Christine Rosen:

One Monday in June 2009, at the start of the evening rush hour in Washington, D.C., a computer killed nine people. At least that’s one possible interpretation of the crash that occurred at a suburban Metrorail station. The train was in ATO, or “automatic train operation” mode, which means a computer was in control. Investigators later determined that the complicated automatic sensor mechanisms embedded in the trains and tracks had failed, causing one train traveling at almost 50 miles per hour to crash into the back of another stopped at the station. The human operator of the train, realizing too late what was happening, tried in the last few seconds to pull the emergency brake. She died along with eight others that day. It was the worst transportation disaster in the history of the D.C. Metro system.

No one would claim a computer intentionally killed, of course, but the day’s events were the unforeseen, tragic consequence of something that increasingly governs many aspects of our daily lives: computer automation.

Sarah Garland:

Every Saturday morning at 10 a.m., Jason Zimba begins a math tutoring session for his two young daughters with the same ritual. His youngest, Claire, 4, draws on a worksheet while his oldest, Abigail, 7, pulls math problems written on strips of paper out of an old Kleenex box, decorated like a piggy bank with a pink snout on one end and a curly-cue tail on the other, and adds the numbers as fast as she can. If she gets the answer “lickety-split,” as her dad says, she can check them off. If she doesn’t, the problem goes back in the box, to try the following week.

Zimba began the Saturday lessons to make up for what he felt was subpar math instruction at Abigail’s public elementary school in Manhattan after it switched to the Common Core, a set of controversial new math and English standards adopted by most states in 2010. The standards have been in place in many districts for three years, but most textbooks, curriculum and teacher training have yet to catch up to the Common Core’s grand vision. The math standards, in particular, have caused outrage across the country as parents have grappled with confusing homework and garbled word problems labeled Common Core. Several states are currently reconsidering the standards in response to the growing backlash.

But Zimba, a mathematician by training, is not just any disgruntled parent. He’s one of the guys who wrote the Common Core.

“I would be sleeping in if I weren’t frustrated,” Zimba says of his Saturday morning lessons, which he teaches in his pajamas. Instead, four years after signing off on the final draft of the standards, he spends his weekends trying to make up for the lackluster curriculum at his daughters’ school and his weekdays trying to make up for the lackluster curriculum and teaching at schools around the country that are struggling to shift to the Common Core.

Alan Borsuk:

Who you calling bad?

It’s such an important and hot question now, as Republicans in the state Assembly make ambitious and fast-paced moves to launch a new accountability system for schools in Wisconsin.

They introduced a sweeping proposal Wednesday, and there is a public hearing on it this coming Wednesday, amid signs of divisions within the conservative ranks.

But let me start with my own bad problem.

Last week in this space, I said the accountability issue was about to heat up, and I said the term accountability was a fancy way of asking, “What are we going to do about bad schools statewide?”

I go to great lengths to avoid using a word like “bad” as a general label for schools where low percentages of students are rated as proficient or better in reading and math.

I’ll describe them as high-needs schools, low-performing schools, schools with low levels of academic success, high-poverty schools and a few other labels.

I stay away from “failing schools,” which is one of the labels the draft of the new proposal uses. At least I don’t call them “Schools Identified for Improvement,” which is what Wisconsin officials called them for several years.

But this time, being a bit too flippant and wanting to talk plain talk, I said, “bad.”

Madison School District (PDF):

We know that our vision as a District doesn’t come to life without a thriving workforce. That is why we have worked hard to provide our employees with the resources and support they need to do their best work. To be successful for all students, we must be a District that attracts, develops and retains the best employees.

The District’s current employee contracts expire after the 2015-16 school year. As a result of Act 10, the District is responsible for developing a handbook that will take the place of those contracts. The MMSD Employee Handbook will be collaboratively developed and reflective of expectations of both employees and of the District.

This document outlines our approach and recommended process for developing the MMSD Employee Handbook.

Guiding Principles
Our approach to the handbook will be through the following guiding principles. The handbook
development process must:

1. Apply a clear strategy and transparent process. How will our work support our overall goal of recruiting, developing and retaining a thriving workforce?

2. Create a culture of excellence with equity. How does our work ensure that both employees and students are held to high expectations and provided the support to reach them?

3. Encourage collaborative, respectful discussion and interest-based problem solving.

4. Strategically align resources.

5. Avoid redundancies and create consistencies. Process:

1) Establish Oversight Group

a) 5 members appointed by MTI
b) 2 members appointed by AFSCME
c) 1 member appointed by Building Trades Council d) 3 building principals; up to 5 other administrators

Timeline (PDF).

