuring out which expert has the better advice. Is it any wonder a harried Michael Gove blurted out (1:02-1:15), “I think the people in this country have had enough of experts from organisations with acronyms saying they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong.”

Expert fear-mongering did not begin with the pandemic or Project Fear. In 1922, John Maynard Keynes warned that “squalor follows” if we do not make the economist “king.” Daniel Defoe complained of the “calculators” and “quack-conjurers” whose fear-mongering “kept up their trade” in London’s plague year of 1665. He shrewdly observed, “And had the people not been kept in fright about that, the wizards would presently have been rendered useless, and their craft had been at an end.”

Defoe complained of quacks and wizards, whereas today’s epidemiologists and economists have rigorous scientific training, mathematical models, advanced statistics, and careful evidence all going for them. True. But today’s scientists are still people. And that means they respond to incentives just like everyone else. The issue is not lying and cheating. Sure, some modern experts are quack-conjurers who lie and cheat. Let’s not mistake a white lab coat for a golden halo. But that’s not the main thing. Even when the experts are trying to be sober, scientific, and scrupulously neutral, they will feel certain pressures.

Think if it were you. You’re an epidemiologist and the prime minister calls to ask you how many will die if we don’t have a lockdown. What do you tell him?  You can’t just look up the number. The pandemic is only now taking off and your knowledge of it is correspondingly sketchy. It’s hard to say. Every number is a guess. If you give the prime minister a low number, there will be no lockdown. What if he accepts your low number and we have no lockdown?  Maybe everything will be fine. But maybe there will be many more deaths than you predicted. You will get blamed. People will shame you as a bad scientist.  And, because you are a good and decent person, you will feel guilty. Blame, shame, and guilt. This is a bad outcome.

If you give him a high number, there will be lockdown. No one will ever be able to say that your estimate was too high, because your estimate assumed no lockdown. Even if a lot of people die during the lockdown you can say, “See? Think how much worse it would have been without the lockdown.” Thus, if you give the prime minister a high number, you will get credit for saving lives. You will be able to take pride in your sterling reputation as a scientist. And you won’t have to feel guilty about lost lives. Praise, pride, and innocence. This is a good outcome. The logic of the situation is clear. You have every incentive to predict doom and gloom if no lockdown is ordered.

It may be that the famous epidemiologist Neil Ferguson, who, until recently, was an important member of SAGE, has felt such pressures in his career. At one point in the pandemic he told a columnist for the New York Timesthat 1.1 million deaths was the “best case” for the US.  In 2001 he blasted as “unjustifiably optimistic” a study suggesting that mad cow disease deaths “may peak at 100 cases per year in Britain and kill no more than a few thousand people in coming decades.” Rejecting this relatively optimistic view, he said deaths are in the long-term likely to be much higher at something only slightly less than 136,000.  The true number as of June 2014 seems to have been 177.  In 2005, he was alarmed by bird flu (H5N1). “Around 40 million people died in 1918 Spanish flu outbreak,” he told the Guardian. “There are six times more people on the planet now so you could scale it up to around 200 million people probably.” That’s a lot more than the World Health Organisation’s estimate for cumulative worldwide deaths, 2003-2020 of, ahem, 455.

Notes and links on Madison’s 2020 Superintendent search.

2013-2019: Jennifer Cheatham and the Madison experience.

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

In addition, Madison recently expanded its least diverse schools.

Aaron Withe and Jeff Kropf:

In a time of national emergency, when our leaders need to be thinking outside the box and giving struggling families more choices rather than fewer, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown instead decided to pay back political favors by shutting down online charter schools.

On paper, online charter schools that allow students to proceed at their own pace and learn from the comfort and security of their own home is the ideal response to a pandemic that has just closed the state’s schools for the remainder of the academic year. Closing brick and mortar schools will especially hurt large numbers of students who are already struggling academically. Most high school seniors need just a few more credits to graduate so they can attend college in the fall, credits they may not be able to get without an online charter school. Allowing such an option will help these seniors catch up to where they should be at this point in the semester and perhaps even graduate on time and as planned.

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

In addition, Madison recently expanded its least diverse schools.

CJ Szafir and Libby Sobic:

SB 789, which improves upon the outdated “Part-Time Open Enrollment” program — allows any elementary, middle, or high school student to take up to two courses at any other school, including public, public charter, and private. And this happens all without the student ever dis-enrolling from their school. This could allow students to take courses at any nearby school “in-person” — or at a school across the state “virtually.” SB 789, led by Senator Alberta Darling and Representative Jeremy Thiesfeldt, received bipartisan support in its passage in the Assembly and now awaits a vote in the Senate.

Even before COVID, Wisconsin had a course access problem. Too many students in rural and urban K-12 schools simply do not have access to important courses. 60% of public high schools in Wisconsin do not offer intro computer science. Surveying AP courses offered at all traditional Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) high schools, 95% do not offer computer science, 84% do not offer economics, and 84% do not offer physics. In Northeastern Wisconsin, a survey of high schools found that 100% do not offer Spanish or economics, and 78% do not offer government or computer science. All of this is directly related to Wisconsin’s K-12 educational woes — struggling urban and rural schools, major racial achievement gaps, and too many graduates not equipped for the workforce.

---

Related: credit for non-MMSD courses.

NBC 15:

Under a new pilot program the lowest grade students could get on assignments is 40 or 50 percent, not a zero.

Studies show freshman year is the most important year in high school and Geoffrey D. Borman, UW-Madison Education Policy Professor, said it can make or break you.

The modern A-F grading system has been around since the 1900’s.

It’s an evaluation performance of students that MMSD officials said is outdated.

MMSD is currently using the 0 to 100 percentage grading system, but high school teachers are trying out a new grade scale making forty or fifty percent– the new zero. In other words, a student could simply not turn in their assignment and still get credit.

“The grade scale itself is something I think not all students are accustomed to,” Geoffrey D. Borman, UW-Madison Education Policy Professor said.

Borman said one of the fears students face their freshman year is letter grades and failing early can have severe consequences.

…….

“Rather than coddling them we’re giving a little bit of a boost to them to support them and allow them to make a more successful transition,” he said. 

NBC15 spoke to parents who did not want to go on camera, but said they feel this grade scale is “dumbing it down” and only encourages students to be lazy in school.

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

In addition, Madison recently expanded its least diverse schools.

Samantha West:

Thanks to a Fox Valley Technical College program called Start College Now, Pingel was able to get a head start on her college education. The program is designed to give high school students a taste of higher education by simultaneously earning high school and college credit.

But it’d be safe to say Pingel got more than just a taste of college. On Friday, she’ll graduate from FVTC with an associate degree in business management — just six months after she graduated from Chilton High School, and completely debt-free.

“It almost doesn’t feel real. Less than six months ago, I was having a graduation party for my high school graduation,” Pingel said. “Now we’re talking about celebrating my college graduation and I’m only 18 years old.” 

While it’s currently rare to see a student graduate as quickly as Pingel, technical college officials say it won’t stay that way for much longer, given that students are encouraged to take as many dual-credit and Advanced Placement courses as they can.

“It’s starting to get to be sort of the goal,” said Mary Hansen, director of FVTC’s office of K-12 Partnerships.

The college currently has dual-credit partnerships at 50 high schools and offers about 500 dual-credit courses every year. 

Dual credit courses are modeled after real college classes and are taught in high schools and by high school teachers, who are trained by the college. The Start College Now program, on the other hand, allows high school students to take real college classes that also count as high school credit.

I wonder what, if anything Madison’s taxpayer supported $20K/student K-12 system might offer?

Madison’s administration, has, in the past resisted credit for non District courses.

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

In addition, Madison recently expanded its least diverse schools.

Jeff Madrick:

Actually, we can find low income as the main cause of the hardships and damage of poverty by looking at the consequences of current welfare policies themselves. Government programs in which benefits have changed over time provide abundant data for isolating low incomes as a fundamental cause of problems.

Variations in government programs, or the creation of new programs, create what scholars sometimes call natural experiments. This “exogenous” increase in incomes offers an opportunity to measure the consequences of sudden increases in benefits and income compared to periods when funding was lower, or compared to those families who did not get increases.

Two sets of government-expanded income programs offered among the most interesting examples of natural experiments about the impact of money. The benefits of the Earned Income Tax Credit, which are especially helpful for families with children, were generously raised in 1993. The value of the credit increased by 40 percent on average for families with one child and roughly 100 percent for those with two children.

Researchers estimated how much improvement there was for those children in families with significant increases in tax credit income, comparing them to those where incomes didn’t rise as much. Such exogenous increases of income were separated from the effects of other potential coincident factors such as parental behavior or education. There were also increases in the EITC before 1993 and again in 2009 that add to the dataset on these issues. In addition, the state EITCs provided more information for analysis.

The results were a particularly fascinating affirmation that money makes a major difference. The children whose families had significant increases in EITC income as compared to those who did not had higher school grades and results on achievement tests, attended college in greater proportion, and were generally healthier. One study also showed that the birth weight of newborns was higher in these newly better-off families, and the stress level for mothers was also measurably reduced.

Looking back to the early 1970s, Richard Nixon proposed a guaranteed income program in the form of a “negative income tax” in order to continue but streamline the implementation of the War on Poverty. The lower the income of the poor family, the greater the tax refund benefits would be (to a maximum ceiling benefit); benefits would be distributed in the form of cash payments. It was a forerunner of the Earned Income Tax Credit. But in Nixon’s case, even if a family earned no income, it would receive a cash stipend. Opponents were concerned that it would encourage individuals not to work.

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

In addition, Madison recently expanded its least diverse schools.

Chris Rickert:

In at least two cases, principals left under a cloud.

In 2017, district officials decided not to pursue legal action against former Black Hawk Middle School Principal Kenya Walker, who abandoned her position and oversaw more than $10,000 in spending on the school’s credit card that could not be accounted for. In 2018, Sherman Middle School Principal Kristin Foreman decided to leave after a teacher alleged in a blog post that the school was “in crisis” due to deteriorating student behavior and disrespect for staff.

Tense hallways

Former Jefferson math teacher Mauricio Escobedo said Kurth had “lost control of the school” and described an environment there in which he felt threatened and had “all kinds of racial epithets and insults hurled at me” by students.

According to confidential student records obtained by WISC-TV (Ch. 3), the student in the Dec. 3 incident had been involved in 25 disciplinary incidents this school year prior to his suspension in the BB gun case.

