Staff Support – Page 16 – School Information System

New Jersey Governor Christie Takes on Parsippany School Board, Super at Town Meeting

Gov. Chris Christie didn’t mention Superintendent of Schools LeRoy Seitz in his town meeting speech Friday afternoon at the Morris County Public Safety Training Academy.
But it didn’t take him long to get around to the subject.
When it was time for the audience to ask questions, Parsippany Township resident Hank Heller came to the microphone and asked if the board’s approval of Seitz’s contract made him consider stripping local school boards of their power.
“Since we’ve seen the results in Parsippany of home rule run amok with the superintendent’s contract, any thought of changing home rule to county rule or state rule?” asked Heller, who was first line at the event, which drew a crowd of more than 200.
Christie chuckled, then said, “All night, and the first question we get is about Lee Seitz.”

How to best educate future educators

Amy Hetzner and Becky Vevea

Ivelisse Cruz can barely watch the video footage from her first time teaching a math lesson.
The video shows Cruz, a first-semester sophomore at Alverno College at the time, hesitantly starting her lesson seated with a group of seventh-grade students around a small table at Fairview Charter School in Milwaukee. She doesn’t quite explain what the focus of their math lesson will be, looks slightly uncertain and speaks in what she would later criticize as a monotone voice.
“It was terrible, I don’t even know how these kids were even paying attention,” Cruz, now in her senior year at Alverno, said as she watched the video.
Fast forward through three more semesters, learning the art of teaching and spending time working with students.
Now the video shows a more confident woman standing at the front of her class, reviewing her work with the students from the week before, forecasting what the next lesson will be, calling a student to stand beside her at an overhead projector to walk through a practice problem.

Teacher Ratings Get New Look, Pushed by a Rich Watcher

Sam Dillon

In most American schools, teachers are evaluated by principals or other administrators who drop in for occasional classroom visits and fill out forms to rate their performance.
The result? More than 9 out of 10 teachers get top marks, according to a prominent study last year by the New Teacher Project, a nonprofit group focusing on improving teacher quality.
Now Bill Gates, who in recent years has turned his attention and considerable fortune to improving American education, is investing $335 million through his foundation to overhaul the personnel departments of several big school systems. A big chunk of that money is financing research by dozens of social scientists and thousands of teachers to develop a better system for evaluating classroom instruction.
The effort will have enormous consequences for the movement to hold schools and educators more accountable for student achievement.
Twenty states are overhauling their teacher-evaluation systems, partly to fulfill plans set in motion by a $4 billion federal grant competition, and they are eagerly awaiting the research results.

What I Learned at the Education Barricades

Over the past eight years, I’ve been privileged to serve as chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, the nation’s largest school district. Working with a mayor who courageously took responsibility for our schools, our department has made significant changes and progress. Along the way, I’ve learned some important lessons about what works in public education, what doesn’t, and what (and who) are the biggest obstacles to the transformative changes we still need.
First, it is wrong to assert that students’ poverty and family circumstances severely limit their educational potential. It’s now proven that a child who does poorly with one teacher could have done very well with another. Take Harlem Success Academy, a charter school with all minority, mostly high-poverty students admitted by lottery. It performs as well as our gifted and talented schools that admit kids based solely on demanding tests. We also have many new small high schools that replaced large failing ones, and are now getting outsized results for poor children.

Interview with Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad

Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad Interview

Much more on Dan Nerad, here.

The Rise of Online Colleges and Online Education

Dona Collins

The 2002 American Community Survey, taken by the US Census Bureau, indicated that 52.7 percent of the American population has some sort of college education; however, only 27.2 percent of Americans actually continue their education long enough to obtain a college degree. These numbers seems pretty dismal when compared with countries like Finland and the Netherlands where the percentage of people with college degrees range from 34 to 40 percent. Fortunately, the number of people taking online classes continues to rise, increasing the percentage of people working towards obtaining a degree. When you take into consideration the benefits online classes offer it’s easy to see why the popularity of online education has grown immensely over the past few years.

Madison School District Responds to DPI

Great Madison Schools

On November 29, 2010, the Madison School District responded to a request for information from the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) about Madison’s services for talented and gifted students.
The DPI initiated an audit of Madison’s talented and gifted programming after West High School area parents filed a complaint on September 20, 2010, arguing that West refuses to provide appropriate programs for ninth and tenth grade students gifted in language arts and social studies. West requires all freshmen and sophomores to take regular core English and history courses, regardless of learning level.
(All three of Madison’s other comprehensive high schools-East, LaFollette, and Memorial-provide advanced sections of core subjects before 11th grade. East and LaFollette offer advanced and/or honors sections starting in ninth grade, while Memorial offers English 10 honors and AP World History for tenth graders.)
As part of a Small Learning Community Initiative phased in over the past decade, West implemented a one-size-for-all English and social studies program to stop different groups of students from following different courses of study. Some groups had typically self-selected into rigorous, advanced levels while others seemed stuck in more basic or remedial levels. Administrators wanted to improve the quality of classroom experience and instruction for “all students” by mixing wide ranges of ability together in heterogeneous classrooms.

Surprisingly Predictive (you moron!): “…student feedback (surprisingly predictive of success in the classroom)”

Jonathan Alter

Bill Gates is raising his arm, bent at the elbow, in the direction of the ceiling. The point he’s making is so important that he wants me and the pair of Gates Foundation staffers sitting in the hotel conference room in Louisville, Ky., to recognize the space between this thought and every lower-ranking argument. “If there’s one thing that can be done for the country, one thing,” Gates says, his normally modulated voice rising, “improving education rises so far above everything else!” He doesn’t say what the “else” is–deficit reduction? containing Iran? free trade?–but they’re way down toward the floor compared with the arm above that multibillion-dollar head. With the U.S. tumbling since 1995 from second in the world to 16th in college-graduation rates and to 24th place in math (for 15-year-olds), it was hard to argue the point. Our economic destiny is at stake.
Gates had just finished giving a speech to the Council of Chief State School Officers in which he tried to explain how administrators could hope to raise student achievement in the face of tight budgets. The Microsoft founder went through what he sees as false solutions–furloughs, sharing textbooks–before focusing on the true “cost drivers”: seniority-based pay and benefits for teachers rising faster than state revenues.
Seniority is the two-headed monster of education–it’s expensive and harmful. Like master’s degrees for teachers and smaller class sizes, seniority pay, Gates says, has “little correlation to student achievement.” After exhaustive study, the Gates Foundation and other experts have learned that the only in-school factor that fully correlates is quality teaching, which seniority hardly guarantees. It’s a moral issue. Who can defend a system where top teachers are laid off in a budget crunch for no other reason than that they’re young?
In most states, pay and promotion of teachers are connected 100 percent to seniority. This is contrary to everything the world’s second-richest man believes about business: “Is there any other part of the economy where someone says, ‘Hey, how long have you been mowing lawns? … I want to pay you more for that reason alone.’ ” Gates favors a system where pay and promotion are determined not just by improvement in student test scores (an idea savaged by teachers’ unions) but by peer surveys, student feedback (surprisingly predictive of success in the classroom), video reviews, and evaluation by superiors. In this approach, seniority could be a factor, but not the only factor.
President Obama knows that guaranteed tenure and rigid seniority systems are a problem, but he’s not yet willing to speak out against them. Even so, Gates gives Obama an A on education. The Race to the Top program, Gates says, is “more catalytic than anyone expected it to be” in spurring accountability and higher standards.
Gates hardly has all the answers: he spent $2 billion a decade ago breaking up big high schools into smaller ones and didn’t get the results he’d hoped for. Today, he’s too enamored of handheld devices for tracking student performance. They could end up as just another expensive, high-tech gimmick. But you’ve got to give Gates credit for devoting so much of his brain and fortune to this challenge. [BIG BIAS ALERT HERE!] His biggest adversary now is Diane Ravitch, a jaundiced former Education Department official under George H.W. Bush, who changed sides in the debate and now attacks Gates-funded programs in books and articles. Ravitch, the Whittaker Chambers of school reform, gives intellectual heft to the National Education Association’s campaign to discredit even superb charter schools and trash intriguing reform ideas that may threaten its power. When I asked Gates about Ravitch, you could see the Micro-hard hombre who once steamrolled software competitors: “Does she like the status quo? Is she sticking up for decline? Does she really like 400-page [union] contracts? Does she think all those ‘dropout factories’ are lonely? If there’s some other magic way to reduce the dropout rate, we’re all ears.” Gates understands that charters aren’t a silver bullet, and that many don’t perform. But he doesn’t have patience for critics who spend their days tearing down KIPP schools and other models that produce results.
There’s a backlash against the rich taking on school reform as a cause. Some liberals figure they must have an angle and are scapegoating teachers. But most of the wealthy people underwriting this long-delayed social movement for better performance are on the right track. [BIG BIAS ALERT HERE!] Like the rest of us, they know that if we don’t fix education, we can kiss our future goodbye.
Jonathan Alter is also the author of The Promise: President Obama, Year One and The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope.