Chris Rickert:

Teachers who reach goals in the new compensation plan can also move up the pay scale faster than they were able to move up the old salary schedule, Busler said, while those not interested in reaching goals can expect nothing more than annual cost-of-living salary increases.

But overall, the amount the district would put into teacher compensation is greater than the amount it would have had to put in under the old salary schedule, he said.

I was curious about why the district bothered to include seniority and degree-attainment in the new compensation plan at all, given that research has shown seniority isn’t correlated with more effective teaching beyond about five years on the job, and there’s little, if any, connection between getting more college credit and better teaching.

School Board member Charles Uphoff, who sat on the committee that created the new plan, said a main goal of the new plan is to pay the “profession of teaching more professionally.”

It’s nice to see someone in public education realizing teachers are not, say, interchangeable workers on an assembly line.

Meanwhile, back in Madison, the school district is possibly the last one in the state still wedded to a salary schedule — by way of a collective-bargaining agreement repeatedly extended by a union-beholden School Board while Act 10 was held up in court.

In 2013, Madison Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham said “What will be different, this time“? The Superintendent further cited Long Beach and Boston as beacons in her Rotary speech.

However, based on recently released 2015-2016 budget slides (PDF) and Molly Beck’s summary, it appears that the same service, status quo governance model continues, unabated.

A focus on Adult Employment:

“Beware of legacy practices (most of what we do every day is the maintenance of the status quo), @12:40 minutes into the talk – the very public institutions intended for student learning has become focused instead on adult employment. I say that as an employee. Adult practices and attitudes have become embedded in organizational culture governed by strict regulations and union contracts that dictate most of what occurs inside schools today. Any impetus to change direction or structure is met with swift and stiff resistance. It’s as if we are stuck in a time warp keeping a 19th century school model on life support in an attempt to meet 21st century demands.” Zimman went on to discuss the Wisconsin DPI’s vigorous enforcement of teacher licensing practices and provided some unfortunate math & science teacher examples (including the “impossibility” of meeting the demand for such teachers (about 14 minutes)). He further cited exploding teacher salary, benefit and retiree costs eating instructional dollars (“Similar to GM”; “worry” about the children given this situatio

Are Administrators Golden?

The Single Best Idea for Reforming K-12 Education; ” Stop Running the system for the sake of the system.

Dirty little secret of US ed spending: Since 1950, “US schools increased their non-teaching positions by 702%.”; Ranks #2 in world on non teacher staff spending.

“Reverting to the mean“.

Ruth Robarts, writing in 2005:

However, the administration’s “same service” budget requires a revenue increase of more than 4%. The Gap for next year is $8.6M.

Next will come a chorus of threats to slash programs and staff to “close the gap”. District staff will come on stage bearing long lists of positions and programs cut in previous years to close the gap. The mood will be ominous when the curtain comes down on Act 1.
On March 7, Act 2 opens with the administration revealing— with great reluctance— the annual “Cut List”. On the Cut List will be programs that motivate our kids to excel at school, such as fine arts, extracurricular sports, environmental field trips, and classes for students with special talent. Also on the list will be staff positions that assist kids with special problems, such as choosing classes and colleges, overcoming difficult home circumstances, learning job skills, or having special educational needs. School custodians may again appear on the Cut List, but not central administrators. “We have no choice” is the theme of Act 2.

Molly Beck

District spending would increase by 4.8 percent during the 2015-16 school year, largely based on staff pay and a projected health insurance rate increase of 9 percent, according to the district’s projections, and is expected to exceed district revenues by $10.1 million.

Spending grows annually, yet, reading results have long been disastrous.

Related: Madison’s Superintendent “reverts to the mean.”

Via a kind reader’s email.

Despite spending double the national average per student and delivering disastrous reading results – for years – Madison’s Superintendent pushes back on school accountability:

The Wheeler Report (PDF):

Dear Legislators:

Thank you for your efforts to work on school accountability. We all agree that real accountability, focused on getting the best outcomes for all children, is important. From our first review of the bill introduced today, it is clear there is a lot of work to be done before a school accountability bill can be passed.

There are several parts of this bill that need more thoughtful consideration to be the type of real accountability that our students and families deserve:

– using multiple tests that would not fairly compare public and private schools

– requiring charter conversion rather than creating a true path to improvement

– assigning letter grades that do not accurately communicate how a school is performing

– removing control from locally elected school boards.

We need an accountability bill that supports our efforts to produce the best results for all children rather than a flawed one that is rushed to pass in order to make a political point.

