Community Partners – Page 24 – School Information System

Years Of Schooling Leaves Some Students Illiterate

Author Beth Fertig says that as many as 20 percent of American adults may be functionally illiterate. They may recognize letters and words, but can’t read directions on a bus sign or a medicine bottle, read or write a letter, or hold most any job. Her new book, Why cant U teach me 2 read, follows three young New Yorkers who legally challenged the New York City public schools for failing to teach them how to read — and won. Host Scott Simon talks to Fertig about her book.
….
SIMON: The No Child Left Behind Act is often criticized. But you suggest in this book that it perhaps did force teachers to not just let a certain percentage of students slip through the cracks.
Ms. FERTIG: That is the one thing that I do hear from a lot of different people is, by not just looking at how a whole school did and saying, you know, 60 or 70 percent of our kids passed the test, they now have to look at how did our Hispanic kids do, how did our black students do, how did our special ed students do, how did English language learners do – students who aren’t born to parent who speak English.
And this way, by just aggregating the data, they’re able to see which kids are falling behind and hopefully target them and give them more interventions, more help with their reading. And the ideal is that a child like Umilka isn’t going to be caught, you know, in high school and they’re going to figure out then that they weren’t reading.
SIMON: You make a point in the book you can’t get a job cracking rocks these days without having to probably fill out a computer form as to how many rocks you cracked.
Ms. FERTIG: Exactly. Antonio is now working at UPS as a loader. He had to take a basic orientation test. And because he had improved his reading skills to a fourth or fifth grade level, he was able to pass that. But he feels stuck now.

Related: Madison School District Reading Recovery Review & Discussion.

The Closing of New York City Public Schools: A Case of “Persistently Failing DoE Management”

Leo Casey:

With the last of the official announcements of the schools targeted for closure by Chancellor Klein, the final grim toll can be tallied. An unprecedented twenty-one schools have been told that the Department of Education will begin their phase out in September 2010. Fifteen of those schools — a completely disproportionate number — were high schools.*
With this wide swath of devastation, there can be no illusion that this is a process based on an educational calculus. The evidence simply tells a very different story: the Chancellor could not close significant numbers of Elementary and Middle Schools, once 97% of them scored A and B on School Progress Reports that so heavily weighted the wildly inflated and broken state exams. So Klein decided that to reach his targets, he would close high schools in much larger numbers. Among the high schools slated for closure are schools which are in good standing with the New York State Education Department and schools which are meeting their Annual Yearly Progress benchmarks under No Child Left Behind, as well as a school which just received the school-wide bonus. The list includes schools which never received a School Progress grade lower than C, and schools which actually improved on every measure in the School Progress Reports.
Why take a machete to New York City public high schools in this way? The reason is not difficult to decipher. The Chancellor needs a great deal of space in public school buildings to pursue his political and ideological agenda of creating and supporting new charter schools and new DoE schools. Since it had become politically untenable to create that space by closing large numbers of elementary and middle schools, the space would have to be found in high schools.

An Interview with Montgomery (Alabama) School District Superintendent (an former Madison Lapham Elementary Principal) Barbara Thompson

David Zaslawsky, via a kind reader’s email:

MBJ: As superintendent, you are the CEO of a $311 million budget, 32,000 students and 4,500 employees. What are your priorities?
Thompson: Basically, moving the school district forward so we are considered one of the No. 1 school districts in the state. Making sure that our students are successful and that they have skills that will allow them to compete in what I consider a global society. My priority is to make sure first and foremost that we have kids in the classroom – so we have to tackle that dropout rate.
MBJ: Any other initiatives?
Thompson: The Career Academies is another way we’re looking at deterring our dropout rate. We hope that this gives our kids some idea of the light at the end of the tunnel; some skill set they can see and some jobs they can do. Potentially, we see (Career Academies) being a linkage for those kids for reasons why to stay in school because this can give you jobs – these are classes you can take while you’re in high school so when you graduate, you actually have a job. And the last component of that – that three-tier component that I consider — is prevention. We increased seven pre-K programs because the other part of dropout prevention is that part. We added seven pre-K programs this year for a total of 21. The reason that is so critical is because one of the reasons kids drop out is because they don’t have the skills that they need. We’re trying to increase giving the kids skills as 4-year-olds so when they come into kindergarten, they are caught up. That’s part of that three-pronged approach.
MBJ: What are some of the things that you learned about MPS since you took over in August, and what has surprised you?
Thompson: I learned a lot about the commitment that this community has towards education, particularly the business (community), work force development and the chamber. They are very committed to making sure that the public schools in Montgomery are successful. I guess I was surprised at the Career Academies. They are cutting-edge in terms of what you want to be doing in the school district and the involvement that we have in the chamber in the (Career Academies) is exciting and unusual.

Montgomery, AL school district website & Thompson’s blog.
Lapham Elementary’s success with Direct Instruction (phonics) was discussed during a Reading Recovery conversation at the December 7, 2009 Madison School Board meeting.

Verona, WI School Board Discussion of the New Century Charter School

via a kind reader’s email, who notes that Verona’s video archives include very helpful topic based navigation!

At the most recent meeting on Dec. 7, the school board heard a final presentation from New Century School’s site council. Developments with New Century’s charter renewal are reaching a critical point, since we need approval from the school board by early January to participate in kindergarten recruitment. New Century is one of Wisconsin’s oldest charter schools (established in May 1995), and our school community is fighting for the charter’s continued existence. It’s been a challenging journey.

Click “video” for the December 7, 2009 meeting and look for “D”, the New Century Presentation. Interestingly, “E” is a presentation on a proposed Chinese immersion charter school.
Unfortunately, Madison lacks significant charter activity, something which, in my view, would be very beneficial to the community, students and parents.

With Wisconsin’s QEO Gone, schools bargain harder on teachers’ contracts

Amy Hetzner:

So far this school year, the approximately 100 school districts that have reached agreements with their teachers have average settlements that increase salaries and benefits by 3.75%, according to Bob Butler, staff counsel for the Wisconsin Association of School Boards. That compares with an average total compensation increase of 4.11% for teachers in the 2008-’09 school year.
Given that settlements tend to go down the longer negotiations take, Butler said the average increases for 2009-’10 and 2010-’11 are likely to be below what they have been in the past and what was considered a minimum settlement under the QEO law.
The recession, even in growing and financially stable districts, is the main reason behind the settlement drops, Butler said. Even though the Legislature removed the QEO salary restrictions, it left revenue limits in place so that any increase in teacher compensation almost certainly means staff cuts, he said.
In addition, facing pressure from taxpayers, some school districts, such as Whitnall, refused to enact a tax levy up to their state-imposed revenue limits this year.
“We have seen such a drastic reduction in the amount of money we have coming in from the state, it would have been hard to settle at 3.8% even if the QEO still stood there,” Whitnall School Board President Bill Osterndorf said.

Milwaukee Public Schools have heard the criticism; what’s next?

Alan Borsuk:

I give William Andrekopoulos credit – the school superintendent has invited outside scrutiny of what’s going on in Milwaukee Public Schools, and he hasn’t flinched when that has brought bad news time after time.
He says it takes courage to do this, and, especially compared with the mealy-mouthed way lots of executives in public and private businesses act, he’s right.
“If you don’t put the truth on the table . . . there will never be a sense of urgency to improve,” he said in a phone conversation. He said he wants his successor – whom the School Board is on pace to pick soon – to have a clear understanding of what the score is.
So here’s some of the score:
In 2006, Andrekopoulos invites the Council of the Great City Schools, a professional organization for big city school administrators, to assess the education program in MPS. The result: A report that is strongly critical, saying efforts in city schools are a hodgepodge of practices, many of them weak. The report also says there is a pervasive lack of urgency about getting better results in MPS.

Bill gives Milwaukee Mayor Barrett mega power over schools

Larry Sandler & Erin Richards:

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett would have more power over the Milwaukee Public Schools superintendent and budget than nearly any other U.S. mayor holds over a big-city school system, under a bill the Legislature is to consider Wednesday.
“If they go ahead with the present plan, it will make for one of the most powerful education mayors in the country,” said Joe Viteritti, a professor of public policy at Hunter College who led a commission to study mayoral control in New York City and has edited a book, “When Mayors Take Charge.”
The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee), would allow the mayor to appoint the superintendent without confirmation by the School Board or Common Council, and would let the superintendent set the school budget and tax levy without a vote by the board or council.
Elected School Board members – who now select the superintendent and approve the budget – would be limited to an advisory role on the budget and would control only such functions as student discipline, community outreach and adult recreation.

Let big city mayor pick school chief

Wisconsin State Journal Editorial:

Something big needs to happen with Milwaukee Public Schools to boost student performance and graduation rates.
And Gov. Jim Doyle’s push to give the city’s mayor more influence is worth a shot.
The Legislature should accept Doyle’s call for a special floor session this week to change how Milwaukee chooses its school superintendent.
Doyle wants the city’s mayor, rather than the Milwaukee School Board, to appoint the superintendent. In addition, Senate Bill 405 would give the superintendent more power over the district’s budget, contracts and staff.
If city voters didn’t like the results by 2017, they could change back to the current system through a binding referendum.
The Legislature is already planning to meet this week to OK tougher drunken driving laws. So it can easily take up SB 405 as well. The bill needs quick action to help Wisconsin compete for federal “Race to the Top” innovation grants.

America’s Best High Schools; Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology is #1

US News & World Report:

We looked at more than 21,000 public high schools in 48 states and the District of Columbia. The following are the 100 schools that performed the best in our three-step America’s Best High Schools ranking analysis.

Kenneth Terrell:

Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Va., the top school in U.S. News & World Report’s America’s Best High Schools rankings, is designed to challenge students. A course load of offerings that include DNA science, neurology, and quantum physics would seem to be more than enough to meet that goal. But students and the faculty felt those classes weren’t enough, so they decided to tackle another big question: What are the social responsibilities of educated people? Over the course of the school year, students are exploring social responsibility through projects of their own design, ranging from getting school supplies for students with cerebral palsy in Shanghai to persuading their classmates to use handkerchiefs to reduce paper waste. The One Question project demonstrates the way “TJ,” as it’s referred to by students and teachers, encourages the wide-ranging interests of its students.
“None of our students has the same passion,” says TJ Principal Evan Glazer. “But having a passion is widely accepted and embraced.”
This enthusiasm has placed TJ at the top of the America’s Best High Schools ranking for each of the three years that U.S. News has ranked high schools. U.S. News uses a three-step process that analyzes first how schools are educating all of their students, then their minority and disadvantaged students, and finally their collegebound students based on student scores on statewide tests, Advanced Placement tests, and International Baccalaureate tests.

Wisconsin high schools ranked 44th among the 50 states. No Dane County schools made the list.