How Milton schools saved a bundle – of your money

Patrick McIlheran

Bernie Nikolay should be happy. His school district – he’s the superintendent in Milton – had a good November.
The girls swim team won the state title, a first for Milton girls athletics. And an arbitrator said the district could switch health coverage away from the insurer owned by the teachers union. That’ll save the district as much as a million bucks a year.
For a district with a $33 million budget, that’s cheery. For the rest of the state, it means a tide may have turned.
It could mean the end to the costly market dominance of WEA Trust, the health insurer owned by the Wisconsin Education Association Council. Just under two-thirds of Wisconsin districts use WEA Trust, a puzzling preference since its coverage is so costly.
Districts that buy WEA Trust plans average $1,665 a month for family premiums, according to their state association, while those choosing other carriers average $1,466. The difference is greatest where taxpayers cover the whole premium.

Madison Preparatory Academy for Young Men: Initial Proposal to Establish a Charter School

1.1MB PDF; via a Kaleem Caire email:

Based on current education and social conditions, the fate of boys of color is uncertain.
African American and Latino boys are grossly over-represented among youth failing to achieve academic success, are at grave risk of dropping out of school before they reach 10th grade, are disproportionately represented among adjudicated and incarcerated youth, and are far less likely than their peers in other subgroups to achieve to their dreams and aspirations. Likewise, boys in general lag behind girls in most indicators of student achievement.
Research indicates that although boys of color have high aspirations for academic and career success, their underperformance in school and lack of educational attainment undermine their career pursuits and the success they desire. This misalignment of aspirations and achievement is fueled by and perpetuates a set of social conditions wherein men of color find themselves disproportionately represented among the unemployed and incarcerated. Without meaningful, targeted, and sustainable interventions and support systems, hundreds of thousands of young men of color will never realize their true potential and the cycle of high unemployment, fatherless homes, overcrowded jails, incarcerated talent, deferred dreams, and high rates of school failure will continue.
Madison Preparatory Academy for Young Men (Madison Prep) will be established to serve as a catalyst for change and opportunity among young men, particularly young men of color and those who desire a nurturing educational experience for young men.
Madison Prep’s founders understand that poverty, isolation, structural discrimination, lack of access to positive male role models and achievement-oriented peer groups, limited exposure to opportunity and culture outside their neighborhood or city, and a general lack of understanding – and in some cases fear – of Black and Latino boys among adults are major contributing factors to why so many young men are failing to achieve to their full potential. However, the Urban League of Greater Madison – the “founders” of Madison Prep – also understand that these issues can be addressed by directly countering each issue with a positive, exciting, engaging, enriching, challenging, affirming and structured learning community designed to exclusively benefit boys.
Madison Prep will be a non-instrumentality charter school – authorized by the Madison Metropolitan School District Board of Education – that serves an all-male student body in grades 6-12. It will be open to all males residing in Dane County who apply, regardless of previous academic performance. The school will provide a world class secondary education for young men that prepares them for leadership, service, and success at a four-year college or university.
Madison Prep will employ seven Educational Strategies to achieve this mission: an all-male student body, the International Baccalaureate curriculum, a College Preparatory educational program, Harkness Teaching, an extended school day and year, mentoring and community support, and the “Prep Year.”
Madison Prep will also use four key Operational Strategies in order to support the educational strategies: adequate staffing, target student population, appropriate facilities/location, and sufficient funding.
Eight Core Values and Four Leadership Dimensions will additionally serve as underpinnings for the success of Madison Prep and Madison Prep students. These Core Values – Excellence & Achievement, Accountability, Teamwork, Innovation, Global Perspective, Perseverance, Leading with Purpose, and Serving Others – will also root Madison Prep in the Educational Framework of the Madison Metropolitan School District. The Four Leadership Dimensions – Personal, Team, Thought, and Results Leadership – will serve as criteria for student and staff evaluations.
Madison Prep’s educational program will be bolstered by partnerships with businesses, government agencies, professional and membership associations, colleges and universities, and scholarship-providing organizations that have the capacity to bring talent, expertise and resources into the school community to benefit Madison Prep students, faculty, staff, and parents. Madison Prep will also host special activities to engage parents, family members, and the community in the education of their young men. Invitations will be extended to parents, community leaders, and experts to join young men at the Harkness Table to add to their learning and to learn with them.
Seed funding for the establishment of Madison Prep will come from public and private sources, including planning and implementation grants from charter school investment funds, charitable foundations, government agencies, and individuals. Ideally, Madison Prep will be located in a business or higher education environment with access to quality classroom, athletic and laboratory facilities or the ability to create such facilities.
The Urban League of Greater Madison (ULGM or Urban League) will submit a Detailed Proposal for Madison Prep in 2011 to the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) Board of Education to receive approval to open the school in 2012. If approved, the school will open in August 2012 serving 90 boys in grades 6 and 7. The school will grow by one grade level each year until it offers a full complement of secondary grades (6 -12). At maturity, Madison Prep will serve 315 students and graduate its first class of seniors in 2017-18.

Links: Madison Preparatory Academy and Kaleem Caire (interview).
This plan will be presented at the 12/6/2010 Madison School Board meeting.
In many ways, the outcome of this initiative will be a defining moment for our local public schools, particularly in terms of diffused governance, choice, a different curricular approach (potentially a movement away from the one size fits all model), economics and community engagement. If it does not happen in Madison, I suspect it will with a neighboring district.
Page 45:

The Madison Prep Difference
Although it is clear that Madison Prep can and will support MMSD objectives, there is no doubt that Madison Prep will be unique. Madison Prep will be the only all-male public school option in Dane County serving young men when it opens in 2012. Furthermore, the school will be the only IB school in the city offering the full continuum of the IB Programme at the secondary level. Young men enrolled in Madison Prep in 6th grade will begin their education in the IB Middle Years Programme and continue in the curriculum until they move into the rigorous two- year Diploma Programme beginning in 11th grade, thereby increasing their likeliness of success. Finally, while MMSD offers after school activities and care, no school in the district offers a significant amount of additional instructional time through an extended school day and extended school year, as Madison Prep will.

The Role of Education Faculty in Reform Debates

Shaun Johnson

As soon as a doctor, lawyer, or plumber walks into any social setting, it seems as if they are the sole representatives of their respective professions. Can you help me treat this sore shoulder, sue the person that injured it, and unplug the drain under my sink? With all the press lately on education reform, most of which related to the hoopla enveloping the “Superman” film, I certainly become the local representative of both teachers and higher education most everywhere I go. Questions arise. What did you think of that latest Friedman column in The New York Times? How can my child transfer to a different public school? The kicker: What is wrong with our education system anyway?
The more questions I’m asked, the fewer answers reached than expected by both myself and others. It’s fitting that I’m bringing this up around the holiday season because this is the time families are visited and new acquaintances are made. So, what do you do for a living? I teach teachers. Ah, so how do we get rid of all these crap teachers?

The Middle School Mess: If you love bungee jumping, you’re the middle school type

Peter Meyer

“Caught in the hurricane of hormones,” the Toronto Star began a 2008 story about students in the Canadian capital’s middle schools. Suspended “between childhood and the adult world, pre-teens have been called the toughest to teach.”
“The Bermuda triangle of education,” former Louisiana superintendent Cecil Picard once termed middle schools. “Hormones are flying all over the place.”
Indeed, you can’t touch middle school without hearing about “raging hormones.”
Says Diane Ross, a middle-school teacher for 17 years and for 13 more a teacher of education courses for licensure in Ohio, “If you are the warm, nurturing, motherly, grandmotherly type, you are made for early childhood education. If you love math or science or English, then you are the high school type. If you love bungee jumping, then you are the middle school type.”
Even in professional journals you catch the drift of “middle-school madness.” Mayhem in the Middle was a particularly provocative study by Cheri Pierson Yecke published by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in 2005. American middle schools have become the places “where academic achievement goes to die,” wrote Yecke.