I would urge you to work with districts to develop a true accountability system that holds all schools to the same standards and supports them in getting the best results for children. We have not yet been given the opportunity to work with you but we would welcome it. I would be happy to answer any questions, give input or discuss with you more.

Thank you for your time and consideration. Sincerely,

Jennifer Cheatham, Ed.D.
Superintendent, Madison Metropolitan School District

A further example, try to find total spending in this 2015-2016 Madison Schools’ Budget slideware document (PDF).

Auto-pilot spending and governance practices continue:

General Fund expenditures will increase by approximately 4.8%, based on existing wage and salary commitments and an estimated health insurance rate increase of 9%, unless budget actions are taken to intervene

A Budget Gap of 2.8% (2% Revenue vs. 4.8% Expenditures) or $9-$10 million will occur unless budget actions are taken to intervene

Note the use of “General Fund”. The document neglects to mention total spending, or recent increases in redistributed state tax dollars to the Madison Schools.

A party insider recently mentioned that the “days of Dane County Democrats harvesting tax dollars from around the state and spending them here, are over”.

I further recall lunch a few years ago with a long time Madison elected official: “Always blame the State”.

Wolfram: Reverting to the mean.

Josh:

As the title of this post suggests, I have made the tough decision to leave the classroom for good at the end of this school year.

The decision is a painful one — both personally and professionally. It is also a public one, as I’ve been honored as recently as last month by the Waynesboro Rotary Club as its 2014 High School Teacher of the Year, my fourth such honor in six years.

In that respect, I feel an explanation is in order, as well as a prescription for what we — as a community — can do to right the ship.

Every workplace has its imperfections and challenges. I accept that. But public education is painted as a career where you make a difference in the lives of students. When a system becomes so deeply flawed that students suffer and good teachers leave (or become jaded), we must examine how and why we do things.
Waynesboro is small enough that we can tackle some of the larger problems that other school systems can’t. I want this piece, in part, to force a needed, collective conversation.

Github.

David Schultz:

Sometimes greatness is hard to spot. Before going on to lead the Chicago Bulls to six NBA championships, Michael Jordan was famously cut from his high school basketball team. Scientists often face rejection of their own—in their case, the gatekeepers aren’t high school coaches, but journal editors and peers they select to review submitted papers. A study published today indicates that this system does a reasonable job of predicting the eventual interest in most papers, but it may shoot an air ball when it comes to identifying really game-changing research.

Studying peer review is difficult due to the confidential nature of the process, but sociologist Kyle Siler of the University of Toronto in Canada and colleagues were able to examine the peer-review history of 1008 articles that were submitted to three elite medical journals: Annals of Internal Medicine, The BMJ, and The Lancet. In total, just 62 of the manuscripts were accepted (6.2%), confirming just how difficult it is to be published in a top-tier journal. Editors “desk rejected” 722 of the manuscripts, meaning they never made it to the journal’s peer-review stage. However, 757 of the initially rejected articles eventually went on to be published elsewhere. This allowed Siler and his team to analyze if, like Jordan, the vetoed papers would go on to achieve greatness.

The researchers found that, by and large, the gatekeeping system was predictive of a paper’s eventual number of citations. Papers that were accepted outright by one of the three elite journals tended to garner more citations than papers that were rejected and then published elsewhere, they report online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Additionally, papers that were desk rejected went on to receive fewer citations than papers that were approved by an editor, but then rejected during the subsequent peer-review process. “It’s a sign that these editors making snap decisions really quickly still have a nose for what quality is and isn’t,” Siler says.

Susan Frey:

During Daisy Montes Cabrera’s final week of her first quarter at UC Davis, her father, who was terminally ill, died. Cabrera, a first-generation college student, wanted to leave Davis to be closer to her family in San Jose. But her high school college adviser, principal and teachers all encouraged her to stay, she said.

Cabrera’s high school – KIPP San Jose Collegiate – is part of the Knowledge Is Power Program charter school organization, which focuses on preparing low-income and first-generation students for college. For the past few years, KIPP has expanded its K-12 program to include supporting “KIPPsters” through their college years.

As part of the KIPP Through College program, the charter group has partnered with more than 50 public and private universities nationwide, seeking their support to help KIPP alumni integrate both academically and socially into college life. In California, 11 universities, including UC Davis, work with KIPP. Steve Mancini, communications director for KIPP, says that he doesn’t know of any other K-12 programs in the country that have this type of partnership with a wide range of universities.

“I wanted to quit Davis,” Cabrera said, “but right away I got calls and messages from all my high school teachers to keep going. I got a Facebook message from my principal saying, ‘let us know what you need.’”

