I came across this article from the Black Commentator written by Paul A. Moore. It is very interesting and I thought I would share it. I agree with much of it, however, some of it I don’t.
I have never been a fan of talking about “The Achievement Gap.” I even argued about this with my campaign team in 2004. I hope to write about this when I get some quality time to collect my thoughts. I personally would rather focus on “Achievement” for our students and less on the “Gap.” Enjoy.
http://blackcommentator.com/161/161_moore_storm_warnings_schools.html

Nick Anderson:

“The time is ripe in Maryland, and nationally, for parent involvement to be seen as the critical element that it is, not as an add-on,” Grasmick said in a recent letter to education reporters.
Grasmick said the state also would begin to consider family involvement when it gives awards to principals, teachers and schools. And she said the department would redesign its Web site, http://www.marylandpublicschools.org , to make it more friendly to parents.
How parents affect the educational equation is a subject of debate. Some experts say rigorous academic programs and a quality teaching force are more important.

NY Post:

Under the pilot, a national testing firm will devise a series of reading and math exams to be given to students at intervals throughout the school year.
Students will earn the cash equivalent to a quarter of their total score — $20 for scoring 80 percent, for instance — and an additional monetary reward for improving their grades on subsequent tests….
Levin said details about the number of exams, what grades would be tested, funding for the initiative — which would be paid for with private donations — and how the cash will be distributed are still being hammered out….
“There are people who are worried about giving kids extra incentives for something that they should intrinsically be able to do,” Fryer said. “I understand that, but there is a huge achievement gap in this country, and we have to be proactive.”

Jay Matthews:

As states, school systems and private groups, backed by donations from software magnate Bill Gates, put new emphasis on making high schools smaller, monster campuses such as Robinson increasingly look out of place. Yet many of the educators who run them say big is not always bad and point to an array of unusual opportunities that large schools provide students.
“The fact that our school is so large allows us to offer a wide variety of electives that we may not be able to offer otherwise,” said Shawn Ashley, principal of Long Beach Polytechnic High School in California, which has 4,779 students in ninth through 12th grades. Long Beach Poly’s electives include print shop, auto shop, drafting, electronics, six kinds of art, nine science courses and many music choices.

• New charter school in Kiel
• Proposed charter school in Monroe
• Health professions charter school
• Call for Conference Proposals (Wednesday Deadline) — This is a final reminder to submit your presentation proposal by Wednesday for the 2006 Wisconsin Charter Schools Conference (scroll down beyond criteria for online submittal form).
• UW System as charter school authorizer?
• Proposed charter school in Merrimac

Vauhini Vara:

As parents wring their hands about Internet predators, many teens are worried about a different kind of online intruder: the school principal.
Students are blogging about schoolyard crushes and feuds, posting gossip about classmates on social-networking sites like MySpace.com and Facebook.com, and sharing their party snapshots on public Web pages. Increasingly, their readers include school administrators, who are doling out punishments for online writings that they say cross the line.

Kevin Delaney finds that parents are also watching what their children write online:

The spying started two years ago. Karen Lippe’s daughter told her she was going to a school football game with friends. The next day, Ms. Lippe found out the truth: Her daughter, then 14 years old, had skipped out on the game with a friend, got in the car of a boy Ms. Lippe didn’t know and headed to an ice-cream shop without permission. Ms. Lippe sat her daughter down after dinner to warn her not to let it happen again.
Ms. Lippe, a marketing consultant in Irvine, Calif., didn’t divulge how she had found out. But her daughter figured it out anyway. The daughter’s friend had recounted the transgression on her Web log, or blog, which Ms. Lippe had read online.

Joanne Jacobs:

A judge has thrown out a lawsuit seeking to block No Child Left Behind.

The NEA and school districts in three states had argued that schools should not have to comply with requirements that were not paid for by the federal government.

Chief U.S. District Judge Bernard A. Friedman, based in eastern Michigan, said, “Congress has appropriated significant funding” and has the power to require states to set educational standards in exchange for federal money.

The ruling came as no surprise. However, the teachers’ union says it plans to appeal.

The union got a lot of publicity for the lawsuit, Eduwonk notes. The dismissal won’t get as much ink.

Sandy Cullen:

task force representing schools on Madison’s East Side has voted not to recommend closing any schools as a means of addressing declining enrollments in some elementary schools.
Instead, task force members are considering several possible recommendations for using available space in underenrolled schools, including moving Madison School & Community Recreation offices and programs from the Hoyt Building at 3802 Regent St., which the district could then sell. Other options include relocating the district’s alternative programs from rented facilities on Brearly Street and reassigning some students from the West or La Follette attendance areas to the East attendance area.
Task force member David Wallner said savings of $300,000 to $500,000 gained by closing a school would be offset by costs to bus students who now walk to school and by the negative impact closings would have on students, families and neighborhoods.
A similar task force addressing crowding in elementary schools in the West and Memorial attendance area has taken building a second school at Leopold Elementary off the table in favor of considering a new school on the far West Side, where large growth from new housing developments is anticipated.

Bill Novak:

“Larger numbers of young people are joining gangs, including more girls,” Falk said, highlighting information in a new report by the Dane County Youth Prevention Task Force. “We are renewing our efforts to help keep young people from joining gangs.”
Stephen Blue, delinquency services manager and co-chair of the task force, said about 4 percent of the area’s young people, or about 1,400 kids in all, identify themselves as being members of gangs.
“The kids are disenfranchised, not getting support,” Blue said.

