- Half of academies are substandard
- Countless school graduates start work without 3Rs
- £5billion wasted on adult literacy classes
More than two million children are being taught in schools that are mediocre or failing, inspectors said yesterday.
A ‘stubborn core’ of incompetent teachers is holding pupils back and fuelling indiscipline and truancy, Ofsted warned.
Despite a raft of national initiatives, a third of schools still fail to offer a good education.
Category Archives: Budget/Financing
Schools Play to Virtual Orchestra
The Southbank Sinfonia in Bedale Primary School hold a workshop via video link with pupils 12 miles away in Richmond Primary School. The video was compiled from footage supplied by technology developer ANS Group.
Pupils in North Yorkshire have jammed with one of the UK’s leading orchestras, thanks to high-speed broadband lines.
The video-linked music workshop over 10Mbps (megabits per second) connections provided sessions with the Southbank Sinfonia.
The project was organised by NYnet, which has set up high-speed broadband in the area.
It demonstrates what could be achieved using video conferencing.
New York Mayor Bloomberg Finds Teacher Evaluation Education “loophole”
Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the city has found a loophole to a state law enabling it to use student test scores to evaluate teachers. The mayor says the city will start using student test scores to evaluate teachers coming up for tenure this year. Speaking at an education event in Washington, DC today, Bloomberg said his lawyers have determined that a state law barring such evaluations only applies to teachers hired after July 2008. That means teachers hired in 2007, now coming up for tenure, can be evaluated with test scores.
Bloomberg took part in a panel discussion on education reform with Education Secretary Arne Duncan, sponsored by the liberal think tank The Center for American Progress. He urged the state legislature to lift the cap on charter schools and to end rules requiring principals to lay off the least senior teachers in times of budget cuts. He said these steps would make the state more competitive for federal grants rewarding school reforms.
Field Study: Just How Relevant Is Political Science?
After Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, this month proposed prohibiting the National Science Foundation from “wasting any federal research funding on political science projects,” political scientists rallied in opposition, pointing out that one of this year’s Nobel winners had been a frequent recipient of the very program now under attack.
Yet even some of the most vehement critics of the Coburn proposal acknowledge that political scientists themselves vigorously debate the field’s direction, what sort of questions it pursues, even how useful the research is.
Much of the political science work financed by the National Science Foundation is both rigorous and valuable, said Jeffrey C. Isaac, a professor at Indiana University in Bloomington, where one new winner of the Nobel in economic science, the political scientist Elinor Ostrom, teaches. “But we’re kidding ourselves if we think this research typically has the obvious public benefit we claim for it,” he said. “We political scientists can and should do a better job of making the public relevance of our work clearer and of doing more relevant work.”
Seattle Curriculum Discussions
How can we be sure that the students are learning the curriculum? If students who are working below grade level do not get any intervention, then they will not be ready and able to succeed with the grade level curriculum. There will be no vertical alignment for them. They will continue to just get passed along and they won’t do any better. Where are the interventions needed to make curricular alignment successful? You will be told that the District is working on them, but they are NOT in place. Without them, Curricular Alignment is doomed. Note that we have always needed these interventions. Needing these interventions is nothing new, yet we have not been able to reliably provide them. What has changed that assures us that we will be able to reliably do what we have never been able to do before? There will be references to the MAP testing to identify the under-performing students. Okay, good. But how can we be assured that the identified students will get the necessary services?
There are some interesting accountability comments to this post.
Grading the teachers
News that a Rhode Island teachers union has won a $200,000 union-funded grant to develop teacher evaluations can’t help but stir fears that the fox wants to guard the henhouse. Public-employee unions, after all, are in the business of promoting their own economic interests, which do not always coincide with the interests of students.
Yet it appears to be welcome news that the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals, under Marcia Reback, will be working to help develop some standards for weeding out sub-par teachers early on in their careers.
“The union is tired of being portrayed as a protector of bad teachers,” Ms. Reback said.
In a sense, the unions do have an economic interest in promoting higher standards in their profession, since that tends to build public support for giving teachers greater financial rewards. And early in their career is an excellent time to evaluate fairly whether teachers can truly cut the mustard. Under Ms. Reback’s proposal, unions would work closely with administrators to develop a proposed system of evaluations.
Fiscal Health of Colorado School Districts
Colorado State Auditor [270K PDF]:
This report provides information on the Fiscal Health Analysis of the State’s school districts performed by the Local Government Audit Division of the Office of the State Auditor (OSA). The Fiscal Health Analysis provides a set of financial indicators for each school district that may be used by the Colorado Department of Education (CDE), school districts, local government officials, and citizens to evaluate the financial health of Colorado’s school districts. These financial indicators can warn of financial stress that may require examination and remedial action by the appropriate parties.
In Colorado, 178 school districts provide public education to more than 800,000 children enrolled in kindergarten through twelfth grade (K-12). Funding for each school district’s total program is provided first by local sources of revenue, primarily through a property tax levy to finance the district’s local share. The General Assembly provides additional funding to supplement local revenue in order to fully fund the district’s program. This additional funding is based on a formula that considers, in part, the school district’s annual pupil count, as well as the district’s local share of revenues. In Fiscal Year 2008, the General Assembly provided more than $3 billion to school districts as the state share of districts’ total program funding.
Race to the Top in Education We can get real reform if the president resists pressure to dilute standards
Harold Ford, Jr., Louis V. Gerstner & Eli Broad:
For decades, policy makers have talked about significantly improving public education. The problem has been clear: one-third of public school children fail to graduate, there are embarrassing achievement gaps between middle-class children and poor and minority children, and the gap between our students and those in other countries threatens to undermine our economic competitiveness. Yet for the better part of a quarter century, urgent calls for change have seldom translated into improved public schools.
Now, however, President Barack Obama has launched “Race to the Top,” a competition that is parceling out $4.35 billion in new education funding to states that are committed to real reform. This program offers us an opportunity to finally move the ball forward.
To that end Mr. Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are pushing states toward meaningful change. Mr. Duncan has even stumped for reform alongside former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Yet the administration must continue to hang tough on two critical issues: performance standards and competition.
Already the administration is being pressured to dilute the program’s requirement that states adopt performance pay for teachers and to weaken its support for charter schools. If the president does not remain firm on standards, the whole endeavor will be just another example of great rhetoric and poor reform.
Kay Bailey Hutchison unveils plan for Texas public education
Speaking at Collin College in Plano, Hutchison said that her plan includes better use of technology in the classroom, recruiting and retaining quality teachers, curbing the state’s dropout rate and helping local school districts become more efficient.
“We need more innovation, more efficiency and more accountability,” Hutchison said.
Hutchison, who is battling Rick Perry the Republican nomination for governor in the March primary, tied improvements in Texas schools to the state’s economic fate.
“Our labor force in Texas stands to suffer the most by this stagnation,” she said. “If we decline to treat education investment as economic investment, then our foundation for job creation will erode within.”
Judge dismisses lawsuit against Madison School District over student transfer policy
A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a class-action lawsuit against the Madison School District over a student transfer policy the district has since re-written.
U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb wrote in a 36-page decision that the district was following state law – a law that was later determined to be unconstitutional – when it implemented its policy for assuring that open enrollment transfers did not create racial imbalances at schools.
Crabb wrote that a municipality like the school district cannot be held liable under federal law for trying to implement a state mandate when it has no other policy choices. State or federal law is responsible for any wrongdoing, she wrote.
Madison attorney Michael Fox, who is representing the class, which he estimated to be 200 to 300 people, said the decision will be appealed to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The law in this area is unsettled, he said, and federal judicial circuits around the U.S. disagree on it.
In this case, a white East High School student, identified in court documents as “N.N.,” applied for transfer to either Waunakee or Monona Grove in 2007. The district denied her application because it said her departure from East would have caused the school’s minority student percentage to increase.
How Connecticut Can Fix its Dysfunctional Education spending system to Reward success, Incentivize Choice and Boost Student Achievement
ConnCAN and education research firm Public Impact today (Nov. 23, 2009) released a groundbreaking report [1MB PDF] tracing the flow of funds through Connecticut’s public schools and offering a more rational system that will close that state’s yawning achievement gap.
Please visit ConnCAN’s website www.conncan.org to download the report The Tab.
I was very fortunate to be provided an advance copy which I read over the weekend. It is truly groundbreaking in every sense of the word. I can not encourage you enough to please take the time to read this extremely well done, thorough report.
Doug
p.s. For your convenience, I’ve attached the PDF file of The Tab, but please also visit ConnCAN’s web site!
Alex Johnston:
ConnCAN runs on big ideas. We launched our organization almost five years ago with a mission to do nothing less than offer every Connecticut child access to a great public school.
Living in the state with the nation’s largest achievement gap is too unsettling to tolerate plodding, incremental change. When more than 90 percent of fifth graders in wealthy Ridgefield can read at or above grade level but only 31 percent of Bridgeport kids can, there’s no time to dally. We demand breakthrough success.
ConnCAN has grown into a force: an education advocacy group powered by thousands of advocates who share our impatience. We proved the power of our movement through our hugely successful 2009 ‘Mind the Gaps’ legislative campaign. The campaign made real gains in data transparency, teacher effectiveness and funding for Connecticut’s excellent public charter schools.
But the campaign also illustrated the unsustainable way we pay for our public schools. Consider this tale: In 2008, Hartford asked Achieve- ment First to bring one of its excellent charter schools to the city. The Achievement First Hartford Academy opened its doors to kindergarten, first and fifth grade students, with plans to add one grade each year as these students advanced until the school was completed. Because charter schools are funded on their own line item in the state budget, the school will need more money each year to support this natural grade growth. This jewel of a school became a growing line item in the midst of the Great Recession and an easy target.
School Reform Webinar 11/24 @ 5:00p.m. EST
Whitney Tilson, via email:
A final reminder for my school reform webinar, which will be from 5:00-6:30pm tomorrow (Tuesday). To join, go to: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/join/345183977 and enter meeting ID: 345-183-977. If you wish to use your phone for the audio, the call-in number is 215-383-1003 and the access code is 345-183-977.
In Arizona, charter school movement flourishes
Here, where suburb meets desert, students are clambering amid the cacti to dig soil samples and take notes on flora and fauna. In an old movie complex in nearby Chandler, others are dissecting a Renaissance tract on human nature. On a South Phoenix campus with a National Football League connection, still others are learning how to pass a basket of bread and help a lady into her chair.
These are just three charter schools among a multitude in the most wide-open public education market in America.
Arizona’s flourishing charter school movement underscores the popular appeal of unfettered school choice and the creativity of some educational entrepreneurs. But the state also offers a cautionary lesson as President Obama pushes to dismantle barriers to charter schools elsewhere: It is difficult to promote quantity and quality at the same time.
Under a 1994 law that strongly favors charter schools, 500 of them operate in this state, teaching more than 100,000 students. Those totals account for a quarter of Arizona’s public schools and a tenth of its public school enrollment, giving charters here a larger market share than in any other state.
It’s time to evaluate the evaluation
Dan Goldfarb, a 51-year-old history teacher at Benjamin Banneker Academic High School, says his first encounter with an evaluator under the District’s new IMPACT system for assessing teachers did not go well. Goldfarb does not claim to be an objective observer. He doesn’t like the new system or how Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee is implementing it.
He was willing to reveal what the evaluator said to him, give me a copy of his evaluation and expose himself to what I expect will be an unhappy reaction from his principal and other D.C. school officials. So here goes. Goldfarb hit some bumps that deserve attention.
The assessment by his evaluator (the official title is “master educator”) occurred Sept. 25. The fact that Goldfarb has an AP class at the city’s only academic magnet school suggests that his supervisors determined long ago that he is a good teacher. He is also, by his own description, not afraid to speak up. But he said he respects his principal, Anita Berger, who has had a long and successful career at the school, and will go along with the changes demanded by IMPACT because she has asked him to do so.
“Fast Track” Teacher Certification in Waukesha
Omar Masis doesn’t want to get a teaching license just for himself. He also wants to do it for the preschoolers he sees every day at Blair Elementary School in Waukesha.
For two years now, he has been leading a class full of youngsters through lessons that focus on building their vocabularies and improving motor skills. But, with a background in agricultural engineering instead of education, he has been doing so on an emergency teaching permit sustained by six credits of education classes a year.
Now he’s ready to make the leap to become a credentialed teacher.
“There’s something in me that tells me I need a formal education so I can help these kids and improve my teaching style,” said Masis, a native of Nicaragua who also has worked as a teacher’s aide in Waukesha. “I can do better.”
Before, Masis might have had to go elsewhere to fulfill his new dream.
But a recent decision by the Milwaukee Teacher Education Center, one of the largest certification programs in the state for college graduates who want to become teachers, means he can stay in Waukesha.
After more than a dozen years of working to place teachers in hard-to-fill classrooms in Milwaukee Public Schools, MTEC has opened its program to work with other public school districts.
How Teachers Learn to be Radicals
Imagine you are a parent with a child in fifth grade in an inner-city public school. One day your child comes home and reports that the teacher taught a lesson in class about the evils of U.S. military intervention in Latin America.