Jason Stein:

Top GOP leaders in the Assembly say they hope to unveil their version of an accountability bill by as soon as Wednesday. But Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke (R-Kaukauna) said there are still differences with Senate Republicans over whether the proposal should include upfront consequences or other “interventions” for failing schools or leave those to be determined later.

“We think there should be some accountability with the accountability bill,” he said.

This same disagreement helped stymie passage of the schools bill in the previous legislative session.

Republicans from both houses met Tuesday on the proposal, which leaders in the Senate and Assembly have said is their first priority in the legislative session opening this week.

The accountability bill seeks to place similar standards on all schools receiving taxpayer dollars, from traditional public and charter schools to private voucher schools accepting state money. The proposal is closely linked to a separate push from Republicans to expand the role of and funding for voucher schools statewide.

Both Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) said that they hope to have standards legislation introduced soon in each house.

David Whitehouse:

Public schools accustom children to the discipline of the capitalist workplace; children are separated from their families to perform a series of tasks alongside others, under the direction of an authority figure, according to a schedule ruled by a clock. The school reform movement of the 1830s and 40s also aimed to shape the students’ moral character. The effect of this was supposed to be that students would willingly submit to authority, that they would be able to work hard, exercise self­-control, and delay gratification.

In fact, the concepts of good citizenship that came out of school reform movement were perfectly aligned with the concepts of criminology that were being invented to categorize people on the street. The police were to focus not just on crime but on criminal types—a method of profiling backed up by supposedly scientific credentials. The “juvenile delinquent,” for example, is a concept that is common to schooling and policing—and has helped to link the two activities in practice.

Solidarity Newsletter, via a kind Jeanie Kamholtz email (PDF):

Buoyed by the election which provided Republican majorities in both the Assembly (+27 majority) and the Senate (+5 majority), conservative anti-worker/anti-union legislators have announced that they will introduce Right to Work legislation when the January session begins. Right to Work laws limit collective bargaining, make it easier to outsource jobs and cut wages and benefits. Their plan was to do this in 2012, but legislators were worried that it was too soon after the 2011 protests against Act 10, and would cause public backlash. On average, workers in Right to Work states earn $7,030 a year less, according to the Congressional Research Service (6/20/12), and the rate of workplace deaths is 52.9% higher. Workers in Right to Work states are even more likely to be uninsured (16.8%, compared with 13.1% overall).

Governor Walker’s Act 10 has already done great damage to Wisconsin’s public sector workers and the economy. Act 10 has been described as “Right to Work on Steroids.” But now, the far-right is coming after the 13% of Wisconsin’s private sector workers who have the benefit of union representation. And it is because CEOs and company owners care more about big business and profits than they do about workers who create them. And, middle class families become struggling families. Right to Work will surely shrink the middle class.

Despite its misleading name, such a law does not guarantee anyone a job and it does not protect against unfair firing, i.e. it provides NO “right to work”.

Rather, a Right to Work law prohibits employers and employees from negotiating an agreement – also known as a union security clause – that requires all workers who receive the benefits of a collective bargaining agreement to pay their share of the costs of the Union in representing them. A Right to Work law mandates that unions represent every employee, whether or not he or she pays Union dues. In other words, such laws enable workers to pay nothing and still get the benefits of union membership. Imagine if a Madison resident, who sends their children to MMSD schools, but can opt out of paying property taxes to finance the schools.

Karen Herzog:

For the past three years, Teresa Piraino of South Milwaukee has diligently filled out the federal application for financial aid for her son Anthony, who is studying criminal justice at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

In the next few weeks, the Pirainos will scramble to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid again — this time for two kids, as daughter Jessica plans to study nursing at Alverno College in the fall.

“I want to get right on it,” Teresa Piraino said of the online form known as FAFSA, which becomes accessible every Jan. 1. “The stakes are high and I want to get the most we can because I can’t give them the money they’ll need.”

With the cost of college escalating — and with it, student debt — no one wants to leave money on the table.

But for many families, procrastinating on filing FAFSA may mean missing out on thousands of dollars in Federal Work-Study, low-interest Federal Perkins Loans and the Wisconsin Grant for state residents — all need-based aid awarded on a first-come, first-served basis. When the limited pool of money is gone, students who otherwise would qualify are out of luck, and are left with higher-interest federal and private loans that can pile up debt.

A low-income student potentially could leave more than $6,000 on the table in first-come, first-served money that doesn’t have to be paid back or that can be repaid at a lower interest rate than other available loans, according to financial aid officials at several Wisconsin universities.