Rafael Gomez and volunteers from this site hosted a Gangs and School Violence Forum on September 23, 2005. Audio and Video archives are online here, along with notes from that event.

Vikki Ortiz:

A few steps down the sidewalk, the students meet the gaze of assistant principal Jerome Hardt, who looms at the corner with a school security guard. Using sweeping arm motions, Hardt points the teens toward the high school building, ignoring the ones who roll their eyes.

Hardt is there to send students a stern message: Don’t even think about heading into McDonald’s or convenience stores instead of school.

Doug Hissom:

The Milwaukee School Board voted to close Frederick Douglass and Philipp elementary schools, Webster Middle School and Juneau High School, with under-enrollment the contributing cause. The vote by the board was split along its usual 5-4 ideological leanings.
Closing Juneau High School raised the most questions, since, according to criteria set out by the MPS administration, it shouldn’t have been closed. Juneau, located at 6415 W. Mount Vernon Ave., was not under its enrollment. In fact, Juneau was over the capacity listed in its charter with MPS. The school is a citywide business school and also specializes in dealing with visually impaired students.

The Madison School District launches a very nice blog like page, including a syndication feed. Staff can submit articles and photographs, here.

More day care funding urged for low-income kids
By Pat Schneider, the Capital Times
November 17, 2005
Every kid deserves a piece of the pie.
That was the message Wednesday, when members of Dane County United joined with the Bright and Early Coalition to put out the message that more public money is needed to support quality child care programs for low-income families.
One half of Madison children enrolled in day care are in city-accredited programs, said Vernon Blackwell, a member of Dane County United, a grass-roots social justice advocacy group.

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Angela Bettis:

Students and teachers at LaFollette High School are fighting for equal bus service.
They’ll take their argument to the city council Tuesday.
Limited bus service from Lafollette on the east side to students’ homes on the south side of the city is creating problems academically.
Students say they are not able to go to the same after school activities as kids at other schools because of the ongoing transportation problem.
Andres Garcia runs an after school Latino Club, but has been having problems getting students in the door.
“Because of the bus problems, no one was actually able to stay,” he said.
Teachers have said students who need more help learning English are missing out.
“We have academics that meet after school and clubs,” said science teacher Lisa Endicott. “Some of those things we can’t get the kids home for academics is the thing that hurts the most.”

Angela Bettis:

A 13-year-old boy is in police custody after allegedly shooting three fellow middle school students with a BB gun.
The incident happened on a Madison Metro bus Tuesday morning. Now that student could face expulsion. Officers say a Black Hawk Middle School 7th-grader hid a BB gun pistol in his sleeve, brought it on the school bus and shot one student in the chest and two others in the leg. Police say it all happened in the 500 block of Northport Drive.

Matt Pommer:

The $2 million for the student information system will be spread out over six budget years. Assistant Superintendent for Business Roger Price and planning and research director Kurt Kiefer said the system will pay for itself through efficiency and reduced staffing needs.
Parents would begin to see the impact of the new online system in the 2006-2007 school year, Kiefer said. He warned that training and implementation of the new computer software would take time and be “painful” for a period. The system is similar to one already being used in the Middleton-Cross Plains school district.
When it is fully operational, parents will be able to use a computer to see their child’s grades, progress reports, attendance and behavior reports. Students will be able to examine course schedules and register over the new system. Class attendance reporting will be fully computerized with the system.
Board member Ruth Robarts questioned how much parents would be able to use the system to communicate with teachers or to see course assignments. Rainwater said there are labor union contract issues related to what teachers could be required to do in those areas.

Ruth identified a critical issue in the successfull implementation of such a system.

Angela Bettis:

Middleton High School is one of the top in the state according to the federal government.
The school is one of only two high schools in Wisconsin to be recognized as a blue ribbon school by the U.S. Department of Education. The award recognizes Middleton’s academically superior student performance.

This week the Wisconsin Assembly passed two bills that could expand charter school opportunities in this state. The Legislative Committee of the Madison School Board will review these bills on December 5.
Assembly Bill 730 proposes to amend current law to allow 5 UW-System 4-year universities, in addition to UW-Milwaukee and UW-Parkside, to each sponsor not more than 5 charter schools. The vote to pass was 56-36.
Assembly Bill 698 would amend current law to raise the student enrollment cap from 400 to 480 for the elementary charter school (21st Century Preparatory School) sponsored by UW-Parkside. The vote on this bill was 62-29.