You also learn that after school the teacher took the children to a rally protesting U.S. military aid to the Contras, who were then opposing the Marxist Sandinista government in Nicaragua.
The children made placards with slogans such as:
“Let them run their land!” “Help Central America, dont kill them.” “Give the Nicaraguans their freedom.”
Your child reports that the teacher encouraged the students to write about their day of protest in the class magazine and had high praise for the child who wrote the following description of the rally:
“On a rainy Tuesday in April some of the students from our class went to protest against the contras. The people in Central America are poor and bombed on their heads.”
A fantasy? An invention of some conspiracy-minded right-wing organization? Not at all. It happened exactly as described at a bilingual Milwaukee public school called La Escuela Fratney. The teacher who took the fifth-graders to the protest rally and indoctrinated them in international leftist politics is Robert Peterson.
Advocating Virtual Schools
Virtual schools, viewed skeptically by the educational establishment, have a champion in this veteran teacher.
Kathy Hennings starts her day like any other Wisconsin public school teacher: She’s up, coiffed, appropriately dressed and ready to go.
And then she starts her commute: down the hall in her Cedarburg home from the kitchen to her office. She sits down in front of a bank of two linked computers, and starts going through the 20-plus emails she receives each day from the parents of her students.
Then she and her students settle down for another day of learning–21st-century style–in the Wisconsin Virtual Academy, one of 14 Internet-based online charter schools in Wisconsin.
Hennings has 75 students: 30 first-graders and 45 second-graders. They live in rural areas, villages, towns and big cities all across Wisconsin, from Superior to Stevens Point, from Hudson to Milwaukee.
Milwaukee Public Schools aim to even out special ed distribution
As principal of Custer High School, Kathy Bonds often faces criticism for having one of the most notoriously rough schools in the city.
Many of her students live in poverty, return at night to homeless shelters, commit severe crimes or deal with a staggering number of mental, emotional and physical disabilities.
Look at the numbers, Bonds says: 30.8% of her students are classified as special education, a main reason that performance at her school continues to suffer.
The Milwaukee School Board appeared to agree with the spirit of that assessment last week when it voted to even out the distribution of special education students within the city’s high schools.
As part of the approved recommendation, the board directed the administration to immediately begin making sure all schools are equipped to serve a wide range of student needs. Members also directed the administration to establish a target range of special education students, and to help schools with very high or low special education populations come closer to that target range.
At U (of Minnesota), future teachers may be reeducated They must denounce exclusionary biases and embrace the vision. (Or else.)
Do you believe in the American dream — the idea that in this country, hardworking people of every race, color and creed can get ahead on their own merits? If so, that belief may soon bar you from getting a license to teach in Minnesota public schools — at least if you plan to get your teaching degree at the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus.
In a report compiled last summer, the Race, Culture, Class and Gender Task Group at the U’s College of Education and Human Development recommended that aspiring teachers there must repudiate the notion of “the American Dream” in order to obtain the recommendation for licensure required by the Minnesota Board of Teaching. Instead, teacher candidates must embrace — and be prepared to teach our state’s kids — the task force’s own vision of America as an oppressive hellhole: racist, sexist and homophobic.
The task group is part of the Teacher Education Redesign Initiative, a multiyear project to change the way future teachers are trained at the U’s flagship campus. The initiative is premised, in part, on the conviction that Minnesota teachers’ lack of “cultural competence” contributes to the poor academic performance of the state’s minority students. Last spring, it charged the task group with coming up with recommendations to change this. In January, planners will review the recommendations and decide how to proceed.
The cost of a good education: Are teachers overpaid or worth every penny?
When times get tough, teachers’ salaries are the last thing school districts should cut, local educators say.
“If you’re going to recruit and maintain the best, then you have to provide that environment. That includes compensation to some degree that supports that,” Belleville District 118 Superintendent Matt Klosterman said. “We’re going to hire the best of the best and create an environment that supports them while they’re here.”
Educators argue that quality instruction comes at a cost, but that cost is an investment in the community’s future since teachers are responsible for preparing our young people for the future. They said school districts look at several factors to determine that cost when hiring teachers, all the while trying to remain competitive with neighboring districts’ offers.
But critics say that school administrators sometimes throw more money at teachers than necessary.
For example, figures obtained by the News-Democrat for nine local school districts that signed new teachers contracts this summer show:
* A Belleville District 118 social studies teacher makes almost $80,000 a year.
* An O’Fallon District 203 family and consumer sciences teacher makes more than $100,000.
* A Granite City gym teacher makes $86,000.
* An East St. Louis first-grade teacher makes nearly $76,000 this school year.
Gateses Give $290 Million for Teacher Evaluation, Effectivness and Tenure
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on Thursday announced its biggest education donation in a decade, $290 million, in support of three school districts and five charter groups working to transform how teachers are evaluated and how they get tenure.
A separate $45 million research initiative will study 3,700 classroom teachers in six cities, including New York, seeking to answer the question that has puzzled investigators for decades: What, exactly, makes a good teacher effective?
The twin projects represent a rethinking of the foundation’s education strategy, previously focused largely on smaller grants intended to remake troubled American high schools. With these new, larger grants, the foundation is seeking to transform teacher management policies in four cities in hopes that the innovations can spread.
The foundation committed $100 million to the Hillsborough County, Fla., schools; $90 million to the Memphis schools; $40 million to the Pittsburgh public schools. Some $60 million will go to five charter management organizations based in Los Angeles: Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools, Aspire Public Schools, Green Dot Public Schools, Inner City Education Foundation and Partnerships to Uplift Communities Schools.
Now that the Gates foundation is “rethinking” its previous “small learning community” grants, will local thinking change on the same?
In my view, we as a community should do everything we can to hire (and pay) the best teachers. That does, as the Gates Foundation recognizes via this grant, require changes to the current UAW teacher union model…..
Washington School Superintendent Calls for Delay on Math and Science Requirements
Yesterday, at the Washington State School Directors’ Association (WSSDA) conference at the Westin in downtown Seattle, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn announced his new plans for math and science graduation requirements to an audience of over 1,000 statewide school board members.
Dorn, elected as a reformer last year, said it was necessary to postpone stricter graduation requirements for math until the class of 2015, and all graduation requirements for science until the class of 2017, to give students and teachers appropriate time to adjust to pending reforms.
For math graduation requirements until 2015, Dorn is okay with giving students a fall back option of earning two credits of math after tenth grade in order to graduate (a choice that is set to disappear in 2013) in place of passing a set of exams. Reformers want the scheduled changes–getting rid of the additional course work graduation option–to kick in for the class of 2013. They want students to have to pass either a state exam or two end-of-course exams to graduate starting in 2013–without Dorn’s fallback.
For 2015 and onward, Dorn offered a two-tier proposal: Students either meet the proficiency level in two end-of-course exams or students meet the basic level in the exams and earn four math credits. Students who don’t meet the basic level in the exams have the option of retesting with a comprehensive exam or using state-approved alternatives such as the SAT.
As far as the science graduation requirement, Dorn proposed postponing any requirements until the class of 2017, and replacing the current comprehensive assessment with end-of-course assessments in physical and life sciences. The 2010 legislature (starting this January) is supposed to define the science requirements.
Now is the Time to Overhaul the Milwaukee Public Schools – Brown Professor Kenneth Wong
nter professor Kenneth K. Wong of Brown University in Providence, R.I., lead author of the 2007 book “The Education Mayor: Improving America’s Schools.” It was the fullest examination to date of the range of ways mayors have become involved in school governance in dozens of cities across the United States.
The book was generally favorable to well-executed mayoral involvement, broadly saying mayoral control creates a political environment for stronger decision making about improving schools. But the conclusions on academic impact were more tepid – Wong and his associates said there were improvements in reading and in math in many cases, but that, overall, getting the mayor involved didn’t help and sometimes harmed efforts to close the achievement gaps between have and have-not students.
Both supporters and critics of mayoral control have cited things in the book as supporting their side.
Wong spent three days in Madison and Milwaukee, guest of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research and the Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs, both based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Wong was more assertive about the merits of mayoral control than he was in the book. “Mayoral control has a statistically significant positive effect on student achievement in reading and math at both elementary and high school grades,” he said.
Mayoral control, he said, eliminates the “nobody’s in charge culture” that leads to many school systems just keeping on doing things the way they’ve been done, even though they aren’t succeeding overall. With a clear point of power, there is clear accountability and motivation to make needed changes, he said.
D.C. Schools Chief Michelle Rhee Targets Teacher Tenure
Neil King, Jr. & John Hechinger:
The Obama administration says it wants to remake public education around the principle that the best teachers should be promoted and rewarded, regardless of seniority.
And a brawl over just that idea is now playing out in the shadow of the White House.
The chancellor of Washington’s school system, Michelle Rhee, is wrestling with one of the most expensive, worst performing school systems in the country. The dropout rate has hit 40%, and the cost per student is $14,000 a year. Buildings are crumbling and thousands of parents have abandoned the system, which serves about 45,000 students.
Ms. Rhee is trying to reduce what she believes to be a bloated school management and wrest more control over the district’s affairs from the powerful local teachers’ union. She has replaced principals, laid off teachers and closed underperforming schools.
She has also challenged what she feels is one of the biggest impediments to improvement: tenure, or strong job protections for teachers. The idea is to promise teachers much richer salaries, as well as performance bonuses, if they give up tenure. Good performers would be rewarded, poor performers gotten rid of.
Cal & Budget Cuts
As the University of California struggles to absorb its sharpest drop in state financing since the Great Depression, every professor, administrator and clerical worker has been put on furlough amounting to an average pay cut of 8 percent.
In chemistry laboratories that have produced Nobel Prize-winning research, wastebaskets are stuffed to the brim on the new reduced cleaning schedule. Many students are frozen out of required classes as course sections are trimmed.
And on Thursday, to top it all off, the Board of Regents voted to increase undergraduate fees — the equivalent of tuition — by 32 percent next fall, to more than $10,000. The university will cost about three times as much as it did a decade ago, and what was once an educational bargain will be one of the nation’s higher-priced public universities.
Among students and faculty alike, there is a pervasive sense that the increases and the deep budget cuts are pushing the university into decline.
The budget cuts in California, topping $30 billion over the last two years, have touched all aspects of state government, including health care, welfare, corrections and recreation. They have led to a retrenchment in state services not seen in modern times, and for many institutions, including the state university system, have created a watershed moment.
University of Calif. approves big fee hikes
The governing board of the University of California approved a $2,500 student fee increase Thursday after two days of tense campus protests across the state.
The vote by the Board of Regents in a windowless University of California, Los Angeles, meeting room took place as the drone of protesters could be heard from a plaza outside. Scores of police in riot gear guarded the building.
The 32 percent increase will push the cost of an undergraduate education at California’s premier public schools to over $10,000 a year by next fall, about triple the cost of a decade ago. The fees, the equivalent of tuition, do not include the cost of housing, board and books.
“Our hand has been forced,” UC President Mark Yudof told reporters after the vote. “When you don’t have any money, you don’t have any money.”
Idaho urged to beef up public education
More Idaho high school students should go to college.
They need more rigorous math and science instruction.
And the state needs to find more highly qualified teachers — those who have degrees in the subjects they are teaching.
Those are among several recommendations expected to be unveiled Wednesday by a group of Idaho business leaders, parents and educators as a way for Idaho to provide a high-quality, cost-effective education.
The group, called the Education Alliance of Idaho, was formed after Gov. Butch Otter challenged business leaders in 2007 to look for ways to improve education in Idaho. Otter will introduce the alliance and the report at a news conference Wednesday morning.
The four broad goals and 17 recommendations are aimed at improving Idaho’s educational quality as compared to the rest of the country, said Guy Hurlbutt, Alliance chairman.
A proposal that high school students graduate with up to 30 college credits goes back to plans offered by state schools Superintendent Tom Luna since he took office in 2007 to increase availability of college credits in high schools as a way to help kids get a leg up on higher education and save some money.
Demanding more rigor in high school math and science dates back to high school reform pushed by the State Board of Education earlier this decade. Then, the board succeeded in adding an additional year of math and science to high school graduation credits, beginning with the class of 2013.
Nor is the alliance’s work the first shot at reform in Idaho public schools.
Golden Handcuffs: Teachers who change jobs or move pay a high price
Robert Costrell & Michael Podgursky:
Teacher pensions consume a substantial portion of school budgets. If relatively generous pensions help attract effective teachers, the expense might be justified. But new evidence suggests that current pension systems, by concentrating benefits on teachers who spend their entire careers in a single state and penalizing mobile teachers, may exacerbate the challenge of attracting to teaching young workers, who change jobs and move more often than did previous generations.
The design of teacher pension plans is a timely concern: like other public pension plans, those for teachers are becoming more costly. Employer contributions to pension funds tack on a larger percentage of earnings for public school teachers than for private-sector managers and professionals, and this gap is widening (see “Teacher Retirement Benefits,” research, Spring 2009, Figure 1). Those data do not yet reflect the impact of the stock market decline since 2007: the drop in the value of pension funds means further increases in employer contributions will be required to fund promised benefits. As fiscal concerns force states to reevaluate the costs of teacher pension plans, officials might also consider the plans’ consequences for teacher quality.