Daniel McGraw

As he sits in a study room at Project Learn — a non-profit on Euclid Avenue that offers adult education programs — with sample questions for the GED (General Education Diploma) waiting on a computer screen, 29-year-old Derwin Williams explains why getting his diploma is so important. He wants to get into the construction trade, maybe as a roofer or drywall hanger, and he knows he needs a diploma to get into vocational technical classes to get that done.

Williams dropped out of East High School more than a decade ago, in part because of a gunshot wound that left him hospitalized for six months and required the removal of his kidney. He’s had some legal problems since then too, mostly from a DUI conviction a few years ago, but he’ll be sober three years this coming March. He started thinking about a GED when his probation program encouraged him to do so.

Williams is unemployed and has been studying for the four-part GED since January. In previous years, 11 months of prep would likely have given him a decent chance of success. But the test was radically changed in January, and like many, Williams hasn’t yet made enough progress to take any of the four sections. According to some sample tests he’s taken, he’s getting close in the math and science portions, but is still pretty far out in the social science and language parts.

Michael Meranze & Christopher Newfields

Some new things did happen in 2014 higher ed, and some of them were good.

1. The College Liberation Movement. The splashy version came from some Ivy League humanist dissidents who described elite private universities as sorting machines for those reared to rule our newly post-middle class society. There was the “excellent sheep” debate, started by William Deresiewicz’s July article, “Don’t Send Your Kid to the Ivy League” and carried on in his book, Excellent Sheep, sustained by attacks on him by Jim Sleeper among others, and brought in quieter form to the big screen by the film Ivory Tower.

Dr. Deresiewicz drew a sharp line between what happens at places like Yale, described as training in “the analytic and rhetorical skills that are necessary for success in business and the professions,” and actually learning how to think. However one felt about the details, the discussion put the humanistic goal of personal development at the center of the college agenda. It cut against the naïve vocationalism that has justified corporate reach-ins to core educational functions. It clarified that colleges must do what businesses cannot do, according to their own vision and expertise.

I have my quarrels with this Ivy humanism, starting with my dislike for the overdrawn contrast between liberal and practical arts. I think that the systematic inculcation of deep skills are next on the to-do list of public universities. But higher ed leaders have so completely lost confidence in the special powers of higher learning that they needed every kind of explanation of why teaching is not a business.

2. A New Deal for Faculty Governance. When the chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign announced that she was pocket vetoing the appointment of Steven Salaita to a professorship that had been approved by every campus agency, she awakened the closest thing to a national faculty outcry that the country had seen in years. Prof. Salaita remains in limbo, and governance procedures have not been fixed. But I don’t know a single faculty member who isn’t now aware of the fall of the faculty, having in 2014 seen faculty be overridden in a main area of authority. The premature MOOC contracting of 2013 showed admin to be as ready to redesign the curriculum as it is to make all financial decisions on its own. Many faculty who weren’t worried about MOOC-mediated governance got worried about the suspension of hiring protocols by senior managers under donor pressure.

Other kinds of encroachments also got faculty attention. The newly-hatched Board of Trustees for the University of Oregon planned to write the faculty senate out of the university’s new constitution, with the effect of “relegat[ing] university stakeholders to supplicants.” Faculty generated an imposing counterattack. We learned all over again that faculty bodies, once awakened, have more than enough brains at their disposal to stop any train that “has already left the station.”

Matt Connolly

In 1925, one of college football’s biggest stars did the unthinkable. Harold “Red” Grange, described by the famous sportswriter Damon Runyan as “three or four men rolled into one for football purposes,” decided to leave college early in order to play in the National Football League.

While no fan today would begrudge an All-American athlete for going pro without his diploma, things were different for Grange. The NFL was only a few years old, and his decision to take the money in the pros before finishing his degree at the University of Illinois was a controversial one. It was especially reviled by Robert Zuppke, his coach at Illinois.

As the story goes, Grange broke the news to Zuppke before promising to return to finish his degree. “If I have anything to do with it you won’t come back here,” Zuppke replied, furious that a respectable college man would drop out and try to make a living off playing a game. “But Coach,” Grange said. “You make money off of football. Why can’t I make money off of football?”

It’s a question that has underscored the development of modern college football ever since. Aside from scholarships and (some) health insurance, the players remain unpaid. They are also subject to draconian National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) rules that banish them to hell for such sins as signing an autograph for cash or selling a jersey. Meanwhile their coaches enjoy ever-swelling salaries, bonuses, paid media appearances, and other perks like free housing. According to Newsday, the average compensation for the 108 football coaches in the NCAA’s highest division is $1.75 million. That’s up 75 percent since 2007. Alabama’s Nick Saban, college football’s highest-paid coach, will earn a guaranteed $55.2 million if he fulfills the eight-year term of his contract.