Your Child Left Behind

Amanda Ripley, via two kind readers:

FOR YEARS, POOR PERFORMANCE BY STUDENTS IN AMERICA RELATIVE TO THOSE IN OTHER COUNTRIES HAS BEEN EXPLAINED AWAY AS A CONSEQUENCE OF OUR NATIONWIDE DIVERSITY. BUT WHAT IF YOU LOOKED MORE CLOSELY, BREAKING DOWN OUR RESULTS BY STATE AND SEARCHING NOT FOR AN AVERAGE, BUT FOR EXCELLENCE?
Stanford economist Eric Hanushek and two colleagues recently conducted an experiment to answer just such questions, ranking American states and foreign countries side by side. Like our recruiter, they looked specifically at the best and brightest in each place–the kids most likely to get good jobs in the future–using scores on standardized math tests as a proxy for educational achievement.
We’ve known for some time how this story ends nationwide: only 6 percent of U.S. students perform at the advanced-proficiency level in math, a share that lags behind kids in some 30 other countries, from the United Kingdom to Taiwan. But what happens when we break down the results? Do any individual U.S. states wind up near the top?
Incredibly, no. Even if we treat each state as its own country, not a single one makes it into the top dozen contenders on the list. The best performer is Massachusetts, ringing in at No. 17. Minnesota also makes it into the upper-middle tier, followed by Vermont, New Jersey, and Washington. And down it goes from there, all the way to Mississippi, whose students–by this measure at least–might as well be attending school in Thailand or Serbia.
ANUSHEK, WHO GREW UP outside Cleveland and graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1965, has the gentle voice and manner of Mr. Rogers, but he has spent the past 40 years calmly butchering conventional wisdom on education. In study after study, he has demonstrated that our assumptions about what works are almost always wrong. More money does not tend to lead to better results; smaller class sizes do not tend to improve learning. “Historically,” he says, “reporters call me [when] the editor asks, ‘What is the other side of this story?'”

Emphasis added.

War veteran barred from CCBC campus for frank words on killing

Childs Walker

After publishing essay on addiction to war, Charles Whittington must obtain psychological evaluation before returning to classes
By writing the paper, Charles Whittington thought he would confront the anxieties that had tormented him since he returned from war.
He knew it wasn’t normal to dwell on the pleasure of sticking his knife between an enemy soldier’s ribs. But by recording his words, maybe he’d begin to purge the fixation.
So Whittington, an Iraq veteran, submitted an essay on the allure of combat for his English class at the Community College of Baltimore County in Catonsville. He called war a drug and wrote that killing “is something that I do not just want but something I really need so I can feel like myself.”

Seattle Public Schools superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson stands firm, even as her teachers lose faith in her leadership.

Matthew Halverson

SEVEN YEARS AGO, Maria Goodloe-Johnson declined to apply for the job as superintendent of Seattle Public Schools and instead took the same job with the Charleston County School District in South Carolina. “The [Seattle] school board was very confused,” she says. “And I wasn’t interested in confusion.” She won’t get more specific than that when describing the district circa 2003, but it couldn’t have been drastically different than the situation she inherited when she accepted the Seattle school district’s top spot in 2007.
Attendance at South Seattle schools was sinking. The school board had adopted a new student assignment plan without any idea of how to implement it. Schools were teaching to vastly different standards. Heck, the district’s computer system was so outdated, prospective teachers had no means for applying online for jobs at multiple schools at once. SPS lacked accountability and administrative oversight, and Goodloe-Johnson whipped out her ruler and started rapping knuckles almost immediately.

Melissa Westbrook has more.

All Together Now? Educating high and low achievers in the same classroom

Michael Petrilli, via a kind reader’s email:

The greatest challenge facing America’s schools today isn’t the budget crisis, or standardized testing, or “teacher quality.” It’s the enormous variation in the academic level of students coming into any given classroom. How we as a country handle this challenge says a lot about our values and priorities, for good and ill. Unfortunately, the issue has become enmeshed in polarizing arguments about race, class, excellence, and equity. What’s needed instead is some honest, frank discussion about the trade-offs associated with any possible solution.
U.S. students are all over the map in terms of achievement (see Figure 1). By the 4th grade, public-school children who score among the top 10 percent of students on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are reading at least six grade levels above those in the bottom 10 percent. For a teacher with both types of students in her classroom, that means trying to challenge kids ready for middle-school work while at the same time helping others to decode. Even differences between students at the 25th and at the 75th percentiles are huge–at least three grade levels. So if you’re a teacher, how the heck do you deal with that?

Lots of related links:

Badger Rock charter school decision delayed after Madison School Board learns of cost errors

Matthew DeFour:

The Madison School Board on Monday delayed approval of an agriculture-themed charter school by two weeks after learning the school could cost the district about $318,000 more than previously thought.
The board had been told Badger Rock Middle School, estimated to cost $596,000 in the 2011-12 school year, would be cost-neutral, but that prediction was based on erroneous information provided by district officials earlier this year. Superintendent Dan Nerad apologized for the error during Monday night’s board meeting.
Erik Kass, assistant superintendent for business services, said his staff told the planning team for Badger Rock in February that it could budget $596,000 for the school.
But the district failed to account for an additional $310,000 needed to create 3.9 new positions in the district to accommodate the new school. The district also determined the school’s proposed utilities budget was $8,000 too low.

In praise of cultivation

Harry Eyres:

t’s not often that Slow Lane can claim a scoop but I think I am the first to divulge the contents of a report that has just, rather mysteriously, arrived on my desk. It is called “The Future of BP” and it was commissioned by the UK government from Dr Stradivario Verdi, the noted entomologist and education tsar – until he was forced to step down from his position earlier this year because of damaging rumours about his relationship with a stag beetle.
Verdi calls not simply for a reorganisation of the company affected by a series of environmental and safety disasters culminating in the Deepwater Horizon spill but for a fundamental change in its philosophy. Amazingly, he suggests that BP in the future should be concerned not with making money for shareholders but with something he quaintly terms the public good. This would seem to imply a radical move away from environmentally damaging oil and gas exploration and refining into the development of renewable energy.
Only joking. This absurd caprice is, however, not really any more absurd, when you think about it, than the independent review of higher education and student finance commissioned by the UK government and chaired by the former chief executive of BP, Lord Browne – a businessman, not an educationalist.
How could he have spent much time in serious thought, research or discussion about the purposes of higher education when he was at the helm of one of the world’s biggest corporations?

Trying to steer strong teachers to weak schools

Alan Borsuk:

James Sonnenberg has a request for Gregory Thornton, the new superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools: “Give me the best you have, to work with the children who need the most.”
It’s a logical request. Most business leaders put the most capable employees in the most demanding situations.
But it’s also a very tough request, because, in general, that isn’t the way it works in education, where quality flows uphill, away from the lowest-performing schools and students. As teachers build up experience, seniority and, experts generally say, competence, they head for higher-performing kids, higher-performing schools and, frequently, the suburbs.
Sonnenberg is the highly regarded principal of West Side Academy, an MPS kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school in a tough neighborhood, around N. 35th St. and W. Lisbon Ave. His pursuit of a strong teaching staff is one vignette in a story that runs deep in schools serving high-needs children all across the nation.
Sonnenberg has plenty of weight to put behind his quest for more star power on his teaching staff. Federal law calls for doing more to put good teachers in front of the kids most likely to falter. Research shows those children are likely to benefit the most from having star teachers. There is wide agreement that it is a worthy goal.

Building A New Culture Of Teaching And Learning

Dr. Tae

f you only watch one video on my site, make it this one.
Are schools designed to help people learn? Are colleges and universities really institutions of higher education? Do students actually learn any science in science classes? Can skateboarding give us a better model for teaching and learning? Watch this video to find out.

Commentary on the Proposed Madison Preparatory Academy, a Charter School

Kaleem Caire, via email: Chris Rickert:

At some point in the next couple months, members of the Madison School Board are almost certain to be in the unlucky position of having to decide whether to admit what is most fairly characterized as a colossal failure.
Approving a charter for Urban League of Greater Madison President Kaleem Caire’s all-boy, mostly black, non-union Madison Preparatory Academy will make it clear that, when it comes to many black schoolchildren, teachers have failed to teach, parents have failed to parent, and the rest of us have failed to do anything about either.
Reject the charter and risk the false hope that comes from thinking that all these children need is another program and more “outreach.” A tweak here and a tweak there and we can all just keep on keeping on. Never mind that the approach hasn’t seemed to work so far, and that if past is prologue, we already know this story’s end.
Caire’s model would be a radical departure for Madison. The district’s two existing charter schools — Wright Middle School and Nuestro Mundo — don’t exactly trample on hallowed educational ground. They employ union teachers and have the same number of school days and teaching hours as any other non-charter and “broadly follow our district policies in the vast majority of ways,” said district spokesman Ken Syke.

Amber Walker:

I want to thank Kaleem Caire for coming home to Madison and making positive changes. If anyone can make an all-male charter school happen here, he can. The statistics in the article may be alarming to some, but not as alarming to the students and parents who are living these statistics.
I support integration, but how can it be true integration when the education gaps are so large? Who is benefiting? In my eyes, true integration in the school system would support the same quality of education, the same achievement expectations, the same disciplinary measures and so on.
Numbers don’t lie, and what they tell us is that we need to go another route to ensure educational success for black males. If that means opening a charter school to intervene, then let’s do it!