Alternative test may inflate score gains
Lynbrook Elementary School, which serves one of the poorest communities in Fairfax County, seems to be a model for reform. Three years ago, the Springfield school failed to meet state testing goals in English. Since then, it has charted double-digit gains in passing rates for every one of its closely monitored racial and ethnic groups of students.
But the success at Lynbrook and other schools throughout the state is not only due to better teaching. More and more, students who have struggled to pass Virginia’s Standards of Learning exams are taking different tests.
The trend dates to 2007, when federal officials approved an alternative assessment after the Fairfax School Board threatened to defy a mandate to give multiple-choice reading tests to students who were destined to fail — students who, like many at Lynbrook, were just beginning to learn English.
Madison School District Talented & Gifted Plan Presentation Audio / Video
Madison School District Talented & Gifted Plan Presentation 11/17/2009 from SIS.
Click to listen or CTRL-Click to download this 32mb mp3 audio file. Much more on the Madison School District’s new talented & gifted plan.
Thanks to Jeff Henriques and Laurie Frost for recording this event.
DFER Reforming Education Speaker Series: Lessons for Milwaukee – Jon Schnur
via a Katy Venskus email:
Through out the fall of 2009 Democrats for Education Reform will bring to Milwaukee national education leaders with a proven record of reform in urban districts. Our speakers will offer new perspectives and experience with what works and what does not in a challenging urban district.
We are pleased to invite you to the second installment in this series featuring one of the most powerful national voices on education reform:
JON SCHNUR
CEO and Co-Founder: New Leaders for New Schools
As CEO and Co-founder of New Leaders for New Schools, Jon works with the NLNS team and community to accomplish their mission- driving high levels of learning and achievement for every child by attracting, preparing, and supporting the next generation of outstanding principals for our nation’s urban schools. From September 2008 to June 2009, Jon served as an advisor to Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign, a member of the Presidential Transition Team, and a Senior Advisor to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Jon also served as Special Assistant to Secretary of Education Richard Riley, President Clinton’s White House Associate Director for Educational Policy, and Senior Advisor on Education to Vice President Gore. He developed national educational policies on teacher and principal quality, after-school programs, district reform, charter schools, and preschools.
When: Tuesday December 1, 2009
Where: United Community Center
1028 South 9th Street
Milwaukee, WI [Map]
Time: 5:30pm-7:00pm (Hors d’oeuvres and cash bar)
RSVP to:
Katy Venskus 414.801.2036
DFERWisconsin@gmail.com
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: America’s fiscal deficit
STUDENTS at National Defence University in Washington, DC, were recently given a model of the economy and told to fix the budget. To get the federal debt down, they jacked up taxes and slashed spending. The economy promptly tanked, sending the debt to higher levels than before. The lesson: “You’ll never get re-elected and you may do more harm than good,” concluded Eric Bee, an air-force colonel who took part in the exercise.
This is the ugly arithmetic of America’s public finances. Recession and aggressive fiscal stimulus have hugely swollen the federal deficit. Stimulus was essential to cushion a collapse in private demand. In spite of that, the economy has barely emerged from recession and unemployment is still rising, feeding speculation that more stimulus is needed. Yet at the same time voters are growing alarmed at the tide of red ink, and it may be only a matter of time before markets do, too.
On current policies the federal deficit, which hit a post-war high of 10% of GDP in the fiscal year that has just ended, will fall to 4.2% by 2014 and will then head steadily higher. Aides to Barack Obama know this is unacceptable. With a new budget due in February, government departments are said to be preparing to tighten their belts. Meanwhile an advisory committee, chaired by Paul Volcker, who used to head the Federal Reserve, will report to the president in early December on options for tweaking the tax system, though not how to raise much more revenue from it.
It is clearly unlikely that the K-12 world will see significant amounts of new funds, beyond the 5%+ annual growth experienced over the past twenty years, if that.
The Phony Funding Crisis: Even in the worst of times, schools have money to spend
Chicken Little is alive and seemingly employed as a finance analyst or reporter for an education interest group. If one relies on newspaper headlines for education funding information, one might conclude that America’s schools suffer from a perpetual fiscal crisis, every year perched precariously on the brink of financial ruin, never knowing whether there will be sufficient funding to continue operating. Budgetary shortfalls, school district bankruptcies, teacher and administrator layoffs, hiring and salary freezes, pension system defaults, shorter school years, ever-larger classes, faculty furloughs, fewer course electives, reduced field trips, foregone or curtailed athletics, outdated textbooks, teachers having to make do with fewer supplies, cuts in school maintenance, and other tales of fiscal woe inevitably captivate the news media, particularly during the late-spring and summer budget and appropriations seasons.
Yet somehow, as the budget-planning cycle concludes and schools open their doors in the late summer and fall, virtually all classrooms have instructors, teachers receive their paychecks and use their health plans, athletic teams play, and textbooks are distributed. Regrettably, this story is seldom accorded the same media attention as are the prospects of budget reductions and teacher layoffs.
Wisconsin School District Tax Levies to rise an average of 7.16%
Wisconsin school districts’ property tax levies will rise an average of 7.16% statewide for the current school year, according to new information from the state Department of Public Instruction.
Although a drop in state aid to public schools helped drive up property taxes in some areas, increased statewide restrictions on allowable per-pupil revenue as well as local decisions to keep the lid on potential tax increases kept the average levy from going higher.
In fact, this school year’s average increase is less than the average rise for school districts in 2007-’08. In the Milwaukee area, the average increase was about 5%.
Levy increases varied widely from one district to another for 2009-’10, with the Seneca School District posting the highest – a 41% increase in its portion of property taxes.
The Seneca levy spike was due to a new voter-approved operational tax increase and a 15% drop in state aid, said David Boland, superintendent of the small southwestern Wisconsin school system.
The original proposal for almost a 50% tax increase was voted down in the district’s annual meeting, as was a much smaller increase, he said.
Boland said the district’s expenses were pretty much set by the time the state finalized its budget and he learned the district would be receiving dramatically less in state aid.
“When it was done that late, there was no way to prepare,” he said. “We’re the same as a lot of other districts.”
K-12 Governance: Rhee on “Wasted Spending in the Washington, DC School District”
Wall Street Journal CEO Council:
Does the Gates Foundation Need a $500 Million Complex?
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has done ground-breaking work on such global problems as infectious disease and education. It has clearly made the world a better place as a result.
But the foundation’s latest ground-breaking-on a new headquarters building-is bound to raise some eyebrows.
According a blog post by Kristi Heim of the Seattle Times, the Gates Foundation is in the middle of building a 900,000-square-foot headquarters, comprised initially of two six-story, boomerang-shaped buildings on 12 acres near the Seattle Center.
The estimated cost: $500 million.
That is more than three times what nearby Russell Investments paid for its 42-story headquarters tower to house its staff of 900 and manage more than $200 billion in assets.
Neighboring Amazon.com, with more than $19 billion in revenue and more than 20,000 employees, recently paid $700 million to lease about 800,000 square feet, wit
Ex-Gates director looks to open a charter school in New York
Former Gates Foundation education director Tom Vander Ark is behind one charter school’s application to open in New York City next year.
For years, Vander Ark shaped the educational giving for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, overseeing grants the organization gave to cities that agreed to build small high schools. Now a partner at an education public affairs firm in California, Vander Ark has supported such causes as lifting New York State’s charter cap and bringing more and better technology into classrooms.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Education confirmed that Vander Ark is behind the application for Bedford Preparatory Charter School, a small high school school that, if approved, would open in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn next school year.
An overview of Bedford Prep describes the school as being modeled on NYC iSchool, a small, selective high school that opened in Tribeca last fall as the first school in the city’s NYC21C initiative. Since then, the Department of Education has opened eight more schools based on the iSchool model.
SEIU Threatens to Organize Charter School Teachers?
Can’t find confirmation anywhere other than in this story about the infighting between SEIU and the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW). Reporter Randy Shaw says SEIU is upset with United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) for supporting NUHW. UTLA reportedly sponsored a fundraiser for NUHW in San Francisco, which was protested by SEIU activists.
According to Shaw, SEIU made a statement to UTLA that “it would seek to organize charter school teachers in retaliation for UTLA’s pro-NUHW stance.” If true, it’s an empty threat. What makes SEIU think it would be any more successful organizing charter school teachers than UTLA has been? And how much damage would it really do if it were successful?
Most oppose mayoral takeover of Milwaukee Public Schools, poll says
A majority of city and suburban residents oppose giving Milwaukee’s mayor control over the Milwaukee Public Schools, according to a survey released Tuesday.
The People Speak Poll also found support for a high-speed rail system and a regional parks district; opposition to a regional transit authority and gasoline tax increases; and deep divisions on other transportation and government finance issues.
Among the four counties surveyed, Milwaukee County residents were the only ones who thought their county government was on the wrong track. Milwaukee city residents were about evenly split on the question of whether the city was on the right or wrong track, while suburbanites voiced a more negative view of the city’s direction.
Mayor Tom Barrett and Gov. Jim Doyle have been pressing the Legislature to approve a bill that would give the mayor the power to hire and fire the MPS superintendent, along with ultimate authority over the school district’s budget and labor negotiations. They say the step is needed to improve student performance, following the lead of several other major U.S. cities.
But opponents object to taking power away from the elected School Board. A competing proposal would give the mayor the power to veto the School Board’s superintendent choice and budget decisions, but would let the board override those vetoes.
Parents question focus and speed of Madison’s gifted students program
The parents of exceptionally bright students in Madison schools waited 18 years for a plan to raise the academic bar for their children. But now, they’re really getting impatient.
Approved by the Madison school board in August, the district’s new three-year plan for talented and gifted (“TAG”) students already is raising questions from parents about focus and speed. The district’s TAG staff, they note, consists of only 8.5 positions in a district of 24,622 students – and three of those positions are vacant.
“Change of a large system takes time,” said Chris Gomez Schmidt, the mother of three young children who serves on the district’s advisory committee for talented and gifted students. “But I think there’s a lot of families within the system who are frustrated when they see that their students’ needs are not being met. I think that families don’t feel like they have a lot of time to wait.”
The district’s talented and gifted plan, which replaces a 1991 document, will be spelled out for the public Tuesday night in a community forum from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at Hamilton Middle School, 4801 Waukesha St. The forum is meant to make the reforms understandable and “transparent” to the public, said Lisa Wachtel, executive director for teaching and learning for the district.
The Edsel of Education Reform: The Ford Foundation finds a needy cause: teachers unions.
Wall Street Journal Editorial:
We hate to say it, but don’t be misled by headlines. The biggest headline in education circles last week was that the Ford Foundation is making a whopping $100 million grant “to transform secondary education in the nation’s most disadvantaged schools.”
Our eyes raced to see which piece of the vibrant school-reform movement Ford was going to support. Would it be America’s 4,600 charters schools, many outperforming their traditional school peers and some even closing the race gap? Maybe it would be Teach for America, busting at the seams and turning down Ivy League applicants by the hundreds. Or, who knows, maybe Ford’s really on the leading edge, and would want to support voucher programs in cities like Washington.
Would you believe the recipients of Ford’s largesse are the teachers unions? Yup. The folks at Ford are giving new meaning to the word “retro.”
Ballyhooing the $100 million, the foundation’s president Luis Ubinas said, “Improving our schools, and giving the most vulnerable young people real educational opportunities, benefits all of us. With this initiative we want to shake up the conversations surrounding school reform and help spur some truly imaginative thinking and partnerships.”
The Preschool Picture – 4K?
The campaign for universal preschool education in the United States has gained great momentum. Precisely as strategists intended, many Americans have come to believe that pre-kindergarten is a good and necessary thing for government to provide, even that not providing it will cruelly deprive our youngest residents of their birthrights, blight their educational futures, and dim their life prospects. Yet a troubling contradiction bordering on dishonesty casts a shadow over today’s mighty push for universal pre-K education in America (see “Preschool Puzzle,” forum, Fall 2008).
The principal intellectual and moral argument that advocates make–and for which I have considerable sympathy–is similar to that of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) backers: giving needy kids a boost up the ladder of educational and later-life success by narrowing the achievement gaps that now trap too many of them on the lower rungs. Serious pursuit of that objective would entail intensive, educationally sophisticated programs, starting early in a child’s life, perhaps even before birth, and enlisting and assisting the child’s parents from day one.
Yet the programmatic and political strategy embraced by today’s pre-K advocates is altogether different. They seek to furnish relatively skimpy preschool services to all 4 million of our nation’s four-year-olds (and then, of course, all 4 million three-year-olds), preferably under the aegis of the public schools.
Boulder Valley open-enrollment process goes online
Open enrollment has become part of the educational path that many families in the Boulder Valley School District follow, and this year officials have made some changes to the application process to make it both easier and greener.
For the first time, parents can file a request for their child to attend a Boulder Valley school outside their neighborhood on the district’s Web site, eliminating the need for applicants to pick up a paper form and drive it to the Boulder Valley Education Center. The online application will mirror the hard-copy version, allowing parents to choose their top choices and explain their reasoning.