Escobedo was fired on Dec. 20, he said, after pointing out to school leaders that the student who fired the BB gun had previously threatened to “shoot up the school.” Officially, he was let go for failing to earn a state teaching license, he said.

Kurth did not respond to email and Facebook messages seeking comment. Escobedo is one of five teachers who have left Jefferson during the current school year.

While declining to comment on specific employees, district spokesman Tim LeMonds said one of the teachers left for personal family reasons, two for another job in the district, one for “dissatisfaction” with her job and one for not meeting state licensing requirements.

Escobedo, who said he has more than 20 years of teaching experience, said he was properly licensed. But Department of Public Instruction spokesman Benson Gardner said that unless Escobedo “has used another name, he has never held a license to work in a school in Wisconsin.”

David Blaska:

Just Wednesday afternoon (01-15-2020) a Jefferson middle school student hospitalized with a concussion after being punched by a classmate. The victim told police he had been bullied for some time by the boy who hit him.

A school staff member said the victim fell to the floor after the initial blow, and was then punched a couple of more times. The employee said the suspect was screaming and knocking over chairs.

Mauricio Escobedo told Blaska’s Policy Werkes:

“I was fired and ushered out the back door because I would not allow Tequila Kurth to cover up her dangerous lack of sound disciplinary policies. On Wednesday, yet another child was nearly killed at Jefferson. YOU helped to divulge the fact [earlier this week] that the Jefferson Administration was no longer in control of the school to a wider audience than I could ever reach.  For that, I thank you.

And now that Tequila Kurth is gone, the job is remains unfinished. …

The idea that race should be considered before meting out disciplinary consequences (or disciplinary data) is inimical to the foundational principle that Justice is blind.  This aberration of America’s justice System must be changed inside of the MMSD from which it was removed by verbal artifice and deception.”

Because of the leadership change, the parent/citizen meeting is rescheduled for 6 p.m. February 6 at the school.

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

In addition, Madison recently expanded its least diverse schools.

Laura Waters:

On New Year’s Eve The Nation published an analysis by Jennifer Berkshire called “The Democrats’ School Choice Problem.” Her piece is instructive because it illustrates a strategy commonly employed by those who regard themselves as warriors against craven privatizing shysters intent on expanding charter schools and/or voucher programs. This is how it works: Ignore context. Ignore math. Ignore inconvenient facts. And hustle together a specious I argument that plays to those who —perhaps responding to the Trumpian lurch to the right by Republican Party leaders in D.C. —believe that the only way to retain decency and moral order is by careening just as far to the left, which seems to me a surefire way to guarantee Trump a second term. (Not sure what these directions mean anyway. Since when is limiting public school choice, which primarily benefits low-income children of color, a value of left-wingers? Since when is it a violation of Democratic Party loyalty to want better schools for your kids?)

To unknowing readers (which apparently includes The Nation’s fact-checking department) Berkshire’s argument, as context and fact-free as it is, holds power. So let’s demystify the mystique and look at some of the ways that Berkshire makes her argument that the Democratic pro-choice coalition is “unraveling” and that no choice is the right choice.

First, to give credit where credit is due, Berkshire  begins with the recent AFT/NEA “school choice forum” last month in Pittsburgh where seven candidates begged for union money and endorsement. She notes that the invitation-only audience was greeted by a Black mother affiliated with the Working Families Party (closely tied in agenda and funding with AFT/NEA) while 250 Black mothers (she says 100 but who’s counting) stood in a cold rain because they were locked out of the “public forum” for wanting quality schools for their children even if they can’t afford to live in Gloucester. (See here.) Why were they outside in the rain? Because the candidates, with the sole exception of Mike Bennett, refused to walk down the block and meet with them in a hotel room paid for by a GoFundMe campaign. Inside, audience members wore “F*%k Charter Schools” tee-shirts.

Madison’s taxpayer supported K – 12 school district has resisted school and parental choice.

A majority of the school board rejected the proposed Madison preparatory Academy ib charter school in 2011.

Madison taxpayers have long spent far more than most K-12 school districts, despite tolerating long term, disastrous reading results.

Will Flanders:

Calls for more regulation of Wisconsin’s school choice programs have been getting louder. Making the claims that performance isn’t consistent enough, generally on standardized tests, they argue that government—or some outside entity—needs greater control of school entry and school exit in the state. However, a new study by Corey DeAngelis of the Cato Institute adds to the growing body of evidence that such arguments are wrongheaded. Rather than under-regulation, problems in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) likely result from too many regulations being forced on private schools.

By many measures, the MPCP is already one of the most regulated school choice programs in the country. MPCP schools are forced to take the voucher amount as the full cost of tuition, which eliminates the feature of a functional market whereby service quality and demand sets prices. Schools are subject to a number of accounting hoops and accreditation requirements that school leaders will often tell you are difficult to understand and keep up with. Schools are also required to hire certified teachers with certain educational requirements, which may make it difficult to fill positions, or may necessitate the hiring of someone less objectively qualified for a particular job. WILL and School Choice Wisconsin’s study of accountability in the MPCP and other state programs last year highlights even further the difficulty of the regulatory environment faced by schools that want to participate.

DeAngelis examines the impact of such regulations across two school choice programs—the MPCP in Milwaukee and Ohio’s Educational Choice Scholarship Program. In both cases, he finds that proxies for school quality (tuition and school rankings on the website Great Schools) are negatively related to the likelihood of schools to participate in the voucher program. Specifically in the MPCP, a $1,000 increase in tuition is related to a 3% decline in probability that a school participates. By the other measure, a one point increase in a school’s score on Great Schools is related to a 14.8% decline in the likelihood of participation. This is consistent with previous work that DeAngelis has coauthored, which showed that lower levels of regulation in school choice in Indiana result in higher levels of school participation than more regulated programs in Washington, DC and Louisiana.

Madison’s taxpayer funded non diverse K-12 governance model has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Yet, we spend far more than most taxpayer supported school districts.

Laurie Frost and Jeff Henriques [PDF]:

Dear Simpson Street Free Press:

Thank you for leading the way in looking more closely at recent reports of an increase in MMSD minority student graduation rates and related issues:

http://simpsonstreetfreepress.org/special-report/local-education/rising-grad-rates

http://simpsonstreetfreepress.org/special-report/local-education/act-college-readiness-gap

Inspired by your excellent work, we decided to dig deeper.
We call the result of our efforts Seeing the Forest: Unpacking the Relationship Between MMSD Graduation Rates and Student Achievement.

We hope Simpson Street Free Press readers will take the time to read our brief report and reflect on its findings.

Sincerely,
Laurie Frost, Ph.D. Jeff Henriques, Ph.D.
August 20, 2018

Much has been made about the recent (Class of 2017) increase in MMSD high school graduation rates, especially for Black students.
https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/education/local_schools/madison-high-school- graduation-rate-for-black-students-soars/article_daf1dc5a-d8c8-5bcc-bf2b-6687ccfbdaf6.html

https://www.madison.k12.wi.us/files/www/uploads/2018arenglish.pdf

The graph below displays MMSD graduation data (as reported by the DPI) for the past eight years for White, Black, and Hispanic students. As you can see, in 2016-17, Hispanic students showed a 3.3% increase in graduation rate over the previous year and Black students showed an astounding 14.1% increase. Compared to their peers in the Class of 2013 (the year prior to the implementation of the MMSD’s Strategic Framework), the Hispanic and Black students in the Class of 2017 showed an 8.2% and 19.8% increase in graduation rates, respectively.

We will leave it to others to determine what accounts for the increase in minority student graduation rates – whether it is due, for example, to procedural changes in the way high school graduates are tallied; other (possibly questionable) data reporting practices; interventions that have produced bona fide improvements in student achievement; or a lower bar for success(including graduation) due to grade inflation, non-rigorous alternative educational options, and/or watered-down credit recovery programs (practices that have been the focus of investigative reports in other parts of the country).

For us, the important question is: Has the increase in minority student graduation rates been accompanied by an increase in minority student learning and achievement? Put another way, as we graduate an increasing number of our minority students, are we graduating more minority students who are college ready? who can read and do math at grade level?

We believe the best way to determine college readiness is with the ACT, which all MMSD juniors have been required to take since 2013-14*. Though far from perfect, the ACT is a widely used standardized test with well-established and well-documented reliability and validity. It yields objective performance data in the core academic areas, data that allow for meaningful comparisons across time, geography, and demographics. Grades (and GPA), in contrast, are somewhat subjective and “squishy”. They are locally determined and, in practice, easily influenced – whether consciously or unconsciously – by the adults’ desire for success, both their own and their students’, especially during times of strong administrative and societal pressure for that success.

The ACT defines college readiness benchmark scores as the level of achievement (in terms of ACT test performance) required for a student to have at least a 75% chance of earning a C or better in an introductory college course in the same content area. Since 2013, the ACT-based college readiness benchmark score for both Reading and Math has been 22. (Before 2013, the benchmark score was 21 for Reading and 22 for Math.)

Here are the ACT-based college readiness data in Reading and Math for the MMSD Classes of 2008 through 2017.

As you can see, in the Class of 2017, 12.7% of the Black students met the college readiness benchmark in Reading (vs. 12.8% the year before and 10.4% in 2014, the first year of universal test participation in the MMSD) and 8.1% met it in Math (vs. 15.3% the year before and 8.1% in 2014). Those are the same Black students who showed the dramatic single-year increase in graduation rate of 14.1%. Clearly the increase in graduation rate for the Black students in the Class of 2017 was not accompanied by an increase in their college readiness. The same is true for their Hispanic classmates. The disconnect between minority student graduation rates and minority student achievement is, at best, puzzling (and at worst, alarming).

Question: How are we to understand increasing minority student graduation rates in the absence of an increase in minority student achievement (defined as college readiness)?

These are questions we should all want to know the answers to.

In keeping with recent trends in education research, we wanted to know more about how the MMSD Class of 2017 fared over time, how their cohort learning profile evolved over their years as MMSD students. To that end, we looked at the percentage of students in the Class/cohort who were deemed proficient or advanced in Reading and Math from third grade on.

We undertook this effort with full awareness that a) the District uses different tests to assess grade level proficiency at different grade levels and, b) there is some variability in the students tested at each grade level (due to student movement in and out of the District, who shows up on test day each year, etc.). We moved forward with the analyses despite these obstacles because a) we believed that since all the tests are used to determine the same thing – grade level proficiency – there was enough meaningful equivalence across them to warrant the effort, and b) the changing membership of a cohort over time is a natural limitation of longitudinal data.