Announcing our January Reading Day

Wisconsin First Lady Jessica Doyle, via email:

Warm wishes this winter season!
Thank you for your continued participation in the Read On Wisconsin! book club. We had a fantastic semester traveling to classrooms across Wisconsin and inviting numerous classes and authors to the Executive Residence for Reading Days.
Throughout the fall, we spoke to elementary, middle, and high school students about the importance of reading and suggesting the excellent books chosen by the Literacy Advisory Committee. Three Cups of Tea: The Young Reader’s Edition by Greg Mortenson has been one of our most popular choices and has connected so many students and staff with community service. (You can learn more at: www.penniesforpeace.org.)
We have held very successful Reading Days at the Residence. In November, we welcomed three authors: Rachna Gilmore (Group of One), Sylviane Diouf (Bintou’s Braids), and James Rumford (Silent Music). Each of these authors shared their enthusiasm for writing and answered many student questions about their international experiences.
Our next Reading Day will be: Thursday, January 21, 2010 from 9:00 – 2:30. At our January Reading Day, we will welcome John Coy, the author of our high school selection, Box Out. This book shares a courageous story of a high school basketball player who speaks up against an unconstitutional act occurring at his school. Box Out reaches all students. We are seeking five middle or high school classes for this Reading Day.
Please e-mail Ashley Huibregtse at ashley.huibregtse@wisconsin.gov or call 608-575-5608 to reserve your middle or high school group a spot in the schedule. Each class will be scheduled for one hour. Please share your time preference when you call or e-mail. Remember we offer bus reimbursement up to $100 to help with transportation costs if needed.
E-mail or call today! This will be an exciting Reading Day to start 2010! All the best for a happy holiday season, and Read On!
Sincerely,
Jessica and Ashley

4K reaches 80 percent of Wisconsin school districts

Wisconsin DPI, via a kind reader’s email:

Eighty percent of Wisconsin school districts offer 4-year-old kindergarten (4K), educational programming that has been growing throughout the state.
Sixteen school districts opened 4K programs this year. The 333 districts that provide 4K programs are serving 38,075 children, an enrollment increase of more than 4,000 from last year. Of the districts providing 4K, 101 do so through the community approach, which blends public and private resources to allow more options for the care and education of all 4-year-olds.
Licensed teachers provide instruction for all public school district 4K programs. In the community approach, some districts provide a licensed 4K teacher in a private child care setting, some contract with Head Start or the child care setting for the licensed teachers, and others bring child care into the licensed 4K public school program or mesh licensed 4K services with a Head Start program. Wisconsin is one of the nation’s leading models for combining educational and community care services for 4-year-olds.

Board of Education Progress Report, December, 2009

Madison School Board President Arlene Silveira, via email:

4-Year-Old Kindergarten (4K): The Board received updates from the community-based 4K planning committee in the areas of: 1) logistics; 2) curriculum; 3) public/community relations; 4) family outreach/involvement; 5) funding. The Board voted to have the District continue to work with the community in planning for 4K with an anticipated start date of September 2010, pending the determination of the availability of the resources necessary to support the new program. A presentation on financial resources will be made to the Board in December.
Financial Audit: As required by state statute, the MMSD hires an independent audit firm to perform an audit of our annual financial statements and review our compliance with federal program requirements. The audit looks at the financial operations of the District. This audit was completed by Clifton Gunderson LLP. The Board received the audit report and a summary from Clifton Gunderson.
When asked what the summary message was that we could share with the community, the response was that the District is in a very sound financial position. Results of operations for 2009 were very positive with $10M added to fund balance. The fund balance is critical to the operation of the District and the cash-flow of the District. We were pleased with the audit outcome.
Math Task Force: The Board approved the administrative response to the 13 recommendations listed in the MMSD Math Task Force Report. The recommendations focused on middle school math specialists; district-wide curricular consistency; achievement gap; assessment; teacher collaboration; parent/community communication; balanced math approach; addressing failing grades in algebra; and algebra in 8th grade. The Board also asked for regular updates on the progress of plan implementation. The Task Force Report is located on the District’s web site.
Enrollment Data: The Board reviewed the enrollment data and projections for the District. One area that stood out was the overcrowding in some of the elementary schools in the La Follette attendance area. The Long Range Planning Committee is starting a series of meetings to study the overcrowding in this area and to develop recommendations for the Board on how to address this issue. It is anticipated that recommendations will be brought back to the Board in February. The Board will have the final say on how to deal with the overcrowding issues.
If you have any questions/comments, please let us know. board@madison.k12.wi.us
Arlene Silveira (516-8981)

Tracking/Grouping Students: Detracked Schools have fewer advanced math students than “tracked schools”

Tom Loveless:

What are the implications of “tracking,” or grouping students into separate classes based on their achievement? Many schools have moved away from this practice and reduced the number of subject-area courses offered in a given grade. In this new Thomas B. Fordham Institute report, Brookings scholar Tom Loveless examines tracking and detracking in Massachusetts middle schools, with particular focus on changes that have occurred over time and their implications for high-achieving students. Among the report’s key findings: detracked schools have fewer advanced students in mathematics than tracked schools. The report also finds that detracking is more popular in schools serving disadvantaged populations.

Valerie Strauss:

A new report out today makes the case that students do better in school when they are separated into groups based on their achievement.
Loveless found that de-tracked schools have fewer advanced students in math than do tracked schools–and that de-tracking is more popular in schools that serve disadvantaged students.

Chester Finn, Jr. and Amber Winkler [1.3MB complete report pdf]:

By 2011, if the states stick to their policy guns, all eighth graders in California and Minnesota will be required to take algebra. Other states are all but certain to follow. Assuming these courses hold water, some youngsters will dive in majestically and then ascend gracefully to the surface, breathing easily. Others, however, will smack their bellies, sink to the bottom and/or come up gasping. Clearly, the architects of this policy have the best of intentions. In recent years, the conventional wisdom of American K-12 education has declared algebra to be a “gatekeeper” to future educational and career success. One can scarcely fault policy makers for insisting that every youngster pass through that gate, lest too many find their futures constrained. It’s also well known that placing students in remedial classes rarely ends up doing them a favor, especially in light of evi- dence that low-performing students may learn more in heterogeneous classrooms.
Yet common sense must ask whether all eighth graders are truly prepared to succeed in algebra class. That precise question was posed in a recent study by Brookings scholar Tom Loveless (The 2008 Brown Center Report on American Education), who is also the author of the present study. He found that over a quarter of low-performing math students–those scoring in the bottom 10 percent on NAEP–were enrolled in advanced math courses in 2005. Since these “misplaced” students are ill-pre- pared for the curricular challenges that lie ahead, Loveless warned, pushing an “algebra for all” policy on them could further endanger their already-precarious chances of success.
When American education produced this situation by abolishing low-level tracks and courses, did people really believe that such seemingly simple–and well-meanin –changes in policy and school organization would magically transform struggling learners into middling or high-achieving ones? And were they oblivious to the effects that such alterations might have on youngsters who were al- ready high-performing?

Related: English 10.

The Perfect Example of Communalism

Andreal Davis – Madison School District Instructional Resource Teacher for Cultural Relevance, via a kind reader’s email:

Communalism is the concept that the duty to one’s family and social group is more important that individual rights and privileges. On November 4, 2009 I personally experienced this concept through President Barack Obama’s visit to James Coleman Wright Middle School.
The experience began with my 12 year old son, Ari Davis, being selected to lead the Pledge of Allegiance during the ceremony. Minutes after being informed of this special occasion, I was invited to attend the event as a member of the Madison Metropolitan School District staff. Thus, I attended the ceremony wearing two hats, one as a parent and the other as an educator.
On the day of this event, several of us anxiously awaited – for more than four hours – the arrival of President Obama. During this period I experienced first hand the spirit of communalism. A recap of my educational career began to unfold in the parking lot as I held conversations with past and current MMSD colleagues. As I entered Wright Middle School I had the opportunity to interact with students I had taught at Lincoln Elementary. This allowed me to see some products of my work by listening to their thought provoking reactions to the President’s impending visit.

Clusty Search: Communalism.

“Bloomberg to Tie Student Test Scores to Decisions on Teacher Tenure”

Melissa Westbrook:

You can’t say it more plainly than that so I reprinted the headline from this NY Times article.
Apparently NYC already uses test scores as a factor in teacher/principal bonus pay (yes, they have that too), for the grade a school gets (A-F) and for which schools are closed because of poor performance. A lot of this effort is to get Race to the Top money.
The article suggests that the Mayor (he just won his third term despite having said he would follow the law that he couldn’t run again – he got that changed) may put forth his political capital to take on the teachers union.
And from the article of interest to us:
“The mayor also said the state should allow teacher layoffs based on performance rather than seniority, as they are now.”

Latest cause of foreclosures: Kids didn’t learn it in school

Jo Egelhoff:

Nanny State Update: I don’t get this. Why would instructions be issued to teach kids – to be required to teach kids – about taking out a mortgage and the risks of a home loan?.
Why would teachers need to be told to teach kids about money management? How much more of this stuff are these poor teachers going to be mandated to teach?
The state’s Model Academic Standards for Personal Financial Literacy are extensive and detailed. A quick glance at the Table of Contents tells you DPI has it covered. Peek inside (Credit and Debt management, pp. 8 – 10) and you’ll see tons of objectives and sub-objectives for 4th graders, 8th graders and 12th graders. Check it out. Yes, I think we’re covered!

Basic knowledge of Math should be sufficient to help all of us understand loans that make sense, vs those that don’t. I continue to be amazed at the financial pitches that apparently work: $89/month for a new Honda Civic (fine print: big down payment and a balloon payment after x years).

Expand charter schools? Here’s how

Nelson Smith:

ducation reform advocates have been cheered by the election of Chris Christie as New Jersey’s next governor. A key plank of his education plan is creating more high-quality public charter schools — a goal shared with the administration of President Obama.
Since the first charter school law was passed in 1991, the movement has enjoyed bipartisan support at the federal and state levels. Now, in part because of the emphasis on charters in the administration’s “Race to the Top” competition, we’re seeing a firestorm of renewed interest in many states.
As Carlos Lejnieks, chairman of the a, rightly says, we need to move charters “from mediocre to good; from good to great; and from great to growth.” The good news is that New Jersey has assets to build from and is already doing some things right.
From Ryan Hill and Steve Adubato in Newark to Gloria Bonilla-Santiago in Camden, some of the nation’s leading charter leaders are in New Jersey. In terms of policy, there is no statewide “cap” on the number of charter schools that can be created; the New Jersey Department of Education has created a reasonably rigorous process for approving new charters while adding greater numbers of new schools in recent years; and the statewide public school-finance reforms enacted in 2008 helped establish a more level playing field for charters that had suffered huge disadvantages under the previous funding program.

Now it’s time to manage a school district

Dallas Morning News Editorial:

We have a simple message to newly elected Dallas schools trustees Bernadette Nutall and Bruce Parrott: The politicking is over; now it’s time to manage a school district.
This urging is not to be taken lightly. DISD is making academic progress and beginning to put its battered financial house in order; it must continue to improve in those directions.
Tuesday’s runoff elections give us both hope and cause to pause. Nutall, District 9 trustee, has constructively criticized the school board and administration. We anticipate that she will responsibly hold DISD administration, including Superintendent Michael Hinojosa, accountable to trustees and, ultimately, to taxpayers, parents and students. We recommended her in this race because she’s done strong work in the district as a school-community liaison and brings a grassroots understanding of the issues facing DISD.
However, we’re less certain about Parrott, whose campaign in District 3 consisted of mostly unfocused critiques of DISD, Hinojosa and board incumbents. The new trustee, whose style we’ve found to be potentially combative and unproductive, must deliver more. While we did not recommend him in this election, we hope he proves our concerns unfounded.

Charter Schools Against the Odds

Wall Street Journal Editorial:

Charter schools reached a new milestone this year. According to the Center for Education Reform, more than 5,000 charters are now operating in 39 states and the District of Columbia. Considering that the first charter didn’t open until 1992, and that these innovative schools have faced outright hostility from teachers unions and the education bureaucracy, their growth is a rare gleam of hope for American public schools.
More than 1.5 million students now attend charters, an 11% increase from a year ago. That’s only about 3% of all public school students, but the number has more than quadrupled in the past decade. And it would be much higher if the supply of charter schools was meeting the demand. As of June, an estimated 365,000 kids were on waiting lists.

An Update from the Madison School Board’s Student Member

Sarah Maslin:

4k is really exciting, since it provides a great opportunity for four year olds to get a head start with learning before they get to kindergarten. It’s also a promising step towards eliminating the achievment gap. Right now, we’re smooting out some rough edges– deciding whether to start with all of the buildings and teachers, or whether to “phase in,” starting with 1/3 or 2/3 the amount of resources, and then increase it in the next few years.
However, though there’s still some negotiating to go, the 4k plan seems to be on its way. Another issue that involved a lot of intense discussion was the district’s Reading Recovery Program.
Reading Recovery is a program for first grade students who are really struggling with reading. Targeted at the lowest 20% reading level students, Reading Recovery provides very intense one-on-one training every day which, when continued throughout the year, has very good national results of getting kids back on track.
However, in the last few years, RR in the MMSD has had less success than the national average (42% students finish the program versus around 60% nationally). This lead the district to worry and evaluate the program. At our meeting, we discussed schools that had experienced success with reading recoverey, and other ones that had not. The team that evaluated the program has recommended “full implementation” of reading recovery at schools with the most needy children, which would hopefully increase the success rate at those schools. However, due to limited resources, Reading Recovery can not be implemented at every school.