“It will be more convenient, faster and it will mean that a person will not need to drop it by the education center,” said district assessment director Jonathan Dings. “We think this will save paper and gas, in an effort to be as green as we can in this process.”
Parents still will have the option of filling out a paper application and dropping it off, if that works best for them, Dings said. But, he said, the district is “hopeful that we will have a great deal of participation” in the inaugural online program.
“We know that if the product works well, a whole lot more people will try it,” he said.
Open enrollment is a statewide option that allows families to send their kids to schools outside their neighborhoods. The option plays a substantial role in how Boulder Valley students are placed, Dings said.
Related: Wisconsin part-time and full-time open enrollment.
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Washington adapts to eastwards power shift
A few months ago Tim Geithner, the US Treasury secretary, assured a group of Chinese students in Beijing that their country’s US dollar investments were in good hands. “Chinese assets are very safe,” Mr Geithner said. His comments brought the house down.
White House officials will be hoping that Barack Obama can avoid a similar loss of face on Monday when he meets a group of students in Shanghai for the set piece “town hall” that has become the US president’s signature event.
The chances are that he will. But no amount of dexterity can disguise the fact that Mr Obama’s visit to China crystallises a big shift in the global centre of gravity over the past few years. Just a decade ago Bill Clinton persuaded Capitol Hill that China’s membership of the World Trade Organisation would strengthen the forces of democracy within China.
Today, almost nobody in Washington even tries to make that case. Subsequent developments in China – and elsewhere – make it hard to sustain the argument that economic liberalisation leads necessarily to political liberty. More importantly, the US no longer has the luxury of being able to play teacher to China’s student (not that China ever took instruction).
It’s difficult to see significant increases in K-12 spending over the next few years.
Hmong charter school has culture of learning
Give me some adjectives to describe your school, the visitor asked a couple of dozen eighth-graders at the Hmong American Peace Academy one morning last week.
Peaceful, one volunteered.
Dependable, another said.
Successful.
Educational.
Fair.
Respectful.
Hard.
Supportive.
Show me a school where kids volunteer a list like that, and I’ll show you a bright spot on Milwaukee’s educational landscape. Which is exactly the case with this school, popularly known as HAPA.
Entering its sixth year, HAPA has a kindergarten through eighth-grade enrollment of 435, nearly twice the number when the doors first opened in 2004. That’s not counting another 60 in a partner high school, International Peace Academy, that is in its second year and just beginning to grow.
On a wall near that eighth-grade classroom, charts list the attendance each day, classroom by classroom. Most of the entries read: “100%.” Overall attendance is not only higher than the Milwaukee Public Schools average, it is higher than the state average.
WISCONSIN CHARTER SCHOOL AWARDS HIGHLIGHT EXCELLENCE IN PUBLIC EDUCATION ACROSS THE STATE
Wisconsin Charter Schools Association (Video – What is a Charter School), via email [88K PDF]:
The Wisconsin Charter Schools Association (WCSA) has announced the winners of annual awards in four categories, as well as three career achievement honorees:
Charter School Person of the Year:
First Place: Dennis Conta
Second Place: Jan Bontz
Third Place: Lynne Sobczak & Kristi Cole (Milwaukee Public Schools)
Distinguished Merit: Robert Rauh (Milwaukee College Prep)
Distinguished Merit: Dr. Joe Sheehan and Ted Hamm (Sheboygan Area School District)
Charter School Teacher of the Year:
First Place: Victoria Rydberg (River Crossing Environmental Charter School, Portage)
Second Place: Erin Fuller (Carmen School of Science and Technology, Milwaukee)
Third Place: Kim Johnsen (WINGS Academy, Milwaukee)
Distinguished Merit: Darlene Machtan (Northwoods Community Secondary School, Rhinelander)
Distinguished Merit: Kirby Kohler (Rhinelander Environmental Stewardship Academy)
Charter School Innovator of the Year:
First Place: Department of Public Instruction (Project Based Learning Network)
Second Place: Danny Goldberg
Third Place: Seeds of Health Distinguished Merit: Valley New School (Appleton)
Overall Charter School of the Year: (overall winner, and 2 sub-categories within)
First Place (Platinum Award): Tenor High School (Milwaukee)
Selling Lessons Online Raises Cash and Questions
Between Craigslist and eBay, the Internet is well established as a marketplace where one person’s trash is transformed into another’s treasure. Now, thousands of teachers are cashing in on a commodity they used to give away, selling lesson plans online for exercises as simple as M&M sorting and as sophisticated as Shakespeare.
While some of this extra money is going to buy books and classroom supplies in a time of tight budgets, the new teacher-entrepreneurs are also spending it on dinners out, mortgage payments, credit card bills, vacation travel and even home renovation, leading some school officials to raise questions over who owns material developed for public school classrooms.
“To the extent that school district resources are used, then I think it’s fair to ask whether the district should share in the proceeds,” said Robert N. Lowry, deputy director of the New York State Council of School Superintendents.
The marketplace for educational tips and tricks is too new to have generated policies or guidelines in most places. In Fairfax County, Va., officials had been studying the issue when they discovered this fall that a former football coach was selling his playbook and instructional DVDs online for $197; they investigated but let him keep selling.
Should the Wisconsin school superintendent have more power?
n a nutshell
To seek a share of $4.5 billion in federal “Race to the Top” funding for public education, the Legislature passed a recent bill that among other things allows teachers to be evaluated, though not disciplined or fired, based on their students’ test scores.
However, to improve the state’s chances of receiving the most grant money possible, the Legislature is contemplating other changes to existing law. A bill in the Assembly to grant the state Superintendent of Public Instruction the power to take corrective action in failing schools and school districts is one such proposal.
The bill would give the state superintendent the power to implement new curriculum, expand school hours, add individual learning plans for pupils, make personnel changes and adopt accountability measures to monitor the school district’s finances.
No decision on Kansas school funding litigation
Leaders from about 60 school districts made no decision Friday about whether to sue the state over education funding.
Most of the discussion by members of the Schools for Fair Funding coalition was in a one-hour session that was closed to media and other spectators.
“They’re being very deliberate about this and taking it seriously,” said John Robb, lead attorney for the coalition.
“They want to get more folks on board.”
For decades critics of the public schools have been saying, “You can’t solve educational problems by throwing money at them.” The education establishment and its supporters have replied, “No one’s ever tried.” In Kansas City they did try. To improve the education of black students and encourage desegregation, a federal judge invited the Kansas City, Missouri, School District to come up with a cost-is-no-object educational plan and ordered local and state taxpayers to find the money to pay for it.
Kansas City spent as much as $11,700 per pupil–more money per pupil, on a cost of living adjusted basis, than any other of the 280 largest districts in the country. The money bought higher teachers’ salaries, 15 new schools, and such amenities as an Olympic-sized swimming pool with an underwater viewing room, television and animation studios, a robotics lab, a 25-acre wildlife sanctuary, a zoo, a model United Nations with simultaneous translation capability, and field trips to Mexico and Senegal. The student-teacher ratio was 12 or 13 to 1, the lowest of any major school district in the country.
The results were dismal. Test scores did not rise; the black-white gap did not diminish; and there was less, not greater, integration.
The Kansas City experiment suggests that, indeed, educational problems can’t be solved by throwing money at them, that the structural problems of our current educational system are far more important than a lack of material resources, and that the focus on desegregation diverted attention from the real problem, low achievement.
James Howard Announces Run for Madison School Board
Hello, my name is James Howard.
I am running for School Board because I care about the success of our children. I want our schools to be even better. I strongly believe that in order for our community to be successful we need to support “ALL THE KIDS ALL THE TIME.”
At the same, I understand the importance of maintaining fiscal responsibility to taxpayers. As an economist with over 35 years of experience I know it is critical to analyze and evaluate the economic impact of decisions.My Priorities
- High expectations for all students
- Raise educational standards
- Narrow the achievement gap
- Base school curriculum, wellness and safety decisions on research
- Ensure fiscal responsibility to taxpayers
- Improve communication between teachers, parents, district administrators and the community
Press Release:
–PRESS RELEASE–
Today James Howard officially announced his candidacy for the Madison Metropolitan School District Board of Education. Mr. Howard is a candidate for Seat 4 which is currently held by retiring Board member Johnny Winston, Jr.
“I’m announcing my candidacy with great excitement,” said Mr. Howard. “I care deeply about the success of our children. I strongly believe that in order for our community to have continued success we absolutely must support ‘ALL THE KIDS, ALL THE TIME.’ I want to work to ensure that happens.”
Mr. Howard, an economist and scientist at the Forest Products Laboratory, has been active in education and community matters for many years. He served on the MMSD Strategic Planning Committee, the East Attendance Area Demographics and Long Range Facility Needs Task Force, and was co-chair of Community and Schools Together (CAST), the school referendum support group. He has also served on the South Madison Economic Development Committee and the Town of Madison Economic Development Committee.
In making this announcement, Mr. Howard thanked Mr. Winston for his many years of dedicated public service to Madison’s children and community. “Mr. Johnny Winston, Jr. has been a leader on the board and in our Madison community. It will be a challenge for any newly elected board member to maintain the high standards that he exemplified,” said Mr. Howard.
Mr. Howard has identified as his Board priorities: ensuring high expectations for all students, raising educational standards; narrowing the achievement gap; basing school curriculum, wellness and safety decisions on research; ensuring fiscal responsibility to taxpayers; improving communication between teachers, parents, district administrators and the community; and improving state funding of public schools.
He and his wife, Kathryn, have three children. His adult daughter is a UW Madison senior studying abroad in Kenya, his son attends Sherman Middle School, and his youngest daughter attends Emerson elementary.
More information on Mr. Howard can be found at his campaign website: http://jameshowardforschoolboard.limewebs.com/index.html
For questions or comments, please contact:
James Howard
email address: jameshowardforschoolboard@gmail.com
telephone number: 244-5278
Seattle Race Based School Assignment Policy Legal & Community Issues
via a kind reader’s email:
The case was brought by Seattle parents who challenged the use of race in assigning students to schools, arguing it violated the Constitution’s right of equal protection. The ruling was celebrated by those who favor color-blind policies, but criticized by civil rights groups as a further erosion of Brown vs. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 case that outlawed school segregation.”
The results of this lawsuit in the Seattle Public School district are very discouraging, especially the disparity in income, race and available resources between “south end” and “north end” schools. A new school assignment plan currently being implemented for 2010-2011 will only relegate neighborhoods of color to the poorest schools in the district. The blog http://saveseattleschools.blogspot.com/, while mostly dealing with “north end” problems like APP programs and such, the fact that children will be forced into neighborhood schools is dividing an already divided district. Rainier Beach High School, for instance, demographic data indicates Caucasians at less than 7% and an African American at more than 65%, a graduation rate of 37% and test scores at the bottom of the barrel.
Bracey’s last report–trashing our educational assumptions
I got to the last page of the last icon-shattering piece Gerald W. Bracey will ever write, and felt sad and empty. As usual, he had skewered–with great erudition and insight–some of my fondest beliefs about how to improve schools. As a consequence, my thinking and writing about these issues will (I hope) be better next time. But who is going to do that for me in the future?
Jerry Bracey, the nation’s leading critic of unexamined assumptions in education, died Oct. 20 at age 69, apparently in his sleep, in his new home in beautiful Port Townsend, Wash. This was a shock to everyone who knew him because, although he had prostate cancer, it did not seem to have slowed him down.
The last person to receive one of his infamous emails questioning the ancestry and sanity of the recipient should frame the thing and put it on a wall. I don’t know anyone else in our community of education wonks who matched him in passion, honesty and wit. The 2009 edition of the Bracey Report on the Condition of Public Education proves it.
The ‘Highly Qualified Teacher’ Dodge
Education Secretary Arne Duncan has been widely held in high regard since he was appointed in January, but no honeymoon lasts forever. Mr. Duncan’s came to an abrupt end earlier this week when he issued long-awaited rules that the states must follow to apply for his $4.3 billion discretionary fund, known as the Race to the Top Fund, and the second round of federal financing under the $49 billion federal stimulus package known as the state fiscal stabilization fund.
….
The language in the application reflects timidity at the White House and in Congress, where some voices wanted to delay the fight over this issue until next year when Congress will likely reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The language also reflects the sometimes excessive influence of boutique alternative certification programs, which want to keep doors open for teachers who might be shut out under traditional criteria.
Arne answers your questions
I had a good chat with U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan this morning at his office. He had other important duties, but I would not let him go until he addressed each and every one of the questions sent in by readers last night and this morning. (Sorry, I missed questions that came in after 8:30 a.m. I had to get going. You know what D.C. traffic is like in the rain.) Here is what he said. I think most of his answers can be summed up as “we’re handing out $4.35 billion in stimulus funds for innovation, and if we do it properly we will help solve a lot of problems.”
From mhallet1: Ask him how he is coming on national Algebra I standards.
Duncan said that was the job of the group of 48 states and the Districts working to produce common standards. He said he is following their progress with great interest, but at the moment it is a state, not a federal, project.
From nicheVC: Disclosure: I spent the first 15 years of my career as an education practitioner, the last 10 investing in and discerning how the private sector might bring innovation and efficacy to the same.