Perfection should not be the enemy of the good, as they say, nor should arguments about an absence of perfect data be used as an excuse to not look. We need to do the best we can with the data we have, keeping the problems in mind, but also in perspective.

Here is what we found.

This is what we accomplished with the minority students in the MMSD Class of 2017 over the course of nine years: little to nothing. No limitation in the data set can explain away these painful results.

And yet 77% of the Hispanic students and 72.6% of the Black students in the Class of 2017 earned MMSD high school diplomas. Clearly most of them did so without having grade level skills in reading and math.

We looked at the Classes of 2016 and 2018 and obtained essentially the same results.

Unfortunately, a high school diploma without high school level reading and math skills is of limited value when it comes to finding success and making a good life post-high school. Thus, despite our best efforts and multiple Doyle Building and community-based initiatives over the years, we continue to fail at preparing our minority students for life beyond the MMSD.

This is the proverbial forest. We need to look at it, long and hard. We need to take a break from looking at individual trees – or worse, single aspects of individual trees. It is critical that we take in the full landscape. No more hiding or explaining away the heartbreakingly tragic results. As a community and as a school district, we need to be honest with ourselves about how dismally we have failed and continue to fail our minority students.

Laurie A. Frost, Ph.D. Jeffrey B. Henriques, Ph.D.
August 20, 2018

A Note About the Data and Data Sources

Grades 3 – 8 proficiency data are based on WKCE test scores.

Grades 9 and 10 proficiency data are based on ACT Aspire test scores.

Grade 11 proficiency data and college readiness scores are based on ACT test scores. Source for all data (except the 2013-14 ACT Aspire data):

http://wisedash.dpi.wi.gov/

Source for the 2013-14 ACT Aspire data:
https://accountability.madison.k12.wi.us/files/accountability/2015-8- 7%20ACT%20%26%20Aspire%20Scores%20Report%202014-15.pdf

* The MMSD implemented universal ACT test participation for high school juniors in 2013-14. Since then, the percentage of students taking the test has increased in all demographic groups. In the Class of 2017, 87.9% of White students, 64.1% of Black students, and 80.3% of Hispanic students took the ACT (vs. 67.0%, 27.1% and 47.8% for the Class of 2013, the year before universal participation was implemented).

Before universal participation was implemented, the group of students who took the ACT likely included a disproportionately high number of college-bound students (vis-a-vis the entire junior class). As a result, the percentage of students identified as college ready by the test in the years before 2013-14 was likely inflated. Had all students been taking the exam in the earlier years, it is likely that the percentage of students identified as college ready would have been lower, comparable to the percentage observed in more recent years.

Related: The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2006: “They’re all Rich White Kids, and they’ll do just fine, NOT!”

2013: Madison’s long term, disastrous reading results.

Madison spends far more than most taxpayer funded school districts. Details, here.

Anna Welch:

The Madison District has seen graduation rates improve. But, it remains unclear if those students are prepared for college and career. Students who are not adequately prepared before they graduate often pay the price in college.

In 2016, Act 28 took effect requiring the UW Board of Regents to submit an annual report to the Legislature. The reports identify Wisconsin high schools that graduate six or more students who require remedial courses in English or math upon admission to a UW system school.

Students enrolled in remedial coursework at UW schools pay full tuition prices but do not earn college credit for those classes. This extends their college graduation dates and increases their college costs. Tuition prices at UW system schools range from $5,186.00 per year to $10,534.00 per year for Wisconsin residents.

In 2015, 33 percent or one-third of Madison La Follette students attending UW colleges required remedial coursework in math. About 11 percent of East High students needed remedial coursework.

The following year, 26 percent of La Follette students required remedial coursework in math at their UW schools. At East High and West High nearly 14 percent of graduated students required remedial math coursework in college.

Retention of college students of color is a much talked-about issue at UW-Madison and other colleges across the country.

Lowering the Bar

Longtime Education Activist Laurie Frost and other local education watchers worry about the long-term ramifications of lowering academic standards, especially for students of color.

“Again, I’ll say, maybe not consciously, but lowering bars doesn’t do anyone any favors—especially the students, and especially students of color,” Frost said.

Education experts evaluating the significance of rising graduation rates cite a need to examine credit recovery programs. According to NPR, about nine out of 10 U.S. school districts provide some form of “credit recovery” to give students a second chance to earn credit for previously failed or uncompleted courses.

“We should all be very concerned that pressures to pass students, credit recovery programs, a lack of academic challenges and other things may be in play,” Mertz said. “African American students may be disproportionately impacted by a simplistic emphasis on graduation rates at the expense of learning and preparation.”

In a phone interview, an online program specialist for MMSD said Madison students who fail courses can take credit recovery courses on the recommendation of their school counselor. These courses are typically offered online through a program called Apex Learning. But students enrolled in online credit recovery courses are also paired with a teacher to build relationships and help them manage their work. There is no limit to how many times students can take the same credit recovery course until they pass.

“Some of these credit recovery programs frankly aren’t terribly rigorous and aren’t preparing students well for what’s next,” Daria Hall of The Education Trust, an education research and advocacy non-profit, told NPR reporters.

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Amber Walker:

Critics were also concerned about Madison Prep’s operating costs — totaling $11,000 per student — and its reliance on non-union staff in the wake of Wisconsin’s Act 10, a state law that severely limited collective bargaining rights of teachers and other state employees which passed early in 2011.

Caire said despite the challenges, building Madison Prep would have been an opportunity for the district to respond to the longstanding concerns of African-American parents for better educational outcomes for their children.

“How could (the Madison School Board) question us like that? (They) hadn’t gotten this thing right in two to three decades,” Caire said.

“Black kids were not getting what they needed. Black community members felt that and it’s real,” he said. “White community members said we were trying to tell them that their system doesn’t support black kids… a whole lot of it was about that.”

In December 2011, hundreds of people on both sides of the Madison Prep debate crowded the auditorium at Madison Memorial High School to appeal to the Madison School Board. Ultimately, the Board voted 5-2 against the charter proposal.

“It actually made me feel like Madison was no longer my home, going through that,” Caire said. “A lot of friends I had, to this day, after that experience don’t hang out with me like they used to. I miss that… unfortunately, there were some casualties with that whole episode.”

Ed Hughes, former Madison School Board president who was one of the two members who voted in favor of Madison Prep [Incorrect], agreed.

“It was an eye-opening experience for me. I had been on the board for a few years, but there was not previously an issue like that, one that highlighted the school district’s failure to educate children of color,” Hughes said.

“It took someone like (Caire) to come in, request the data, put it out, and say, ‘The school district is failing in some really significant ways and no one is doing anything about it.’ It is a real credit to him that he got people talking about the issue and starting to focus on it.”

Current Madison School Board member T.J. Mertz is an instructor at Edgewood College who blogs extensively about K-12 education issues in the city. Before joining the board, Mertz voiced his concerns about Madison Prep’s funding structure and pedagogical approach in his blog.

In an interview with the Cap Times, Mertz acknowledged the Madison Prep debate illuminated MMSD’s shortcomings in serving low income, African-American students, but it bolstered the rift between black families and the district.

“I think the campaign around Madison Prep shed more heat than light on the issues. It certainly called attention to it, but also created difficulties in district and community members working together,” Mertz said.

“I implored him, ‘Don’t make it harder for African-American families to work with the school district,’” Mertz said regarding a conversation he had with Caire early on in the Madison Prep charter process.

Correction: Mr. Hughes voted against Madison Prep, along with Beth Moss, Mary Passman, Arlene Silveira and Maya Cole.

Lucy Mathiak and James Howard voted for it.

Much more on the 2011 Madison School Board’s rejection of Madison prep, here.

Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham: “without; being held accountable to district standards”. Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Finally, Madison spends far more than $11k per student….

Wisconsin Reading Coalition:

Teachers and more than 180,000 non-proficient, struggling readers* in Wisconsin schools need our support

While we appreciate DPI’s concerns with a possible shortage of teacher candidates in some subject and geographical areas, we feel it is important to maintain teacher quality standards while moving to expand pathways to teaching.

Statute section 118.19(14) currently requires new K-5 teachers, reading teachers, reading specialists, and special education teachers to pass the Wisconsin Foundations of Reading Test (WI-FORT) before getting an initial license to teach. The intent of this statute, passed in 2012 on a bipartisan vote following a recommendation of the non-partisan Read to Lead task force, was to enhance teacher quality by encouraging robust reading courses in educator preparation programs, and to ensure that beginning and struggling readers had an effective teacher. The WI-FORT is the same test given in Massachusetts, which has the highest 4th grade reading performance in the country. It covers basic content knowledge and application skills in the five components of foundational reading that are necessary for successfully teaching all students.

The annual state Forward exam and the newly-released results of the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) highlight the importance of having high-quality teachers in Wisconsin classrooms. 65% of our 4th graders were not proficient in reading on the NAEP. Our national ranking has slipped to 34th, and all sub-groups of students perform below their national averages. Our black students rank 49th among black students in the country, and our white students rank 41st.

The revised teacher licensure rules that DPI has presented to the legislature in the re-written administrative rule PI 34, create a new Tier I license that provides broad exemptions from the WI- FORT.

We encourage the education committees to table the adoption of this permanent rule until it is amended to better support teacher quality standards and align with the intent of statute 118.19(14).

We favor limiting the instances where the WI-FORT is waived to those in which a district proves it cannot find a fully-qualified teacher to hire, and limiting the duration of those licenses to one year, with reading taught under the supervision of an individual who has passed the WI-FORT. Renewals should not be permitted except in case of proven emergency.

We favor having DPI set out standards for reading instruction in educator preparation programs that encompass both the Standards for Reading Professionals (International Literacy Association) and the Knowledge and Practice Standards for Teachers of Reading (International Dyslexia Association). This will enable aspiring teachers to pass the WI-FORT and enter the classroom prepared to teach reading.

We favor having DPI implement a corrective action plan for educator preparation programs where fewer than 85% of students pass the WI-FORT on the first attempt in any year. Students putting in four years of tuition and effort should be able to expect to pass the WI-FORT.

As written, PI 34 provides the following exemptions from the WI-FORT that we find overly-broad:
34.028 (2) (a) and (c) will allow an in-state or out-of-state graduate of an educator preparation program to become a teacher of record, with full responsibility for students, under a Tier I license without passing the WI- FORT. An employing district need not show a lack of fully-qualified applicants for the position. The Tier I license is granted for one year, but then may be renewed indefinitely under 34.028 (4) (a) and (b) through a combination of teacher and district request without the teacher ever passing the WI-FORT.