Sally Martyniak:

Instead of the headline “All-male charter school a tough sell,” imagine this one, “Loss to society: Madison schools graduated only 52 percent of black male students in 2009.” Then the reaction to the Urban League’s plan to start a charter school intended to boost minority achievement might have been different.
Reaction in the article discussed all the reasons why people will or should oppose the idea of an all-male charter school, despite its benefits. Let’s not talk about why we should be aghast at the cultural performance disparities in Madison’s schools. And let’s not talk about what we lose as a society when almost half of all black males attending Madison schools fail to graduate.

Marshall Smith:

The comments of John Matthews, head of the Madison teachers union, on charter schools are hyperbole. Saying that the Madison School Board will have no control is a cover for the union not having control.
We can’t argue the importance of good teachers. But the idea that a degree in education, and a union membership, make you the only one capable of performing this role is specious. All of us are teachers, or have been taught meaningfully by individuals with teaching skills. Are we going to let successful teachers teach, or are we going to let their union dictate?
According to Carlo D’Este’s book “Warlord: A Life of Winston Churchill at War,” Churchill, during a lull in his career, learned bricklaying. Hearing this, the British Trade Union Council, in a public relations gesture, offered him a Master’s card.

Douglas Alexander:

Madison Urban League President Kaleem Caire applied for a charter school for males because only 52 percent of black males graduate in Madison schools, while black males are suspended significantly more than the majority white students.
Before anyone responds, they should answer two questions:

Are you concerned about these statistics?
What are you doing about it?

Much more on the proposed IB Charter school: Madison Preparatory Academy.

Northville (Michigan) school board picks 5 superintendent candidates

Eric Larence, Christina Hall, Naomi Patton, Robin Erb and the Associated Press

The Northville school board named five finalists for its upcoming superintendent vacancy. Public interviews for the candidates will be at 6 and 8 p.m. Monday and Tuesday and 6 p.m. Wednesday at Northville High School.
The candidates are Catherine Cost, assistant superintendent of Farmington Public Schools; William DeFrance, superintendent of Eaton Rapids Public Schools; Mary Kay Gallagher, assistant superintendent of Northville Public Schools; Shawn Lewis-Lakin, superintendent of Manchester Public Schools, and Joseph Redden, educational management consultant and former superintendent of Cobb County Schools in Georgia.
The candidates are vying to replace Leonard Rezmierski, who is retiring in June after 20 years as superintendent of the 7,300-student district.

Madison School District’s Proposed Innovative and Alternative Program Committee

Superintendent Dan Nerad

The Innovative and Alternative Program Committee is charged with identifying alternative education and program needs and developing a plan to expand alternative programs and educational options. This will allow the district to articulate a direction and a plan for these types of programs which will be presentedto the Board of Education.

An open approach to alternative education models – an area Madison lags – is a good thing. A simple first step would be to address Janet Mertz’s longstanding quest Credit for Non Madison School District Courses.
Related: A School Board Thinks Differently About Delivering Education, and spends less.

Madison School District Draft Superintendent Evaluation Documents

Beth Moss & James Howard 450K PDF

Attached is the final draft of the Superintendent evaluation document to be used for the summative or end -of-year evaluation to be voted on at the November 29 meeting. The document has two parts. The first part is the Superintendent of Schools Performance Expectations Standards Assessment, a rubric based on the following:

The Superintendent Position Description, adopted Sept. 21, 2009; and
Feedback from the formative (mid-year) evaluation for the Superintendent, July 2010

The second part of the evaluation involves feedback on the following elements:

The Superintendent goals, approved December 15, 2009;
Two elements from the additional evaluation framework identified by Mr. Howard: Diversity and Inclusion and Safety.

From the original draft sent to the Operational Support Committee on November 8, these are element numbers 3 and 4. In addition to approving a final version of the evaluation plan, the Board needs to discuss the date for evaluations to be submitted for compilation to the Board president and dates for a closed session meeting(s) to discuss the results. To complete the process by February, January 3, 2011 is the recommended date for submittal. January 10, 24, and 31 are possible meeting dates. During this period Board members also need to provide input on the Superintendent’s goals for 2011.
If you have any questions, please email James or Beth.

Much more on the Superintendent evaluation, here. A side note: the lack of annual, substantive evaluations of former Superintendent Art Rainwater was an issue in mid 2000’s school board races. Related: Who Does the Superintendent Work For?

UW-Madison School of Education & Madison School District Contract for Professional Development School Supervisors/Coordinators

Susan Abplanalp & Brad Kose

MMSD has had a longstanding relationship with the University of Wisconsin- Madison in providing schools as sites for practicum and student teachers to learn throughout their two years in the School of Education. Each of these schools had an Instructional Resource Teacher who provided support to UW students as well as professional development for all school staff. The UW, school, and central office all shared costs of these positions.
Project Description: This agreement provides for the interchange of three teachers in an effort to further the goals of the Madison Professional Development School Partnership (PDS). The teachers will assume the duties and responsibilities of PDS Supervisors/ Coordinators for Memorial High School, West High School, and Midvale/Lincoln Elementary Schools. The teachers will provide assistance in curriculum development and evaluation to teachers at the identified schools; coordinate placement of practicum and student teachers assigned by UW-Madison; give workshops; hold regular seminars for practicum students, student teachers, and building teachers; and assist UW staff in research and curriculum development efforts involving the PDS program

Faiirfax County school redistricting plans draw protests from parents

Kevin Sieff:

Fairfax County is considering its most sweeping redistricting plan in several years as it seeks to balance booming enrollment at many elementary schools and the expected closure of one, Clifton Elementary.
The Southwestern Boundary Study, which the School Board authorized in September, contemplates four approaches to rebalancing populations within a school district that is growing swiftly but unevenly, with the heaviest growth along the Route 29 corridor through the heart of the county. The boundary changes, depending on what version of the plan is approved, could affect students in as many as 23 elementary schools.
“Some schools continue to be overcrowded and others are well under capacity. Neither is a good environment for learning,” said Denise James, director of facilities planning services for Fairfax public schools.

Wisconsin could learn a thing or two from Florida’s school grading system

Alan Borsuk

I heard Jeb Bush give a talk a few months ago in Milwaukee about education policies that he promoted while he was governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. I should have taken notes, because I think I was listening to at least a few of the pages from the playbook that will be used by Scott Walker when he becomes governor of Wisconsin in about five weeks.
I’m betting that is particularly true for the system of giving every school in the state a grade – A to F – each year. It’s a centerpiece of the “A+ Schools” program that Bush championed in Florida. He credits the grading system with being a key driver of rising test scores over the last decade.
In his campaign platform, Walker called for launching a grading system for Wisconsin schools. He hasn’t spelled out details, but Florida is the primary example of such a system, and Walker is an admirer of Bush. Walker also will have strong Republican majorities in both houses of the Legislature, and I can’t think of any reason he won’t succeed in turning what he said he would do into reality in the not-at-all-distant future.
So let’s look at Florida’s grading system on the assumption it is a lot like what will be used here.

Rhee still a factor in teacher elections

Bill Turque

Michelle A. Rhee is no longer chancellor of D.C. schools, but her presence still looms large over a Washington Teachers’ Union election that is entering its final contentious days.
President George Parker faces a stiff reelection challenge from Nathan Saunders, the union’s general vice president, who contends that Parker was too pliant in his dealings with Rhee. He cites the collective bargaining agreement Parker negotiated with Rhee, one that weakens traditional seniority and other job protections for teachers. Union members approved the contract in June.
Saunders also pledges to pursue legal, legislative and lobbying efforts to undo Rhee’s signature initiative, the new IMPACT evaluation system that links some teacher appraisals to student test scores and can trigger dismissals for educators who don’t meet certain classroom performance criteria.

Unions knocking on charter school doors

Steve Gunn

It’s become obvious in recent years that charter schools, with their unique and innovative approach to student instruction, are a source of great promise for our nation’s troubled public education system.
That’s why the recent decision by teachers at the Englewood on the Palisades Charter School to join the American Federation of Teachers is so frightening.
For years, our nation’s powerful school-employee unions, like the AFT and the National Education Association, opposed the very concept of charter schools and pressured state governments to cap their numbers or shut them down altogether.
They simply didn’t want the competition.