Doyle’s education reform plans could be held back in Senate
On the same day the federal government flicked a green light for states to apply for $4 billion in competitive education reform grants, the fate of two of Gov. Jim Doyle’s key initiatives remained uncertain.
The U.S. Department of Education finalized the application Thursday for the Race to the Top program and the criteria it will use to assess reform efforts from states, especially in the areas of standards and assessments, data systems, recruiting and rewarding good teachers and principals, and turning around low-performing schools.
Two reform proposals that Doyle says are crucial for Wisconsin to compete for funding – giving Milwaukee’s mayor the power to hire and fire the superintendent, and giving the state superintendent of public instruction more power to intervene in persistently poor-performing schools – are struggling to gain traction in the Legislature.
Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker (D-Weston) said Thursday that he believes the state can receive Race to the Top money without changing the governance of MPS and giving more power to the state schools chief. He expressed skepticism about the plan for mayoral control.
“This process needs to have community buy-in,” Decker said in a news conference in his Capitol office. “This is a big takeover. . . . A lot of us are apprehensive at this point of just slam-dunking anything.”
As for the state superintendent’s powers, Decker said he was reluctant to give a statewide elected official that much authority to intervene in a local school district.
Virtual charter school enrollment 1,615 students under cap, Wisconsin says
The number of students who used open enrollment to attend the state’s virtual charter schools this fall fell well short of the cap set last year by the state Legislature, according to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
In the end, only 3,635 students enrolled in virtual charter schools for the 2009-’10 by using the state’s public school choice system, the DPI says. That’s 3,000 fewer than initially applied and 1,615 under the cap enacted as part of a legislation in response to a court ruling that threatened the schools’ existence.
Wisconsin Education reform package produces odd alliances
To even be eligible for the funds, however, Obama and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan had said that Wisconsin would have to repeal its “firewall” law that banned the use of student scores in teacher evaluations.
In his remarks, Obama acknowledged that eliminating the law was controversial in some places but said it was a necessary first step toward bringing a new accountability to classrooms, especially with struggling students.
Normally, that would be a message the Wisconsin Association of School Boards would be eager to hear. But instead, the so-called firewall reform bill passed by the Legislature is a failure in the group’s eyes because it doesn’t allow school districts to use student test scores to discipline or dismiss a teacher whose performance doesn’t measure up.
“While the wording of the legislation might meet the letter of the law, we don’t think it really addresses its spirit,” says Dan Rossmiller, a spokesman for the school boards association.
And because the new law requires collective bargaining over any teacher evaluation plan that includes student test scores, Rossmiller says the school boards association believes the requirement would make the process too unwieldy. “We think it will make it harder to use test scores to evaluate teacher effectiveness, not easier,” he adds. “For that reason, I don’t think we’ll be recommending that school districts try to develop evaluation plans for teachers that include using test scores.”
But Mary Bell, president of WEAC, says the new firewall reform law’s most important purpose is to improve teacher effectiveness and that a focus on using data in a punitive way misses the point.
Classic legislative sausage making.
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Wisconsin budget rated in worst 10
Wisconsin residents should brace for more tax increases and service cuts, based on an analysis that rated the state’s budget predicament among the 10 worst in the country.
The rise in unemployment and a steep drop in revenues from 2008 to 2009 suggest a dire future for a state that has struggled to fill perennial budget shortfalls, according to the Pew Center on the States and its report, “Beyond California: States in Fiscal Peril.”
The top-10 ranking puts Wisconsin in a dubious group with California, a state that issued IOUs to contractors earlier this year. Wisconsin is ranked ninth-worst, tied with Illinois.
“A challenging mix of economic, political and money-management factors have pushed California to the brink of insolvency,” said Susan Urahn, managing director of the Pew Center on the States. “But while California often takes the spotlight, other states are facing hardships just as daunting.”
States will slow the country’s climb out of the recession if they turn to tax increases or drastic spending cuts to balance their budgets, Urahn said. At a minimum, the shortfalls will lead to more furloughs of state workers, higher college tuition fees and less support for social services.
Harlem Children’s Zone Could Close Education Gap
We’ve blogged several times about Roland Fryer‘s research on education and the black-white achievement gap. Now Fryer thinks he has identified one system that successfully closes the gap. His new working paper, with co-author Will Dobbie, analyzes both the high-quality charter schools and the comprehensive community programs of the Harlem Children’s Zone (which was chronicled in Paul Tough‘s excellent book Whatever It Takes), with hopeful results: “Harlem Children’s Zone is enormously effective at increasing the achievement of the poorest minority children. Taken at face value, the effects in middle school are enough to reverse the black-white achievement gap in mathematics and reduce it in English Language Arts. The effects in elementary school close the racial achievement gap in both subjects.” Fryer and Dobbie attribute the program’s success to the high-quality schools or the combination of high-quality schools and community programs but find that community investments alone cannot close the gap. “The HCZ model demonstrates”, the authors conclude, “that the right cocktail of investments can be successful.”
At N.J. school, Governor-Elect Christie’s remarks political, personal
Adrienne Lu & Jonathan Tamari:
Gov.-elect Christopher J. Christie reiterated many of the themes of his campaign in an appearance at a suburban New Jersey high school yesterday, and offered glimpses of his personal life at the end of the campaign trail.
Christie told a crowd of hundreds of students at Steinert High School in Hamilton, Mercer County, that his priorities were cutting taxes and government spending.
Asked by a student how he defeated Gov. Corzine – who had the advantages of wealth and the support of national Democrats, including President Obama – Christie said, “I have absolutely no idea.”
Christie, who was joined by Lt. Gov.-elect Kim Guadagno and a handful of state lawmakers from the region, told students he wanted them to be able to afford to build lives in New Jersey as they grow older. Christie has four children, the eldest a teenager who now asks to be dropped off behind school so the new security detail following the family does not draw too much attention.
In a meeting with reporters after the event, Christie promised tough negotiations with labor unions representing teachers and state workers. He said the New Jersey Education Association, which represents teachers and opposes many of the urban education ideas he has backed, “has been a strong advocate for the status quo.”
“They need to get realistic about the fact that change is coming,” Christie said.
In dealing with state workers, Christie said he would be fair, but added, pointedly, “I’m not going to be a pushover, and that’s going to be a change.”
When negotiating with state workers’ unions, Christie said, he and Guadagno “are there to represent the taxpayers.”
Corzine was often criticized as being too close to unions.
The hard road of Michelle Rhee’s CFOs
D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi named a new interim school system CFO Tuesday. Noel Bravo, a former senior budget adviser to Mayor Anthony A. Williams, replaces Noah Wepman, who resigned or was fired, depending on who you ask.
Bravo is walking into what has become one of District government’s most punishing posts. Wepman’s departure marks the second time on Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee’s watch that the school system’s top fiscal officer has left in the wake of questions about the transparency of the agency’s budget process.
Wepman and his predecessor, Pamela Graham, took different paths to the exit sign. But both ultimately discovered that trying to keep the numbers straight under Rhee’s high-velocity attempt at transformation can be dangerous to your career health.
Part of the peril is structural. A congressional directive from the financial control board era gives the District’s independent chief financial officer, not the head of the school system, power over spending. The set up put Wepman and Graham in a difficult position from the start: answering to Gandhi but facing enormous pressure to say “yes” to a chancellor given virtual carte blanche by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty to fix the schools.
Duncan’s raison d’etre for reform
Humans are fallible and have a tendency to repeat past failures. Education is no exception. The pendulum of reform has had its swing back and forth over the decades with minimal progress. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is taking the bull by the horns, purporting that the very teachers, who have entrusted him as their chief, are not to be trusted to do the proper job without close supervision, re-training, and additional monetary rewards. He calls for scrutiny, an uphauling of current educational institutions by employing a trace back system that will mark the culprit, the raison d’etre for the failure of our children.
Duncan’s tough, paternal scolding sends a clear message: teachers beware.
Revolutionary or some of the same? The 4.35 billion Race to the Top reform resonates a familiar cadence, the mantra of the Bush administration and No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the gotcha mentality that fails to consider a teacher’s moral intentions, or the common good. Certainly, within education, there exists a few bad apples, as in any profession. Yet, the majority of teachers choose the field of teaching for the intrinsic rewards rather than the monetary rewards.
Our failing schools reflect , more likely, a society gone amuck, an evolution of insidious issues that have seeped into the classroom, rather than inept teachers.Yet, Duncan argues that it is the teachers that are ill prepared and failing our students.
Critics who agree, suspected soft bigotry, low expectations, or inept teachers, are coming out in droves and applauding Duncan’s reform as brilliant. Ruben Navarrette, in his article entitled “An Apple for the Secretary” (San Diego Union-Tribune, 10/28/09), argues that the “trace back” method is “groundbreaking stuff” and will finally flesh out the culprits. He points to Louisiana, currently using the trace back theory: students in grades 4-9 with low scores are traced back to teachers and the teachers are then traced back to the institutions that trained them. The state then provides the institution with information and “urges schools to improve.”
True school performance levels at last
BY promising basic information on the performance of our schools, Education Minister, Julia Gillard has landed a blow for common sense and for parents.
For too long, the argument about whether national testing on literacy and numeracy should even be done, let alone published, has been deadlocked.
Education experts, state education departments, teachers and their professional bodies, have long resisted the move arguing that such comparisons were worse than meaningless, they would be misleading.
The argument went that there were many more elements to the education of a young person than simply teaching he or she to read, write, and add up – the so called three “Rs”. But while this argument may be true, it has never been a convincing argument against gathering good information on those things that can be measured well, and then providing it freely.
Acknowledging the “whole person” objective of school education, Ms Gillard says a fundamental prerequisite to becoming a productive community member is basic literacy and numeracy.
India education faces overhaul
ndia’s Congress-led government is undertaking a radical overhaul of the country’s higher education system that will include legislation allowing foreign universities to operate in the country, the human resource development minister said on Monday.
Kapil Sibal, one of the most energetic reformers in the cabinet assembled after May’s parliamentary election, said the administration intends to establish a new legal framework to unshackle India’s universities, currently controlled by a huge, rigid and highly centralised bureaucracy in New Delhi.
“World class institutions can’t be built overnight, but that doesn’t mean we can’t lay the foundations for world class universities over the next five to 10 years,” Mr Sibal told executives at the Indian Economic Forum. “We have no time. This should have happened 15 years ago.”
Mr Sibal said the government plans to introduce the foreign education bill, which would open the higher education sector to foreign participation, in the upcoming parliament session.
Infographic of the Day: Does Adding Teachers Improve Education?
Politicians seem to have temporary set aside the debate about improving our schools, but you can bet that when the issue rises again, one solution will be raised, over and over: Improving student/teacher ratios–that is, hiring more teachers. But is it really a silver bullet for increasing results? What sort of results can we expect?
The graph above offers a few clues–but unraveling them takes a bit of explanation. The crucial point being: Adding teachers might improve student performance relative to past results, but it’s a weak lever for effecting aggregate improvements.
So, let’s dig into the graph. Each of the lines–colored in blue or green–represents data from a single state. To the left is that state’s student/teacher ratio; to the right is that state’s average SAT score.
The graph looks sort of confusing at first, but it actually does a pretty good job at showing that student/teacher ratios and SAT scores aren’t closely related. If they were highly correlated, you’d expect to see lines with slopes all at a 45-degree angle (whether sloping up or down). But as you can see, they’re actually a tangle. The states with the highest SAT achievement have relatively low student/teacher ratios–but those ratios alone don’t account for their performance, since plenty of other states have similar ratios but don’t score nearly as well.
Deal struck between Palo Alto school district and employee unions
The Palo Alto Unified School District would spend an extra $740 on benefits for each of its employees under proposed contracts the school board is to review tonight.
The proposed 2009-2013 contracts do not give raises beyond scheduled “step-and-ladder” annual increases, and aim to lessen the impact of a $1.3 million rise in health care costs through such measures as increasing co-pays for doctor’s visits and giving retirees incentives to opt out of the district’s health care coverage.
Without those cuts, the district would have to contribute “significantly higher” amounts for benefits, said Scott Bowers, assistant superintendent for human resources.
Links:
- Palo Alto Educators Association 2008/2009 72 page Contract
- Madison Teachers, Inc. 172 page 2007-2009 contract
- Madison School District & Madison Teachers Union Reach Tentative Agreement: 3.93% Increase Year 1, 3.99% Year 2; Base Rate $33,242 Year 1, $33,575 Year 2: Requires 50% MTI 4K Members and will “Review the content and frequency of report cards”
Will a longer school day help close the achievement gap?
A longer school day can help improve student test scores, closing the achievement gap. But critics question the cost of those additional hours.
Going to school from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. may sound like a student’s nightmare, but Sydney Shaw, a seventh-grader at the Alain Locke Charter Academy on Chicago’s West Side, has come to like it – as well as the extra 20 or so days that she’s in class a year.
“I’m sure every kid at this school says bad things about the schedule sometimes,” says Sydney, who was at school on Columbus Day, when most Chicago schools had a holiday. “But deep down, we all know it’s for our benefit.”