34.028 (2) (d) will grant a Tier I license to any graduate of an accredited college or university without passing the WI-FORT if an employing school district conducts a search for a full-licensed candidate, but cannot find an acceptable candidate. This is the “emergency” situation of teacher shortage under which a Tier I license might be justified, provided the district conducts a thorough search and explains why any fully-licensed candidates were not acceptable. This Tier I license is also granted for one year, but then may be renewed indefinitely under 34.028 (4) (c) without the teacher passing the WI-FORT and without any further requirement that the district seek a fully-licensed teacher.

34.029 essentially allows districts to train their existing teachers (licensed under Tier I, II, III, or IV) for a new position not covered by their current license. The teacher is granted a Tier I license in the new subject or developmental level, and training consists of whatever professional development and supervision the district deems necessary. These teachers do not need to pass the WI-FORT, either at the beginning or conclusion of their training, even if their new position would otherwise require it. The district need not show that it cannot find a fully-licensed teacher for the position. This license is granted for three years, at which point the district may request a jump-up to a lifetime Tier III license for the teacher in this new position. District training programs may be as effective as traditional preparation programs in teaching reading content, but without the teachers taking the WI-FORT, there is no way to objectively know the level of their expertise.

*There are currently over 358,000 K-5 students in Wisconsin public schools alone. 51.7% of Wisconsin 4th graders were not proficient in reading on the 2016-17 state Forward exam. Non-proficient percentages varied among student sub-groups, as shown below in red and black, and ranged from approximately 70-80% in the lower-performing districts to 20-35% in higher-performing districts.

65% of Wisconsin 4th graders were not proficient on the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress. Non- proficient percentages varied among student sub-groups, as shown below in red and black, and all shown sub-groups performed below the national averages for those sub-groups. Black students in Wisconsin were the 3rd lowest-performing African-American cohort in the country (besting only Iowa and Maine), and Wisconsin had the 5th largest black-white performance gap (tied with California and behind Washington, D.C., Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois).

Foundations of Reading Test.

Wisconsin posts lowest ever NAEP Reading score in 2017.

Long time Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Tony Evers is currently running for Governor.

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending more than most, now nearly $20,000 per student.

Scott Alexander:

There was some argument about the style of this graph, but as per Politifact the basic claim is true. Per student spending has increased about 2.5x in the past forty years even after adjusting for inflation.

At the same time, test scores have stayed relatively stagnant. You can see the full numbers here, but in short, high school students’ reading scores went from 285 in 1971 to 287 today – a difference of 0.7%.

There is some heterogenity across races – white students’ test scores increased 1.4% and minority students’ scores by about 20%. But it is hard to credit school spending for the minority students’ improvement, which occurred almost entirely during the period from 1975-1985. School spending has been on exactly the same trajectory before and after that time, and in white and minority areas, suggesting that there was something specific about that decade which improved minority (but not white) scores. Most likely this was the general improvement in minorities’ conditions around that time, giving them better nutrition and a more stable family life. It’s hard to construct a narrative where it was school spending that did it – and even if it did, note that the majority of the increase in school spending happened from 1985 on, and demonstrably helped neither whites nor minorities.

I discuss this phenomenon more here and here, but the summary is: no, it’s not just because of special ed; no, it’s not just a factor of how you measure test scores; no, there’s not a “ceiling effect”. Costs really did more-or-less double without any concomitant increase in measurable quality.

So, imagine you’re a poor person. White, minority, whatever. Which would you prefer? Sending your child to a 2016 school? Or sending your child to a 1975 school, and getting a check for $5,000 every year?

I’m proposing that choice because as far as I can tell that is the stakes here. 2016 schools have whatever tiny test score advantage they have over 1975 schools, and cost $5000/year more, inflation adjusted. That $5000 comes out of the pocket of somebody – either taxpayers, or other people who could be helped by government programs.

Locally, Madison spends about $18k/student annually. This, despite its long term disastrous reading results.

Last October, Madison Superintendent Jen Cheatham signed a resolution agreement with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights regarding OCR’s compliance review of access to advanced coursework by Hispanic and African-American students in the District. The resolution agreement was presented at the December 5, 2016 Instruction Workgroup meeting (agenda item 6.1):
http://www.boarddocs.com/wi/mmsd/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=AFL2QH731563

The description of the resolution agreement by Dylan Pauly & Jen Cheatham starts around 2 (h) 16 (m)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaW0YclXc8c&feature=em-share_video_user

The OCR resolution agreement was included on the agenda (item 9.3) of the December 12, 2016 full board meeting as part of the Instruction Workgroup “report out” without discussion.

When OCR does a compliance review, it issues a resolution letter to the subject institution which describes OCR’s review and OCR’s findings. The resolution agreement (signed by the institution) then sets forth what the institution agrees to do to address the issues in the resolution letter.

Adele Rapport (PDF), via a kind reader:

According to the Superintendent, the District did not have a unified cuniculum prior to the 2013-201 4 school year. The Distiict recently reported to OCR that it is implementing “a multi-year, multi-phased plan to engage in course alignment. The end result will be courses that share a common course plan, common titles and course descriptions in the high school course guides, syllabi using common templates and common end-of-course summative assessments.” As summarized below. the District’s cum~nt approach to AL services is the product of several programs and initiatives as well as a recently concJuded audit by WDPI.

In 2008 The District received a $5.3 million Smaller Learning Communities grant from the Department. With these funds the District began, in its words, “to rethink and reconceptualize the high school experience.” As a result of this process, the Distri<.:t in October 2010 announced the "Dual Pathways Plan," with goals that included aligning the curriculum among all four high schools: closing the achievement gap between white students and students of color: and remedying what the District concedes was unequal access for students to advanced courses. The District proposed we meet these goals by implementing two different pathways for high school students: a "preparatory pathway" and an "accelerated pathway". In March, 2011, The WDPI concluded an investigation of the District's TAG program by determining that the District had failed to comply with four State of Wisconsin requirements for TAG programs: (1) establish a TAG plan and hire a TAG coordinator: (2) identify TAG students in multiple domain areas, including intellectual, academic, creative. leadership and the arts: (3) provide access to TAG programming without cost and allow parents to participate in identification and programming. The District subsequently adopted and implemented a corrective action plan to address findings of WDPI's audit. On February 6, 2015, WDPI concluded monitoring the implementation of the District's corrective action plan, finding the District in compliance with all relevant statutory requirements for TAG programs in Wisconsin. Also in 2011, in response to unfavorable feedback from parents and community members regarding the Dual Pathways proposal, the District modified the proposal and enacted a more modest series of reforms focusing on curriculum alignment. The District began to scale back its use of prerequisites for advanced high school courses, implementing a system of "recommended skills and experiences." The District also increased its advanced course offerings for the ninth and tenth grade, and expanded its assessment of elementary and middle school students for advanced kaming opportunities by broadening its reliance on qualitative factors like teacher recommendations. ...... The District offers honors ond AP courses to provide enriched academic opportunities for students. The District does not offer an International Baccalaureate program. Students can take honors courses at the middle school level, and both honors and AP courses at the high school level. None of the high schools offers weighted grades or credits for honors or AP courses. The District's offoring of honors and AP courses varies among schools, and neither the alternative high school (Shabazz City High School) nor the non-traditional high school (Innovative and Alternative Education) which focuses on expeliential learning, offers such courses. The District offored 13 different AP courses in multiple sections during the 2013-14 school year and 24 different AP courses during the 2015-16 school year. Recognizing that its AP course offerings vary across its four high schools, the District recently completed a three-year plan for course vetting and course alignment that includes AP coursework. Pursuant to this plan, the District plans to standardize across all four high schools AP courses that do not have prerequisites. In addition, the Dist1ict's Director of CuITiculum and Instruction said the District has the goal to have a standard set of AP courses across all four high schools: the schools will not necessarily offer all of the same courses, but the AP courses each offers will be drawn from the same set of AP courses. The District will gauge student interest in AP courses in deciding where to offer the courses. However, the District will ensure that core AP courses such as Physics and English will be offered at all four high schools. The AL Direclor noted that a first step in offering higher level math courses at all high schools is to ensure that Algebra 1 is the same at all school. The Director of Curriculum and Management confirmed that the District is realigning the math curriculum. ...... The magnitude of the racial disparity in AP enrollment is worse for math and science AP courses. There were only 18 math and 17 science AP enrollments by African-American students, a rate of 1.2 math and 1.1 science AP enrollments per 100 African-American students. There were only 44 math and 38 science AP enrollments by Hispanic students, a rate of 3.9 math and 3.3 science AP enrollments per 100 Hispanic students. By comparison, there were 526.5 math and 368 science AP enrollments by white students, a rate of 14.9 math and 10.4 science AP enrollments per 100 white students. Thus, in the 2013-14 school year, enrollments by white students in AP math and AP science courses were 12.4 and 9.5 times greater respectively, than enrollments by African-American students, and 3.8 and 3.2 times greater, respectively, than enrollmentw by Hispanic students. ...... Further the data provided by the District show that there was underepresentation of African American and Hispanic students in AP courses at each high school in the District. During the 2013-2014 school year, the disparity between African-American students' participation and all other students' participation was statistically significant in 12 of 15 AP courses offered at East High School, 5 of 13 courses at LaFollette High School, 13 of 17 courses at Memorial High School and 9 of 14 courses at West High School. The disparity between Hispanic student enrollment and all other students' enrollment was statistically significant in 2 of 15 AP courses offered at East High SchooL 0 of 13 courses at LaFollette High School. 6 of 17 courses at Memorial High School and 8 of 14 courses at West High School. In addition. African-American students underrepresentation in AP math ws statistically significant in all 12 of the AP math offerings that were offered at every District high school (in the three courses of Calculus AB, Calculus BC and Statistics) and Hispanic students underrepresentation in AP math was statistically significant in 3 of the same 12 AP math offerings. As for participation in AP science, African-American students' underrepresentation was statistically significant in 8 of 12 offerings of AP science (in the three courses of Physics C, Chemistry, Biology and Environmental Science), and Hispanic students' underrepresentation was statistically significant in 3 of the same 12 AP science offerings.

Related:

TAG Complaint

Small Learning Communities English 10

Connected Math

Discovery Math

Reading Recovery

Math Forum Math Task Force

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before

Madison’s Long Term, Disastrous Reading Results.

Anna Phillips and Sonali Kohli:

When Horace Mann Middle School principal Orlando Johnson thinks about the eighth-graders he sent off to high school last year, he worries about how they will fare.