Teachers in the firing line again

The Guardian

Is it any wonder that the government is besieged on all sides by the educational establishment, for it is falling into the trap of all previous governments for the past 30 years: blaming the teachers and the students for the ills of the nation (Bad teachers out, social mobility in: Gove outlines goals, 25 November).
Having been in the field of education as a teacher, deputy head of a large and successful comprehensive school and now an administration manager in another, I weep for teaching staff and children in this country. Teachers and state schools have been forced to obey the whims of successive administrations because they thought they knew better. Despite continual central interference, and constant change in examination systems, teachers delivered time and time again. Standards have improved, and teachers are somehow vilified for it instead of congratulated.
Now we have another set of Harrow, Eton, Westminster and Oxbridge boys who know better than the sensible, pragmatic and logical majority of headteachers, teachers and teaching assistants working out there in state schools up and down the country. This group of privileged career politicians now have the nerve to take us back to the 1950s. All secondary schools will be measured against each other in five subjects: English, maths, science, a foreign language and history or geography. All modular exams will be abolished in favour of one set of exams at the end. Well, isn’t this progress! This is not suitable for all children; what about business, enterprise, design and technology skills? What about even giving a thought for the bottom 20%? What will happen to them? Do they care?

Georgia and California take opposite poles in the debate over illegal immigrants and higher education

The Economist

IT BEGAN with a traffic violation. Last March Jessica Colotl, a 21-year-old political-science major at Kennesaw State University, was arrested for “impeding the flow of traffic”. Cobb County authorities, who participate in a federal immigration-law enforcement programme, found that Ms Colotl was in the country illegally. She had entered with her parents when she was 10. She graduated from high school with an A average, and wanted to become a lawyer. Instead she will probably be deported in the spring, after she graduates.
And if Tom Rice gets his way, there will be no more Jessica Colotls. In October Georgia’s Board of Regents, which oversees the state’s public universities, banned illegal immigrants from the state’s five most popular universities, and said that they cannot be admitted to the other 30 ahead of qualified legal residents, having found 501 undocumented students among the 310,000 enrolled in Georgia’s public universities. For Mr Rice, a Republican state representative, this was not enough; he pre-filed a bill with the state’s Assembly that would ban all illegals from public universities. If it passes when the legislature convenes in January (and it stands a good chance), Georgia will join South Carolina as the only states with such a ban.

Broad Alum Busted in Seattle Public School Scandal for Lying to Advance Corporate Ed Reform

Jim Horn, via a Den Dempsey email

Brad Bernatek began his Broad Residency in Urban Education Cohort 2006 with Seattle Public Schools and became the chief honcho for accountability in 2008. From the Broad website:

Brad Bernatek serves [for now] as Director of Research, Evaluation and Assessment for Seattle Public Schools. In this role, Bernatek runs the department responsible for student statistics including enrollment, demographics, evaluation and standardized testing. During his Residency, Bernatek served the district as interim manager for research, evaluation and assessment and as special assistant to the chief operations officer.

When a new strategic plan was being put together in 2008 with the new superintendent, Maria Goodloe-Johnson (Broad Supt. Academy, Class of ’03), the Broadies needed some really embarrassing piece of information about SPS that could be used to leverage the changes they wanted to initiate: ending the remains of the school integration plan killed by the Roberts Court in 2007, more testing, closing more schools, opening more corporate charters, longer school days, teacher pay and evaluations based on test scores, working to end tenure, and the bringing in Teach for America to replace professional faculty. In short, the disaster capitalists needed a disaster to bring about change before anyone could regain their composure.

Superintendent/Student Ratios

New Jersey Left Behind

Everyone’s talking about superintendent salary caps. The Record reports that the New Jersey Association of School Administrators filed a motion in State Superior Court claiming that just because Gov. Christie has proposed caps doesn’t mean he can enforce them right now. The association also argues that Acting Commissioner Rochelle Hendricks “broke the law” by advising our 21 Executive County Superintendents to veto any contracts above the caps.
In other litigation, the Parsippany-Troy Hills School Board filed suit in the appellate division of Superior Court regarding the Morris County Executive County Superintendent’s refusal to approve the new contract for Superintendent Le Roy Seitz, which will pay him $234,065 by the fifth year of the 5-year contract.

Madison Preparatory Academy School Board Presentation 12/6/2010

Kaleem Caire, via email:

The initial proposal for Madison Preparatory Academy for Young Men will be presented to the Madison Metropolitan School District Board of Education’s Planning and Development Committee on MONDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2010 at 6:00pm in the McDaniels Auditorium of the Doyle Administration Building (545 West Dayton St., Madison 53703). The committee is chaired by Ms. Arlene Silveira (asilveira@madison.k12.wi.us). The Madison Prep proposal is the first agenda item for that evening’s committee meeting so please be there at 6pm sharp. If you plan to provide public comment, please show up 15 minutes early (5:45pm) to sign-up!
Please show your support for Madison Prep by attending this meeting. Your presence in the audience is vital to demonstrating to the Board of Education the broad community support for Madison Prep. We look forward to you joining us for the very important milestone in Madison history!
The Mission
Madison Prep will provide a world class secondary education for young men that prepares them to think critically, communicate effectively, identify their purpose, and succeed in college, 21st century careers, leadership and life. For more information, see the attachments or contact Ms. Laura DeRoche at lderoche@ulgm.org.
Get Involved with Madison Prep

Curriculum & Instruction Team. This design team will develop a thorough understanding of the IB curriculum and define the curriculum of the school, including the core and non-core curriculum. They will also develop a thorough understanding of the Harkness teaching method, outline instructional best practices, and address teacher expectations and evaluation. Both teams will address special education and English Language Learners (ELL).
Governance, Leadership & Operation Team. This design team will help develop the school’s operations plan, define the governing structure, and address the characteristics and expectations of the schools Head of School.
Facility Team. This team will be responsible for identify, planning, and securing a suitable facility for Madison Prep.
Budget, Finance & Fundraising Team. This team will be involved with developing Madison Prep’s budget and fundraising plans, and will explore financing options for start-up, implementation, and the first four years of the school’s operation.”
Community Engagement & Support Team. This team will develop strategies and work to establish broad community support for Madison Prep, develop criteria for partnering with others, and establish partnerships that support teaching, learning, leadership, and community engagement.

Bloomberg: Abolish Requirements for Schools Chancellor

Michael Howard Saul

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the state should abolish a law requiring that all school chiefs in New York have at least three years’ experience in schools and hold a professional certificate in educational leadership. These background requirements can’t adequately assess whether a candidate is poised to lead the nation’s largest school system, he said Tuesday.
Earlier this month, Bloomberg selected Cathie Black, a media executive with no education experience or credentials, to succeed Joel Klein as the city’s schools chancellor. The mayor is seeking a waiver for Black’s appointment from David Steiner, the state’s education commissioner.
A panel advising Steiner on the decision was slated to meet Tuesday to discuss Black’s qualifications and come up with a recommendation. The education commissioner is empowered to grant a waiver for “exceptionally qualified persons,” according to state law.

UK Teacher training reform is vital to Michael Gove’s plans

Telegraph View

The Government’s determination to repair Britain’s educational system is becoming clearer by the day. This week, a White Paper will propose scrapping “bite-sized” GCSE examinations, which chop the qualification into modules that pupils can re-take in order to boost their grades. This move will cut the number of exams pupils have to sit – and, in doing so, increase academic rigour. That fact alone tells us something about Labour’s wretched education policies: in the rest of the world, exams actually raise standards. In place of the dumbed-down courses will come GCSEs in which, to quote Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, pupils will be “examined on everything they have learnt at one time”.
The White Paper will also address the gross devaluation of A-levels by cutting the number of modules; Ofsted inspections will focus more sharply on teaching standards; and trainee teachers will spend more time in the classroom and less in teacher training colleges in which tired, Left-wing theories of education hold sway.
This last proposal is extremely significant. Mr Gove’s plans to improve education extend far beyond his championing of Free Schools. He aims to increase parental choice, restore discipline and ensure that lessons are devoted to academic subjects rather than politically correct children’s entertainment. But introducing these reforms will be a huge challenge. They will not take root without the co-operation of this generation of teachers and the next.

Poorest would have to travel furthest in Madison schools’ 4K plan

Matthew DeFour

“It would be completely crazy to roll out this 4K plan that is supposed to really, fundamentally be about preparing children, especially underprivileged, and not have the centers in the neighborhoods that most need the service,” School Board member Lucy Mathiak said.
Deputy superintendent Sue Abplanalp, who is coordinating implementation of the program, acknowledged some students will have to travel outside their school attendance areas to attend the nearest 4K program, “but it’s not a long drive, especially if they’re in contiguous areas.”
“We will make it work,” Abplanalp said. “We’re very creative.”
The school district is conducting its own analysis of how the distribution of day care providers and existing elementary school space will mesh under the new program. Some alternative programs may have to move to other schools to make room, but no final decisions have been made, Abplanalp said.
Detailed information has not been shared with the Madison School Board and is not expected to be ready before the board votes Monday on granting final funding approval for the program. The approval must happen then because the district plans to share information with the public in December before enrollment starts in February, Abplanalp said.

Much more on Madison’s proposed 4K program, here. The District has a number of irons in the fire, as it were, including high school curricular changes, challenging reading results and 4K, among many others. Can 4K lift off effectively (both in terms of academics and costs)?