AFP

Since the bombing, Muntasser is “in another world” and refuses to go to school, says the father.
“What if he were to try and kill one of his classmates?”

Suddenly Muntasser begins to speak, his eyes fixed on the floor.
“I don’t want to go to school. Before, I used to go with Zakaria, he helped me spell my name. Now he’s dead,” says the boy.

“I don’t want to do anything, I just want to get a Kalashnikov and kill them all to avenge Zakaria and my cousins,” he shouts.

For a few seconds the boy is silent before saying how he dreams of them each night.
“I dream that I am holding them in my arms. I will never go to the beach again because that’s where they died.”

Health professional Samir Zaqqut says the children of Gaza have been too traumatised to live a normal life.

The Economist:

DR BOB SEARS, a paediatrician from Orange County, California, does not like to call his patients “free-riders”. True, he specialises in treating vaccine-sceptics, those families who resent being told to immunise their children against nasty diseases, from measles to whooping cough. It is also the case that, as a trained doctor, he believes that immunisation works. He agrees that some scary illnesses have almost vanished in America because more than 90% of children are inoculated against them, creating a herd immunity that leaves diseases with few places to lurk. Yet he differs from many doctors in the conclusion that he draws from that success.

Precisely because most children are immunised, he tells parents that it is probably safe to skip or delay jabs for their offspring. This strategy amounts to “hiding in the herd”, he says delicately, as he sips a late-afternoon coffee near his surgery. Put another way, his patients worry more than most about possible side-effects from vaccinations, above all the (thoroughly discredited) claim that vaccines cause autism. Dr Bob—as he is known to fans of “The Vaccine Book”, his best-selling guide to “selective” immunisation—does not say that worried parents are right. He just thinks that, on balance, they can safely indulge their anxieties by “taking advantage of the herd all around them.” When pushed, he makes “no claim” that the alternative vaccine plans that he offers (involving fewer jabs, or jabs administered over a longer period than most doctors recommend) are safer. He concedes that if everyone refused vaccinations, some diseases would roar back.

The Economist:

The main reason for the closures is financial. Catholic schools used to be financed by tuition payments, with help from the parish and archdiocese to fill the gaps. But demography has undermined this model. In 1950 76% of all Catholics lived in the north-east and the Midwest, which is where most of the schools are. Today, just under half do. In the south-west Catholics are more plentiful, but they are not sending their children to Catholic schools as European immigrants once did, because those schools do not yet exist.

Schools in the north-east and Midwest have been hit by both declining revenue and rising costs. Many parishes operate at a loss. Paedophilia scandals have added to the financial stress. Twelve dioceses and archdioceses have filed for bankruptcy since 2004. Legal fees and settlements have cost the American Catholic church billions. School buildings are ageing and expensive to maintain. Labour is dear too: half a century ago, 97% of teachers were in holy orders. Today almost all are laymen, who cost more (nuns were not so concerned about pension plans). Catholic schools also face competition from charter schools, some of which even rent space in their empty buildings. Almost all the closed Catholic schools in Detroit are now occupied by charters.

Madison spends about $17K per student….

Jonathan Margolis:

Do you send emails in literate, properly spelt English, broken down into crisp, relevant paragraphs, signed at the end, even with the mandatory extra space inserted after each full stop?

If you do, you are almost certainly old. How old? From a not hugely scientific study of everyone I happen to know, I’d say over 40, but more likely 10 years north of there.

What are the tells that make a speedy, clear, informative email the mark of advancing years?

Well, the main one is that you are emailing at all. For reasons I fail to understand (but then I am quite old) most of my younger friends prefer the cumbersome, hit-and-miss messaging of social media sites, or to use fiddly phone messaging utilities such as WhatsApp. They reserve the directness and unambiguousness of email for writing to, well, old people.

Wisconsin Reading Coalition:

Reading proficiency in 50 low-income, high-minority Milwaukee schools is less than 8%. See this 12/5/14 PolitiFact article from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
​
Earn a graduate degree from a program that has been accredited by the International Dyslexia Association as meeting the IDA Knowledge and Practice Standards for Teachers of Reading. Coursework incorporates Orton-Gillingham multisensory reading and LETRS. Online and face-to-face cohorts through The Science of Reading Partnership (Mount St. Joseph University and Mayerson Academy) begin in May and August. For more information, see http://www.msj.edu/academics/graduate-programs/master-of-arts-teacher-advancement-programs/reading-science/

NOTE: Graduates may seek an equivalent license in Wisconsin by applying to Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction via the out-of-state pathway. DPI will conduct a comparability review. For more information on this possibility, we suggest you contact Tammy Huth (Tammy.Huth@dpi.wi.us) or Julie Hagen (608-266-6794) at DPI.