Finding ways to give kids more classroom time, through longer hours, a longer school year, or both, is getting more attention. President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan support a lengthier timetable. Many education reformers agree that more time at school is a key step.
Charter schools like Alain Locke and KIPP schools (a network of some 80 schools that are often lauded for their success with at-risk students) have made big gains in closing gaps in student achievement, partly through expanded schedules. Other schools have been making strides, too – notably in Massachusetts and in the New Orleans system.
Portland Teachers Overpower School Board Meeting
Several hundred Portland Public Schools teachers gathered outside Monday night’s school board meeting to protest contract talks that have dragged on since before June 2008, when the teachers’ contract expired.
Their chanting outside delayed the meeting’s start time — then threatened to overpower the opening minutes. As school board chairwoman Trudy Sargent pounded the gavel to start the meeting around 7:15 pm, hundreds of teachers who had poured into the room shouted her down. “We are P-A-T” — the Portland Association of Teachers union — they cheered.
Union president Rebecca Levison was then given a few minutes to address the board. She said teachers didn’t feel respected by the district, which is asking teachers to take five furlough days and a retroactive cost-of-living increase only in the first year of the two-year contract. (All PPS employees are being asked to take five furlough days to help cover a statewide budget shortfall, but other labor groups already got their COLA.) Levison also mentioned WW’s story from two weeks ago about the surplus sale that got rid of school supplies. She cited the story as an example of PPS not looking out for teachers.
The two speakers who followed Levison were the human equivalents of one-two punches. Curtis Wilson, a second grade teacher at Sitton K-8 School, used to be a PPS custodian until he and all of his coworkers were outsourced in a move later found to be illegal. After he was let go in 2002, he returned to school to become a teacher. This year, he said, he “began to doubt the choice.”
Madison School Board Meeting 11/9/2009 Audio
65mb mp3 audio file recorded during Monday’s meeting. Topics include: Strategic Plan benchmarks and the recent passage of Wisconsin education “reform” legislation.
Pittsburgh’s mayor says he’ll pursue 1 percent higher-ed tax
Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl plans to propose a 1 percent college-education privilege tax to council today, in a move that’s likely to set off a fight with the city’s schools of higher learning.
College and university representatives met with the mayor on Wednesday and argued against the tax, which would be assessed on a college student’s tuition. It technically would not be a levy on the students or their schools, but rather on the privilege of getting a higher education in Pittsburgh.
“They weren’t pleased to hear that this was an option we were pursuing,” Mr. Ravenstahl said. But he said he is ready for “a fight, or a battle, if you will,” if that’s what it takes to plug a $15 million gap in his 2010 budget and help the struggling Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.
“We don’t believe that [1 percent] is too burdensome on college students,” Mr. Ravenstahl said. “The city taxpayers are paying for the services that are provided to those college students,” including police, building inspection and fire service, he said. “The students have a role to play.”
Education & Copyright
A Look at the University of Wisconsin’s Value Added Research Center:
Rob Meyer can’t help but get excited when he hears President Barack Obama talking about the need for states to start measuring whether their teachers, schools and districts are doing enough to help students succeed.
“What he’s talking about is what we are doing,” says Meyer, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Value-Added Research Center.
If states hope to secure a piece of Obama’s $4.35 billion “Race to the Top” stimulus money, they’ll have to commit to using research data to evaluate student progress and the effectiveness of teachers, schools and districts.
Crunching numbers and producing statistical models that measure these things is what Meyer and his staff of 50 educators, researchers and various stakeholders do at the Value-Added Research Center, which was founded in 2004. These so-called “value-added” models of evaluation are designed to measure the contributions teachers and schools make to student academic growth. This method not only looks at standardized test results, but also uses statistical models to take into account a range of factors that might affect scores – including a student’s race, English language ability, family income and parental education level.
“What the value-added model is designed to do is measure the effect and contribution of the educational unit on a student, whether it’s a classroom, a team of teachers, a school or a program,” says Meyer. Most other evaluation systems currently in use simply hold schools accountable for how many students at a single point in time are rated proficient on state tests.
Much more on “value added assessment” here, along with the oft-criticized WKCE test, the soft foundation of much of this local work.
Forget about rating teachers—rate schools instead.
Those unfortunate people in the District may worry about the quality of their teachers, and wait anxiously for the results of the school system’s controversial new evaluation of classroom techniques and test score improvement. But those of us in the Washington area suburbs don’t have to worry because we already know that close to 100 percent of our teachers are entirely satisfactory. How? Our school districts say so.
I asked suburban school officials to share the latest results from their teacher evaluations, which are usually done by principals and subject specialists. Here are the percentages of teachers rated satisfactory, in some cases called meeting or exceeding the standard: Alexandria 99 percent, Calvert 99.8 percent, Charles 98.4 percent, Culpeper 97 percent, Fairfax 99.1 percent, Falls Church 99.55 percent, Loudoun 99 percent, Montgomery 95 percent, Prince George’s 95.56 percent, and Prince William 98.3 percent.
Anne Arundel, Arlington, Fauquier and Howard, and Manassas City say they don’t collect such data. Carroll says it is doing it for the first time and hasn’t finished yet.
Those numbers in the high 90s sound good, but they don’t impress some advocates of better teaching. Near perfect teacher evaluation passing rates are common throughout the country.
One reason why D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee has launched her complex IMPACT evaluation of the District’s teachers is that the research and training organization she founded, the New Teacher Project, is a sworn enemy of those standard evaluation systems. Since teacher ratings in most districts are as discerning as peewee soccer award night, with everyone getting a trophy, why bother?
Press Release: Wisconsin Governor Doyle Signs Education “Reform” Laws
Governor Doyle’s Office [PDF]:
Governor Jim Doyle today signed into law Senate Bills 370, 371, 372 and 373, which take the first steps toward reforming education in Wisconsin and ensuring every student has a chance to succeed. Governor Doyle signed the laws at Wright Middle School just days after President Obama visited the school to call for states to make significant education reform. The bills take important steps to align Wisconsin with federal education reform goals laid out by the President and position Wisconsin to compete for Race to the Top funds.
“I want to thank state legislative leaders for acting swiftly to take these critical first steps toward major education reform,” Governor Doyle said. “We are really proud of our state’s great schools but we know we have to step it up and strive to reach the highest levels. We must continue moving forward reforms that put our students first and answer President Obama’s challenge to race to the top.”
The Governor will continue to work closely with the Legislature to move forward reform efforts to create clear lines of accountability at Milwaukee Public Schools, strengthen the State Superintendent’s ability to turn around struggling schools and raise math and science standards so every student can compete in the global economy.
Wisconsin Governor Doyle’s “Race to the Top” Press Conference Today @ Madison’s Wright Middle School
Via a kind reader’s email. It will be interesting to see the intended and unintended consequences of the recently passed (47-46 in the Wisconsin Assembly) legislation. The news conference is scheduled for today @ 12:45p.m. at Madison’s Wright Middle School.
A reader mentioned that the Madison School District’s budget, has, in the past been approved by the City’s “Board of Estimates“. A return to this practice has its pros and cons. However, it may actually improve financial transparency, which, in my view has declined recently. Susan Troller’s recent MMSD budget article mentions a $350M 2009/2010 budget while the District’s budget site does not include the November, 2009 budget update 1.1MB PDF, which mentions a $418,415,780 2009/2010 Budget ($412,219,577 2008/2009 and $399,835,904 in 2007/2008).
Related: Doug Newman – For Debate: Who Picks School Board?. Greg Bump covered Doyle’s most recent press conference, which included a relevant discussion.
The end of false choices on schools
Colorado State Senator Michael Johnston:
When President Barack Obama spoke to education groups on the campaign trail, he said he didn’t believe in the false choices currently offered by the education debate. He didn’t believe that it was a choice between supporting unions or supporting charters. He didn’t believe it was about striving for either equity or excellence.
Instead, Obama reiterated that this moment in education is about moving beyond ideology and moving toward results. What matters is not whether a kid goes to a charter school or a district school or a magnet school; what matters is they go to a good school. What matters is not whether a child has a union teacher or a non-union teacher; what matters is that every child has an effective teacher.
The recent DPS school board elections have been miscast as a referendum on the false choice Obama sought to dispel. In the aftermath, it is important to focus on what has actually driven both Denver and Colorado’s educational improvements in recent years and how that illuminates the road ahead.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has been the perfect national symbol of this clear-eyed pragmatism, with a relentless focus on results. Long before he was a Cabinet member, Duncan found himself caught in a classic version of this false choice Obama dismissed. There were two competing groups of educators that released their own set of principles to guide the Obama presidency. One group was backed by “reformers” who insisted that the system needed radical changes to make sure we recruited, retained and released educators based on merit. The other was backed by a set of “union leaders” who argued that we must attend to the out-of-school variables that impact learning, including more counseling, support services and professional development.
What’s Really up With Online Study Scholarships?
I must have landed on an Internet marketing list, because I receive so many e-mails pitching my chances to win a scholarship to an online college. Like: “Hey, mom, apply for a full-tuition scholarship, earn your degree and have a career!” Are these scholarships for real? — B.R.
A few people will win these scholarships, but the advertised financial-aid awards are really hooks cast by companies in the lead-aggregation industry. They’re marketing ploys.
Notice that virtually all the schools offering these scholarships are for-profit colleges. Higher-education experts tell me that on average, online for-profit colleges cost three times more than online nonprofit colleges.
Here’ the inside story. Lead-generating marketers require scholarship seekers to provide their personal information on a scholarship application — in reality, a “lead form.” The marketers aggregate the forms and sell them to participating schools at a price of up to $100 per qualified lead. It’s little wonder that you’re receiving so many scholarship pitches.
Charter schools are one strategy, not a cure-all
Madison School Board Member Ed Hughes:
The State Journal’s call for more charter schools in the editorial welcoming the president to Madison was a bit off the mark.
A charter school is not an end in itself – it’s a means to achieve an end. If there are impediments to learning that we’re unable to address, or opportunities for improvement that we’re unable to provide through our neighborhood schools, then a charter could be an effective way to address the issue
For example, I’d be interested in a charter proposal designed to attack our achievement gap by providing a more intense academic focus in a longer school day and longer school year for students who are behind. But if a charter idea lacks that sort of vital justification, then for me there’s insufficient reason to deviate from our traditional neighborhood school approach.
The same is true for the school district’s recently-adopted strategic plan. More charter schools is not a goal, it’s a strategy. If charters can be an effective means of achieving our goals of improving academic outcomes for all students and ensuring student engagement and effective student support, for example, we should and likely will consider them.
As I understood the president’s remarks at Wright, this approach is consistent with the laudable goals he described.
– Ed Hughes, member, Madison School Board
University-industrial complex corrupts meaning of education
According to the established wisdom, President Joseph Chapman‘s tenure at North Dakota State University has been a fabulous success. He’s the fellow who made everything grow – enrollments, sports, construction, institutional status, research and graduate programs to suit the quirkiest of tastes.
It was all so extravagantly admired that to ask whether any of it had anything to do with education would have seemed impertinent; indeed, over the past 11 years, Chapman himself never, so far as I know, uttered a single word about issues that are related to education, such as student quality, the dissolution of the core curriculum, the adjunctification of the faculty, and so on. That didn’t seem odd because no one else ever talks about them, either – not the governor, not the Legislature, not the State Board of Higher Education, not the trustees and not the leaders of other institutions.
It isn’t entirely their fault, because the anti-intellectualism that has always been a part of American life makes education a dangerous topic. Much, perhaps most, of the public expects education to yield a direct material payoff, and when it doesn’t, there are mutterings about public resources being wasted on something that is plainly “useless.”
Three’s a crowd when it comes to Los Angeles Eastside schools
Things were a bit discombobulated last week on the Eastside, where a generations-old allegiance to Roosevelt Senior High School has been upset by a new relative: the recently opened Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez Learning Center.
At Roosevelt, hallways shimmered with gold and crimson banners hung in anticipation of the biggest football game of the season, against Garfield High School.
At the new Mendez high school — populated by many students transferred from Roosevelt’s overcrowded campus — the walls were bare; the gymnasium empty.
At Roosevelt, students celebrated spirit week and crowned a homecoming queen.
At Mendez, students felt unsure about their newly selected mascot, the jaguar. There were murmurs of school spirit. But there is no football team, no cheerleading squad, no queen to crown.
“We’re starting with nothing,” said Michael Mena, 15.
Mayoral Control Coming Soon to Madison Schools?
via a kind readers email – The Milwaukee Drum:
TMD has obtained an internal memo sent from Sen. Taylor (1.5MB PDF) to other state representatives (dated 11/5/09 7:35 pm) seeking their co-sponsorship for the MPS Takeover legislation. This memo not only asks for co-sponsorship, but it provides specific details of the upcoming (draft) legislation. This is what the public has been waiting for… details!
Beloved, one thing you will continue to read from me is the mantra follow the money. This entire reform gets down to one thing, money… more specifically, Race To The Top federal grants. State governors must apply for the grant and that is where this all begins with Doyle. Did you know that 50% of any grant received must be given to local educational agencies (LEAs), including public charter schools identified as LEAs under State law? I guess you won’t see many preachers in Milwaukee opposing this Takeover since their schools stand to benefit financially. Where did Doyle have that press conference in Milwaukee last week?