Just How Long Has The Milwaukee Public Schools Takeover Been Planned?

The Milwaukee Drum:

Troy Shaw (Focus On Diversity) held a panel discussion 3 years ago to discuss something similar to a MPS Takeover. Look at who was on the panel then… interesting how long this issue has been on the table. Dr. Onick tells the audience exactly what he believes should be done with underperforming schools… shut ’em down.

A New Front in War on Cavities

Shirley Wang:

Cavities have made a dismaying comeback in children in recent years, and the search is on among scientists to find new ways to fight tooth decay.
The prevalence of cavities in children aged 2 to 5 decreased steadily through the 1970s and 1980s, thanks largely to the expansion of water fluoridation and to advances in treatment and prevention, dental experts say. The trend appeared to hit a low around the mid-1990s, when about 24% of young children had cavities, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But tooth decay then began heading higher. A CDC survey found that 28% of small children–a significant increase, according to the agency–had cavities in the five years ended 2004, the latest data available. The reasons for the increase aren’t entirely clear. But dental experts suggest it may be due to children drinking more bottled water that doesn’t contain fluoride, and to changes in dietary habits.

The Race to the Top Starts Now

Antonio Villaraigosa:

It is far past the time for California to step up and reform its education system. As a state, our schools were once the fourth-highest in the nation in reading and math. Now, we now rank below 40. In science, our students were once proudly some of the highest in the nation and now they are now some of the lowest.
This is simply unacceptable.
We have to reform the way we educate our children and, thanks to the Obama administration, we have a chance to do just that.
Thanks to the Race to the Top funds – $4.35 billion worth of competitive grants – states have the opportunity to compete for these funds that are intended to “encourage and reward states that are creating the conditions for education innovation and reform.” Essentially, the White House and Department of Education have issued a challenge to states – come up with a workable plan to fix your failing schools and they will reward you with funding.

Doyle calls special legislative session for Milwaukee Public Schools changes

Patrick Marley:

Citing low Milwaukee Public Schools’ scores on a new national assessment, Gov. Jim Doyle called for a special legislative session for Dec. 16 to give the Milwaukee mayor the power to appoint the school superintendent.
That’s the same day lawmakers hope to pass a bill to toughen drunken driving laws.
Doyle for weeks has pushed for the change to help secure a share of $4.35 billion in federal Race to the Top funds. But he faces strong opposition from some of his fellow Democrats who control the Legislature.
“I am calling a special session of the Legislature because we must act now to drive real change that improves students’ performance, month after month and year after year,” Doyle said in a statement. “The children at Milwaukee Public Schools are counting on the adults around them to prepare them for success.”
But opponents of the plan said they will continue to fight the measure.
“It is disappointing that Gov. Doyle has decided to ignore the will of Milwaukee’s citizens and continue his push for a mayoral takeover of Milwaukee Public Schools,” Rep. Tamara Grigsby (D-Milwaukee) said in a statement. “MPS needs serious reform, but the top-down approach for which he advocates lacks the level of community engagement and consideration that any proposal of this magnitude requires.”

40 years later, chemistry show is still a hit

Deborah Ziff:

It would seem to hold all the appeal of listening to someone read the dictionary aloud.
But hundreds of people will pack into a room on the UW-Madison campus Saturday to attend a presentation on the properties of carbon dioxide, liquid nitrogen and zirconium.
In short, the choice activity in Madison on Saturday is a chemistry lecture.
If it sounds like a snooze, then you don’t know Bassam Shakhashiri.
This is the 40th time the UW-Madison professor has held his annual Christmas show extravaganza, otherwise known as “Once upon a Christmas cheery, in the lab of Shakhashiri.”
With a flair for showmanship, Shakhashiri is like a magician who wows audiences by using science, rather than sleight of hand or illusions. Beakers erupt with material, solutions turn psychedelic colors, chemicals explode thunderously – all to an audience oohing and ahhing as if they were watching Harry Houdini.

The dumbing down of education

Peggy Alley:

Childs Walker’s article “Poor, minority students lose ground in college, study says” (Dec. 4) was quite chilling for anyone who has watched the demise of our public school system. The thinking seems to be that if minorities can’t pass tests than the tests must be too difficult and should be made easier. That has become American education’s mindset and has produced high school graduates who can’t read, write, do basic math or think for themselves. It is much easier to dumb down education than to address the real problems of lack of parenting skills and inadequate teaching methods.
Of course America will be at a competitive disadvantage; while the rest of the world is raising educational standards, we are focused on making sure minority testing and graduate percentage rates are as high as non-minorities no matter how closing the gap is achieved.

National education group gives N.J. charter school laws a ‘C’ grade

Jeannette Rundquist:

New Jersey’s laws governing charter schools received a “C” from a Washington, D.C. non-profit group that ranked the statutes governing charter schools across the nation.
The Center for Education Reform, which advocates for charter schools and school choice, found New Jersey’s laws fell right in the middle — 17th strongest — among the 40 states and districts that allow charter schools.
Only three places received an “A”: California, Minnesota and the District of Columbia. And only 13 of 40 states have strong laws that do not require revision, according to the report released today.

The School Turnaround Folly

Andrew Smarick:

The Obama administration’s Department of Education recently launched what I believe will become its most expensive, most lamentable, and most avoidable folly. Declaring that, “as a country, we all need to get into the turnaround business,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced the availability of $3.5 billion in School Improvement Grants.
Years of research have clearly demonstrated that efforts to fix our most persistently failing schools seldom work. Moreover, turnarounds in other fields and industries have the same distressing track record. (This Education Next article fully discusses this matter.)
If the secretary’s declaration were merely rhetorical, it would only demonstrate a lack of appreciation for the sad history of turnarounds. But it’s entirely more worrisome than that. During a speech at the 2009 National Charter Schools Conference, Duncan encouraged the nation’s best charter school operators to move away from their magnificent core competency–starting new schools for disadvantaged students–and get into the turnaround business. If they unwisely take him up on the offer, the opportunity costs could be staggering.
And of course, there is the matter of money. At $3.5 billion, this grant program is mammoth, meaning we are about to spend an enormous sum of money on a line of work with a remarkable track record of failure. Exacerbating the problem, the final guidelines allow for tepid interventions (the “transformation” model) to qualify as a turnaround attempt. While districts could choose to pursue more radical activities, history teaches us that few will.

Milwaukee, Waukesha parents fight for bilingual schools

Georgia Pabst:

Parents at two largely Latino, bilingual schools – one on Milwaukee’s south side and one in Waukesha – are waging battles to save their schools.
Although Kagel and White Rock elementary schools stand 18 miles apart in separate counties, the debates at both fit into the larger, national philosophical issues about bilingualism, small schools vs. large schools, economic pressures on school districts and changing demographics.
At Kagel, a neighborhood school in the heart of Milwaukee’s Latino community, more than 200 parents filled the school’s small gymnasium last month when word leaked out that Kagel was on the list of schools that Superintendent William Andrekopoulos identified for possible closure because of dropping enrollment or performance issues.
Parents reacted with signs that read: “Small school – Ideal scenario” and “Our children’s education is important to us.”
At the meeting, Andrekopoulos assured parents that Kagel, which is 76% Latino, won’t be shut down. But because of low enrollment – 334 students – and increasing district costs, some changes might be in store, such as converting it into an early child education center, he said.
Zuleika Reza, a parent and member of the school’s governance council, said parents don’t want that.
“We want to make it clear that we want to keep it as a small school that’s within walking distance for many families,” she said.

The school bell rings and students stay to study

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-deanza6-2009dec06,0,3692913.story?track=rss:

After-school programs at De Anza Elementary in Baldwin Park keep students, faculty and even families focused on education.
The bell signaling the end of the school day at De Anza Elementary in Baldwin Park rang more than an hour ago. But hundreds of students are still at school, studying vocabulary, practicing math and completing homework under the supervision of teachers.
With the help of state grants, federal funds and teacher volunteers, nearly half of De Anza’s students spend extra hours every week learning at school — hours well beyond the traditional school day.
“Until six o’clock at night, you would think we’re still in session,” said Principal Christine Simmons. “Seeing the campus so alive like that, and seeing the parents and students so excited, just makes me and all the teachers want to work harder.”
The result, according to the state Department of Education, is a dramatic improvement in student achievement.

Notes and Commentary on a Seattle STEM High School

Charlie Mas:

I attended the Cleveland STEM Community Meeting on December 4 with my wife and 8th grade daughter.
First, the important parts.
My daughter is excited about the program. To her it looks like a good mix of the academic challenge of Garfield with the more personalized instruction (and project-based learning) of NOVA. She got most excited when she saw a list of the possible classes in the Global Health Academy.
My wife and I are much more confident about the probability that the program will actually be there and that it will be something like what has been advertised.
There was a pretty good crowd of people there – I’d say about forty to fifty (not counting staff).
The folks from Cleveland who were there are excited about the program and have a very clear picture of the idea – the project-based learning, the integration of technology, the alignment between classes, the extended school day and accelerated schedule, etc.
The STEM program looks real and, to us, it looks good. They still have some things to work out. The schedule is inspired, but needs some tinkering. They haven’t figured out how to get the student:computer ratio to the promised 1:1. They are still missing a lot of the curricular elements – they haven’t found the puzzle pieces but they know what they have to look like.

The So-Called Boy Mystery

Dr. Sara Goldrick-Rab:

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights recently announced that it would investigate whether some colleges are discriminating against women in an effort to generate a more gender-diverse student population. Reaction was mixed, with some saying it’s about time that the “crisis with boys” in higher education is acknowledged and addressed, and others expressing some disbelief and ridicule that the gender wars have come to this.

But part of the overall response really stuck in my craw–the oft-repeated claim that we “just don’t know” what’s going on with boys. According to many, sources for the gender differential in higher education are a complete “mystery,” a puzzle, a whodunit that we may be intentionally ignoring.

Yes, there are numerous potential explanations for the under-representation of men in higher education–and in particular the growing female advantage in terms of bachelor’s degree completion. For example, it could be that boys and girls have differing amounts of the resources important for college success (e.g. levels of financial resources or parental education) or that the usual incentives for college-going (e.g. labor market returns) have differential effects by gender (why, laments the Wall Street Journal, don’t boys “get” the importance of attending college?). It’s also possible that changes in the labor force or marriage markets, gender discrimination, or societal expectations play a role–or that the reasons have to do with the growth of community colleges, changes in college affordability, or shifts in the available alternatives to college (e.g. the military).

Detroit Teachers Loaning the District 10K over Two years, 1% Raise in the Third Year

Chastity Pratt Dawsey:

Boos and jeers filled Cobo Hall this afternoon as Detroit Public Schools teachers reacted to details in a proposed contract agreement with the district.
The tentative agreement [Master Settlement PDF] includes:

Teachers loaning the district $10,000 each over two years with deductions taken from their paychecks.
A base salary increase of 1% in the third year of the three-year contract.
Increase in health insurance costs.
Plus a plethora of school reforms that include a peer evaluation process.

Teachers union president Keith Johnson told the crowd that the contract may not be exactly what they want but the alternative is to have the district declare bankruptcy, possibly leaving many of them unemployed.
“I cannot, I will not gamble, play Russian roulette, call the bluff of the district,” Johnson said.

For charter schools, the reality of finding space is complex

Eugene Piccolo:

Minnesotans deserve to have the funds they provide for education used in the most effective way possible.
The story in the Nov. 29 Star Tribune, “Charter program is ‘out of control’,” raised issues that should concern everyone who cares about high quality public education and careful use of tax dollars.
As a citizen, taxpayer, educator and executive director of the Minnesota Association of Charter Schools, I am saddened and disappointed that some people look for ways around both the letter and the spirit of the law, some companies charge exorbitant fees, and some individuals use their offices to personally profit from transactions involving public funds.
Thankfully, such conduct is not the norm — but an examination is needed into the policies and practices that allow these aberrations to occur.
So what is the larger reality in charter schools?