Teacher Runs into the Power of “Teach for America”

A Baltimore Teacher

I am writing simply to express my gratitude for your challenge of TFA. As a young teacher, committed to the teaching profession, hoping to make a career out of teaching in geographical areas where need is high, I had significant trouble finding a job in Baltimore City.
Even though I was fully certified, degreed in education, had student taught, and had ample years of educational experience under my belt, schools in one of America’s most challenged school districts could not or would not hire me because I was not associated with a cohort program like TFA or our local Baltimore City Teacher Residency.
Because of the generosity of a caring and understanding principal, I was fortunate to find a job, though I had to fight for it. I am succeeding now and helping to close the achievement gap [in my classes] mostly due to my training and the fact that my commitment is to my students and to the profession and not to Wendy Kopp [founder of Teach for America].

Teachers’ degree bonuses under fire

Donna Gordon Blankinship

Every year, American schools pay more than $8.6 billion in bonuses to teachers with master’s degrees, even though the idea that a higher degree makes a teacher more effective has been mostly debunked.
Despite more than a decade of research showing the money has little impact on student achievement, state lawmakers and other officials have been reluctant to tackle this popular way for teachers to earn more money.
That could soon change, as local school districts around the country grapple with shrinking budgets.
Just last week, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said the economy has given the nation an opportunity to make dramatic improvements in the productivity of its education system and to do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.
Duncan told the American Enterprise Institute on Wednesday that master’s degree bonuses are an example of spending money on something that doesn’t work.
On Friday, billionaire Bill Gates took aim at school budgets and the master’s degree bonus.

Strife strains Atlanta school board

Kristina Torres and Heather Vogell 

Atlanta schools Superintendent Beverly Hall’s announcement that she will step aside when her contract ends June 30 comes at a time when the district is facing uncertainty on multiple fronts.
Feuding among city school board members, in which one faction of the board has sued the other over leadership changes, has caused the system’s accrediting agency to say the board’s capacity to govern is “in serious jeopardy.”
The two sides have a court date Tuesday.
The system also faces two inquiries — one by federal prosecutors, the other by special investigators appointed by Gov. Sonny Perdue — into test cheating allegations that could bring criminal charges against school officials.
As the result of a related investigation, local officials reported more than 100 city educators to the state teacher certification body, although their cases are on hold until state investigators wrap up their work. That is expected to happen early next year.

Crimes Rattle Madison Schools

Susan Troller, via a kind reader’s email:

It’s been a rough week in Madison schools, with the first degree sexual assault of a student in a stairwell at East High School and an alleged mugging at Jefferson Middle School.
The sexual assault occurred on Thursday afternoon, according to police reports. The 15-year-old victim knew the alleged assailant, also 15, and he was arrested and charged at school.
On Wednesday, two 13-year-old students at Jefferson allegedly mugged another student at his locker, grabbing him from behind and using force to try to steal his wallet. The police report noted that all three students fell to the floor. According to a letter sent to Jefferson parents on Friday, “the student yelled loudly, resisted the attempt and went immediately to report the incident. The students involved in the attempted theft were immediately identified and detained in the office.”
The mugging was not reported to police until Thursday morning and Jefferson parents did not learn about the incident until two days after the incident. When police arrived at school on Thursday, they arrested two students in the attempted theft.
Parents at East were notified Thursday of the sexual assault.
Luis Yudice, Madison public schools safety chief, said it was unusual for police not to be notified as soon as the alleged strong arm robbery was reported to school officials.

Related: Gangs & School Violence Forum Audio & Video and police calls near Madison high schools 1996-2006.

Teen Accused Of Sexual Assault At Madison’s East High School

Channel3000, via a kind reader’s email:

A Madison East High School student has been arrested and charged on suspicion of sexually assaulting another student on school grounds this week.
Madison police said the 15-year-old boy was arrested on a charge of first-degree sexual assault on Thursday after a 15-year-old girl reported the incident.
Dan Nerad, superintendent of the Madison Metropolitan School District, said while these cases are rare, they happen and it forces district officials to take a step back and look how this could have been prevented. Officials sent a letter home to parents to explain the incident and the district’s next steps.
“We’re going to work real hard to deal with it, we’re going to work real hard to learn from it. We’re going to work real hard to make any necessary changes after we have a change to review what all of these facts and circumstances are,” Nerad said.
Nerad said that while there are things the district can do to prevent such incidents, he believes much more help is needed from the community. He said the fact that this type of activity has entered the school door should be a wake up call to society.

Related: Gangs & School Violence Forum Audio & Video and police calls near Madison high schools 1996-2006.

Rhode Island’s 3-tiered high school diploma system described

Jennifer Jordan, via a kind reader’s email:

State education officials appear ready to move forward with their plan to establish a three-tier high school diploma system tied to student performance on state tests, and will start drafting changes to the regulations.
At a well-attended work session Thursday, the Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education discussed the details of the plan, which differs significantly from the regulations the Regents approved in 2008.
Regent Colleen Callahan expressed concerns with the proposal, saying it places too much weight on the standardized tests, which were not designed to be high-stakes or to determine what kind of diploma a student receives.
“I’m worried about tests being the determining factor, as opposed to other parts of the system,” Callahan said, a reference to grades and student portfolios or projects.

A School Board Thinks Differently About Delivering Education, and spends less

Stephanie Simon

The school board in a wealthy suburban county south of Denver is considering letting parents use public funds to send their children to private schools–or take classes with private teachers–in a bid to rethink public education.
The proposals on the table in Douglas County constitute a bold step toward outsourcing a segment of public education, and also raise questions about whether the district can afford to lose any public funds to private educators.
Already hit hard by state cutbacks, the local board has cut $90 million from the budget over three years, leaving some principals pleading for family donations to buy math workbooks and copy paper.
“This is novel and interesting–and bound to be controversial,” said Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative, educational think tank in Washington, D.C.
…
Douglas County School District board members are also considering letting students enrolled in public schools opt out of some classes in favor of district-approved alternatives offered at for-profit schools or by private-sector instructors. Students might skip high-school Spanish, for example, to take an advanced seminar in Chinese, or bypass physics to study with a rocket scientist, in person or online.
Another proposal under review calls for expanding publicly-funded services for families that home-school their children.
Superintendent Elizabeth Celania-Fagen said she is not sure which proposals she might support. But in a recent letter to parents of the district’s 56,000 students, she said her leadership team “did not find the ideas alarming” and pledged the district would “set the stage for new thinking in education.”
“These days, you can build a custom computer. You can get a custom latte at Starbucks,” said board member Meghann Silverthorn. “Parents expect the same out of their educational system.”

Related: The ongoing struggle for credit for non Madison School District courses.
Colorado’s Douglas County School District spends $8512.74 per student ($476,977,336 for 56,031 students in 2009). Madison spent $15,241 per student in 2009, a whopping $6,728.26, 79% more than the “wealthy Denver suburbs”.

Gates Urges School Budget Overhauls

Sam Dillon

Bill Gates, the founder and former chairman of Microsoft, has made education-related philanthropy a major focus since stepping down from his day-to-day role in the company in 2008.
His new area of interest: helping solve schools’ money problems. In a speech on Friday, Mr. Gates — who is gaining considerable clout in education circles — plans to urge the 50 state superintendents of education to take difficult steps to restructure the nation’s public education budgets, which have come under severe pressure in the economic downturn.
He suggests they end teacher pay increases based on seniority and on master’s degrees, which he says are unrelated to teachers’ ability to raise student achievement. He also urges an end to efforts to reduce class sizes. Instead, he suggests rewarding the most effective teachers with higher pay for taking on larger classes or teaching in needy schools.
“Of course, restructuring pay systems is like kicking a beehive” — but restructure them anyway, Mr. Gates plans to tell the superintendents in his talk to the Council of Chief State School Officers, which opens a convention in Louisville on Friday.

Private-College Chiefs See Rise in Pay

Tamar Lewin

Thirty presidents of private colleges each earned more than $1 million in total compensation in 2008, up from 23 the previous year, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education’s annual salary report.
Over all, though, 78 percent of presidents of private colleges had total compensation packages of less than $600,000 in 2008, and half earned less than $400,000. A year earlier, 82 percent earned less than $600,000, and 58 percent less than $400,000.
“As usual, there are a few outliers,” said Jeffrey Selingo, editor of The Chronicle, which compiled compensation data from the tax filings of 448 private colleges with expenditures of more than $50 million. “When looking at the very big numbers, there’s always a lot of reasons why those people got such high compensation packages.”

How to deal with unruly students?