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WisPolitics Referenda Roundup:

• Florence Referendum Passes More on Florence
• Spring Grove
• DePere referendum approved
• Wrightstown Referendum Rejected
• Beaver Dam Referendum Defeated

Earlier this afternoon, the Wisconsin Assembly passed the following two legislative bills which would expand the Wisconsin charter school law:
AB 698 proposes to amend current law to raise the student enrollment cap from 400 to 480 for the elementary charter school (21st Century Preparatory School) sponsored by UW-Parkside. The vote on the passage motion was 62-Ayes and 29-Noes.
AB 730 proposes to amend current law to allow 5 UW-System 4-year universities, in addition to UW-Milwaukee and UW-Parkside, to each sponsor not more than 5 charter schools. The vote on the passage motion was 56-Ayes and 36-Noes. In a related development earlier this week, the Senate Higher Education and Tourism Committee recommended passage of Senate Bill 96 (i.e. Senate companion / identical bill to AB 730) on a vote of 4-Ayes (Senators Harsdorf, Kedzie, Kapanke and Plale) and 1-No (Senator Breske).
Both Assembly bills (AB 698 and AB 730) were messaged to the Senate.
A new ECS Issue Brief entitled “A State Policymaker’s Guide to Alternative Authorizers of Charter Schools” provides good info about the rationale for multiple-authorizers. You’ll find the ECS Issue Brief at the Education Commission of the State’s website — http://www.ecs.org/clearinghouse/64/69/6469.pdf
The State Legislature’s current floorperiod ends today. The next two-week floorperiod is scheduled for December 6 – 15, 2005. Then, the legislature will recess through the holidays … and resume floorsessions in the new year.
This was a good day at the Capitol for charter school friends. If you have an opportunity, please communicate special thanks to Representative Leah Vukmir and Senator Alberta Darling who are the lead authors of AB 730 and SB 96 (i.e. companion / identical bills to allow 5 UW System universities to sponsor charter schools); and thank Rep. Vos and Senator Stepp who are the lead authors of AB 698. Enjoy the moment!

A story by Steven Elbow from the Capital Times, November 10:

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Angela Bettis:

The Madison school district may have violated some of its’ policies, according to the report.
The incident involved Dalarence Goodwin, then 14, who was arrested at school and later shot by police with a Taser gun.
The independent report by lawyer Eileen Brownlee was posted on the Isthmus Website.
Brownlee was hired by the school district to sift through exactly what happened on Jan. 21 when Goodwin was tasered by Officer Tim Harder.
News 3’s Dawn Stevens talked exclusively with Dalarence and his mother when charges of resisting arrest were dropped last month.

Diane Ravitch:

WHILE in office, Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton both called for national academic standards and national tests in the public schools. In both cases, the proposals were rejected by a Congress dominated by the opposing party. The current President Bush, with a friendly Congress in hand, did not pursue that goal because it is contrary to the Republican Party philosophy of localism. Instead he adopted a strategy of “50 states, 50 standards, 50 tests” – and the evidence is growing that this approach has not improved student achievement. Americans must recognize that we need national standards, national tests and a national curriculum.
The release last month of test results by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which is part of the Department of Education, vividly demonstrated why varying state standards and tests are inadequate. Almost all states report that, based on their own tests, incredibly large proportions of their students meet high standards. Yet the scores on the federal test (which was given to a representative sample of fourth and eighth graders) were far lower. Basically, the states have embraced low standards and grade inflation.
Idaho claims that 90 percent of its fourth-grade students are proficient in mathematics, but on the federal test only 41 percent reached the Education Department’s standard of proficiency. Similarly, New York reports that nearly 85 percent of its fourth graders meet state standards in mathematics, yet only 36 percent tested as proficient on the national assessment. North Carolina boasts an impressive 92 percent pass rate on the state test, but only 40 percent meet the federal standard.

Jason Shepherd:

A series of institutional failures – by court employees, police officers and school officials – led to a Madison student being shot with a Taser stun gun in a school parking lot early this year, according to an independent investigator whose report the school district has tried to keep secret.
No one comes off unscathed in the report, issued last month by attorney Eileen Brownlee, whom the district hired to investigate the incident.
Some background: On Jan. 21, Madison Police Officer Tim Harder shot Dalarence Goodwin, a 14-year-old freshman, in the back with a Taser in the parking lot of Memorial High School. Goodwin had broken free from Harder’s grip while Harder was attempting to handcuff him after arresting him inside the school. The arrest itself was based on a warrant apparently issued in error by a juvenile court.
Brownlee’s eight-page report concludes in no uncertain terms that in the hours before and after the shooting, Harder and school officials violated district procedures.
“It is clear,” Brownlee notes after recounting various versions of the events, “that the policy was violated.”

Brownlee’s Report on the Taser incident [PDF]. Ed Blume’s notes.

Fordham Institute:

This is a problem. Serious education reform demands strong, competent leadership for two reasons. First, kids don’t have lobbyists to look after their interests. The inertia and resistance to change manifested by the education system and its myriad adult interest groups are so powerful that, absent first-rate leadership, one must expect nothing much to change. This is particularly dangerous for a state with weak job growth, anemic economic growth, and signs of a brain drain.
Second, while Ohioans substantially agree about many of the problems facing public education and the reforms needed to address those problems, they are split down the middle on others. Effective leadership is mandatory, else nothing will change.
This would be okay if nothing needed to change, but Ohioans surely don’t think so—and plenty of objective evidence says they are correct. Only a third of survey respondents—and fewer than one in five African Americans—believe their local public schools are “doing pretty well and need little change.” Virtually all others want “major change” or “a whole new system.” This is no surprise in a state where close to half of respondents also see the economy as a serious issue. Ohioans know that education and economic opportunity are connected, and they’re worried about both
But there’s good news in the survey, too. On many important education issues and reform ideas, Ohioans manifest broad agreement as to what’s wrong, what’s important, and what ought to happen.
Here are five key education topics where we see something akin to consensus:

1. Money alone won’t accomplish much. Respondents believe it would “get lost along the way” to classroom improvement (69 percent).
2. Stop social promotion and automatic graduation. Teachers should pass kids to the next grade “only if they learn what they are supposed to know” (87 percent) and high school students should pass tests “in each of the major subjects before they can graduate” (83 percent).
3. Free-up the front-line educators. Local schools ought to have considerably greater freedom and control over curriculum, budgets, and, especially, firing “teachers that aren’t performing” (89 percent).
4. Reward good teachers. Good teachers should be rewarded with higher pay (84 percent) and paid more if they “work in tough neighborhoods with hard-to-reach students” (77 percent).
5. Enforce discipline. Schools should enforce strict discipline with regard to student behavior, dress, and speech (91 percent).

Joanne’s site has links to Ohio’s NAEP numbers.

Channel3000:

“In the 80s, we had African-American gangs really hit the scene here in Madison,” said Madison Police Chief Noble Wray. “But what we’re looking at today is that we have more young ladies involved in gangs, we have Asian gangs, and a real increase in Latino gangs.”
Dane County Executive Assistant Ken Haynes said gang members are coming from diverse backgrounds, not just low-income neighborhoods.
“Problems … challenges don’t stop at geographic boundaries,” Haynes said.
Community leaders said that to reduce gang activity, everyone needs to work together.
“Our strategies need to be connected to all the strategies with other service providers, strategies in the schools and the strategies with parents,” Wray said

Video clips and archives from the recent Gangs and School Violence Forum.

From Jason Shepard’s column Talking Out of School in Isthmus, Madison’s only media outlet to give the public in-depth coverage of the MMSD:

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Naush Boghossian:

But the grant, the foundation’s first sizable sum to the Los Angeles Unified School District, falls far short of investments the foundation has made across the country to smaller districts – a disparity some officials blame on the LAUSD’s lack of a comprehensive plan.
And critics said Wednesday that, despite years of discussions with the Gates Foundation, the district superintendent, Roy Romer, has been unwilling to relinquish any control and create a partnership with the foundation to build the smaller learning environments that require autonomy to succeed – a charge Romer strongly denies.

Researchers Say Early Education Programs Pay Off

From Channel3000.com.
PDFs of Studies at:
http://www.apa.org/releases/dev416-gormley.pdf
http://www.apa.org/releases/dev416-love.pdf
POSTED: 1:38 pm CST November 2, 2005
UPDATED: 2:10 pm CST November 2, 2005
Two new studies suggest pre-K and Early Head Start programs benefit children — especially those from low-income families — in a variety of ways, including increased cognitive and language skills.
The first study looked at children who took part in pre-K programs — programs run by public schools and serving 4-year-olds.
Researchers said they documented benefits in several aspects of school readiness, including improvements in reading, writing and spelling abilities.
The study, conducted by Georgetown University researchers, found that disadvantaged children and Hispanic children benefited the most from pre-K programs.
Researchers studied 1, 567 pre-K 4-year-olds and 1, 461 children who had just completed one of the pre-K programs in Tulsa, Okla.
The second study, conducted by researchers at Princeton and Columbia University, looked at the benefits of Early Head Start programs that serve infants, toddlers and their families.
Full story at: http://www.channel3000.com/education/5234261/detail.html

Claudio Sanchez:

New reports from the Pew Hispanic Center conclude that low-income Latino students are the most segregated, ill-served group in the country’s public high schools. The reports detail high school conditions for Hispanic students in the United States.

Read the full report here.

Doug Erickson:

Part of the operating budget for the private school was covered each year by John Frautschi of Maple Bluff, father of school founder Christopher Frautschi, according to Dan Stewart, newly elected chairman of the school’s board of trustees.
The elder Frautschi will no longer fill that role, Stewart said.
Stewart would not reveal the size of Frautschi’s annual subsidy, other than to say it was sizable. School officials are discussing the matter with other potential donors who have the capacity to give “six-figure gifts,” he said.
“We do face a fundraising challenge this year of significant proportion,” Stewart said. “The initial responses we’re receiving are very encouraging and point toward a significant opportunity for success.”

The Wisconsin State Journal (October 26) carries a story on violence at Madison’s Memorial High School:

After a tumultuous two weeks at Madison Memorial High School marked by four weapons incidents, a student hit by a car and a gang fight, about 250 parents gathered to question Principal Bruce Dahmen about school security Tuesday night.

Channel3000:

There have been six incidents of violence at the school in the past week.
“It’s pretty obvious that there is some gang issues related to what happened at school yesterday,” said Lt. Tony Peterson.
Peterson said there have now been 40 arrests and citations at Memorial this school year.
Following a freedom of information request, the district released surveillance tape to News 3 showing a student waving a knife following an open gym night. Later, two others got into a fight.
Weapons, including a box cutter and a 9 mm handgun have also been seized from Memorial students.

The Capital Times reports in a story by Lee Sensenbrenner:

Has the MMSD or any other agency followed up on the suggestions to convene a task force on gangs and student violence, as proposed at the forum sponsored by the schoolinfosystem.org? Seems like some follow up would be a good idea.