Only about 1% of Horace Mann students in that grade and the ones below it tested at grade level in math. At the end of the year, the eighth-grade math teacher was dismissed for ineffective teaching. Sixth- and seventh-graders, meanwhile, were learning math from long-term substitutes.

Related: credit for non Madison School District courses.

Madison School District Administration (PDF):

Project Description: MMSD has provided funding to support coursework in the content and teaching knowledge of middle school teachers of math. Toward that goal, a partnership was formed back in 2010 between the District, the UW-Madison School of Education, the UW- Madison Department of Mathematics, and the University of Wisconsin Extension – Office of Education Outreach and Partnerships. MMSD will continue this for the 2016-17 school year and continue to offer math coursework for teachers to participate. The courses consists of a five course sequence (Number, Ratio, Geometry, Algebra, and Experimentation, Conjecture & Reasoning) with two courses being offered each semester. MMSD will continue to provide some financial support for teachers in each class with priority determined by; 1) middle school teacher working with an existing condition of employment, 2) middle school math teachers, and 3) teachers who began the program in previous years.

NOTE: There is a significant reduction in the estimate of this program from the 2015-2016 school year to the 2016-2017 school year. As a reminder, the change for this program and financial support moving forward was shared with the Board April 2016. The model continues the five course MSMS Program using non-credit courses for teachers currently enrolled in the program. This reduces the annual operating budget to $27,000. In addition, the full-time Math teacher leader’s responsibilities have been repositioned to provide support and professional development for middle school math teachers and for algebra teachers.

Talent management has been working with principals to select best candidates for current and future hiring. Middle school math teachers are now provided with standards aligned curricular resources and job embedded coaching.

Related: Singapore Math, Math Forum, Connected Math, Discovery Math.

Madison School District Administration (PDF):

The University of Wisconsin System is exempt from complying with the requirements of the District’s Contract Compliance Plan.

Madison School District Administration (PDF):

Advanced Courses: For a February 2015 presentation to the Board of Education’s Instructional Work Group, advanced coursework was presented for high school students in five areas: Advanced Placement, Honors, Advanced, Dual Transcripted, and Youth Options. We recommend measuring advanced coursework at the high school level based on three course designations that appear on high school transcripts (Advanced Placement, Honors, and Advanced), as well as Dual Transcripted, Youth Options, and youth apprenticeships. This expanded definition of advanced coursework allows the district to account for a variety of advanced options aimed at both college and career readiness. It is intentionally broad and includes specialized courses outside the traditional core subjects designed as “Advanced,” which allows students with different interests and on different pathways to pursue high-level options that are relevant to them and also contribute to school and district advanced coursework participation goals. The broader definition of advanced coursework is grounded in the idea that every student, no matter their abilities and interests, is capable of accessing advanced coursework in some way every year. This is possible in part because advanced courses, which are designated by Curriculum & Instruction through a defined course-vetting and review process, exist across disciplines, including in the fine arts, physical education, and career and technical education. Increasing participation in advanced courses is not just about finding students with a certain academic profile who are not yet participating and encouraging them to participate; instead, it is about using a definition of advanced courses that reflects every student’s unique needs, is attainable for every student, and makes a goal of 100% completion by graduation aspirational but possible. It also includes advanced coursework designations that often are perceived as more objective and based on national standards (such as Advanced Placement) and those that are local decisions (such as Honors or Advanced course designations).

We do not recommend measuring advanced coursework at the middle or elementary school level given that there is no data available to distinguish advanced courses at these levels and less course-taking variation across students. Although we considered using middle school participation in algebra and geometry, which also is highly correlated with positive outcomes later on, we elected not to use this measure for two major reasons. First, unlike the advanced course definition we use for high school, this approach privileges one discipline above others by saying that only access to higher-level math is a priority. Second, research indicates that universal early algebra is most successful when accompanied by intensive support and increased instructional time, so asking our schools to increase participation in this area likely would require substantial changes to the structure of the school day and the support systems provided.

…..

Second, it is possible to increase advanced coursework completion simply by classifying more existing courses as advanced or Honors while making no efforts to encourage students to pursue an additional challenge. However, the new course vetting by Curriculum & Instruction should help alleviate this concern. Finally, as with the well-roundedness areas discussed earlier, formalizing four advanced credits as a goal has likely implications for staffing, scheduling, course creation, and graduation requirements.
Fine Arts and World Language: After exploring the data, we settled on a fine arts and world language profile of 2 world language credits and 1 fine arts credit earned. About 50% of students from the classes of 2011-13 completed this profile, so we have very large sample sizes for completion and non-completion that allow us to argue that completing this profile is highly associated with on-time high school completion and pursuing postsecondary education (PSE) overall and across student groups:

As we begin the next portion of the presentation, I want to remind you of the three overarching goals in the Strategic Framework. Our Annual Report, which was distributed a few months ago, addressed and detailed progress around our first goal stating that every student is on track for graduation.

Tonight’s presentation represents our first look at Goal #2 “Every student has access to a challenging and well-rounded education as measured by programmatic access and participation data. And that is our theme for these instructional meetings for the year – access and participation. We share and provide this initial information as baseline data and we will point out our thoughts about next steps. Please know that we have looked at this data and we notice and acknowledge challenges – some of the same challenges you will notice.

Each data slide is dense as you may have already seen in your packet. We will call out certain features of the data and we acknowledge that there is much to study on each slide. Remember, this is our first look at baseline data and I want to thank Andrews shop, Bo, Beth and Travis for their efficient work gathering this information.

Youth Options

50 students total

45 white and Asian; fewer than 6 ELL, special education, and/or free/reduced lunch; 38 in grade 12

46 different courses taken

Total of 81 transcripted courses across the 50 students West – 31, Memorial – 25, East – 11, La Follette – 11, Other programs – 3

75 at UW-Madison, 6 at MATC

High grades – 60 of 81 are As, no com

Related: Credit for non-mmsd courses has been an open issue for some time.

Interview with MMSD School Board candidate Wayne Strong Safe schools and high academic achievement:

High academic achievement, for Strong, means that all of our MMSD students are achieving to the fullest extent of their abilities.

“Whether you are a TAG [Talented and Gifted] or a special-needs student or whether you are a middleof- the-road student, the teachers [should be] challenging our students to do the best that they can do and to be the best that they can be,” Strong says.

“We’ve got to make sure we are doing that for all of our students.”

Strong wants to improve graduation rates and he feels that the disparity in the way that kids are disciplined affects that quite a bit.

“Right now, our African American students are only graduating at a rate of 53 percent. That’s still not good,” Strong says.

Michael Flores: I’ll build bridge from community to School Board, more.

Madison school board candidates Wayne Strong and Michael Flores propose achievement gap solutions.

Credit Kaleem Caire for big impact

It’s easy to talk about Madison’s awful record of graduating barely half of its black high school students in four years, among other glaring racial disparities.

Kaleem Caire actually did something about it. And that’s what matters most. Caire’s impact on Madison during his four years as leader of the Urban League of Greater Madison has been profound.

Unfortunately, unanswered questions about his surprising departure and “less than ideal” use of the nonprofit’s credit cards won’t help the cause. It will give supporters of the status quo more leverage to argue against bold change.

The Madison School Board in late 2011 rejected the Urban League’s promising charter school proposal, siding with the teachers union over the Urban League and its many supporters. The proposal for a Madison Preparatory Academy was aimed at low-achieving minority students. It would have offered higher expectations for students, a longer school day and year, more pressure on parents to get involved, more minority teachers, uniforms, same-sex classes and internships with local employers

Libbey Meister: Flores would be wonderful School Board member.

Ed Hughes: I look forward to helping Madison schools thrive (Mr. Hughes is running uncontested for the 3rd time).

On Politics: Mary Burke would cut statewide vouchers, private school tuition deduction

450K PDF:

Reminders of Best Practice
Current Practice
Data from MMSD
Review input from Focus Groups
Examine Implications for Policy
Examine Implications for Practice

Related: Parent talented & gifted complaint, MAP Assessment results, English 10, credit for non-Madison school district courses and outbound open enrollment.

Joan Barron

Rose threw out a number of sobering statistics during his talk.
He said one-third of merit scholars in the Hathaway Scholarship Program need remedial work when they enter college. However, the prospects for a student who takes a remedial courses in college isn’t that bright, he noted.
Rose said only two of five remedial students go on to complete a credit course in their remedial subject within one year.
He said dual and concurrent enrollment, or high school students taking college courses, is one remedy to the students’ need for remedial courses.
Some high school students already take remedial classes at community colleges to experience the secondary-level work that will be required.
Rose said the ability for high school students to earn credits for college classes can be motivational — providing a way to avoid the traditional “wasted senior year.”
Last month, Rose returned his focus toward community college commission director full-time after having pulled double-duty as interim director of the Wyoming Department of Education.

Related: Credit for non Madison School District Courses.

Erin Richards:

The union representing Kenosha teachers has been decertified and may not bargain base wages with the district.
Because unions are limited in what they can do even if they are certified, the new status of Kenosha’s teachers union — just like the decertification of many other teachers unions in the state that did not or could not pursue the steps necessary to maintain certification in the new era of Act 10 — may be a moral blow more than anything else.
Teachers in Milwaukee and Janesville met the state’s Aug. 30 deadline to apply for recertification, a state agency representative says. Peter Davis, general counsel for the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission, said the Milwaukee and Janesville districts will hold recertification votes in November.
To continue as the recognized bargaining unit in the district, 51% of the union’s eligible membership must vote in favor of recertification, according to the controversial Act 10 legislation passed in 2011.
With contracts that were in place through the end of June, teachers in the three large southeastern Wisconsin districts were protected the longest from the new legislation, which limits collective bargaining, requires unions to hold annual votes to be recognized as official entities, and mandates that teachers and other public employees pay more out-of-pocket for their health care and retirement costs.
…..
“It seems like the majority of our affiliates in the state aren’t seeking recertification, so I don’t think the KEA is an outlier or unique in this,” Brey said.
She added that certification gives the union scant power over a limited number of issues they’d like a voice in.
Sheronda Glass, the director of business services in Kenosha, said it’s a new experience for the district to be under Act 10.