Interesting news from New South Wales: Education Minister orders universities to teach phonics or face losing accreditation.

Milwaukee Succeeds is moving forward in an effort to replicate the Minnesota Reading Corps in Milwaukee next year. Milwaukee leaders visited Minneapolis recently to see this Americorps reading intervention program in action. See a report at http://focus.mnsun.com/2014/12/08/wisconsin-educators-visit-highland-elementary-to-learn-about-reading-corps-program/

A Wilson Reading System Introductory Workshop will be held March 18-20 at CESA #1 in Pewaukee. For information, go to http://www.cesa1.k12.wi.us/programs/wilsonreading/

Stay tuned in early 2015, as the future of the Common Core State Standards and Badger Assessment will be hot topics in the legislature. If either or both are replaced, the quality of the replacement will be critical to our students and teachers.

David Brooks:

ver the past decades, the case for enhancing union power has grown both stronger and weaker. On the one hand, as wages have stagnated while profits have soared, it does seem that there is something out of whack in the balance of power between labor and capital. Workers need some new way to collectively bargain for more money.

On the other hand, unions, and especially public-sector unions, have done a lot over the past decades to rigidify workplaces, especially government. Teachers’ unions have become the single biggest impediment to school reform. Police unions have become an impediment to police reform.

If you look at all the proposals that have been discussed since the cases of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner in New York, you find that somewhere or other around the country, police unions have opposed all of them:

Michael Dannenberg (PDF):

Teacher Preparation explains more of the variance in K-12 achievement than all other teacher characteristics.

Unfortunately, teacher education programs do not have especially high entry standards.

Worse, traditional teacher education programs appear to have relatively low performance standards.

Related: When A stands for average.

Philip S. Cicero:

This book is for anyone who believes that reducing class size, doing more homework, being taught by experienced teachers, using technology, receiving remediation, repeating a grade and increasing school time will improve student achievement. The reason this book is for you is because these long practiced academic interventions just don’t work. Not only do they not work but they are overly priced, costly and put an unnecessary financial burden on school districts and taxpayers. So why do we continue to use them? We use them because we believe they work. However, that’s not the reality. Recent research demonstrates that those respective interventions have little, if any, impact on improving student achievement. This book reviews the research debunking the myths, estimates the various wasteful costs of these ineffective myths and offers practical and alternative means to improving student achievement.

Ashley Jochim, Michael DeArmond, Betheny Gross, Robin Lake:

• Parents are taking advantage of choice, but they want more good options.

Parents’ optimism about whether schools are improving varies widely.

Parents with less education, minority parents, and parents of children with special needs are more likely to report challenges navigating choice.

Some parents are forced to make difficult trade-offs between academics, safety, and location.

Some cities have done much more to support parent choice. Denver, New Orleans, and Washington, DC, have made the most progress on transportation, fair enrollment, and information systems. However, all cities have work to do to ensure choice works for all families.

The authors recommend that civic leaders:

Expand the supply of high-quality schools.

Recognize that different families have different needs.

Guarantee free and safe passage to schools.

Invest much more heavily in information systems
This report is the second in CRPE’s Making School Choice Work series.

Douglas Belkin:

The Obama administration spelled out an ambitious college-rating plan on Friday that introduces new metrics to judge the nation’s roughly 5,000 colleges and universities at a time when student debt is hamstringing the U.S. economy and the efficiency of the higher-education sector is in question.

Under the draft framework, schools may be judged on graduation and retention rates; the ability of their graduates to pay back their student loans; and the schools’ accessibility to low-income and first-generation students.

The Department of Education will seek comments to weigh the pros and cons of each metric before finalizing the system before the start of the next academic year.

“The public should know how students fare at institutions receiving federal student aid, and this performance should be considered when we assess our investments and set priorities,” said Department of Education Under Secretary Ted Mitchell. “We also need to create incentives for schools to accelerate progress toward the most important goals, like graduating low-income students and holding down costs.”

W. Lee Hansen:

In July, I wrote about the pressure that University of Wisconsin officials have been exerting on the faculty for greater “equity” on campus.