Caryl Davis:

MPS is in the throes of an alternative to suspensions – Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, or PBIS.
According to the Milwaukee Public Schools, the goal of PBIS is to “reduce classroom disruptions and student suspensions through a schoolwide systematic three-tiered response-to-intervention (RTI) approach.” PBIS looks like adults in the school community offering positive verbal redirection and modeling positive conduct. The point: to teach students about positive behavior.
Some of the nearly 100 MPS schools that use the PBIS system this academic year have reported successes. Fewer suspensions are being reported. That’s good news, right? Superintendent Gregory Thornton believes that “Finding ways to keep students in school instead of suspending them improves their chances of learning and improving academically,” which minimizes disruptions and keeps kids in class.

K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: N.J. school districts hit brick wall on raising superintendent salaries

Tracy Ness

A showdown is developing between some local Boards of Education and Gov. Chris Christie, whose latest move to control school spending by capping superintendents’ salaries is rankling some school board members.
Several local school boards — still reeling from slashed state aid, staff layoffs and the pending 2% tax cap — are considering striking back by amending or renegotiating their superintendents’ contracts before an anticipated Feb. 7 deadline to get around the cap and keep their superintendents in place.
But the situation keeps changing.
On Monday, acting Education Commissioner Rochelle Hendricks warned the executive county superintendents — who have the final say on any renegotiated contracts — not to approve any new contracts before the Feb. 7 deadline and directed them to inventory all superintendent contracts in their counties. And the Morris County Executive Superintendent Kathleen Serafino followed suit, asking the Parsippany Board of Education to rescind its recently approved five-year contract extension for its superintendent. What will happen next is anyone’s guess.

There Is No College Cost Crisis

Stanley Fish

There is no college cost crisis. That at least is the conclusion reached by the economists Robert B. Archibald and David H. Feldman in their new book, “Why Does College Cost So Much?” The title question is a teaser, for the book’s message is that it doesn’t. In fact, say the authors, “for most families higher education is more affordable than it was in the past.”
Archibald and Feldman build their analysis of college costs in opposition to what they call the “new orthodoxy” or the “dysfunctionality narrative.” In that narrative, repeated almost religiously by critics and politicians, colleges and universities have “drifted away from their social mission,” surrendered to the false god of research, and engaged in an “arms race” for more prestigious scholars and ever-glitzier student unions. As a result, “their costs have sprawled out of control” and “the college degree, an essential entry ticket to the modern economy” has become “increasingly out of reach for families with middle-class incomes.”
In short the conditions everyone ritually complains about have an internal cause: if colleges and universities find themselves in a bad financial place, they have only themselves and their irresponsible practices to blame.

Higher Standards + More Practice for Teacher Training

Stephanie Banchero

A panel of education experts has called for an overhaul of U.S. teacher-preparation programs, including a greater emphasis on classroom training as well as tougher admission and graduation standards for those hoping to teach in elementary and secondary classrooms.
The panel’s sweeping recommendations, released Tuesday, urge teacher-training programs to operate more like medical schools, which rely heavily on clinical experience.
Teacher candidates should spend more time in classrooms learning to teach–and proving that they can boost student achievement–before they earn a license to teach kindergarten through twelfth grade, the panel said.
“We need large, bold, systemic changes,” said James Cibulka, president of the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education, the group that convened the expert panel. “As a nation, we are expecting all of our students to perform at high levels, so it follows that we need to expect more of our teachers as they enter the classroom.”

PEREMPTORY CHALLENGES

There are many suggestions that the best teachers have an obligation to teach in the worst schools. Perhaps they would be more likely to do so if they were granted a few privileges, such as the peremptory challenge available to lawyers in court trials….
PEREMPTORY CHALLENGES
Will Fitzhugh, The Concord Review
15 November 2010
The conductor pauses, waiting for the coughing to die down before he raises his baton. The surgeon looks over her team, making sure all are in place and ready to work, before she makes the first incision. The prosecuting attorney pauses to study the jury for a little while before making his opening statement.
All these highly trained people need certain conditions to be met before they can begin their vital work with the necessary confidence that it can be carried out well. If the audience is too noisy, the conductor must wait. If the team is not in their places, the surgeon will not begin. If the members of the jury have not been examined, the attorney will not have to present his case before them.
Only schoolteachers must start their classes in the absence of the calm and attention which are essential to the careful exchange of information and ideas. Only the schoolteacher must attempt the delicate surgery of attaching knowledge and removing ignorance, with no team to help. Only schoolteachers must accept all who are assigned to the class, without the benefit of the peremptory challenges the attorney may use to shape his audience, and give his case the benefit of the doubt.
The Sanskrit word for a teaching, sutra, is the source of the English word, suture, and indeed the stitching of learning to the understanding in young minds is a particularly delicate form of surgery. The teacher does not deal with meat, but with ideas and knowledge, attempting to remove misconceptions and provide truth. The teacher has to do this, not with one anaesthetized patient, and a team of five, but with twenty-five or thirty students and no help.
Those who attend concerts want to be quiet, so that they and their fellows can hear and appreciate the music. Those who come in for surgery want the doctor to have all the help she needs and to have her work under the very best possible conditions, because the outcome of the operation is vital to their interests. The legal system tries to weed out jurors with evident biases, and works in many ways to protect the process which allows both the prosecution and the defense to do their best within the law. The jury members have been made aware of the importance of their mission, and of their duty to attend and to decide with care.
Students, on the other hand, are constantly exposed to a fabulously rich popular culture which assures them that teachers are losers and so is anyone who takes the work of learning in school seriously. Too many single parents feel they have lost the power to influence their offspring, especially as they become adolescents, and many are in any case more concerned that their youngsters be happy and make friends, than that they respect and listen to their teachers, bring home a lot of homework, and do it in preparation for the serious academic work that awaits them the next day.
Students are led to believe that to reject authority and to neglect academic work are evidence of their independence, their rebellion against the dead hand of the older generation. We must of course make an exception here for those fortunate children, many but not all Asian, who reject this foolish idea, and instead apply themselves diligently to their studies, grateful for the effort of their teachers and for the magical opportunity of 12 years of free education.
But what they see as a privilege worthy of their very best efforts, many other students see as a burden, an wanted intrusion on their social and digital time of entertainment. A study of the Kaiser Foundation last year found that the average U.S. student spends more than six hours each day with some form, or combination of forms, of electronic entertainment, and the Indiana Study of High School Student Engagement studied 80,000 teenagers and found that 55% spent three hours or less each week on their homework and still managed to get As and Bs.
We hear stories about the seriousness of students in China and India, but we are inclined to ignore them, perhaps as the Romans discounted rumors about the Goths and the Visigoths until it was too late. We hear about our students doing more poorly in international academic competitions the longer they stay in school, but we prefer to think that our American character and our creativity will carry us through somehow, even as we can see with our own eyes how many of the things we use every day are “Made in China.”
Part of the responsibility lies with our teachers in the schools, overburdened and unappreciated as they are. Their unions fight for better pay and working conditions, but say nothing about their academic work. Teachers, too, like lawyers, should demand peremptory challenges, so that they can say they will not be able to teach this one and that one, without damaging the work of the whole class. They, as much as the surgeons who are cutting meat, must be able to enforce close attention to the serious work of suturing learning in their classes. And like the conductor, they must be given the attention that is essential if the music of their teaching is to be heard and appreciated. Teachers who do not demand these conditions are simply saying that their academic work is not important enough to deserve such protections and conditions, and as a result, parents and students are encouraged to see it in the same light.
“Teach by Example”
Will Fitzhugh [founder]
The Concord Review [1987]
Ralph Waldo Emerson Prizes [1995]
National Writing Board [1998]
TCR Institute [2002]
730 Boston Post Road, Suite 24
Sudbury, Massachusetts 01776-3371 USA
978-443-0022; 800-331-5007
www.tcr.org; fitzhugh@tcr.org
Varsity Academics®
www.tcr.org/blog

More students leaving failing schools

Associated Press

More parents in Southwest Washington are taking advantage of a federal law that allows them to transfer their kids out of failing schools.
The federal No Child Left Behind Act allows parents to bus their children from a “failing” school to another school at district expense.
More than 160 elementary students in the Longview and Kelso school districts are using the school choice provision of the law this year, The Daily News reported.
That’s still a small percentage of the 5,510 students eligible to transfer in both school districts. But it’s up sharply from the 24 Longview students who switched out of failing schools last year.

Shakedown: The Current Conspiracy against the American Public School Parent, Student, and Teacher.