Troops to Teachers

Bernie Becker:

In her last job in the Air Force, Tammie Langley gave prospective pilots and navigators an introduction to aeronautics. Four years later, Ms. Langley is in a different sort of classroom, teaching sixth graders in North Carolina everything from reading to math.
The settings may be radically different, but Ms. Langley said the transition from teaching 22-year-olds to teaching 11- or 12-year-olds had been fairly seamless. “Either way, you still have to kind of wipe their noses a bit and kick them in the behind every now and then,” said Ms. Langley, who is in her second year at Kannapolis Intermediate School, about 25 miles north of Charlotte.
Ms. Langley, 36, became a schoolteacher in large part because of Troops to Teachers, a federal program that, over 15 years, has helped about 12,000 former service members transition into second careers in the classroom. Now, a bipartisan group in Congress is hoping to expand the program to allow more veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan to sign up, while also increasing the number of places in which they could find employment.
Not all of the veterans who enter the classroom with the help of Troops to Teachers, some of whom are up to a generation older than teachers starting right out of college, share Ms. Langley’s background in formal instruction. But the program’s supporters and participants say that military service in general provides the sort of discipline and life experiences that translate well to teaching.

Longer day might be worth a try

Jay Matthews:

I got an advance look at the first count of U.S. public schools that have significantly expanded learning time. The report, released Monday by the National Center on Time & Learning, reveals that a surprisingly large number — 655 — give students an average of 25 percent more time than the standard 6 1/2 hours a day, 180 days a year. But I was disappointed that only about 160 in that group are regular public schools.
The District has 18 schools on the list, more than in all but 10 states. But they are charter public schools. The majority of D.C. children are in regular schools. They have not had a chance to see what a big jump in learning time might do for them.
The Washington area suburbs are also disappointing. Maryland has only two schools on the list, both charters in Baltimore. One — the KIPP Ujima Village Academy — has cut back its hours under union pressure to pay teachers the standard hourly rate for the extra time. The only Virginia schools on the list are the two An Achievable Dream schools set up by the Newport News school district to help impoverished students.
I like longer school days because I have seen them help bring significant increases in achievement in several charter school networks, including Achievement First, Uncommon Schools, YES and KIPP. Most important are their great teachers, the flame of learning. But increased time is the fuel.

Madison School District News

via a Ken Syke email:

MMSD Fine Arts Coordinator Julie Palkowski is the author of the featured article in the latest edition of the Wisconsin School Musician magazine. Partnerships across our community enhance the opportunities for MMSD students. Making the Most of the Concert Festival Experience is a case study of the collaborative project among the MMSD, the Overture Center for the Arts and the Wisconsin Music Educators Association that occurred this past April.
According to Google, the MMSD is the fifth most popular searched item in the Madison area. Google broke down the top search terms by city in its Zeitgeist 2009 survey. Google counted searches in 31 US cities to compile the list of the most popular searches unique to specific cities. Looking for something to do on a cold winter’s evening? Why not consider a concert at one of our high schools, or a middle school choral performance. The MMSD calendar of events lists a wide range of no-cost potential family activities to beat the recession blues!

An Update on the Madison School District’s Proposed 4K Program

Superintendent Dan Nerad [600K PDF]:

Attached to this memorandum is detailed costing information relative to the implementation of four-year-old kindergarten. We have attempted to be as inclusive as possible in identifying the various costs involved in implementing this program.
Each of the identified options includes cost estimates involving all three program models that have previously been discussed. The first option includes the specific cost requests provided to us by representatives from the community providers. The remaining options include the same costing information for Model I programs (programs in district schools) but vary for Model II and III programs (programs in community-based early learning centers). These options vary in the following ways:

For District Option 1, we have used a 1:10 staffing ratio instead of a 1:8.5 staffing ratio that was submitted by representatives from the community providers.
For District Option 2, we have used a three-year phase-in for the reimbursement to local providers.
For District Option 3, we have used both a 1:10 ratio and a three-year phase-in for reimbursement to local providers.
For District Option 4, we have used both a 1:10 ratio and a two-year phase-in for the reimbursement to local providers.

The District options with a 1:10 ratio were created because this was the staffing ratio that was recommended by the 4K planning committee and is the ratio needed for local accreditation. All Modell costing(in District schools) is based on a 1:15 ratio with the understanding that additional special education and bilingual support to the classroom is provided. The District options employing a two- or three-year phase-in of the

States Seek Stimulus Funds Tied to Education Reform

John Merrow:

Finally tonight: overhauling the nation’s schools.
A report today says, most states will apply for their share of federal stimulus money tied to education reform.
The NewsHour’s special correspondent for education, John Merrow, offers some historical context on the latest reform efforts.
U.S. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: There we go. It’s done.
JOHN MERROW: The stimulus bill the president signed in February included a new $4.3 billion fund for public schools.
BARACK OBAMA: This is one of the largest investments in education reform in American history. And rather than divvying it up and handing it out, we are letting states and school districts compete for it.
JOHN MERROW: This is where the money will be handed out, at the U.S. Department of Education. It sets the rules for what it’s calling the Race to the Top.
Arne Duncan is the new secretary of education.
ARNE DUNCAN: Really, what I’m trying to do, can we make the Department of Education not the driver of compliance, not the driver of bureaucracy, but the engine of innovation?

Elizabeth Brown has more.

Scholarly Investments

Nancy Hass:

THEIR company names were conspicuously absent from their nametags, but that is how these hedge fund managers and analysts — members of a field known for secrecy — preferred it. They filled the party space at the W Hotel on Lexington Avenue in late October, mostly men in their 30s. Balancing drinks on easels adorned with students’ colorful drawings, they juggled PDA’s and business cards, before sitting down to poker tables to raise money for New York City charter schools.
Working the room, the evening’s hosts, John Petry and Joel Greenblatt, who are partners in the hedge fund Gotham Capital, had an agenda: to identify new candidates to join their Success Charter Network, a cause they embrace with all the fervor of social reformers.
“He’s already in,” Mr. Petry said as he passed John Sabat, who manages a hedge fund for one of the industry’s big stars. (Like Voldemort in the Harry Potter novels, no one in the group would name him aloud.)
“I wasn’t hard to turn,” said Mr. Sabat, 36, whom Mr. Petry drafted last year to be a member of the board of Harlem Success Academy 4, on East 120th Street, the latest in its network of school in some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. Boards agree to donate or raise $1.3 million to subsidize their school for the first three years. “You can’t talk to Petry without taking about charters,” Mr. Sabat added. “You get the reli

Jeff Raikes, The Gates Foundation and Education

Jay Greene:

It’s lunchtime at the Ashongman School in Accra, the capital city of Ghana, and dozens of children in orange-and-brown uniforms file out to a serving table to pick up plates of jollof rice, a hearty dish with stewed chicken and tomatoes.
As the kids sit down, Jeffrey S. Raikes approaches them with the air of a waiter checking to see if his customers are enjoying their meal. “Do you like the rice?” he asks, as the kids stick their fingers into bowls to scoop up their meals in the dimly lit room. The kids nod, not entirely sure what to make of the stranger.
Raikes isn’t there to gauge if the menu is a hit, nor can the chief executive of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation claim credit for the three-year-old Ghana School Feeding Program. Of the $2.8 billion the foundation doled out last year, not a penny was spent on putting food in the mouths of these children. Instead, Raikes wants to learn why much of the rice eaten by the program’s participants comes from Thailand instead of from farms a few miles away. If Ghana’s farmers can find buyers for their crops, Raikes argues, they will have an incentive to make their land more productive and give this West African nation a more secure food supply. “The real opportunity here is to create a stabilized market,” says Raikes. “You can use the school feeding program to bootstrap those efforts.”

Hong Kong School Debentures Rise Again

Liz Heron:

When prices for international school debentures reached HK$3 million they were called crazy. Two years on, the cost of securing a scarce place in one of the city’s elite centres of learning has soared to as much as HK$3.7 million.
And rising second-hand prices for debentures are driving increases in the face value of new ones schools are issuing. At one school, the issue price has risen eightfold since June 2007.
Schools sell debentures – a form of long-term debt instrument – to parents and companies to raise funds for building works. Parents and employers buy them to jump the queue for school places.
“Many of our clients say: ‘Our child has met the standard but they don’t have a place’,” said Wing Chan, manager of one agency trading debentures, Elite Membership Services. “But once they buy the debenture, someone will contact them and say there is a vacancy for them. That’s amazing.
“If you ask the school, they will say that it’s not guaranteed. But our experience is that it’s almost 100 per cent. That’s why there [are] not [many debentures] on offer at the moment. Otherwise the school can’t arrange a vacancy.”

Strongest voucher Milwaukeeschools thrive

Alan Borsuk:

Michelle Lukacs grew up in Mequon and worked as a teacher in Milwaukee. Then she was a teacher and guidance counselor in Jefferson. She got a school principal’s license through a program at Edgewood College in Madison.
She moved back to Milwaukee and decided to open a school as part of the publicly funded private school voucher program. She called it Atlas Preparatory Academy because she liked the image of Atlas holding the whole world up and because it was the name of a refrigeration company her husband owns.
On the first day of classes in September 2001, Atlas had 23 students in leased space in an old school building at 2911 S. 32nd St.
This September, Atlas had 814 students, a growth of 3,439% over eight years. It now uses three buildings on the south side and has grown, grade by grade, to be a full kindergarten through 12th-grade program.
Atlas’ growth is explosive, even within the continually growing, nationally significant voucher program. Voucher enrollment over the same period has roughly doubled from 10,882 in September 2001 to 21,062 this fall.
The Atlas story underscores an interesting trend: The number of voucher schools in recent years has leveled off, and this year, fell significantly. But the total number of students using vouchers to attend private schools in the city has gone up, and a few schools have become particular powerhouses, at least when it comes to enrollment.

In Search of Education Leaders

Bob Herbert:

For me, the greatest national security crisis in the United States is the crisis in education. We are turning out new generations of Americans who are whizzes at video games and may be capable of tweeting 24 hours a day but are nowhere near ready to cope with the great challenges of the 21st century.
An American kid drops out of high school at an average rate of one every 26 seconds. In some large urban districts, only half of the students ever graduate. Of the kids who manage to get through high school, only about a third are ready to move on to a four-year college.
It’s no secret that American youngsters are doing poorly in school at a time when intellectual achievement in an increasingly globalized world is more important than ever. International tests have shown American kids to be falling well behind their peers in many other industrialized countries, and that will only get worse if radical education reforms on a large scale are not put in place soon.
Consider the demographics. The ethnic groups with the worst outcomes in school are African-Americans and Hispanics. The achievement gaps between these groups and their white and Asian-American peers are already large in kindergarten and only grow as the school years pass. These are the youngsters least ready right now to travel the 21st-century road to a successful life.