Let me back this thing up for you quickly. Some of you still are wondering what gives? Jump down the worm hole with me again just for a second… President Obama and Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) aka the Stimulus Package (2/17/09). Inside this legislation is approximately $4.3 billion set aside for states that implement education reform targeted to increase student achievement, closing achievement gaps, improving graduation rates and preparation for success in college/careers. Follow the money family…
A reader mentioned that the governance changes may apply to other Wisconsin Districts, perhaps rendering local boards as simple wallflowers….
More to come, I’m sure.
Madison School District Strategic Plan Action Steps & Budget Recommendations
Superintendent Dan Nerad [1.5MB PDF]:
Included in the 2009/10 budget is $324,123 for the implementation of activities specifically related to the approved Strategic Plan.
Attached are:
Strategic Plan: Objectives organized by Priority 1 Action Steps
Strategic Objectives: Action Steps, Priority 1 Recommended Budget.
The total identified in the Priority 1 Recommended Budget is $284,925.
We are continuing to plan in the areas of:
- implementing Individual Learning Plans,
- using ACT Standards as part of assessments,
- supporting technology,
- program evaluation, and
- a possible expulsion abeyance options pilot for second semester.
Budget recommendations for these areas will come to the Board at a later date.
More:
The electronic based ILP (Individual Learning Plan) developed in collaboration with University of Wisconsin staff to meet the unique needs ofthe MMSD. The ILP will be based off of the WisCareers platform which will interface with Infinite Campus, the District’s information management system.
Identify a subgroup of the ILP Action Team to create an ILP implementation plan that includes a mechanism for feedback and evaluation (e.g., Survey instruments, external evaluation conducted by the Wisconsin Center for Educational Research).
Curriculum Action Plan Focus Areas
- Accelerated Learning
- Assessment
- Civic Engagement
- Cultural Relevance
- Flexible Instruction
Related: Proposed Madison School District Strategic Plan Performance Measures.
Obama’s subtle message spoke volumes about Milwaukee schools
The only way President Barack Obama could have been any more indirect about his message on Wednesday in a speech at a middle school in Madison was by giving it in another state.
He never mentioned Milwaukee, he barely mentioned Wisconsin. It might seem hard to be boring when you’re talking about giving away billions of dollars to places that shake up their education systems, but Obama succeeded, so much so that a Washington Post story described his speech as “turgid.”
And yet, there was a very pointed message in there, aimed right at Wisconsin and Milwaukee. How do I know? Arne Duncan told me so.
Being president may mean rarely being able to say what’s really on your mind, but, in a telephone interview after the speech, the outspoken secretary of education was more than willing to tread almost all the places his boss didn’t want to go.
In short, the message of the visit was: Get with the program, Wisconsin.
“Fast Food” Learning
MPR:
In a Wellstone Elementary classroom, the five minutes before class have become the quietest part of the school day.
You can’t blame the students for not talking. They’re busy eating.
A growing school-breakfast program in St. Paul, called Breakfast to Go, allows these students to grab a free nutritious meal in the cafeteria and take it to class. This “fast food” ensures more children are eating their morning meal and can cut down on tardiness and other barriers to their education.
“There were people that had concerns about food in the classroom. But now they’ve seen the benefit of it and are very supportive of it,” said Christine Osorio, principal of St. Paul’s Paul and Sheila Wellstone Elementary, the site for the district’s pilot program last year.
“Teachers really like having the kids up in class and getting started,” Osorio said. “It’s built community in classrooms. It’s given us a much more relaxed start to our day.”
Demerit Pay
In the spirit of generosity I’ve been thanking the gods that private school teachers’ salaries are not connected to students’ standardized test scores. Else Malia Obama’s science teacher at the Sidwell Friends School might have lost her job faster than you can say “grade inflation.”
On November 3, 2009, the one-year anniversary of his election, President Obama, speaking at a middle school in Madison, Wisconsin, told his audience that First Daughter Malia had recently come home from school with a 73 on a science test, but after renewed educational vigor she aced her next test. This was the same day President Obama reiterated his call for public school teachers’ merit pay to be based in part on student performance on standardized tests.
I’m a 17-year veteran English teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District, so naturally I thought, “Yep, change has finally come.”
After numbing my students with No Child Left Behind tests for the past seven years, I can now depend on Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to turn it all around.
But Secretary Duncan’s not going to hand over any federal grant money willy-nilly. No sir. No money changes hands until the states beat down those all-powerful teacher unions (and if you want to see how powerful teacher unions are, just drive by your local public school and check out the cars in the faculty parking lot. The Cash for Clunkers program rejected my 1997 Toyota Corolla and most of my colleagues’ cars as well)
Spotlight on schools
Wisconsin State Journal Editorial:
President Barack Obama handed out some difficult assignments Wednesday at a Madison middle school.
Elected leaders, educators, parents and students need to get these tasks done. The future of Wisconsin and our nation is at stake.
Obama didn’t sugar coat what needs to occur. He talked tough about closing failing schools and firing bad teachers. He told parents and students they were more responsible than anyone for student success, which hinges on high expectations and follow-through.
Yet the “educator in chief” also offered reassurance and rewards, including a chance to win hundreds of millions of dollars in competitive grants.
It’s time to act.
A day after Obama’s visit to Wright Middle School on Madison’s South Side, the Wisconsin Legislature barely approved a bill allowing student test scores to be used in teacher evaluations – something Obama specifically called for. Obama’s Education Secretary Arne Duncan had called Wisconsin’s ban on tying teachers to test data “ridiculous.”
Virtual schools chart new course
Representatives of five would-be virtual charter schools will file into the administrative towers of the Georgia Department of Education today to pitch their brand of public education, which lets students study at home computers in their pajamas.
Some contenders will come with national representatives from education management companies touting their records of student achievement in other states. Some will rely on the moms and dads who sit on the boards of petitioning schools to make their case.
If they’re successful, they stand to be funded just as any other Georgia public school. Some state officials, however, aren’t ready to prop open the door of school choice and let more cyber campuses in without first doing more homework on the subject.
A Few Comments from Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz on President Obama’s Visit
Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz:
The last sitting President to visit Madison didn’t have a plane. This one had a very big plane, which pulled to a stop in Madison right on time (The commander of the 115th Fighter Wing, Col. Joseph Brandemuehl told me that Air Force One is never more than two minutes off schedule). It was fitting that he came here to give a serious policy speech about education and that he visited a Madison public school with both high diversity and high achievement. And it was an honor to host the President one year after his election. All in all, it was experience those kids – and most of the rest of us – will never forget.
At the school the President did trip a little on the pronunciation of my name. But this is his third attempt and he’s getting closer each time. And here’s the thing. When the President of the United States mispronounces your name you don’t think ‘gee, I wish that guy would get it right.’ No. You think, ‘gee, the President tried to pronounce my name.’
This job has its long days and its share of difficult stretches but once in awhile you get a moment that is just undeniably cool. As we waited for President Obama to walk down the stairs from Air Force One, I was thinking about the last time I was at that spot. It was exactly five years ago when I got a ride with the Colonel in an F-16. Taking a flight in a fighter jet or greeting the leader of the free world qualifies as one of those times when I take a moment to thank the voters of Madison for giving me the chance to be there on their behalf. This is not a job that lacks interesting days, but yesterday is one I’ll remember long after someone else gets the honor of saying, “Welcome to Madison, Mr. President.”
Has Federal Involvement Improved America’s Schools?
The No Child Left Behind Act is up for renewal. It costs taxpayers tens of billions of dollars every year but the Obama administration is giving its reauthorization less serious attention than most people pay to their phone bill. Families facing tight budgets actually consider cancelling a service that doesn’t benefit them. (“Do I really need a landline if I already have a cell phone?”) But ending federal involvement in k-12 schooling is not something that education secretary Arne Duncan is even willing to talk about.
Here are three good reasons why we need to have that conversation:
First, we have little to show for the nearly $2 trillion dollars spent on federal education programs since 1965. As the chart demonstrates, federal education spending per pupil has nearly tripled since 1970 in real, inflation-adjusted dollars — but achievement has barely budged. In fact, the only subject in which achievement at the end of high school has changed by more than 1 percent is science, and it has gotten worse.
This overall average masks some tiny gains for minority children, such as a 3 to 5 percent rise in the scores of African American 17-year-olds. But even these modest improvements can’t be attributed to federal spending. Almost all of the gain occurred between 1980 and 1988, a period during which federal spending per pupil actually fell. And the scores of African American 17-year-olds have declined in the twenty years since, even as federal spending has shot through the roof.
Wisconsin Legislature Passes (47-46!) Education “Reform” Bills: Teachers Cannot Be Disciplined or Removed using Test Data
The Wisconsin Legislature passed a series of education reform bills designed to make the state compete for nearly $4.5 billion in federal stimulus money.
The Assembly voted 47 to 46 in favor of the reform bills around 3 a.m. on Friday morning after a long closed door meeting among Democrats. The Senate approved the measures earlier on Thursday.
The action came after President Barack Obama came to Madison on Wednesday to tout the Race to the Top grant program.
One of the bills would create a system to track student data from preschool through college. A second bill would tie teacher evaluation to student performance on standardized tests. Another bill would require all charter schools to be created under federal guidelines. The last bill would move grants awarded to Milwaukee Public Schools for student achievement to move from Department of Administration to Department of Public Instruction control.
The bills remove a prohibition in state law from using student test data to evaluate teachers.
Even with it removed, teachers could not be disciplined or removed based on student test scores. And the teacher evaluation process would have to be part of collective bargaining.
Republicans argued that means most schools won’t even attempt to use the test data when evaluating teachers. Attempts by them to alter the bill were defeated by Democrats.
Senate Republicans expressed concern about the teacher evaluation portion, saying collective bargaining could become a hurdle to the Race to the Top guidelines and that teachers should also be disciplined or fired based on standardized testing results, not only rewarded.
“(Obama) said we have to be bold in holding people accountable for the achievement of our schools. Well, trust me, if we pass this legislation requiring mandatory negotiations we’re not bold, we’re a joke,” said Sen. Luther Olson, R-Ripon.
Four education bills aimed at bolstering the state’s application for federal Race to the Top funds were also moved through the Legislature. In the Assembly, passage of a bill allowing the use of student performance on standardized tests to be used in evaluating teachers. Republicans objected to the bill because they say it requires school districts to negotiate how the data is used in the teacher evaluations and would tie the hands of administrators who seek to discipline or dismiss poor performing teachers.
The bill barely passed the Assembly on a 47-46 vote.
The Assembly session wrapped up at about 4 a.m.
It will be interesting to see how these bills look, in terms of special interest influence, once Governor Doyle signs them. I do – possibly – like the student data tracking from preschool through college. Of course, the evaluations may be weak and the content may change rendering the results useless. We’ll see.
In related news, Madison School Board Vice President Lucy Mathiak again raised the issue of evaluating math curriculum effectiveness via University of Wisconsin System entrance exam results and college placement at the 11/2/2009 Madison School Board meeting. This request has fallen on deaf ears within the MMSD Administration for some time. [Madison School Board Math Discussion 40MB mp3 audio (Documents and links).]
How best to add value? Strike a balance between the individual and the organization in school reform
Two developments in public education converged near the turn of the century to bring rare prominence to the issue of teacher policy. First, several researchers reported with confidence that teachers are the single most important school-level factor in students’ learning. Although schools could not influence the prior experience or socioeconomic status of a student, they could decide who the child’s teachers would be, and those decisions would have long-term consequences for students’ academic success. Meanwhile, school officials faced the challenge of replacing an enormous cohort of retiring veterans with new teachers. The demand for teachers in low-income schools was especially great.
Recognizing this pressing need for new, effective teachers, policy makers and administrators began to adopt strategies for recruiting, hiring, supporting, motivating, assessing, and compensating the best possible individuals. Their efforts succeeded in highlighting for the public the importance of teachers. Over the past decade, however, this sharpened focus on the individual teacher has eclipsed the role that the school as an organization can and must play in enhancing the quality and effectiveness of teachers and teaching. As a result, teachers are getting less support than they should and schools are less successful than they might be.
Teacher Compensation Ripe for Change, Authors Say
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has released “Redesigning Teacher Pay,” the second volume in its series on Alternative Teacher Compensation Systems. The Ford Foundation provided support for the report, which takes on the debate over performance-based pay systems for public school teachers, an approach that aims to better serve students and academic goals. The foundation funded the research and collaboration of EPI’s leading scholars as part of our reform work in education and scholarship.
Published in Education Week (subscription required): October 13, 2009
The current movement for paying teachers based on how well they teach, rather than how long they’ve been on the job, represents at least the fourth wave of national interest in performance-pay plans, two scholars say in a new book.
Ford Foundation gives $100 million to reform urban high schools
The Ford Foundation pledged $100 million Wednesday to “transform” urban high schools in the United States, focusing on seven cities, including Los Angeles.