Terry Flores

Contrary to some published media reports, however, the union did not vote to decertify.
In fact, no such election was ever held, according to KEA Executive Director Joe Kiriaki, who responded to a report from the Conservative Badger blog, which published an article by Milwaukee radio talk show host Mark Belling, who said he had learned that just 37 percent of the teachers had voted to reauthorize the union.
In a prepared statement, Kiriaki criticized the district for “promoting untrue information” to Belling.
Union chose to focus on other issues
Kiriaki said the union opted not to “jump through the hoops,” such as the recertification requirement, created by Act 10, the state’s relatively new law on collective bargaining.
The law, among other things required the annual re-certification of unions if they want to serve as bargaining representatives for teachers and other public workers. It also prohibits most public employees from negotiating all but base wages, limiting them to the rate of inflation.
Kiriaki cited a ruling by a Dane County Circuit Court judge on the constitutionality of Act 10, saying he believed it would be upheld.

Interestingly, Madison School District & Madison Teachers to Commence Bargaining. Far more important is addressing Madison’s long standing, disastrous reading results.
In my view, the unions that wish to serve their membership effectively going forward would be much better off addressing new opportunities, including charters, virtual, and dual enrollment services. The Minneapolis Teachers Union can authorize charters, for example.
Much more on Act 10, here.
A conversation with retired WEAC executive Director Morris Andrews.
The Frederick Taylor inspired, agrarian K-12 model is changing, albeit at a glacial pace. Madison lags in many areas, from advanced opportunities to governance diversity, dual enrollment and online opportunities. Yet we spend double the national average per student, funded by ongoing property tax increases.
An elected official recently remarked to me that “it’s as if Madison schools have been stuck in a bubble for the past 40 years”.

Daytona Times:

As opening days for fall classes draw near, agreements in support of dual enrollment have been reached between Daytona State College and Volusia and Flagler school districts.
The college’s District Board of Trustees on Aug. 13 approved agreements to cover the majority of the schools’ costs for services associated with dual enrollment in 2013-14.
The Volusia and Flagler school boards will vote on the agreements in upcoming weeks.
Dual enrollment provides college-credit classes on Daytona State campuses, giving college-bound students a head start on their higher education, at no cost to them.

Related:Obtaining credit for non Madison School District Courses has been an ongoing challeng. Perhaps this issue has faded away as past practices die? Madison’snon-diverse or homogeneous governance model inflictsnumerous cost, fromone size fits all curricula to growth in the ‘burbs accompanied byever increasing property taxes on top of stagnant or declining income.

David Kaplan:

It’s now even easier and cheaper for local high school students to get a college education.
At a joint meeting between City Council, The Roanoke City School Board and Virginia Western the community college talked about it’s newest program.
Back in March, Virginia Western announced it’s waiving tuition for students taking dual enrollment classes.
Those are classes students can take in high school and earn college credit, but many students weren’t.
They can now.

Related: Obtaining credit for non Madison School District Courses has been an ongoing challenge. Perhaps this issue has faded away as past practices die? Madison’s non-diverse or homogeneous governance model inflicts numerous costs, from one size fits all curricula to growth in the ‘burbs accompanied by ever increasing property taxes on top of stagnant or declining income.

Pat Schneider

Why is EAGnews, the website for a Michigan-based “education reform” group — proudly pro-voucher, pro-charter school, anti-union and basically anti-public schools — blasting local Madison media outlets with alarming press releases about spending in the Madison School District?
To galvanize Madison citizens into demanding accountability from school district officials, says Steve Gunn, communications director for the group.
To promote EAG’s pro-voucher agenda, say critics.
“Maybe we’ll whet some taxpayers’ appetite, and they’ll march down there and ask, ‘What are you spending my money on?'” Gunn said in a phone interview Thursday. The website is part of Education Action Group, a private nonprofit organization out of Muskegon, Mich.
The headline of the press release EAGnews sent to local media Thursday proclaims: “Madison schools spent $243,000 for hotels, more than $300,000 for taxis and more than $150,000 for pizza in 2012.”
Well, actually it’s $232,693 in hotel expenses in 2012 that EAG cites in the body of its press release and associated article. Beyond the discrepancy between headline and text, both press release and article mash together credit card expenses for travel by district employees with expenditures for routine district functions. In citing more than $300,000 in taxi cab charges paid to three local companies, EAG does not mention that the companies are hired to transport special needs, homeless and Work and Learn students to school and job placement sites.
Gunn admits that the taxi charges or the “cool $4.8 million” in payments to bus companies might be for transporting children, but says he doesn’t know for sure because the school district did not deliver promised details about the spending list it released in response to an open records request.

“Wisconsin Wave” appears to be active on governance issues as well, including education, among others.


is a project of the Liberty Tree Foundation. The Liberty Tree Foundation appeared during the 2013 Madison School Board race due to Sarah Manski’s candidacy and abrupt withdrawal. Manski’s husband Ben is listed as a board member and executive director of Liberty Tree. Capital Times (the above article appeared on The Capital Times’ website) writer John Nichols is listed as a Liberty Tree Foundation advisor.
Long-term disastrous reading scores are an existential threat to our local schools not vouchers

Tap on the image to view a larger version. Source: The Global Report Card.

Madison School Board Member Ed Hughes:

Recently I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about the Madison school district’s achievement gap problems and other challenges we face. I’ve also been responding to the outlandish notion that Madison is a failing school district whose students deserve private school vouchers as their only lifeline to academic success.
At times like this, I find it helpful to remember that Madison’s schools are educating many, many students who are succeeding. Some of them are succeeding spectacularly. With apologies to those I’m overlooking, here’s a brief run-down on some of our stars –
Madison Memorial’s recently-formed science bowl team won the Wisconsin state championship in January. The team of seniors Srikar Adibhatla, Sohil Shah, Thejas Wesley and William Xiang and sophomore Brian Luo will represent Wisconsin in the National Science Bowl Championship in Washington, D.C. in April.

Related:
Credit for non-Madison School District courses and the Talented and Gifted complaint.
Census.gov on Madison’s demographics, compared to College Station, TX. 52.9% of Madison residents have a bachelor’s degree, compared to the State’s 26%. 57.5% of College Station, Texas’s residents have a college degree.
Madison High School UW-Madison and University of Wisconsin System enrollment trends 1983-2011:
East LaFollette, Memorial, West, Edgewood.
Where have all the students, gone? A look at suburban Madison enrollment changes.
National Merit Semifinalists & Wisconsin’s cut scores.
Madison’s nearly $15k per student annual spending, community support and higher education infrastructure provide the raw materials for world class public schools. Benchmarking ourselves against world leaders would seem to be a great place to begin.