60% to 42%: Madison School District’s Reading Recovery Effectiveness Lags “National Average”: Administration seeks to continue its use

via a kind reader’s email: Sue Abplanalp, Assistant Superintendent for Elementary Education, Lisa Wachtel, Executive Director, Teaching & Learning, Mary Jo Ziegler, Language Arts/Reading Coordinator, Teaching & Learning, Jennie Allen, Title I, Ellie Schneider, Reading Recovery Teacher Leader [2.6MB PDF]:

Background The Board of Education requested a thorough and neutral review of the Madison Metropolitan School District’s (MMSD) Reading Recovery program, In response to the Board request, this packet contains a review of Reading Recovery and related research, Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) Reading Recovery student data analysis, and a matrix summarizing three options for improving early literacy intervention. Below please find a summary of the comprehensive research contained in the Board of Education packet. It is our intent to provide the Board of Education with the research and data analysis in order to facilitate discussion and action toward improved effectiveness of early literacy instruction in MMSD.
Reading Recovery Program Description The Reading Recovery Program is an intensive literacy intervention program based on the work of Dr. Marie Clay in New Zealand in the 1970’s, Reading Recovery is a short-term, intensive literacy intervention for the lowest performing first grade students. Reading Recovery serves two purposes, First, it accelerates the literacy learning of our most at-risk first graders, thus narrowing the achievement gap. Second, it identifies children who may need a long-term intervention, offering systematic observation and analysis to support recommendations for further action.
The Reading Recovery program consists of an approximately 20-week intervention period of one-to-one support from a highly trained Reading Recovery teacher. This Reading Recovery instruction is in addition to classroom literacy instruction delivered by the classroom teacher during the 90-minute literacy block. The program goal is to provide the lowest performing first grade students with effective reading and writing strategies allowing the child to perform within the average range of a typical first grade classroom after a successful intervention period. A successful intervention period allows the child to be “discontinued” from the Reading Recovery program and to function proficiently in regular classroom literacy instruction.
Reading Recovery Program Improvement Efforts The national Reading Recovery data reports the discontinued rate for first grade students at 60%. In 2008-09, the discontinued rate for MMSD students was 42% of the students who received Reading Recovery. The Madison Metropolitan School District has conducted extensive reviews of Reading Recovery every three to four years. In an effort to increase the discontinued rate of Reading Recovery students, MMSD worked to improve the program’s success through three phases.

Reading recovery will be discussed at Monday evening’s Madison School Board meeting.
Related:

University of Wisconsin-Madison Psychology Professor Mark Seidenberg: Madison schools distort reading data:

In her column, Belmore also emphasized the 80 percent of the children who are doing well, but she provided additional statistics indicating that test scores are improving at the five target schools. Thus she argued that the best thing is to stick with the current program rather than use the Reading First money.
Belmore has provided a lesson in the selective use of statistics. It’s true that third grade reading scores improved at the schools between 1998 and 2004. However, at Hawthorne, scores have been flat (not improving) since 2000; at Glendale, flat since 2001; at Midvale/ Lincoln, flat since 2002; and at Orchard Ridge they have improved since 2002 – bringing them back to slightly higher than where they were in 2001.
In short, these schools are not making steady upward progress, at least as measured by this test.
Belmore’s attitude is that the current program is working at these schools and that the percentage of advanced/proficient readers will eventually reach the districtwide success level. But what happens to the children who have reading problems now? The school district seems to be writing them off.
So why did the school district give the money back? Belmore provided a clue when she said that continuing to take part in the program would mean incrementally ceding control over how reading is taught in Madison’s schools (Capital Times, Oct 16). In other words, Reading First is a push down the slippery slope toward federal control over public education.

also, Seidenberg on the Reading First controversy.
Jeff Henriques references a Seidenberg paper on the importance of phonics, published in Psychology Review.
Ruth Robarts letter to Isthmus on the Madison School District’s reading progress:

Thanks to Jason Shepard for highlighting comments of UW Psychology Professor Mark Seidenberg at the Dec. 13 Madison School Board meeting in his article, Not all good news on reading. Dr. Seidenberg asked important questions following the administrations presentation on the reading program. One question was whether the district should measure the effectiveness of its reading program by the percentages of third-graders scoring at proficient or advanced on the Wisconsin Reading Comprehension Test (WRCT). He suggested that the scores may be improving because the tests arent that rigorous.
I have reflected on his comment and decided that he is correct.
Using success on the WRCT as our measurement of student achievement likely overstates the reading skills of our students. The WRCT—like the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination (WKCE) given in major subject areas in fourth, eighth and tenth grades— measures student performance against standards developed in Wisconsin. The more teaching in Wisconsin schools aims at success on the WRCT or WKCE, the more likely it is that student scores will improve. If the tests provide an accurate, objective assessment of reading skills, then rising percentages of students who score at the proficient and advanced levels would mean that more children are reaching desirable reading competence.
Madison teacher Barb Williams letter to Isthmus on Madison School District reading scores:

I’m glad Jason Shepard questions MMSD’s public display of self-congratulation over third grade reading test scores. It isn’t that MMSD ought not be proud of progress made as measured by fewer African American students testing at the basic and minimal levels. But there is still a sigificant gap between white students and students of color–a fact easily lost in the headlines. Balanced Literacy, the district’s preferred approach to reading instruction, works well for most kids. Yet there are kids who would do a lot better in a program that emphasizes explicit phonics instruction, like the one offered at Lapham and in some special education classrooms. Kids (arguably too many) are referred to special education because they have not learned to read with balanced literacy and are not lucky enough to land in the extraordinarily expensive Reading Recovery program that serves a very small number of students in one-on-on instruction. (I have witnessed Reading Recovery teachers reject children from their program because they would not receive the necessary support from home.)
Though the scripted lessons typical of most direct instruction programs are offensive to many teachers (and is one reason given that the district rejected the Reading First grant) the irony is that an elementary science program (Foss) that the district is now pushing is also scripted as is Reading Recovery and Everyday Math, all elementary curricula blessed by the district.
I wonder if we might close the achievement gap further if teachers in the district were encouraged to use an approach to reading that emphasizes explicit and systematic phonics instruction for those kids who need it. Maybe we’d have fewer kids in special education and more children of color scoring in the proficient and advanced levels of the third grade reading test.

KIPP has optimized the Standards v1.0 school

Tom Vander Ark:

Standards and common assessments were introduced 15 years ago. KIPP took the expectations expressed by state tests seriously and made numerous process improvements to the old model of school. At the middle school I visited Monday, 100% of the Kipsters had passed the state math test.
This KIPP school gives uniform weekly quizzes in every state tested subject and relentlessly evaluates the data from every classroom and student. The school only hires new teachers, trains them on data-driven instruction, and expects hard work (e.g., to go along with their bonus plan, a sign in the principal’s office read, “New Incentive Plan: Work or Get Fired”)
This is the best of the batch-print model. Kids sit obediently in rows in classrooms of 25 students. One teacher per subject per grade yields direct accountability for results. Their homegrown curriculum is mostly worksheets. Quizzes are paper based. Scores are tabulated on a spreadsheet. No fancy learning management system at work here–they just figure out what the state wants, teach it and test it. They are fantastic executors–a critical innovation in a sector that is commonly sloppy and uneven in delivery.

Focus on raising well-rounded children

South China Morning Post Editorial:

The voucher subsidy scheme for non-profit kindergartens triggered an uproar when it was announced three years ago, amid fears that an exodus of students would force profit-making schools to close and claims of discrimination against middle-class families. But critics failed to reckon with parents who believe it is never too soon to imbue the work ethic. As we reported yesterday, the voucher scheme is subsidising a new class of preschoolers, aged from three to six, who spend the entire day in two separate kindergartens – one for profit and one not.
Their parents claim the vouchers for half the cost of a half day at a local non-profit kindergarten, and can also afford to enrol them in international classes at profit-making private kindergartens for the other half day. One father concerned argues that twice the time spent interacting with other children and teachers is better than half a day watching television. Moreover, these children are exposed at an early age to two languages – English and either Cantonese or Putonghua – in a school environment. Thus the obsession with grades now extends almost from the nursery door to young adulthood.

As number of autistic kids rises, schools and programs are being created to aid those with mild form

Emma Brown:

The middle school years, when nothing seems more important or more impossible than fitting in, are rough for nearly everyone. But they are particularly brutal for preteens such as Will Gilbertsen, whose mild autism makes him stand out.
Less than two months into sixth grade at Arlington County’s Kenmore Middle School this fall, the freckle-faced 11-year-old with a passion for skateboarding had gained a reputation for racewalking through the halls between classes. “That’s so I can’t hear the teasing,” he told his mother.
As the number of children with autism has ballooned nationwide, so has the population of children who, like Will, are capable of grade-level academics but bewildered by the social code that governs every interaction from the classroom to the cafeteria. Not so profoundly disabled that they belong in a self-contained classroom but lacking the social and emotional skills they need to negotiate school on their own, they often spend the bulk of their day in mainstream classes supported with a suite of special education services including life-skills groups and one-on-one aides.

Too much of a good education? District officials shouldn’t be putting the brakes on effective charter schools.

Bill Green:

During a recent City Council committee hearing, charter-school operators from across the city described their efforts to provide high-quality, safe, accessible educational options for Philadelphia families. Many had been waiting for years to get approval to expand, even as they accommodated students without reimbursement by the school district and kept waiting lists in the hundreds. Others talked about being held to higher standards than district-run schools.
During the same hearing, Philadelphia schools Superintendent Arlene Ackerman spoke of the district’s support for charter schools. It’s time for the School Reform Commission to back up this assertion with clear action.
As the SRC considers amending its charter- school policy to significantly limit charter schools’ ability to expand their enrollment or change their grade configurations, it should demonstrate genuine support for charter schools in several ways. First, it should do away with the district’s proposal to restrict charter school expansion to once or twice every five years, and even then only if they “demonstrate [a] unique or innovative idea that the district is not currently providing.”

Madison West High School Principal Update, November, 2009

112K PDF from West Principal Ed Holmes:

This update will address some of the concerns that have been raised since the beginning of the year as well as review many of the major initiatives, events and programs at West during the 2009-10 school year.
District Concerns
High school pupil/teacher ratios for allocation purposes have remained static or been reduced. All four high schools struggle with allocation issues and every school but Lafollette has classes above 30.
In a system where we are working with a finite allocation and have to respond to a set number of required courses first, electives may have to be capped so that required courses can be staffed. As a result we guarantee that all students will have access to the required courses needed to graduate within their four-year high school career.
West High School Concerns
The first issue I would like to address is the misinformation reported to the West High School Community regarding our enrollment numbers here at West. I would like to clarify what our enrollment numbers are, and then explain how that mistake was made. The second issue involves our scheduling practices. Concerns related to scheduling were raised by numerous students and parents this Fall, and there were questions and concerns at grade level meetings as well.
I take full responsibility for the manner and content of the information that was shared with the West community regarding enrollment numbers this Fall. This was a human error, not a computer error. Infinite Campus has the ability to generate enrollment numbers in two ways. One screen calculates and displays all students linked to West, including those in alternative programs. For example, a student attending Shabazz is still listed on that screen as a West Student. A second screen does not include all students linked to West; instead, only students physically attending West, and serviced through our site based allocation. Simply put, I relied on information from the incorrect screen generated on Infinite Campus. I apologize for the frustration this mistake regarding enrollment numbers caused.
Each year we closely plan our scheduling procedures and attempt to implement a process that is equally efficient and effective. This Fall particularly, we have heard concerns from a number of students and parents; primarily dissatisfaction with the availability of certain course offerings. Here are some of the challenges and issues related to scheduling,

Madison African American Test Scores Lower than Kenosha’s and for some, lower than Beloits

Susan Troller, via a kind reader’s email:

Madison’s achievement gap — driven in large part by how well white students perform on the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Exam — is significant compared to other urban districts in the state with high minority populations. White students here perform significantly better on the annual tests than students in Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha and Beloit and scores for Madison’s black students are somewhat better than in Milwaukee or Racine. But black students’ scores in Madison are lower than Kenosha’s and, among younger students, lower than Beloit’s, too.
The point spread between the scores of Madison’s white and black sophomore students on the WKCE’s 2008 math test was a whopping 50 points: 80 percent of the white students taking the test scored in the advanced and proficient categories while just 30 percent of the black students scored in those categories. It’s a better performance than in Milwaukee, where just 19 percent of black students scored in the advanced and proficient categories, or Racine, where 23 percent did, but it lags behind Kenosha’s 38 percent. None of the scores are worth celebrating.
Adam Gamoran, director of the Wisconsin Education Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is a nationally known expert whose work has often explored issues related to the achievement gap. He says racism, overt or inadvertent, may make school feel like a hostile environment for black students, and that it needs to be recognized as a potential factor in the achievement gap.
“It would be naive to say it doesn’t exist, and that it’s not a problem for a certain number of students,” Gamoran says. He cites disproportionate disciplinary actions and high numbers of black students referred to special education, as indicators of potential unequal treatment by race.
Green, who attended Madison’s public schools, says when black students are treated unfairly it’s a powerful disincentive to become engaged, and that contributes to the achievement gap.
“There’s plenty of unequal treatment that happens at school,” says Green who, while in high school at La Follette, wrote a weekly, award-winning column about the achievement gap for the Simpson Street Free Press that helped her land a trip to the White House and a meeting with Laura Bush.
“From the earliest grades, I saw African-American males especially get sent out of the classroom for the very same thing that gets a white student a little slap on the wrist from some teachers,” she says. “It’s definitely a problem.”
It manifests itself in students who check out, she says. “It’s easy to live only in the present, think that you’ve got better things to do than worry about school. I mean, it’s awfully easy to decide there’s nothing more important than hanging out with your friends.”
But Green advocates a doctrine of personal responsibility. She encourages fellow minority students to focus on academic ambitions, starting with good attendance in class and following through with homework. She also counsels students to take challenging courses and find a strong peer group.
“The bottom line, though, is that no one’s going to get you where you’re going except you,” she says

Growing Momentum on Public School Governance Changes: Mayoral Control & National Standards

Steve Schultze:

“Is this level of recklessness something a citizen should even have to contemplate?” asked Lubar, the founder and chairman of Milwaukee investment firm Lubar & Co. In an April 2008 speech, Lubar said Milwaukee County government was such a mess it wouldn’t work even “if Jesus was the county executive and Moses chaired the board of supervisors.”
The current system favors elected officials, public employees and unions, he said Tuesday.
“There are a lot of reasons why the unions and others who want power and want control are going to fight this,” Lubar said. He said change would be difficult, but insisted that a radical overhaul of county government was possible. He called for the election of a governor and legislators who support the overhaul as the best way to bring about the change.
Lubar also endorsed mayoral control of Milwaukee Public Schools, saying he supported the plan advocated by Barrett and Gov. Jim Doyle to give the Milwaukee mayor the power to appoint the MPS superintendent.

Leah Bishop:

Marshall is among a team of educators, scholars and school administrators collaborating to develop a national K-12 standard for English-language arts and mathematics.
“The reason for the initiative is that we have 50 states and 50 sets of standards, which means that a student in Mississippi isn’t necessarily learning the same kind of things as students in Georgia,” Marshall said.
Marshall said students in each state are learning on different levels largely because of notions of equality, access and mobility.
The set of standards provides a better understanding of what is expected of both teachers and students. Though curriculums will not be regulated, there will be a criteria for what needs to be taught.
“The standards are more statements of what students should know and be able to do, not how they are going to learn,” Marshall said.

Anthony Jackson:

To succeed in this new global age, our students need a high level of proficiency in the English Language Arts. The ability of schools to develop such proficiency in students requires the kind of fewer, clearer and higher common core ELA standards that the Common Core State Standards Initiative is constructing. Moreover, benchmarking these standards to exemplary ELA standards from other countries appropriately sets expectations for student performance at a world-class level.
As the comment period ends, we would like to urge that the final common core ELA standards ensure that our students learn not just from the world but about the world. Internationally benchmarked standards will ensure that U.S. students are globally comparable, but not globally competent or globally competitive. For the latter, common core ELA standards must explicitly call out the knowledge and skills that enable students to effectively read, write, listen and speak within the global context for which they will be prepared, or be passed by, in the 21st century. English language arts offers students the chance to deepen their insight into other cultures, effectively gather and weigh information from across the world, and learn how to create and communicate knowledge for multiple purposes and audiences. To support students’ development of the English language skills required in a global economic and civic environment, we urge the English Language Arts Work Group to consider integrating within the common core ELA standards the following essential skills.

My sense is, at the end of the day, these initiatives will simply increase power at the school administrative level while substantially reducing local school board governance. I understand why these things are happening, but have great doubts that our exploding federalism will address curricular issues in a substantive manner. I continue to believe that local, diffused governance via charters and other models presents a far better model than a monolith.

Educational Innovation: It Takes a Child to Raise a Village

Patty Seybold:

All over the world, in poor and rich countries alike, families take their children out of school in order to contribute to the livelihood of the family. They’re not opposed to education, but the family needs the extra hands that the child can provide in order to make ends meet. There are many educational innovations that are aimed at improving the ability of the child, once educated, to earn a decent income. But nobody has focused on the issue of replacing or improving the family’s income while they send their kids to school.
By contrast, the innovations that have been developed by the Uganda Rural Development and Training program and employed at the URDT Girls’ School are special in that they increase the family income, not years later, but while the child is still in school. On average, the incomes of families whose children are enrolled at the URDT Girls School increase by 20% while their daughters are still in school.
Think about that for a minute. What that does is eliminate the need to have the girls drop out of school in order to contribute to the family’s income. Imagine the implications for the rest of the world if all families benefited by keeping their children in school rather than by having them drop out to go to work.

Teacher Education in New York State: A skoolboy’s-Eye View

Aaron Pallas:

Monday afternoon, I had the opportunity to respond to Merryl Tisch, Chancellor of the Board of Regents, and David Steiner, the New York State Commissioner of Education, as they talked about the future of P-16 education in New York State at the Phyllis L. Kossoff Policy Lecture at Teachers College, Columbia University. I wasn’t sure what they’d say, so prepared some remarks responding to the proposals regarding teacher education in New York State that the Commissioner presented to the Board of Regents a few weeks ago. For the handful of readers who might be interested, here’s what I wrote. (Due to time constraints, I didn’t say all of this at the event.) Chancellor Tisch and Commissioner Steiner were quite willing to hear and engage with the critiques that my colleague Lin Goodwin and I offered, and I look forward to continuing this conversation with them.
It’s no surprise that the State Education Department and the Board of Regents have taken up the cause of ensuring an equitable distribution of highly-qualified teachers across New York State. The key justification for such a goal is the fact that the K-12 education system is shortchanging our children. Although some students are highly successful, many more are not, and the problems are concentrated in urban school systems serving large numbers of poor children of color.
If that’s the problem, is improving the education of teachers the solution? It’s certainly part of the solution, given what we know about the centrality of teaching to student learning. But it’s by no means the entire solution, as a great many other forces shape student outcomes. For example, a great teacher can’t compensate for a child coming to school hungry, and great teaching of an out-of-date curriculum only results in great mastery of out-of-date knowledge. I trust that Chancellor Tisch and Commissioner Steiner are not seduced by claims that the single most important determinant of a child’s achievement is the quality of his or her teachers, because that’s simply not true. Family background continues to be the dominant factor. But the quality of teachers is, at least in theory, something that is manipulable via education policy initiatives, and it’s a lot more tractable than addressing the fact that one in five children under the age of 18 in New York State live below the poverty line.

10 biggest K-12 developments of 2010

Tom Vander Ark:

Despite lagging state budgets, 2010 will be a year of great progress in American education. Here’s the 10 biggest developments of the year ahead:

Race to the Top awards will be made in two phases to about 18 states and will set the standard for excellence in state policy. About 30 states will make significant policy changes in preparation for application or after being rejected.

Common Core will be adopted by almost everyone except the Republic of Texas and will lay the groundwork for a new generation of content and assessment

While not likely to pass in 2010, a framework for ESEA (that looks a lot like RttT) will emerge with an improved accountability and student support system

Local education goes global Ranks of foreign students add diversity but tax capacity of public schools

Peter Simon:

Students from around the world are coming in dramatically increasing numbers to the Buffalo area to study at local schools.
Many are refugees from war-torn countries who arrive with few possessions, but with the hope that the United States is the land of opportunity.
Others spend tens of thousands of dollars a year to attend local high schools and colleges in order to advance their studies and careers.
In the Buffalo Public Schools, students whose first language is something other than English now represent nearly 10 percent of the district’s total enrollment. Those 3,277 students speak 65 different languages.
The University at Buffalo has 4,539 international students, or 16.7 percent of campus enrollment. They come from more than 100 countries, and outnumber U.S. students from outside New York State.

The e-book tractor application

Frederic Filloux:

Let’s rejoice: French teachers embrace the internet. Well, calm down. I’m not saying they embrace it the way I would like them to. This week saw two technological breakthroughs at my son’s Parisian high-school. The first one is a decision-support tool on the school’s website: it helps parents decide whether or not to send their kids to school when a protest blocks the gates, something that happens several times a year. Usually, my son whips up his cell phone at 7:30 in the morning : “Hey, dad, this just in: a text-message… gates are jammed by a barricade of trash bins (the kids’ touching expression of solidarity to last week’s teacher union action), I can go back to sleep”. Now, I’ll be able to fact-check the SMS alert on the web. (No webcam, though, I’ll have to rely on teachers’ good faith).
The second breakthrough happens as I immerse myself in the Life Science course for the same text-message freak, Abercrombie-clad kid who happens to be my offspring. Then, an epiphany. His science professor is an internet fan. Don’t get me wrong, here. As 90% of the 1.3m members of L’éducation Nationale (the world’s biggest employer after the erstwhile Red Army or, worse, today’s Wal-Mart), I’m sure the lady loathes the internet. You see: the net flaunts apalling attributes of foreign technology, it is the vector of free market ideology. Sorry, Larry and Sergei. Your Google is definitely evil, down here.

In defense of the good school promise

Tom Vander Ark:

While channel surfing on Thanksgiving morning, I found a school board association meeting where a famous prof was railing on standards and testing with lots of applause from the audience (in a state contemplating delaying college-ready math and science standards until 2015). I agreed with many of his assertions like “America is still best at encouraging differences and entrepreneurship” and “we want to teach everything.” He went to deride standards, testing and a system where everything was “reduced to a single number.” Since lots of my friends are in his camp and want to pitch No Child Left Behind and add more services, it reminded me of why we have NCLB and what the new version should look like.
The primary reason we have a federal law like NCLB is that school boards (and state boards) allowed generations of chronic failure. They cut bad employment deals and asked for more money when things didn’t go well. Teachers that could went to the suburbs. Most low income and minority kids were getting left behind. Anyone committed to equity could see things had to change.
NCLB reflected a consensus that 1) measurement and transparency would help us understand the problem, 2) that a basic template for school accountability would ensure that things would get better for underserved students, and 3) the federal government should play a bigger role in ensuring equity and excellence.

Advocating for Girls’ Sports With a Sharp Tongue

Katie Thomas:

Few girls who play sports in suburban Philadelphia would recognize Robert H. Landau, but many coaches and athletic directors know that spotting him in the bleachers could spell trouble.
With a sharp tongue, a refusal to compromise and a well-honed sense of injustice, Landau is that familiar breed of community activist with a knack for pushing public officials over the edge. His specialty is girls’ sports, and his targets are usually wealthy public schools from the Main Line suburbs that pride themselves on being progressive and fair in offering a rich array of opportunities.
No slight to girls is too small for Landau to take on. His victories range from the momentous to the less obvious, like forcing his daughters’ school district to provide more athletic choices, pressuring leagues to showcase their title games and getting a school mascot to perform at their games.
Landau’s complaint against Haverford High School — over issues like publicity for and scheduling of boys’ and girls’ basketball games — has upset even those who would otherwise support him.

Retired Los Angeles teacher keeps at it, for free

Steve Lopez:

Five mornings a week, Bruce Kravets, 66, puts on a coat and tie, straps on his helmet and bikes to work at Palms Middle School on L.A.’s Westside, where he teaches math. For free.
Last June, after 42 years of teaching, Kravets retired. He’d put so much money into his retirement fund over the decades, his monthly compensation if he stepped down would be greater than his regular pay. But that didn’t mean he was ready to abandon teaching. His plan was to stay on and teach for no salary, because he couldn’t think of anything more fun or rewarding than teaching algebra, geometry, logic and stage craft.
A no-brainer, right? Kravets is, by all accounts, a truly gifted teacher, and in a district with a budget crisis, here was a guy who said, “Keep your money, I’ll do it gratis.”
Ahhh, but this is LAUSD, and for months after he announced his plan, it was looking as if Kravets would be told thanks, but no thanks. At one point over the summer, I was told by a Los Angeles Unified administrator that Palms would lose funding if Kravets taught class, because the daily attendance of his students wouldn’t be counted if he was an unpaid teacher.