My “Madness in Madison” essay pointed out that university administrators are so caught up in egalitarian groupthink that they want to reduce or eliminate differences in students’ choice of majors and in the distribution of grades.

That essay elicited a defensive reaction from the university. Chief Diversity Officer Patrick Sims stated in a July 22, 2014 press release that UW’s diversity plan does not entail “a quota system for apportioning grades by race.”

Bringing up quotas, however, is a distraction from the plan’s impact—a red herring.

UW-Madison’s new diversity plan, “A Framework for Diversity and Inclusive Excellence,” calls for the elimination of the grade gap, but in a veiled way that never uses the word “quota.” Unfortunately, the result will hardly be any different than if it did.

Annamarie Andriotis:

Here’s another source of stress for families with children racing to finish college applications: The moves you make between now and year-end could mean the difference between collecting or losing thousands of dollars in financial aid.

Timing is crucial because the amount of need-based aid a student qualifies for depends largely on parental income in the calendar year before applying for assistance. If parents sell stocks this month to lock in a large gain, for example, their high school senior could receive less aid next fall.

Good fortune also can backfire if, for example, that same high school senior receives large cash gifts from other relatives at the holidays. The formula for federal financial aid requires students to contribute a much greater share of their income than parents do.

The Madison School District (PDF):

What Have We Learned?

Nationally and internationally, large body of research on Reading Recovery with mixed evidence

Locally, although some RR students in some schools have success during and after the program, results over time show no consistent positive effects at a systems level

What do these findings mean for interventions overall and for Reading Recovery?

Next Steps
In General for Interventions:

Review current interventions on a cycle that is commensurate with core curriculum review

Central office will provide guidance and support to schools as they select interventions based on student needs

Tighten up system of documentation for all interventions (Oasys)

Continue to identify effective research based interventions that may meet the needs of more students

Continue with our expanded and enhanced professional development model as it is a comprehensive training model that supports coherent instruction

Specific to Reading Recovery:

Based on capacity to implement with fidelity, history of student success, and alignment with School Improvement

Plan, principals have discretion to offer Reading Recovery within their multi-tiered system of supports

Fits with district belief of flexibility within clear parameters

Keeps schools at the center of decision-making because they know their students and staff best

Title 1 schools are no longer required to have Reading Recovery as an intervention

Title 1 schools will not lose any funding if they choose not to implement Reading Recovery

2014 Madison Schools’ Reading Recovery Evaluation (PDF).

Notes and links on Reading Recovery.

Madison’s long term disastrous reading results.

Tensile Tracy:

The Santa Clarita Valley school systems in California lost $250,000 in cafeteria sales last year when students rejected healthier fare designed to meet new federal nutrition standards. Now the districts are trying to win back diners by hiring a chef trained at Le Cordon Bleu, the prestigious culinary school.

To make the lower-fat, reduced-sodium fare more appealing, new hire Brittany Young is employing restaurant-style techniques. She moved popcorn chicken out of a steamy wax bag and into an open boat serving platter. She told kitchen staff to wipe down serving bowls so chow mein noodles don’t hang over the side. “Think about how [you’d] like to see the food,” Ms. Young told them.

Emre Peker:

Political divisions here are extending into the classroom as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inspired by the country’s Ottoman past, vows to reshape a secular education system.

Turkey’s National Education Council this month recommended the country’s most sweeping curriculum changes in decades, including Islamic religion classes for first-graders who are Muslim, Ottoman-language lessons for some students and a rewrite of textbooks on modern Turkey’s secularist founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

The Education Ministry—headed by a member of Mr. Erdogan’s party—has the power to now put those recommendations into effect.

Opposition lawmakers said the shift stems from a broader pivot away from the West to the Middle East, as Mr. Erdogan seeks to turn the country into a regional power.

Boundary 2:

eaching is, according to the subtitle of education journalist Dana Goldstein’s new book, “America’s Most Embattled Profession.” “No other profession,” she argues, ”operates under this level of political scrutiny, not even those, like policing or social work, that are also tasked with public welfare and are paid for with public funds.”

That political scrutiny is not new. Goldstein’s book The Teacher Wars chronicles the history of teaching at (what has become) the K–12 level, from the early nineteenth century and “common schools” — that is, before before compulsory education and public school as we know it today — through the latest Obama Administration education policies. It’s an incredibly well-researched book that moves from the feminization of the teaching profession to the recent push for more data-driven teacher evaluation, observing how all along the way, teachers have been deemed ineffectual in some way or another — failing to fulfill whatever (political) goals the public education system has demanded be met, be those goals be economic, civic, or academic.