Hedrick Smith:

This web site follows our production team into classrooms from coast to coast to see how some American communities are creating a small revolution in our schools. Don’t expect one magic formula. You’ll see different strategies. The common denominator is results – lifting scores and closing achievement gaps, not just for a few hundred children but for nearly two million, from our inner cities to rural America.

Transcript here.

Channel3000.com:

Another Memorial High School student was arrested Thursday, when school officials say a teen brought in a handgun magazine and 12 9-mm rounds to school.
News 3 reported a teacher noticed them when they fell out of the student’s pocket. A search of his car turned up two more boxes of ammo and a 12½ inch “Rambo Style” knife.
The student was taken to Dane County jail and arrested for carrying a concealed weapon and having a dangerous weapon on school grounds. Police said this is the third weapons incident at Memorial in a week.

Mr. Mom’s Transport held a news conference Friday. Pat Schneider was there:

Peter Munoz, executive director of Centro Hispano, fought back tears as he recounted the company’s generous support of his nonprofit agency.
The Smiths’ predicament, he said, “embodies some of the most intransigent problems we face in economic disparity and injustice.
“This business cannot be allowed to fail. It is too important,” he said.
Richard Harris, executive director of the south side Genesis Enterprise Center where the news conference was held, said he doubted that state officials were giving other transportation providers “scrutiny as intent as Mr. Mom’s.”
“Ask yourself: Is the playing field equal?” he said.

More on the Madison School District’s transportion contracts.

Document Feed on the Isthmus web site has posted Jason Shepard’s recent column and data supplied by the school district:
Police and schools: By the numbers
Spreadsheets compiled from raw data showing police calls and arrests at Madison schools, 2004-2005
In the 2004-05 school year, police were summoned to Madison schools more than 1,500 times and made nearly 400 arrests, mostly of students. Recently Isthmus writer Jason Shepard went through raw data of police reports to compile spreadsheets of police calls and arrests, arranged by school. One resulting finding — that students of color account for a sharply disproportionate percentage of arrests — has stirred particular concern, a topic explored in Shepard’s column for the Oct. 21 edition of Isthmus. Included here is that column and three spreadsheets that provide cumulative data.
http://www.isthmus.com/features/docfeed/docs/document.php?intdocid=154

The volunteers of the schoolinfosystem blog invite everyone in the community to our second forum “Poverty and Education,” Wednesday, October 26, 2005 7:00p.m. in the 3rd floor Wisconsin Studio of the Overture Center, 201 State St.
Presenters will be:
– Tom Kaplan: Associate Director of the Institute for Research on Poverty;
– Mary Kay Baum: Executive Director; Madison-Area Urban Ministry
– Hemant Shah: Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication and Asian America Studies
– A representative from the City of Madison
See all the details here.

Channel3000:

Madison police are warning parents about another child enticement. This one happened near Emerson School on Johnson Street. Two sisters say a man in a 4-door dark sedan told them to get in his car last Thursday morning. The suspect was a white male with a gray beard. He took off when the girls ran away. Similar cases have been reported in the Madison-metro area since September.

Lois Romano:

Despite a new federal educational testing law championed by the Bush administration, scores among fourth and eighth graders failed to show any improvements in reading, and showed only slow gains in math nationally during the past two years, according to a study released today.
Most troubling for educators are the sluggish reading skills among middle school students, which have remained flat for 13 years, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which has been testing students for three decades and bills itself as the “nation’s report card.”
“There is no rationale on eighth-grade reading other than we are not making progress,” said Darvin M. Winick, chairman of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the testing. Yet, he added, “I think educators and parents of elementary schools students should feel pretty good about this report. There is progress.”

interesting quote NPR has more.

Channel 3000:

Demolishing the structure was the last step necessary for previous managers, CMS, to collect on the insurance claim.
New owners, EJ Plesko & Associates, are now in the early stags of conducting a market analysis.
“You want to look at surrounding areas,” said Plesko official Brandon Scholz. “You want to know what apartments are like, what condos are like, what businesses are like and be able to look at what you have and how much more development you want to put into it.”
EJ Plesko & Associates hopes to have a redevelopment plan to Fitchburg officials by early 2006.

Amy Hetzner:

Proponents of holding recess before lunch say it helps reduce food waste in the cafeteria, increases students’ caloric and calcium consumption and can provide a calming buffer between frenetic play and quiet classroom work.
Food service and school nutrition groups have been busily advocating for more schools to change their schedules to reap the benefits.

Malcolm Gladwell:

“As a hypothetical example, take the University of Pennsylvania and Penn State, which are two schools a lot of students choose between,” Krueger said. “One is Ivy, one is a state school. Penn is much more highly selective. If you compare the students who go to those two schools, the ones who go to Penn have higher incomes. But let’s look at those who got into both types of schools, some of whom chose Penn and some of whom chose Penn State. Within that set it doesn’t seem to matter whether you go to the more selective school. Now, you would think that the more ambitious student is the one who would choose to go to Penn, and the ones choosing to go to Penn State might be a little less confident in their abilities or have a little lower family income, and both of those factors would point to people doing worse later on. But they don’t.”
Krueger says that there is one exception to this. Students from the very lowest economic strata do seem to benefit from going to an Ivy.

More on Gladwell.