The “Achilles Heel” of Education Reform is Slashed by Michael Bloomberg

Dan Brown:

igh-stakes testing is a bullet train barreling through education reform; you’re either on the train, on the sidelines, or waving your hands in frantic protest, only to be run over.
Last week’s education speech by emboldened New York City Mayor-for-Life Bloomberg (who just dropped nine-figures of his own cash on his re-election bid) is depressing news to people on the ground in schools. Conducting the Testing Express, Bloomberg announced:

“As [Secretary of Education] Arne [Duncan] had said a number of times, ‘A state can’t enter Race to the Top if it prohibits schools from using student achievement data to evaluate teachers and that’s why California just repealed its prohibition on doing so.’

Charter schools: Two studies, two conclusions

Nick Anderson:

As President Obama pushes for more charter schools, the education world craves a report card on an experiment nearly two decades old. How are these independent public schools doing? The safest and perhaps most accurate reply — it depends — leaves many unsatisfied.
This year, two major studies offer contradictory conclusions on a movement that now counts more than 5,000 charter schools nationwide, including dozens in the District and Maryland and a handful in Virginia.
Margaret Raymond, director of Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes, reported in June that most charter schools deliver academic results that are worse or no better than student accomplishments in regular public schools. She relied on test data from 15 states (not including Maryland or Virginia) and the District.
Caroline M. Hoxby, a Stanford economist, reported in September that charter school students are making much more progress than peers who sought entry to those schools by lottery but were turned down. She drew on test data from New York City.

“Helping Parents Better Understand Public Education”

Brittany Brown:

Parents for Public Schools is recruiting Pine Belt parents to attend a free, two-day leadership institute this spring designed to help parents better understand public education.
“Most of the time, they do not understand the language or acronyms used in education,” said Victoria Peters, a parent coach with the organization who works in the Pine Belt.
“We know parents have something to say, but the reason we don’t hear them is because they don’t know what to say to give feedback.”
The institute is sponsored by Parents for Public Schools, a national organization based in Jackson that promotes parent involvement and leadership in schools. It will be held Feb. 26-27, March 26-27 and April 16-17 at the Hilton in Jackson. The deadline to apply is Dec. 14.
Peters said 30 parents will be selected to attend a variety of interactive workshops and breakout sessions.
“We want a diverse group of parents,” she said.

Amazing….

Plano Schools’ Boundary Changes

Matthew Haag:

The redrawing of school attendance zones usually upsets some parents, but a set of proposed changes in the Plano school district triggered a war of words the likes of which the district hadn’t seen in years.
Parents not only lambasted the proposed changes, but they also turned on one another, accusing opponents of selfishly thinking only about their own children.
“This school-vs.-school and neighborhood-vs.-neighborhood thing saddened me,” trustee Brad Shanklin said at a board meeting this month.
District officials recently put forth a new set of changes partly designed to quell the anger. And they will find out Tuesday whether they have succeeded.
That’s when residents will have a chance to speak publicly about the latest proposal. The district will host a similar meeting the next night in Spanish. School board members are expected to vote on the boundary changes Dec. 15.
New boundaries are needed to balance student enrollment across Plano ISD after more families moved into the district’s eastern side.

Presentations on the proposed boundary changes: School Board 2.8MB PDF / Staff 1.7MB PDF.

The masters of education With the Gates Foundation grant in hand, Memphis City Schools will funnel incentives to develop the best and brightest teachers and seed the system with role models

Jane Roberts:

Kimberly Hamilton arrives and leaves work in the dark so often, custodians at Winchester Elementary School are on alert not to lock her in or out.
“If I leave at 5 o’clock, someone’s putting a hand to my forehead to see if I have a fever,” she says, laughing at the absurdity, but serious about the hours it takes to move children from barely proficient to mastery.
She teaches her third-graders to get along with others, be good citizens, live in a violent society and dream for the future.
The $90 million grant the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded this month to Memphis City Schools to improve the effectiveness of its teachers offers Hamilton the biggest one-time raise she could ever hope for in public education, going from the $49,000 she earned last year to the $75,000 base pay proposed for the district’s most talented teachers.

New York City’s Schools Share Space, And Bitterness, With Charters

Jennifer Medina:

Suzanne Tecza had spent a year redesigning the library at Middle School 126 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, including colorful new furniture and elaborate murals of leafy trees. So when her principal decided this year to give the space to the charter high schools that share the building, Ms. Tecza was furious.
“It’s not fair to our students,” she said of the decision, which gives the charter students access to the room for most of the day. “It’s depriving them of a fully functioning library, something they deserve.”
In Red Hook, Brooklyn, teachers at Public School 15 said they avoid walking their students past rooms being used by the PAVE Academy Charter School, fearing that they will envy those students for their sparkling-clean classrooms and computers. On the Lower East Side, the Girls Preparatory Charter School was forced to turn away 50 students it had hoped to accept because it was unable to find more room in the Public School 188 building.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has made charter schools one of his third-term priorities, and that means that in New York, battles and resentment over space — already a way of life — will become even more common. He and his schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein, have allowed nearly two-thirds of the city’s 99 charter schools to move into public school buildings, officials expect two dozen charter schools to open next fall, and the mayor has said he will push the Legislature to allow him to add 100 more in the next four years.

Value-Added Education in the Race to the Top

David Davenport:

Bill Clinton may have invented triangulation – the art of finding a “third way” out of a policy dilemma – but U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is practicing it to make desperately needed improvements in K-12 education. Unfortunately, his promotion of value-added education through “Race to the Top” grants to states could be thrown under the bus by powerful teachers’ unions that view reforms more for how they affect pay and job security than whether they improve student learning.
The traditional view of education holds that it is more process than product. Educators design a process, hire teachers and administrators to run it, put students through it and consider it a success. The focus is on the inputs – how much can we spend, what curriculum shall we use, what class size is best – with very little on measuring outputs, whether students actually learn. The popular surveys of America’s best schools and colleges reinforce this, measuring resources and reputation, not results. As they say, Harvard University has good graduates because it admits strong applicants, not necessarily because of what happens in the educational process.
In the last decade, the federal No Child Left Behind program has ushered in a new era of testing and accountability, seeking to shift the focus to outcomes. But this more businesslike approach does not always fit a people-centered field such as education. Some students test well, and others do not. Some schools serve a disproportionately high number of students who are not well prepared. Even in good schools, a system driven by testing and accountability incentivizes teaching to the test, neglecting other important and interesting ways to engage and educate students. As a result, policymakers and educators have been ambivalent, at best, about the No Child Left Behind regime.

“Value Added Assessment” is underway in Madison, though the work is based in the oft-criticized state WKCE examinations.

Making the Home-School Connection

Erin Richards:

Milwaukee Public Schools will spend some $4 million in federal stimulus money over two years to support a major parental involvement program in 35 schools
First of four parts
Lennise Crampton, a 40-year-old Milwaukee mother of eight, sometimes wonders how her children would have performed in school if she’d known how to be a better parent from the start.
A single mother until she married this year, Crampton usually managed decent meals and clothing and getting her kids to class. It was up to the school, she thought, to handle the education part.
Then in December of 2005, a representative from Lloyd Street School marched up to Crampton’s door and asked her to participate in a program that improves relationships between teachers, schools and families.
Crampton started coming to weekly meetings at Lloyd, where her two youngest attended. She learned about training she could get as a low-income parent. She learned how to engage in her children’s academics at home and how to advocate for their needs at school.
“These little ones get the best of the best now,” she said. “If it applies to my children’s academics, I’m on it.”

Lodi’s Internation Education Week broadens students’ horizons

Pamela Cotant:

When Max Love attended the annual International Education Week at Lodi High School as a student there, it fueled his interest in global learning and led to his desire to serve in the Peace Corps in Eastern Europe.
A 2009 Lodi High School graduate, he returned to the event this year as a guest speaker on multicultural and international education. Now a UW-Madison student in Middle Eastern studies, he received a scholarship to study Arabic and wanted to let students know about the opportunities that exist.
“It’s immeasurable,” said Love about the effect of International Education Week.
It’s the fourth year of the event, which just concluded after featuring more than 35 speakers from around the world, an international film festival, international cuisine, an Indian dance troupe and other activities.

Milwaukee School Choice Shapes Educational Landscape

Alan Borsuk:

Time for a status report on all the different ways Milwaukee children can use public money to pay for their kindergarten through 12th grade education:

Private school voucher program enrollment: Up almost 5% from a year ago, just as it has been up every year for more than a decade.
City kids going to suburban public schools using the state’s “open enrollment” law: Up almost 11%, just as it has been up every year for about a decade.
Enrollment in charter schools given permission to operate by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee or Milwaukee’s City Hall: Up more than 19% and up substantially from a few years ago.
Enrollment of minority students from the city into suburban schools using the state’s voluntary racial desegregation law, known as Chapter 220: Up almost 5%, although the long-term trend has been downward.
Enrollment in what you can think of as the conventional Milwaukee Public Schools system: Down, but by less than 1%, which is better than other recent years. Mainstream MPS enrollment has been slipping every year and went under 80,000 a year ago for the first time in many years.

With all the controversy in recent months around whether to overhaul the way MPS is run, the half dozen other routes that Milwaukee children have for getting publicly funded education have been almost entirely out of the spotlight. But Milwaukee remains a place where the term “school choice” shapes the educational landscape in hugely important ways.
How important?

Servant to Schoolgirl

David Pilling:

It was during the 1999 Maghi festival, whose revelries grip western Nepal in mid-January each year, that Asha Tharu’s parents sold her. Asha, who was then five years old, fetched $40. In return for the money, Asha was sent to work for a year as a bonded labourer at the house of her new owner in Gularia, a town near her village of Khairapur.
“I had to get up very early and I had to clean the pots, clean the rooms and wash the clothes,” recalls Asha, now a bright 15-year-old. “I worked all day and I didn’t get enough sleep.”
I have come along jolting, unmade roads from Nepalgunj in western Nepal to meet Asha at her sister-in-law’s hut, a rather beautiful dwelling of unbaked mustard-yellow bricks, more African in appearance than Asian. In the main living area are two large, exquisitely fashioned mud urns built into the walls for storing rice. In the unfurnished room where the family sleeps, Asha sits on the dirt floor and tells me about her new life. She says she is happy in school and that, on the weekends, she works in a brick factory, earning $1.30 for an eight-hour shift. That is enough to buy rice and to help her elder sister pay for school.
More than anything, Asha remembers the petty slights she endured during her eight years of servitude, which ended last year when her “master” agreed to release her. “They would give me scraps. I used to feel very hurt by that, receiving the left-overs of guests or the elder family,” she says, glancing occasionally at the dusty ground outside the mud hut where she now lives. “Sometimes I’d get rotten food, or half-stomach food, not enough to stop my hunger,” she says. “They would hit me or shout at me if I dared complain.”

Verona charter school considers going green

Gena Kittner:

Facing possible closure because of flagging enrollment , Verona’s New Century charter school is proposing to become Dane County’s first “green,” or environmentally-focused, charter school.
The move, which must be approved by the district’s board, illustrates the challenges facing charter schools across the state: to find an academic niche that will continually attract students.
“Having a (charter school) choice means a lot to parents,” said Kristina Navarro-Haffner, who has a first-grader at New Century. “We really want to be that option for parents and help the Verona School District bring in more people.”
In the last two years, a few charter schools — public schools given autonomy from their district in exchange for strict accountability — have changed their focus to attract students, said John Gee, executive director of the Wisconsin Charter Schools Association. A lack of performance or non-compliance with state requirements to be a charter school led to the dissolution of 15 charter schools prior to this year, he said, leaving a total of 206 in the state and 10 in Dane County.