The seven-year initiative is among the largest philanthropic efforts aimed at improving education in the United States and, as described, could both complement and challenge aspects of the Obama administration’s education reform efforts. It will fund research and reform in four areas: teacher quality, student assessment, a longer school day and year, and school funding.
The initiative is being led by Jeannie Oakes, who until recently was head of the Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access at UCLA, where she was a strong advocate for reform aimed at helping disadvantaged students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Besides Los Angeles, the Ford Foundation effort will focus on schools in New York, Newark, N.J., Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit and Denver.
Oakes said the foundation has already begun working with L.A. Unified Supt. Ramon C. Cortines to find ways to better distribute finances in the district. She said Ford also hopes to help Los Angeles land one of the Obama administration’s “Promise Neighborhood” grants, which place public schools at the center of a comprehensive strategy of combating poverty and improving educational achievement.
Will State Education Reforms Get a Boost from Obama?
When, if ever, has a president of the United States inserted himself as directly into a legislative issue in Wisconsin as President Barack Obama is doing by visiting Madison on Wednesday? Obama’s visit to a middle school a couple miles from the State Capitol will focus on education – and it comes as Gov. Jim Doyle and others are ramping up their push for a series of educational reforms, including giving much of the power over Milwaukee Public Schools to Milwaukee’s mayor.
Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who will be with him, are firm supporters of many of the ideas being incorporated into the legislative package. Wisconsin clearly has to make changes such as these if it wants a decent chance at a share of the $5 billion in the Race to the Top money and other incentive funds Obama and Duncan will distribute over the next couple years.
It appears highly likely a special session of the Legislature will be called in November to consider the education proposals. The outcome is not clear.
Schooling for Sustainability
SMART By NATURE: Schooling for Sustainability — a new book from the Center for Ecoliteracy. It describes the significance of the emerging green schools sector across the country.
Bringing Bioneers to Wisconsin
Green Schools National Conference
Tales From Planet Earth
Going GREEN?
Education / Evolving Disrupting Class
Network of EdVisions Schools
Audubon Center Charter Schools
NewSchoolsAmerica
Alliance for the Great Lakes
Collaborative for Sustainability Education
What’s NEXT?
Join the Green Charter Schools Network as an organization member and we’ll send you a FREE copy of SMART By NATURE. Click organization membership form.
“Smart by Nature is must reading for teachers, school administrators, parents, and the concerned public,” writes leading environmental educator David W. Orr. “It is an encyclopedia of good ideas, principles, and case studies of some of the most exciting developments in education.”
The Green Charter Schools Network and River Crossing Environmental Charter School are featured in Smart By Nature. “We’re all concerned about the environment and sustainability,” says Jim McGrath, GCSNet President. “That’s why we’re doing it — because, really, what could be more important than preparing young people for a sustainable future.”
Milwaukee Public School system in serious need of repair
Helen Lovejoy is more than a minister’s wife. She is an icon, the yellow-faced bulldog behind one of society’s most enduringly annoying mantras:
Won’t somebody please think of the children?
In Milwaukee, this cry often falls on deaf ears. The Milwaukee Public School system is less an educational structure than it is a punch line on fail blog. Students are performing far below expected levels, resources are few, and ultimately too few people are thinking about the children.
Fortunately, Gov. Doyle decided to step in. Knowing there needed to be a change in MPS, and potentially motivated by a larger desire to make Wisconsin attractive for the Obama administration’s Race To The Top grants, Doyle announced a bill that would take significant authority away from the school board and put it in the hands of Milwaukee’s mayor. These powers, which include the ability to select the superintendent and set the annual tax levy, should not be taken lightly, and one would hope a busy mayor would find adequate time to thoroughly look at the city’s public school system. After all, if you have time to lose a fight at a state fair, you can budget a few days to deal with education.
NJ gov.-elect renews pledge to improve education
New Jersey’s next governor, making his first post-Election Day appearance at a thriving charter school in the state’s largest city, renewed a campaign pledge to reform urban education.
Chris Christie, speaking to grade-schoolers in green uniforms who addressed him as “Governor Chris,” used the event at the Robert Treat Academy in Newark’s North Ward to demonstrate his commitment to improving education and reducing crime in New Jersey’s cities.
“When I had to decide what I was going to do with my day, the day I was elected governor, there was no place else I wanted to be than here with all of you,” Christie said. “And I knew, because I was just elected yesterday, that all these people would come,” he said referring to the reporters and photographers who ringed the podium in the school’s auditorium.
The visit was also politically symbolic for the Republican governor-elect: the school was founded by Essex County Democratic Party boss Steve Adubato Sr.
A hoarse and worn-looking Christie was joined by Adubato, Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo Jr., also Democrats. Christie said he was sending a message that his new administration would encourage bipartisan cooperation but is not afraid to fight for his principles.
Booker seemed eager to accept Christie’s offer.
“Politics is over,” said the mayor, who campaigned hard for Gov. Jon Corzine. “I’ve got to find partners for progress.”
Obama calls for end of ‘firewall’ rules that shield teachers
Declaring there should be “no excuse for mediocrity” in public schools, President Obama on Wednesday pledged to push for recruitment of better teachers, better pay for those who succeed and dismissal of those who let their students down.
When principals are trying to determine which teachers are doing well, he said, they should be able to consider student performance as part of the evaluation.
And when schools are failing, “they should be shut down,” Obama said. “But when innovative public schools are succeeding, they shouldn’t be stifled, they should be supported.”
The president’s tough words came as Obama spoke to students and teachers at a charter middle school in Wisconsin’s capital, Madison. But as he announced the criteria by which states can win grants from his Department of Education’s $4.35-billion “Race to the Top” fund, Obama spelled out standards that depart from conventional Democratic dogma.
For one thing, Obama called for the abolition of “firewall” rules, which prevent many schools from judging teacher performance based on student performance.
Teacher Performance: White House Press Gaggle by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan Aboard Air Force One 11/4/2009
Q Secretary Duncan, can you articulate why it’s important to link student achievement data with teacher performance, and also why it’s important to lift these caps on the charter schools?
SECRETARY DUNCAN: I’ll take one at a time. On the first one — it’s amazing, I always use the California example because California is a big state — California has 300,000 teachers — 300,000 teachers. The top 10 percent, the top 30,000 teachers in California, would be world-class, would be among the best teachers in the world. The bottom 10 percent in California, the bottom 30,000, probably need to find another line of work, another profession. And nobody can tell you of those 300,000 teachers who’s in what category. There’s no recognition.
And so what I fundamentally believe is that great teaching matters and we need to be able to identify those teachers who routinely are making an extraordinary difference in students’ lives. And to say that teaching has no impact on student performance, on student achievement, just absolutely makes no sense to me. It absolutely degrades the profession.
So the counterargument — so right now as a country basically zero percent of student achievement relates to teacher evaluation. I think that’s a problem. I also think 100 percent — if all you do is look at a test score to evaluate a teacher, I think that’s a problem. So zero is a problem; 100 is a problem. As a country, we’re here, we’re trying to move to a middle point where you would evaluate teachers on multiple measures — that’s really important — not just on a single test score, but, yes, student achievement would be a part of what you look at in evaluating a teacher.
And so whether it’s an individual teacher, whether it’s a school, whether it’s a school district, whether it’s a state, the whole thing as a country we need to do is we need to accelerate the rate of change. We have to get better faster. And there are teachers every single year — just to give you an illustration — there are teachers every single year where the average child in their class is gaining two years of growth — two years of growth per year of instruction. That is herculean work. Those teachers are the unsung heroes in our society. And nobody can tell you who those teachers are.
There are some schools that do that, not just one miraculous teacher or one miraculous student. There are schools that year after year produce students that are showing extraordinary gains. Shouldn’t we know that? Isn’t that something valuable? Shouldn’t we be learning from them?
And the flip side of it, if you have teachers or schools where students are falling further and further behind each year, I think we need to know that as well. And so we just want to have an open, honest conversation, but at the end of the day, teachers should never be evaluated on a single test score. I want to be absolutely clear there should always be multiple measures. But student achievement has to be a piece of what teachers are evaluated on.
And there’s a recent study that came out, The New Teacher Project, that talked about this Widget Effect where 99 percent of teachers were rated as superior. It’s not reality.
On your second point, on charter caps, I’ve been really clear I’m not a fan of charter schools, I’m a fan of good charter schools. And what we need in this country is just more good schools. We need more good elementary, more good middle, more good high schools. No second grader knows whether they’re going to a charter school, or a gifted school, or traditional school, or magnet school. They know, does my teacher care about me? Am I safe? Is there high expectations? Does the principal know who I am?
We need more good schools. And where you have — where you have good charters, we need to replicate them and to learn from them and to grow. Where you have bad charters, we need to close them down and hold them accountable. And so this is not let a thousand flowers bloom, this is trying to take what is being successful and grow.
And what I would say is if something is working, if you reduce — we talked about the graduation rate, if you’re doing something to reduce the dropout rate and increase the graduation rate, would you put a cap on that strategy? Would you ever say that we’re going to cap the number of students who can take AP classes this year? We’re going to limit the number of kids who take — we’re going to limit the number of kids that graduate? We would never do that.
So if something is working, if that innovation is helping us get better, why would you put an artificial cap on it? So let’s let that innovation flourish, but at the same time actually have a high bar and hold folks accountable.
So I was a big fan of successful charter schools in Chicago when I was a superintendent there, but I also closed three charter schools for academic failure. And you need both. Good charters are a big piece of the answer. Bad charters perpetuate the status quo and we need to challenge that.
Prior to the President’s visit, I emailed a number of elected officials and education stakeholders seeking commentary on the Wright Middle School visit. One of my inquiries went to the Wisconsin Charter Schools Association. I asked for a statement on charters in Madison. They declined to make a public statement, which, perhaps is a statement in and of itself.
Madison schools — “the biggest loser”
Despite an ailing economy, Madison School Board members were guardedly optimistic last spring as they put together the district’s preliminary 2009-2010 budget. The community had overwhelmingly passed a referendum the previous fall that allowed the district to exceed state revenue caps, providing an extra $13 million to the district through 2012.
As a result, the board was anticipating a rare year where public school programs and services were not on the chopping block and was looking forward to crafting a budget with minimal property tax increases. Initial projections worked out to a $2.50 increase on an average $250,000 Madison home on this year’s tax bill.
For once, it looked as if both parents and taxpayers would be happy with the budget, a rare scenario in Wisconsin where school spending formulas and revenue caps often seem tailor-made to pit taxpayers against school advocates.
But the preliminary budget plan the Madison district drew up and approved in May predated the news that Wisconsin’s revenue situation was far worse than predicted. The result was a steep reduction in what the state’s 438 school districts would get from Wisconsin’s general school aid fund. The drop in general school aid amounted to $149 million, or 3 percent.
These cuts, however, would not be shared equally across every district, and the formula used was particularly unkind to Madison, which overnight saw a gaping hole of more than $9 million, a drop in aid not seen by any other district in the state.
“We were so happy last spring. In retrospect, it was really kind of pitiful,” says Lucy Mathiak, vice president of Madison’s School Board. The mood was decidedly more downbeat, she notes, in late October when the board gave its final approval to the $350 million 2009-2010 school district budget.
I’m glad Susan mentioned the District’s total spending. While such budget changes are difficult, many public and private organizations are facing revenue challenges. The Madison School District has long spent more per student than most Districts in Wisconsin and has enjoyed annual revenue growth of around 5.25% over the past 20+ years – despite state imposed “revenue caps” and flat enrollment.
Some can argue that more should be spent. In my view, the District MUST complete the oft discussed program review as soon as possible and determine how effective its expenditures are. Board Vice President Lucy Mathiak again raised the issue of evaluating math curriculum effectiveness via University of Wisconsin System entrance exam results and college placement. This request has fallen on deaf ears within the MMSD Administration for some time. [Madison School Board Math Discussion 40MB mp3 audio (Documents and links).] I very much appreciate Lucy’s comments. The District’s extensive use of Reading Recovery should also be evaluated in terms of effectiveness and student skills. The District should be planning for a tighter budget climate in this, the Great Recession.
Finally, I found Marj Passman’s comments in the article interesting:
“I understand that the economy is terrible, but for years we heard that the reason we had this school funding mess was because we had Republicans in charge who were basically content with the status quo,” says board member Marj Passman. “I had expected so much change and leadership on school funding issues with a Democratic governor and a Democratic Legislature. Honestly, we’ve got Rep. Pocan and Sen. Miller as co-chairs of the Joint Finance Committee and Democratic majorities in both houses! Frankly, it’s been a huge disappointment. I’d love to see that little beer tax raised and have it go to education.”
In my view, we’re much better off with “divided” government. The current Governor and legislative majority’s budget included a poor change to the arbitration rules between school districts and teacher unions:
To make matters more dire, the long-term legislative proposal specifically exempts school district arbitrations from the requirement that arbitrators consider and give the greatest weight to revenue limits and local economic conditions. While arbitrators would continue to give these two factors paramount consideration when deciding cases for all other local governments, the importance of fiscal limits and local economic conditions would be specifically diminished for school district arbitration.
Madison School District Spending History.
It’s good to see Susan Troller writing about local school issues.