BBC:

A school is to consult teachers and parents on the idea of opening for lessons 364 days a year.
Teaching would take place throughout the year – even on weekends – but not everyone would be in at the same time.
Paul Mortimer, who is a government adviser and in charge of two Rochdale schools, says he wants to have a school of the 21st Century, not the 19th.

A reader forwarded another perspective on school-parent communication in the Madison School District:

Here are some examples of really positive communication:
Our child’s savvy, experienced 4th grade teacher sends home a ‘weekly work ticket’. The ticket summarizes test/quiz scores, unfinished work not turned in and includes a place for teacher comments. I think this format is exceptional. It is certainly a time intensive task for the teacher. During the elementary years both of our children often had to return weekly progress slips with our signature. The teacher both children had for 3rd grade sent home a weekly newsletter that was simply a joy to read. A synopsis was created of the week’s work and provocative questions were included to facilitate parent/child conversation. Example, “Tell me about the way mummies were preserved in Ancient Egypt?” The kids do have some responsibility for communication.

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With apologies to Jonathan Swift:
Given the concerns about obesity in children – and the high cost of gasoline, I have a suggestion to deal with both. We need to redesign our buses so there are pedals for each rider – the students can provide much of the power to move the bus and reduce our reliance on gasoline while getting good exercise.
To take this one step further – we should design exercise rooms at the high schools so that bikes and treadmills also replace other energy sources.

I previously wrote about the lack of information received via email, internet, etc…from the school district. Since I posted that blog the District has been “experimenting” with two software systems they deem worth evaluation by parents and staff and are asking for feedback. (please go to the www.Madison.k12.wi.us for more info)
But not all the communication problems with MMSD have to do with modern technology. Let me give some examples……..

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BBC:

A school in Arizona, US, has thrown out its paper-based text books and is relying solely on laptops and digital material to teach its pupils.
Empire High School is one of a band of schools which is taking computer technology out of the classroom and into students’ bags.
Calvin Baker, chief superintendent of the Vail School district, told BBC World Service programme Go Digital that it has not signalled the total demise of text books

Luis Alberto Urrea:

But few of the hundreds, if not thousands, of poor evacuees now staring at Chicago’s formidable towers are likely to enjoy the good fortunes of A. J. Liddell. And that’s the larger story of the local economy: that in this era of outsourcing, housing bubbles and budget deficit pay-downs, the traditional Chicago gap between haves and have-nots has eroded into a chasm.

Terrence Stutz:

High-stakes testing in Texas and across the nation has had
little impact on student achievement and is disproportionately targeting
minority students – as evidenced by increased retention and dropout
rates in many states – according to a study by researchers in Texas and Arizona.
The study, which examined the impact of high-stakes testing in Texas and 24 other states, found “no convincing evidence” that the pressure
associated with those tests – such as threatened sanctions for low
scores – produced better student achievement than would otherwise have
been expected.

Via Tom Maxwell.

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Frontline has just made one of the most requested shows of all time available online for your viewing pleasure: A Class Divided:

A Class Divided is an encore presentation of the classic documentary on third-grade teacher Jane Elliott’s “blue eyes/brown eyes” exercise, originally conducted in the days following the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. This guide is designed to help you use the film to engage students in reflection and dialogue about the historical role of racism in the United States, as well as the role of prejudice and stereotyping in students’ lives today.

Via Dewayne Hendricks video Very nicely done with transcripts, links and a teacher’s guide.

Gena Kittner posted a useful article on the growth, both in student population and facilities of suburban Dane County School Districts.

Eleven of 16 school districts in the county have shown increased enrollment between 2001 and 2004, according to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.Madison is grappling with growth in more than half of its district and declines elsewhere.

Madison’s enrollment has been flat for quite some time, though the population is moving around:

Two task forces, including parent representatives from each of the district’s schools [East] [West, are working to find ways to accommodate a projected increase of more than 500 elementary school students over the next five years in the West and Memorial high school attendance areas – where several housing developments are in the works.
The groups are also wrestling with high enrollment at some elementary schools and under-enrollment at others, in the East and La Follette high school attendance areas.
Based on last year’s figures, the district projects that by 2010, it will have 192 more students than it has seats for on the district’s west side, and 989 more seats than students on its east side.

Jay Mathews:

But I have learned that both my newspaper and I have been, in at least one instance, treating them as if they did not exist — a bad habit shared by many across the country. Nobody likes to be ignored for no good reason, but that is what has been happening to charter schools, and it is not good for the 1 million students attending 3,500 such schools in 40 states plus the District.
In Greenville, S.C., the Sirrine scholarships of $200 to $2,000 have helped many public school graduates over the years, but Laura H. Getty of the Greenville Technical Charter High School said charter school students are not eligible. She has also noticed that the state of South Carolina does not allow charter school teachers to participate in the state retirement system unless they were in the system before they moved to a charter school.

Sandy Cullen recently posted two very useful articles on local Virtual School activity:

• Sun Prairie family enrolls in an Appleton Virtual School:
  

  Their mother spends four to five hours a day guiding her daughters through daily lesson plans, drawn primarily from curriculum developed over the past century at the Calvert School, a private “bricks-and-mortar” school in Baltimore, where tuition ranges from $14,000 to $17,000 a year for its 500 on-site students.
  Home-schoolers can buy Calvert’s curriculum and support services at prices ranging from $245 for pre-kindergarten to $760 for eighth-grade.
  But because her children are enrolled in Wisconsin Connections Academy, Leonard pays nothing. State taxpayers provide about $5,745 to the Appleton School District for each of her daughters. That’s the amount all school districts receive for students who live in another district and register through the state’s open-enrollment option.