Verona’s Core Knowledge Charter School continues to have a waiting list.

Through Letters, a Family History Unveiled

Bob Davis:

A reporter’s seven-year correspondence with his 93-year-old cousin, illustrator Sam Fink, reveals a family’s past and the beauty in old-fashioned letter writing
Shortly before Christmas 2002, I received my first letter from Sam Fink. On the envelope, he had drawn an elephant and colored it with orange, yellow, brown and blue crayons. “Good to remember. Happy New Year,” he wrote above the address.
The letter was equally charming. He wrote about his son, David, who lived in Israel with a brood of grandchildren and great grandchildren. “When I visit my family in Jerusalem twice a year for a two-week stay, instead of asking about their lives, I share mine,” Sam wrote. “In most instances, young people do not know how to share with old people.” He signed it, “Your cousin, somehow, once removed, second, or whatever the term…Sam Fink.”
That letter marked the start of a seven-year correspondence I have had with Sam, who is a family success story — a noted illustrator who has drawn popular books about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. He was my father’s first cousin, and though I hadn’t seen him more than a dozen times in my life, a family photo my wife had mailed as a holiday card caught his interest and prompted him to write me.

Los Angeles Unified school choices are a confusing maze

Howard Blume:

Pamela Krys, who moved to Woodland Hills a year ago, made a confession during a school fair this month at Sutter Middle School in Canoga Park.
“I don’t understand the points,” she said, referring to one aspect of the application process for magnet programs. “They don’t do points in Florida.”
Understanding the points system is just one of the complications surrounding school choice in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Although its “choices” website is improving, the school system provides no central location — online or off — to help parents manage all their options if they don’t want their children to attend their neighborhood school.
Separate programs have different application forms, processes and deadlines. Nor does the district supply some key information, such as student test scores for most magnets. Budget cuts led to the cancellation of districtwide magnet fairs, although some regional administrators have staged smaller events.

Plain Talk: We’re failing the citizenship test

Dave Zweifel:

Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has been busy the past several months speaking about her pet peeve — the sad state of teaching civics in our public schools.
“Civics education has been all but removed from our schools,” she often remarks. “Too many people do not understand how our political system works. We are currently failing in that endeavor.”
O’Connor cites examples in which Americans could name a judge on “American Idol,” but couldn’t name a single justice on the Supreme Court or the three branches of government.
She’s calling attention to an extremely important problem in the U.S. All too many American citizens don’t understand the country’s democratic system and why it’s crucial to the future of that democracy to stay informed and participate. The Founding Fathers, after all, counted on the citizenry to be the republic’s caretaker and that’s a major reason why they felt so strongly about education.
Unfortunately, schools over the years have been saddled with teaching just about everything but civics, history and the arts. The heralded No Child Left Behind Act, for instance, has forced schools to drop meaningful civics classes so that teachers can “teach to the test,” consisting primarily of math and reading. And now that the Obama administration wants to tie teachers’ pay and promotions to those tests, classes on citizenship will continue to get the short end of the stick.

I’m glad Dave Zweifel raised this issue. I hope he remains active on curricular issues, which, in my view are not simply driven by No Child Left Behind.

Off the Shelf: Fear and Loathing in High School

Taffy Brodesser-Akner:

If you went to my high school and weren’t in attendance on the first day back from summer break — say, you had been on vacation with your parents an extra day, or you had come down with the flu — a rumor that you were pregnant and out getting an abortion went hastily through the locker-lined halls. In 10th grade, it happened to me (I had been sick), and, from then on, I wanted to write about a popular girl who is mistaken for pregnant by her schoolmates. The girl must hand in her homecoming crown, withdraw from student government, where she is president, and give up her football-captain/quarterback boyfriend.
Years went by, and I did become a writer — a screenwriter, not a novelist. I wrote this story to mixed reviews. “Interesting premise,” said one agent. “But not much story there.” I chalked it up to the particular necessities of those who buy and produce screenplays: They need shocking, cinematic events. They need things to blow up.
I decided to write the story as a young adult novel. I have always loved and admired YA novels, as much for their alternate themes of devastation and lightheartedness as for how influential they can be in their readers’ lives. I sat down to write the story and finished it in a couple of months. But before I sent it to an agent who was interested, I did something I never thought I could do: I deleted it.

Too hard to pick the right high school

Jay Matthews:

Near the end of her struggle to find the right high school for a son who did not always share her tastes, Tracey Henley was overjoyed to discover that some of her son’s best friends had endorsed her choice, and his resistance had vanished. “So now we don’t have to forge his signature on the form, always a plus,” she said.
Where had this painful sifting of options occurred? Was it some struggling urban district? No, Henley lives in Montgomery County, like much of suburban Washington a mecca for those seeking the best in public education. Her story illustrates that in even the best possible circumstances, parents often have to work very hard to find the place that fits their child. I, like Henley, wonder if there is a better way to do this.
Henley’s son is an eighth grader at Sligo Middle School in Silver Spring. He has attention deficit disorder, but the meds have been effective and through elementary school he performed well above grade level in all subjects. Then he entered middle school and “we were really unprepared for just how much his already-poor executive management functions would collapse in the face of increased expectations,” Henley said.

Faced with suit, Elmbrook now will allow girls to join hockey cooperative

Amy Hetzner:

Faced with a federal lawsuit alleging gender discrimination, the Elmbrook School District has reversed an earlier decision and will allow students from both its high schools to join a girls ice hockey cooperative.
Brookfield Central High School freshman Morgan Hollowell and her father, James, sued the School District last month after it refused to join a cooperative with other school districts to offer girls ice hockey, even though the district participates in a similar cooperative for boys ice hockey.
At the time, Elmbrook Superintendent Matt Gibson said the district chose not to join the girls cooperative because too few students were interested in playing the sport and it would be difficult for the district to supervise.

Gangs & 4th Generation War

William S. Lind:

The November 15 Washington Post had a story about gangs in Salinas, California, that deserves close attention from 4GW theorists. Salinas is reportedly overrun with Hispanic gangs. The Post wrote that its homicide rate is three times that of Los Angeles. It quoted a Salinas police officer, Sgt. Mark Lazzarini, on one of the classic results of state breakdown, chaos:

“Only half of our gangs are structured; the Norteños,” he said. “The southerners are completely unstructured. Half of our violence is kids who get into a car and go out and hunt. These kids don’t know their victims. How do you stop that? It’s very chaotic.”

Salinas’s new slogan might be, “Salinas: where even the lettuce has tattoos.”
But what is interesting in the Post’s article is not the gangs themselves. It is a new response to the gangs. Salinas has brought in the U.S. military to apply counter-insurgency doctrine to a situation on American soil. The Post reports that:

Seattle Curriculum Discussions

Charlie Mas:

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.

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.

Judge dismisses lawsuit against Madison School District over student transfer policy

Ed Treleven:

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

Nick Anderson:

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

Jay Matthews:

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

Amy Hetzner:

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

Sol Stern:

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

Sunny Schubert:

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.

West Virginia must embrace 21st-century education reform

Mark Bugher:

I recently was invited to attend a presentation in Washington, D.C., by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce of its 2009 education “Leaders and Laggards” report to the U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
This report was a cooperative effort of the U.S. Chamber, the Center for American Progress and the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. The report is a state-by-state “report card” on education innovation. Education innovation is described by the report as “Discarding policies that no longer serve students while creating opportunities for smart, entrepreneurial problem-solvers to help children learn.”
The report graded state schools on seven criteria: school management, finance, hiring and evaluation of staff, removing ineffective teachers, data collection, pipeline to post-secondary education, and technology. West Virginia received an overall grade of D+, however, ranked first in the nation on technology, measured by student per Internet-connected computer.
No state received an overall grade higher than a C+, and although West Virginia was ranked in the bottom quarter of states, there were 11 states ranked below us. Virginia, Oklahoma and Texas ranked overall the highest, and Kansas, Montana and Nebraska were at the bottom of the rankings.

Milwaukee Public Schools aim to even out special ed distribution

Erin Richards:

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.

The difficulty of diagnosing dyslexia
Bills would require state schools to test and train more

Anita Weier:

Keith Ripp and other Madison-area parents have spent thousands of dollars to test and tutor their children for dyslexia. They think this is something Wisconsin school districts should more aggressively pursue.
But Ripp has a better-than-average ability to do something about it. A Republican state assemblyman from Lodi, he has authored a bill to require that schools perform dyslexia screening on pupils in kindergarten through second grade, as well as those from grades three to five who score low on reading tests.
Another Ripp bill would require the Department of Public Instruction to ensure that reading specialists, special education teachers and elementary school reading instructors are trained and tested in dyslexic instruction techniques.
“My youngest son, who is 13, has severe dyslexia,” says Ripp. “My wife and I knew something was going on before second grade. We hired tutors. We tried to work with the school system to come up with something. We had his hearing and eyesight checked. He was very intelligent but was struggling a lot with reading.”
The couple paid for the testing on their own, as well as some tutoring, at an estimated cost of about $8,000.

At U (of Minnesota), future teachers may be reeducated They must denounce exclusionary biases and embrace the vision. (Or else.)

Katherine Kertsen:

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.

All sitting comfortably?

David Pilling:

From a distance it sounds like the chanting of monks. Only as one approaches the building, set in the lush fields of a school playground, does it become apparent who is making the sound: dozens of girls quietly reading books.
Sat on rows of wooden chairs laid out in the library, they mouth the words as they trace a finger slowly along the text, breaking off only to admire the colourful pictures. Though each child is reading a different story, their words mingle to form a gentle hum, lending an almost sacred air to the bright little room.
In Laos, a school library is indeed sacred. Books are rare in the isolated villages where four-fifths of the landlocked nation’s 7m people eke out the slenderest of livings. The communist government has been slow in implementing its theoretical commitment to free education. Literacy rates have risen, though many people who have learnt to read soon forget because they lack reading materials. According to Room to Read, the charity that helped build and stock this library and hundreds of others like it, still only 60 per cent of women and 77 per cent of men can read and write.
Many schools, often ramshackle thatched structures with leaking roofs, cannot offer a full range of tuition. Sometimes teachers instruct two or three years of classes simultaneously – if they have not ditched their class to earn supplementary income elsewhere. Student dropout rates are high, especially for girls, who typically quit at around 13. Many parents would prefer a helping hand at home or in the paddy fields.

Gateses Give $290 Million for Teacher Evaluation, Effectivness and Tenure

Sam Dillon:

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…..

Teacher Union Chief Paul Hubbert says he’ll battle to keep charter schools out of Alabama

Rena Havner Philips:

Calling charter schools a “fad” that takes money away from public schools, teachers union boss Paul Hubbert said he will fight Gov. Bob Riley’s proposal to bring them to Alabama.
Riley told the Press-Register on Tuesday that he would like the Alabama Legislature to pass a law enabling the creation of charter schools. It’s the only way, he said, that Alabama will be able to compete against other states for $4.35 billion in education funds that President Barack Obama is giving out as part of his Race to the Top campaign.
But Hubbert, who holds influence as executive secretary of the Alabama Education Association, said Thursday that he’ll fight any charter proposal.
“I intend to oppose it strongly,” Hubbert said. “I think it’s wrong and I think it will hurt far more than help.
“It would absolutely take money from the public schools and put it in a charter school, which basically operates like a private school,” Hubbert said.

Teaching the Golden Rules

Alina Dizik:

Creating a course to teach corporate social responsibility isn’t as easy to do as, say, honing a curriculum for Finance 101.
After all, integrating public and societal interests into corporate decision-making strategies is tricky. Teaching students to become socially responsible managers first requires dispelling previous notions about where personal values fit in the workplace, says Daylian Cain, assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management. Acting on your values is more complex than it might seem.
In an interview, Mr. Cain, who specializes in conflict of interest issues, spoke about imparting these ideals.

Now is the Time to Overhaul the Milwaukee Public Schools – Brown Professor Kenneth Wong

Alan Borsuk:

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.

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.