Kaleem Caire, via a kind email

March 6, 2013
Dear Madison Leaders.
As the 2013 Madison school board race continues, we (the Urban League) are deeply concerned about the negative politics, dishonesty and inaccurate discussions that have shaped the campaign. While I will not, as a nonprofit leader, speak about the merits of individual candidates, we are concerned about how Madison Prep has become a red herring during the debates. The question of all the candidates has been largely narrowed to, “Did you support Madison Prep or did you not?”…as if something was horribly wrong with our charter school proposal, and as though that is the most important issue facing our school children and schools.
While the Urban League has no interest in partaking in the squabbles and confusion that has unfortunately come to define public conversation about our public schools, we do want to set the record straight about deliberations on Madison Prep that have been falsely expressed by many during this campaign, and used to dog individuals who supported the school proposal more than one year ago.
Here is how things transpired.
On May 9, 2011, Steve Goldberg of the CUNA Mutual Foundation facilitated a meeting about Madison Prep, at my request, between Madison Teacher’s Incorporated President, John Matthews and me. The meeting was held in CUNA’s cafeteria. We had lunch and met for about an hour. It was a cordial meeting and we each discussed the Madison Prep proposal and what it would take for the Urban League and MTI to work together. We didn’t get into many details, however I was sure to inform John that our proposal of a non-instrumentality charter school (non-MTI) was not because we didn’t support the union but because the collective bargaining agreement was too restrictive for the school model and design we were proposing to be fully implemented, and because we desired to recruit teachers outside the restrictions of the collective bargaining agreement. We wanted to have flexibility to aggressively recruit on an earlier timeline and have the final say on who worked in our school.
The three of us met again at the Coliseum Bar on August 23, 2011, this time involving other members of our teams. We got into the specifics of negotiations regarding the Urban League’s focus on establishing a non-instrumentality school and John’s desire to have Madison Prep’s employees be a part of MTI’s collective bargaining unit. At the close of that meeting, we (Urban League) offered to have Madison Prep’s teachers and guidance counselors be members of the collective bargaining unit. John said he felt we were making progress but he needed to think about not having MTI represent all of the staff that are a part of their bargaining unit. John and I also agreed that I would email him a memo outlining our desire to work with MTI, and provide the details of what we discussed. John agreed to respond after reviewing the proposal with his team. That memo, which we have not released previously, is attached [336K PDF]. You will see clearly that the Urban League initiated dialogue with MTI about having the teacher’s union represent our educators.
John, Steve and I met for a third time at Perkins restaurant for breakfast on the West Beltline on September 30, 2013. This time, I brought representatives of the Madison Prep and Urban League Boards with me: Dr. Gloria Ladson Billings, John Roach and Derrick Smith. It was at the close of this meeting that John Matthews told all of us that we “had a deal”, that MTI and the Urban League would now work together on Madison Prep. We all shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. Our team was relieved.
Later that evening, I received calls from Matt DeFour, a reporter with the Wisconsin State Journal and Susan Troller of The Capital Times. They both asked me to confirm what John had told them; that we had a deal. I replied by confirming the deal. The next day, The Capital Times ran a story, Madison Prep and MTI will work together on new charter school. The State Journal ran an article too, Prep School agrees to employ union staff. All was good, or so we thought.
Unfortunately, our agreement was short-lived. The very next day after the story hit the newspapers, my team and I began receiving angry letters from social workers and psychologists in MMSD who were upset that we did not want to have those positions represented by MTI. We replied by explaining to them that our reasoning was purely driven by the fact that 99% of the Districts psychologists were white and that there were few social workers of color, too. For obvious reasons, we did not believe MMSD would have success hiring diverse staff for these positions. We desired a diverse staff for two reasons: we anticipated the majority of our students to be students of color and our social work and psychological service model was different. Madison Prep had a family-serving model where the school would pay for such services for every person in a family, if necessary, who needed it, and would make available to families and students a diverse pool of contracted psychologists that families and students could choose from.
That Monday evening, October 3, 2011, John Matthews approached me with Steve Goldberg at the School Board hearing on Madison Prep and informed me that his bargaining unit was very upset and that he needed to have our Physical education teacher be represented by MTI, too. Our Phy Ed model was different; we had been working on a plan with the YMCA to implement a very innovative approach to ensuring our students were deeply engaged in health and wellness activities at school and beyond the school day. In our plan, we considered the extraordinarily high rates of obesity among young men and women of color. However, to make the deal with MTI work, that evening I gave MTI the Phy Ed teaching position.
But that one request ultimately became a request by MTI for every position in our school, and a request by John Matthews to re-open negotiations, this time with a mediator. At first, we rejected this request because we felt “a deal is a deal”. When you shake hands, you follow through.
We only gave in after current school board president, James Howard, called me at home to request that the Urban League come back to the negotiating table. James acknowledged not feeling great about asking us to do this after all we had been through – jumping through hoop after hoop. If you followed the media closely, you would recall how many times we worked to overcome hurdles that were placed in our way – $200K worth of hurdles (that’s how much we spent). After meeting with MMSD leadership and staff, we agreed to come back to the table to address issues with MTI and AFSCME, who wanted our custodial and food service workers to be represented by the union as well. When we met, the unions came to the negotiation with attorneys and so did we. If you care to find out what was said during these negotiations, you can request a transcript from Beth Lehman, the liaison to the MMSD Board of Education who was taking official notes (October 31 and November 1, 2011).
On our first day of negotiations, after all sides shared their requests and concerns, we (ULGM) decided to let AFSCME represent our custodial and food service staff. AFSCME was immediately satisfied, and left the room. That’s when the hardball towards us started. We then countered with a plausible proposal that MTI did not like. When we couldn’t get anywhere, we agreed to go into recess. Shortly after we came back from recess, former MMSD Superintendent Dan Nerad dropped the bomb on us. He shared that if we now agreed to have our staff be represented by MTI, we would have to budget paying our teachers an average of $80,000 per year per teacher and dedicating $25,000 per teacher to benefits. This would effectively increase our proposal from $15M over five years to $28M over five years.
Why the increased costs? For months, we projected in our budgets that our staff would likely average 7 years of teaching experience with a Master’s degree. We used the MTI-MMSD salary schedule to set the wages in our budget, and followed MMSD and MTI’s suggestions for how to budget for the extended school day and year parts of our charter school plan. Until that day, MMSD hadn’t once told us that the way we were budgeting was a problem. They actually submitted several versions of budgets to the School Board, and not once raising this issue.
Superintendent Nerad further informed us that MMSD was going to now submit a budget to the Board of Education that reflected costs for teachers with an average of 14 years’ experience and a master’s degree. When we shockingly asked Nerad if he thought the Board of Education would support such a proposal, he said they likely would not. We did not think the public would support such a unusual request either. As you can imagine, we left the negotiations very frustrated. In the 23rd hour, not only was the run we thought we had batted in taken away from us in the 9th inning, we felt like our entire season had been vacated by commissioners.
When we returned to our office that afternoon, we called an emergency meeting of the Urban League and Madison Prep boards. It was in those meetings that we had to make a choice. Do we completely abandon our proposal for Madison Prep after all we had done to see the project through, and after all of the community support and interests from parents that we had received, or do we go forward with our original proposal of a non-instrumentality charter school and let the chips fall where they may with a vote by the Board? At that point, our trust of MMSD and MTI was not very high. In fact, weeks before all of this happened, we were told by Nerad in a meeting with our team and attorneys, and his staff and attorneys, that the Board of Education had voted in closed session to unilaterally withdraw our charter school planning grant from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. They reversed this decision after we informed them we would file a lawsuit against them. We were later told that a certain Board member was pushing for months to have this done. Then, after months of not being able to get certain board members to meet with us, Marj Passman, decided to meet with me alone in my office. During that meeting, she told me that we (ULGM) didn’t have the votes for Madison Prep and that we were never going to get the school approved. She the offered to donate her personal funds to Madison Prep, if we pulled our proposal and decided to do a private school instead. I told her that I appreciated her offer, but declined.
After finally meeting with all seven board of education members, both the Madison Prep and ULGM boards decided unanimously that we must in good conscience go forward, put the needs and future of our children first, and reintroduce the non-instrumentality proposal to the School Board. You know the rest of the story.
Over the next 45 days, we (ULGM) were categorically painted as an anti-union conservative outfit who proposed a flawed school model that divided Madison and threatened to join the Scott Walker effort to eliminate unions. We were made to be the great dividers (not the achievement gap itself) and me, “an Angry Black Man”. Lost in the debate were the reasons we proposed the school in the first place – because so many children of color were failing in our schools and there was no effective strategy in place to address it even though the school system has known about its racial achievement gap since it was first document by researcher Naomi Lede for the National Urban League in 1965. That gap has doubled since then.
Ironically, two of the people behind the attacks on ULGM were Ben Manski and TJ Mertz. They were uniquely aligned in their opposition to Madison Prep. John Matthews even weighed in on video with his comments against us, but at least he told a story that was 80% consistent with the events that actually transpired. Watch the video and listen to the reason he gave for why he didn’t support Madison Prep. He didn’t call us union haters or teacher bashers. He knew better. So why all the fuss now? Why have those who knew exactly what went on in these negotiations not told the true story about what really happened with Madison Prep? Why has a charter school proposal been made the scapegoat, or defining lever, in a school board race where there are so many other more important issues to address?
If all it takes to win a seat on the school board now is opposition to charter schools, rather than being someone who possesses unique experiences and qualifications to serve our now majority non-white and low-income student body and increasingly challenged schools, we should all worry about the future of our children and public schools.
So, for those who were unaware and those who’ve been misleading the public about Madison Prep and the Urban League, I hope you at least read this account all the way through and give all of the candidates in this school board election the opportunity to win or lose on their merits. Falsehoods and red herrings are not needed. They don’t make our city or our school district look good to the observing eye. Let’s be honest and accurate in our descriptions going forward.
Thank you for reading.
We continue to move forward for our children and are more determined than ever to serve them well.
Onward.
Strengthening the Bridge Between Education and Work
Kaleem Caire
President & CEO
Urban League of Greater Madison
Main: 608.729.1200
Assistant: 608.729.1249
Fax: 608.729.1205
www.ulgm.org
www.madison-prep.org
Invest in the Urban League
Urban League 2012 Third Quarter Progress Report

The Memorandum from Kaleem Caire to John Matthews (Madison Teachers, Inc)

MEMORANDUM
Date: August 23, 2011
To: Mr. John Matthews, Executive Director, Madison Teachers, Inc.
From: Kaleem Caire, President & CEO, Urban League of Greater Madison
cc: Mr. Steve Goldberg, President, CUNA Foundation; Mr. David Cagigal, Vice Chair, Urban League of Greater Madison (ULGM); Ms Laura DeRoche-Perez, Charter School Development Consultant, ULGM; Mr. David Hase, Attorney, Cooke & Frank SC
Re: Discussion about potential MTl-Madison Prep Relationship
Greetings John.
I sincerely appreciate your openness to engaging in conversation about a possible relationship between MTI and Madison Preparatory Academy for Young Men. We, ULGM and Madison Prep, look forward to determining very soon what the possibilities could be.
Please accept his memo as a means to frame the issues.

1. The Urban League of Greater Madison initially pursued a non-instrumentality public charter school
   focused on young men to, first and foremost, eliminate the academic and graduate gaps between young people of color and their white peers, to successfully prepare greater percentages of young men of color and those at-risk for higher education, to significantly reduce the incarceration rate among young adult males of color and to provide an example of success that could become a learning laboratory for
   educators, parents and the Greater Madison community with regard to successful ly educating young men, regardless of th eir race or socio-economic status.

2. We are very interested in determining how we can work with MTI while maintaining independence with regard to work rules, operations, management and leadership so that we can hire and retain the best team possible for Madison Prep, and make organizational and program decisions and modifications as necessary to meet the needs of our students, faculty, staff and parents.
3. MTl’s collective bargaining agreement with the Madison Metropolitan School District covers many positions within the school system. We are interested in having MTI represent our teachers and guidance counselors. All other staff would not be represented by MTI.
4. The collective bargaining agreement between MTI and Madison Prep would be limited to employee wages and benefits. Madison Prep teachers would select a representative among them, independent of Madison Prep’s leadership, to serve as their union representative to MTI.

I look forward to discussing this with you and members of our teams, and hearing what ideas you have for the
relationship as well.
Respectfully,
Kaleem Caire,
President & CEO
CONFIDENTIAL

336K PDF Version
jpg version
Related Links:

Madison Preparatory Academy IB Charter School (Rejected by a majority of the Madison School Board).
Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman on “the very public institutions intended for student learning has become focused instead on adult employment.“.
John Matthews, Madison Teachers, Inc.
Kaleem Caire, Madison Urban League
The rejected Studio Charter School.
Union politics.
2013 Madison School Board Elections.
Update: Matthew DeFour’s article on Caire’s message:

Lucy Mathiak, who was on the board in 2011, also didn’t dispute Caire’s account of the board action, but couldn’t recall exactly what happened in the board’s closed sessions.
“Did (the Urban League) jump through many hoops, provide multiple copies of revised proposals upon request, meet ongoing demands for new and more detailed information? Yes,” Mathiak said. “It speaks volumes that Madison Prep is being used to smear and discredit candidates for the School Board and used as a litmus test of political worthiness.”
Matthews said the problems with Madison Prep resulted from Caire’s proposal to hire nonunion staff.
“What Kaleem seems to have forgotten, conveniently or otherwise, is that MTI representatives engaged in several discussions with him and several of his Board members, in attempt to reach an amicable resolution,” Matthews said. “What that now has to do with the current campaign for Board of Education, I fail to see. I know of no animosity among the candidates or their campaign workers.”
Passman and other board members who served at the time did not return a call seeking comment.

Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Post-Secondary Education (2.6MB PDF):

To answer the guiding research questions, we developed a comparison group of academically and demographically similar non-participants to compare outcomes with AVID/TOPS students based on 8th grade pre-participation data. Using a statistical matching method called propensity score matching, we matched every AVID/TOPS student with a similar non-AVID/TOPS student at the same high school to create the comparison group.
Using these groups, we test for statistically and practically significant differences on key measures of academic preparation (cumulative GPA, enrollment and GPA in core courses, enrollment and GPA in AP/Honors courses, and credit attainment), college knowledge (test-taking rates and performance on the EXPLORE, PLAN, and ACT tests), and student engagement (attendance rates and behavioral referrals).
Statistically significant differences are differences that are unlikely to have occurred through random chance and are large enough to reflect meaningful differences in practice. In this report, we highlight statistically significant differences with a red symbol: .To focus attention on underrepresented students’ achievement, we disaggregated the measures by income and race. Though we report disaggregated findings, many of these groups are not mutually exclusive; for example, low-income students may also be African-American and therefore also represented in that data disaggregation. We do not report data from disaggregated groups that have fewer than five students in them. We then analyze this data at the program, grade cohort, and high school levels.
This assessment does not make causal claims about AVID/TOPS, nor does it present a longitudinal analysis of AVID/TOPS student achievement. Rather, the findings represent a single snapshot for achievement during the 2011-12 school year of the program’s 9th, 10th, and 11th graders.