• 2 Virtual Schools Sued by WEAC:
  

  The state’s largest teachers union has filed lawsuits — one unsuccessful and another ongoing — against two of the state’s virtual charter schools, claiming they violate state laws.

I’ve long been a proponent of keeping tabs on our elected representatives. Kristian Knutsen, writing at Isthmus’s Daily Page is doing a fabulous job summarizing our federal representative’s weekly voting record. Knutsen’s latest: Here’s one example (I’d love to know which lobbyist was powerful enough to cause the Senate to vote on horse inspections:

Roll Call 237 – Sep. 20
Ensign Amdt. No. 1753, As Modified; To prohibit the use of appropriated funds to pay the salaries or expenses of personnel to inspect horses under certain authority or guidelines.
Feingold: Yea
Kohl: Yea

Keep reading for a look at our Federal representives priorities.

Reader Troy Dassler emails this article by Jonathan Kozol “It seems appropriate that we should all read it on the eve of a day where everyone in the district is in an in-service talking about race”:

“Segregation is not something that happens by chance, like weather conditions,” says Jonathan Kozol. “It is the work of men.” So it is not without irony that it has taken a hurricane — and the excruciating images of stranded black faces, beamed across cable airwaves — for Americans to confront the reality that vast numbers of their fellow citizens live in segregated ghettos and suffer from abject poverty. But for Kozol, who has built his career on exposing the race- and class-based injustices endemic to the United States’ educational system, the knowledge that we live in a deeply divided society has long been a foregone — if heartbreaking — conclusion.

Abigail Thernstrom says Kozol’s analysis is “worthy of a third grader“.

Steven Elbow:

A bus service that contracts with the Madison Metropolitan School District is back in business after transporting students without having insurance.
One former employee said Mr. Mom’s Transport was operating without insurance for a month and a half.
“I think things are back to normal,” said school district spokesman Ken Syke.

Vernice Jones, a New York Black Mother is writing a weblog on homeschooling her child:

I am a Woman of Color trying to homeschool my child of 4 1/2 even though he goes to preschool full-day every day. Call me a skeptic, but I don’t feel I can trust the school system to educate my child. So far as I’m concerned, I am a homeschooling mother of one. Here’s to a day in my life.

via Joanne.

Wes Daily emailed a few comments on Gangs:

Gangs are not a new phenomenon in the United States and were originally formed as social clubs and a means of self-protection. Today, gangs have evolved into violent predators focused on obtaining money and power. According to the National Drug intelligence Center (NDIC), there are at least 21,500 gangs and more than 731,500 active gang members in the United States. NDIC defines a street gang as an ongoing group, club, organization, or association of five or more persons that has as one of its primary purposes the commission of one or more criminal offenses. Street gangs are no longer just an urban problem as they continue to seek new drug markets in suburban and rural areas. Gangs and their members can be identified by various methods including self admission, tattoos, possession of gang paraphernalia, information from other agencies, and photographs. Initiations vary from gang to gang and set to set. Most common inductions required for membership include the commission of a crime such as armed robbery, assault, rape, drive-by shootings, and murder. Other known initiations entail a “beat-in” or “jump-in,” in which the inductee must endure a severe beating by gang members, or a “sex-in” in which a female member must have sexual intercourse with multiple gang members.
CRIPS
The Crips originated in 1969 in Los Angeles, California from a youth gang known as the Baby Avenues, which then became known as the Avenue Cribs. In the early 1970s, the Avenue Cribs changed their name to the “Crips.” This gang was originally an African American male gang, but it now accepts Hispanic, Asian, and Caucasian males and females to bolster their membership. The Crips wear blue and gray or purple and orange clothing. Members wear British Knight or Adidas sneakers. This changes in different communities throughout the nation. To the Crips, Adidas stands for “All day I destroy a slob,” and BK stands for “Blood Killer,” which are derogatory slangs towards their rivals the Bloods. NDIC estimates national membership at 30,000 to 35,000. Theses figures are based on national reporting, which is consistently low due to denial.

Rafael Gomez is leading a Forum this Wednesday (9.21.2005) @ 7:00p.m. on Gangs and School Violence at the Doyle Administration Building. Learn more.

Senn Brown forwarded these links and information:

Eco-charter schools with environment-focused and project-based programs are springing up throughout Wisconsin, Minnesota and other states. Environment and sustainability are the integrating qualities of learning in “green,” high-performance charter schools. See website links (below) to several “green” charter schools.
Earlier this summer, a group from Wisconsin and Minnesota’s green/environmental focused charter schools gathered at Beaver Creek Nature Reserve, site of the new Wildlands Charter School (see link below), for a day-long “Green” High-Performance Charter Schools Conference. The gathering provided an opportunity for charter school, higher education and state-level folks to share information on green/environmentally focused programs, practices, experiences and “green” school design principles. The group agreed to establish a steering committee to develop plans for fostering the creation of environmental-focused charter schools, sharing effective practices, networking and describing design principles for all environmentally friendly charter schools. The WCSA and Minnesota Association of Charter Schools are assisting the steering committee to coordinate the green/environmental charter schools initiative.

Channel3000:

About 100 young people were involved in a disturbance by the concession stand at the LaFollette versus East High School football game at Lussier Stadium at about 9:45 p.m. No one was hurt, but police detained 12 kids and arrested four.

This is an open letter from Darlinne Kambwa, a high school student
at LaFollette. It was published in the Cap Times on September 14, 2005
http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion//index.php?ntid=54049&ntpid=11

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Doug Erickson takes a useful look around Madison’s gang scene, including the recent events in Oregon. Erickson also mentions this Wednesday’s SIS supported event, lead by Rafael Gomez on Gangs and School Violence (9.21 @ 7:00p.m.):

“It sets a watershed mark for the number of individuals involved in one event,” said Stephen Blue, who has studied local gangs since 1986 and is delinquency services manager for the Dane County Department of Human Services.
Blue is among panelists scheduled to discuss gangs and school violence Wednesday at the Doyle Administration Building of the Madison School District. The event is sponsored by www.schoolinfosystem.org, a Web site devoted to school issues.
Rafael Gomez, a district parent who helped organize the forum and will be its moderator, said the topic was chosen before the Oregon shootings.
“One of the questions we will be asking the panel is how the whole issue of gangs in our schools has changed in the last 10 years,” he said. “I think that’s a good way to frame the situation in Oregon.”

Joshua Fruhlinger:

I hate to break it to you, though, but it looks like e-books in their current form aren’t going to break out of their early adopter ghetto any time soon. Certainly books stored in electronic form have flourished in a number of niche markets — reference books, in particular, are becoming more and more prevalent as electronic form rather than paper (see Resources for more on this and other wacky links). But when it comes to the books that make up the bulk of our reading lives, the vast majority of us are still reading words printed with ink on paper bound with glue and string.

I think the future, (or is it present?) of online learning is something between blogs, heymath, edhelper and wikipedia with interesting tools like RSS thrown in.

Daniel de Vise:

Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele released his blueprint for education reform yesterday, a series of 30 recommendations that call for schools to be graded and teachers to be paid for performance.
Members of the 30-person Governor’s Commission on Quality Education in Maryland recommended efforts to promote charter schools but rejected school vouchers, a far more divisive topic

Full Report (PDF)

BBC:

“California is facing an obesity epidemic,” Mr Schwarzenegger said. “Today we are taking some first steps in creating a healthy future for California.”
Under the new rules, pizza, burritos, pasta and sandwiches must contain no more than four grams of fat for every 100 calories, with a total of no more than 400 calories.
From 2007, students will only be allowed to buy water, milk and some fruit and sports drinks that contain a controlled amount of sweeteners.
It is thought that the move could cost school districts hundreds of thousands of dollar in lost income, as they receive money from companies in return for allowing them to sell their products in schools.

Gangs and School Violence Presentation
Wednesday, September 21, 2005 7:00p.m. to 8:00p.m.
Organized by volunteers from www.schoolinfosystem.org
McDaniels Auditorium
Doyle Administration Building
545 W. Dayton St.
Madison, WI 53703 Directions
Discussion Topics:
1) Has the gang issue changed over the past 10 years?
2) What have we learned from our initiatives?
3) What partnerships are available to keep gangs away from schools?
4) What procedures are available to individual schools to keep gangs away from schools?
Participants
Ed Holmes, Principal of Madison West High School
Mike Meissen, Principal of LaFollette High School
Robert Growney, Principal of Edgewood High School
Lt. Luis Yudice, Office of Justice Assistance
Stephen Blue, MSW Office Manager of Delinquent Services
Hector Alvarez, Centro Hispano
Bruce Dahmen, Principal – Madison Memorial High School
Lester Moore, City of Madison Police Department
For more information, please contact
Rafael Gomez: filosistema@yahoo.com
Joan Knoebel: jmknoebel@tds.com
Larry Winkler: winkllj@acm.org
This event will be recorded and published on www.schoolinfosystem.org

Martha Raffaele:

As they wait for their children’s first report card to come home this year, elementary-school parents across Pennsylvania also can expect to receive a separate report on a key indicator of their children’s health.
In an effort to combat childhood obesity, the state Health Department is requiring school nurses to compute students’ body-mass index – or height-to-weight ratio – during annual growth screenings, starting this year with children in kindergarten through fourth grade.
Parents will receive letters about the results that will encourage them to share the information with their family physician. The letters will explain whether the BMI is above, below, or within the normal range for the child’s age and gender.

A few months ago, I saw the movie “Crash” on a recommendation from Barbara Golden, founder and leader of MAFAAC. This movie has an ensemble cast and I highly recommend that you see this movie when it comes out on DVD. The movie talks in depth about race relations, stereotyping and racism.
The subject of race comes up frequently related to the Madison School District. More and more our schools are being asked to address societal issues particularly regarding race. During a Performance and Achievement committee meeting on Monday August 29th, Shwaw Vang, chair of the committee led a very spirited conversation about Hmong student attendance and race relations. This discussion was coupled by presentations from district staff Jeannette Deloya and Diane Crear. Attached are the presentations and statistics that show a series of meetings and plans to address Hmong student performance and that the school district is improving its race relations among its student body.

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