Jason Stein and Patrick Marley:

Gov. Scott Walker is proposing increasing by at least 9% the taxpayer funding provided to private and religious voucher schools – an increase many times larger in percentage terms than the increase in state tax money he’s seeking for public schools.
The increase in funding for existing voucher schools in Milwaukee and Racine, the first since 2009, comes as the Republican governor seeks to expand the program to nine new districts, including Waukesha, West Allis-West Milwaukee and Madison. Walker is also proposing allowing special-needs students from around the state to attend private schools at taxpayer expense.
Even after the proposed increase to voucher funding and the substantial cuts Walker and lawmakers approved for public schools in 2011, the aid provided to voucher schools would still be substantially less on a per-pupil basis than the overall state and local taxes provided to public schools.
But to provide that bigger increase to voucher schools, the Republican governor will need to persuade lawmakers to break a link in state law that currently binds the percentage increase in aid to voucher schools to the percentage increase in state general aid given to public schools.

Related links:

• Credit for non-Madison School District Courses.
• An interview with Henry Tyson, Superintendent of a successful Milwaukee voucher school.
• 61 Page Madison Achievement Gap Plan: Accountability Plan & Progress Indicators:
  

  “The other useful stat buried in the materials is on the second page 3 (= 6th page), showing that the 3rd grade proficiency rate for black students on WKCE, converted to NAEP-scale proficiency, is 6.8%, with the accountability plan targeting this percentage to increase to 23% over one school year. Not sure how this happens when the proficiency rate (by any measure) has been decreasing year over year for quite some time. Because the new DPI school report cards don’t present data on an aggregated basis district-wide nor disaggregated by income and ethnicity by grade level, the stats in the MMSD report are very useful, if one reads the fine print.”

• Madison area reaction to the Governor’s voucher proposal.
• Alan Borsuk on voucher schools, politics and per student spending.
• When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before (2005)
• Richard Zimman’s 2009 Madison Rotary Club speech is always worth listening to, along with his recent letter to Wisconsin Governor Walker.

Finally, perhaps everyone might focus on the big goals: world class schools.

Matthew DeFour

Walker’s reform proposals include:

• Expanding private school vouchers to school districts with at least 4,000 students and at least two schools receiving school report card grades of “fails to meet expectations” or “meets few expectations.” The expansion, which would include Madison schools, would be capped at 500 students statewide next year and 1,000 students the following year.
• Creating a statewide charter school oversight board, which would approve local nonreligious, nonprofit organizations to create and oversee independent charter schools. Only students from districts that qualify for vouchers could attend the charter schools. Authorizers would have to provide annual performance reports about the schools.
• Expanding the Youth Options program, which allows public school students to access courses offered by other public schools, virtual schools, the UW System, technical colleges and other organizations approved by the Department of Public Instruction.
• Granting special education students a private school voucher.
• Eliminating grade and residency restrictions for home-schooled students who take some courses in a public school district. School districts would receive additional state funding for home-schooled students who access public school courses or attend virtual schools.

Additionally, Walker’s spokesman confirmed plans to make no additional funding available for public schools in the budget he plans to propose Wednesday.

Related links:

• Credit for non-Madison School District Courses.
• An interview with Henry Tyson, Superintendent of a successful Milwaukee voucher school.
• 61 Page Madison Achievement Gap Plan: Accountability Plan & Progress Indicators:
  

  “The other useful stat buried in the materials is on the second page 3 (= 6th page), showing that the 3rd grade proficiency rate for black students on WKCE, converted to NAEP-scale proficiency, is 6.8%, with the accountability plan targeting this percentage to increase to 23% over one school year. Not sure how this happens when the proficiency rate (by any measure) has been decreasing year over year for quite some time. Because the new DPI school report cards don’t present data on an aggregated basis district-wide nor disaggregated by income and ethnicity by grade level, the stats in the MMSD report are very useful, if one reads the fine print.”

• Madison area reaction to the Governor’s voucher proposal.
• Alan Borsuk on voucher schools, politics and per student spending.
• When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before (2005)
• Richard Zimman’s 2009 Madison Rotary Club speech is always worth listening to, along with his recent letter to Wisconsin Governor Walker.

Finally, perhaps everyone might focus on the big goals: world class schools.

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

If Wisconsin wants an educated workforce that can compete in a global economy, it has to stop thinking in terms of education pieces: K-12, colleges and universities, technical schools. It has to start thinking in terms of one system that students can navigate with ease to get the education they want and need, both in basic knowledge and upgrades when they want them; a system aimed at best serving their needs, offering them enrichment and skills.
An important step in that direction was taken Tuesday with the signing of a dual enrollment agreement by state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers and University of Wisconsin Colleges and Extension Chancellor Ray Cross at UW-Marathon County in Wausau. The agreement allows high school students – mostly juniors or seniors – to earn credit that can be transferred easily to state four-year universities or two-year colleges after graduation, along with many private colleges.
Evers said in an interview Tuesday that the initiative “creates some synergy between systems that have not been directly connected in the past,” according to an article by Journal Sentinel reporters Erin Richards and Karen Herzog. “Even though we’re all differently governed, we need to make our systems look more like one instead of two or three or four.”
This helps students in several ways, including reducing the cost of a college degree. That’s more important than ever in light of the increasing cost of a college education. Just last week, UW officials announced a 5.5% hike in tuition.

The devil is in the details, as always.
Much more on credit for non-Madison School District courses, here.
Wisconsin DPI:

UW Colleges and DPI announce expanded dual enrollment program
Program will allow students to take UW Colleges courses at their high schools
High school students in Wisconsin will be able to earn college credits while still in high school under a new dual enrollment program announced by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) and the University of Wisconsin Colleges.
Tony Evers, state superintendent of public instruction, and Ray Cross, chancellor of UW Colleges and UW-Extension, signed an agreement and announced the new statewide model for dually enrolling high school students in high school and UW Colleges courses. They spoke at a June 12 ceremony at the University of Wisconsin-Marathon County, one of the UW Colleges campuses in Wausau. UW Colleges is the UW System’s network of 13 freshman – sophomore campuses and UW Colleges Online.
Evers and Cross said the new partnership would allow students across Wisconsin to access UW Colleges courses in their high schools via classroom teachers and online. The new dual enrollment program would accelerate students’ ability to earn UW credits, reduce the cost of obtaining a college degree, and increase the readiness of high school graduates for either college or the workplace. The program should be in place no later than the 2013-14 school year.
“We’re trying to better serve high school students by bringing our University of Wisconsin courses right into their high schools in a cost-effective way,” said Cross. “We’re committed to making these UW credits as affordable as possible for high school students, their families, and the school districts.”
“More students need the opportunity to take advanced courses and earn high school and college credit simultaneously,” Evers said. “This statewide dual enrollment agreement is a great way for students to get an introduction to college coursework and earn credits before even enrolling in a school of higher education. This will increase the number of students who graduate from high school ready for college and careers.”
Additional information is contained in the complete news release. A copy of the Memorandum of Understanding is available online.

Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad PDF:

The Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) recently made a request for proposals (RFP) for early childhood care and education (ECE) centers interested in partnering with MMSD to provide four year old kindergarten (4K) programming starting in Fall 2011. In order to be considered for this partnership with the district, ECE centers must be accredited by the City of Madison or the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) to ensure high quality programming for MMSD students. The ECE centers can partner with MMSD to be either a 4K Model II program (in an ECE center with an MMSD teacher) or a Model III program (in an ECE center with the ECE center’s teacher). The budget for 4K will support only 2 Model II programs, which aligns with the proposals submitted. There are 2 ECE centers who applied for Model II participation and 2 that applied to be either Model II or Model III. The ECE center proposals that have been accepted in this first step of the review process for consideration for partnering with the district to provide 4K programming are explained further in the following section.
II. ECE Center Sites
The following ECE center sites met the RFP criteria:
Animal Crackers
Bernie’s Place
Big Oak Child Care
Creative Learning Preschool
Dane County Parent Council
Eagle’s Wing
Goodman Community Center
Kennedy Heights Neighborhood
KinderCare-Londonderry
KinderCare-Old Sauk
KinderCare-Raymond
LaPetite-North Gammon
MATC-Downtown
MATC-Truax
Meeting House Nursery
Middleton Preschool
Monona Grove Nursery
New Morning Nursery
Orchard Ridge Nursery
Preschool of the Arts
The Learning Gardens
University Avenue Discovery Center
University Houses Preschool
University Preschool-Linden
University Preschool-Mineral Point
Waisman EC Program
YMCA-East
YMCA-West
Of the 35 ECE center sites, 28 met the RFP criteria at this time for partnerships with MMSD for 4 K programming. Seven of the ECE center sites did not meet RFP criteria. However may qualify in the future for partnerships with MMSD. There are 26 qualified sites that would partner with MMSD to provide a Model 111 program, and two sites that will provide a Model 11 program.
At this time, the 4K committee is requesting Board of Education (BOE) approval of the 28 ECE center sites that met RFP criteria. The BOE approval will allow administration to analyze the geographical locations of the each of the ECE center sites in conjunction with the District’s currently available space. The BOE approval will also allow administration to enter into agreements with the ECE center sites at the appropriate time.
The following language is suggested in order to approve the 28 ECE center sites:
It is recommended to approve the 28 Early Childhood Care and Education centers identified above as they have met the criteria of RFP 3168 (Provision of a Four-Year- Old Kindergarten Program) and further allow the District to enter into Agreements with said Early Childhood Care and Education centers.

Much more on Madison’s proposed 4K program here.
I continue to wonder if this is the time to push forward with 4K, given the outstanding K-12 issues, such as reading and the languishing math, fine arts and equity task force reports? Spending money is easier than dealing with these issues…. I also wonder how this will affect the preschool community over the next decade?
Finally, State and Federal spending and debt problems should add a note of caution to funding commitments for such programs. Changes in redistributed state and federal tax dollars may increase annual property tax payments, set to grow over 9% this December.