Dan Dempsey, via email

he above shakedown is similar to but not the same as
Shakedown: The Continuing Conspiracy Against the American Taxpayer (Hardcover)
by Steven Malanga.
In his book Mr. Malanga speaks of how the Government has financed an entire “Cottage Industry of Activists” for causes that advocate for what he sees as the Shakedown of the American taxpayer. I see that he makes a strong case and do not disagree with him.
I think a similar case can be built around
Shakedown: The Current Conspiracy against the American Public School Parent, Student, and Teacher.
This shakedown is financed by foundations and other forces (often business related) that finance the faux grassroots organizations that pose as pushing for Better Public Schools, while neglecting the significant data that shows what they advocate for is very ill advised.
The Obama/Duncan “Race to the Top” is a perfect example of this Shakedown. It is founded on attempting to define problems and then mandate particular actions as the solutions to these problems. The real problem with “RttT” is that while the problems defined may in fact be real, unfortunately the changes advocated are NOT solutions.

How Cities Pick School Chiefs, for All to See

Anemona Hartocollis

It is not always pretty. It may resemble a beauty pageant or a paintball contest more than a government exercise to determine how to go about educating a generation of children. But despite the unusual secrecy surrounding New York City’s recent search for a convention-defying schools chancellor, other cities have managed to get unorthodox results through more orthodox means.
San Diego chose a retired Navy admiral to head its schools after putting him and two other finalists on television to talk about their vision. Pittsburgh picked a former Massachusetts legislator, and Denver selected a former telecommunications executive and political adviser in Hong Kong — after putting them through a very public hazing.
“Going through a process like this did not create any major concerns for me,” Bill Kowba, the retired Navy admiral, said Friday. “As we came up through the ranks in the Navy, there was a very strong embedded tradition of leadership and accountability and the public calling for responsibility for your actions.”

No more waiting for (Wisconsin) school reform

Wisconsin State Journal

Wisconsin Gov.-elect Scott Walker hasn’t seen the film “Waiting for Superman” yet, about America’s struggling public school system. The demands of campaigning and now preparing to take office don’t allow much time for movies.
But Walker did have “a good chat” with U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan last week. “In many ways,” Walker told the State Journal, “our ideas on reform follow a similar path.”
That’s encouraging because Walker has a huge opportunity to reshape our state’s schools. The incoming GOP governor needs to think big and act boldly, just as the Democratic president’s impressive education secretary has.
Duncan last month called the release of “Waiting for Superman,” by director Davis Guggenheim, “a Rosa Parks moment.” Duncan hopes the vital film — now playing at Sundance Cinemas in Madison — will spark discussion and action aimed at the incredibly serious challenges facing public education.

Talking Numbers Counts For Kids’ Math Skills

NPR

In almost every home and pre-school in America, young children are being taught how to recite the alphabet and how to say their numbers.
A new study by University of Chicago psychology professor Susan Levine finds that simply repeating the numbers isn’t as good as helping kids understand what they mean.
According to her study, for children to develop the math skills they’ll need later on in school, it is essential that parents spend time teaching their children the value of numbers by using concrete examples — instead of just repeating them out loud.
“Just about all 2-year-olds can rattle off the sequence from one to 10,” Levine tells Weekend All Things Considered host Guy Raz. “But then, if you ask them to give you three objects … they’ll just grab a handful.”

Grading teachers is no easy assignment

Erin Richards

Norma Mortimer moves about her high school classroom with confidence born of 41 years’ experience.
Directions to students are clear; she knows when to push for an answer and when to let a question hang.
The English teacher formerly taught music, composed and arranged marching band music, and performed at the Bristol Renaissance Faire.
“It all adds into what I bring to the classroom,” she said.
Once every three years as a tenured teacher, performance evaluations provide her with feedback, something she looks forward to even though she knows she’s not slipping.
Still, evaluations never flag what she considers her weakest area – teaching effectively when the class is in small groups. Last year, she never received her post-evaluation conference with the principal.
In the growing national debate on how to raise the quality of public school teaching in America, performance evaluations have become both a lightning rod and a sticking point.
Most evaluation systems in public schools provide little information to properly assess teachers’ strengths and weaknesses. And because teachers are rarely dismissed over their performance, formal evaluations seldom carry much weight.

Walker, GOP pledge to reform Wisconsin’s approach to school funding

Matthew DeFour

Wisconsin’s next governor has promised big changes for schools and taxpayers – from tying teacher pay raises to performance and giving each school a letter grade to expanding alternatives to public schools and helping school districts cut costs.
But the first challenge facing Republican Scott Walker and the GOP-controlled Legislature next year is closing a $3 billion deficit in the state’s general fund, 44 percent of which covers K-12 education.
“I don’t think anybody is going to, in the short run, be able to solve the budget problems without cutting state funding for K-12,” said Andrew Reschovsky, a UW-Madison economics professor. “The current situation is unsustainable in the long run. There really is a crisis in how we fund schools.”
State Superintendent Tony Evers this week is expected to kick-start the school spending debate by announcing the details of his plan to reform the state’s complex education funding formula. In June, he said his proposal would move away from distributing aid based on property values and take into account factors such as student poverty – a move that could help districts such as Madison with high property wealth but also a lot of poor students.
The state cut $284 million, or 2.6 percent, from school aid in the current budget, resulting in an 8 percent reduction for Madison. The state also reduced the amount districts could increase revenues from $275 per pupil to $200 per pupil, which helped keep a lid on property taxes but forced districts to make budget cuts.

K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: Teachers’ $500 Billion (and Growing) Pension Problem

Andrew Rotherham

Teacher pensions may not sound like a sexy or even high-profile issue, but keep reading: they’re threatening the fiscal health of many states and could cost you — yes, you — thousands of dollars. And, like the savings-and-loan crisis at the end of the 1980s or the current housing-market mess, insiders see big trouble ahead in the next few years and are starting to sound warnings.
Today there is an almost $500 billion shortfall for funding teacher pensions, and that gap is growing. Why should you care? Because ultimately taxpayers are on the hook for that money. But the problem doesn’t just end there. The way teacher pensions operate is badly suited to today’s teacher workforce, where 30-year careers are no longer the norm. The current setup penalizes teachers who move between states, switch to private or public-charter schools that do not participate in the pension system or leave teaching altogether. Meanwhile, it becomes financial suicide for teachers to change careers after a certain point, even if they no longer want to teach or are not good at it.
(See 10 smarter ways to reach your retirement goals.)
But first, let’s talk about the money. Teacher pensions are part of a larger set of benefits that states and cities offer public employees, including health care and pension programs for cops, garbage men and other public employees. The Pew Center on the States puts the total shortfall for these benefits at $1 trillion. You read that right: trillion with a t. Obviously, these are important benefits to offer, but the costs are out of hand.

One-time funds to train 153 Oshkosh teachers to help students with math

Adam Rodewald

New spending approved by the Oshkosh school board would cover a gap in math tutoring services that has left four schools with inadequate help for struggling students since last year.
About 13 percent of Oshkosh elementary school students perform below grade level in math, said Director of Curriculum Shelly Muza.
That’s better than the average Wisconsin district, which has about 25 percent of elementary students performing below grade level. But budget cuts in the 2009-10 academic year stripped Oakwood, Carl Traeger, Lakeside and Green Meadow schools of math support services after the board decided to fund the $295,000 program with federal Title I dollars – money given only to schools with higher rates of poverty – instead of general fund dollars.
The remaining math intervention teachers who work one-on-one with struggling students can barely keep up. The equivalent of 4.25 full-time teachers are split between about 570 students in 12 elementary schools, said Muza.

Two relate links: Math Forum Audio, Video & Links; Math Task Force.

Feds Seek Education Transformation Through Technology

Elizabeth Montalbano

The Department of Education this week laid out a technology strategy to improve the U.S. educational system.
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan released the National Education Technology Plan (NETP), which sets goals to achieve by 2015 for how technology can transform the way students learn.
Specifically, the plan — titled “Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology” — outlines a blueprint for changing five aspects of education with technology: learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure and productivity.

Real ways to improve ‘teacher effectiveness’

Sandra Dean,Valerie Ziegler

The Los Angeles Times decided in August to publish “teacher effectiveness” ratings using “value-added” test scores, an action that not only did a disservice to teachers but also to the children of California. The Times reduced the definition of quality teaching to a simplistic equation: Good teachers produce good test scores.
There is a simple, intuitive appeal to that formulation, but study after study demonstrates that scores on state tests, even using value-added measurement, are affected by too many factors to support simplistic conclusions about individual teachers.
That is not simply our opinion. Every major professional association of education researchers has said so. The National Academies and the Economics Policy Institute have said so as well.

The Six Major Components of the MMSD High School Plan

Madison School Board Member Ed Hughes

In an earlier post, I provided my understanding of the background of the protest at West High about the proposal for changes in the District’s high school curriculum. I explained how the proposal was an outgrowth of the work that has gone on at the high schools for the last few years under the auspices of a federal grant, known as the REaL grant (for Relationships, Engagement and Learning).
That proposal, which will affect all four of the District’s comprehensive high schools and is now known as the High School Career and College Readiness Plan, has since evolved somewhat, partially in response to the feedback that has been received and partially as a consequence of thinking the proposals through a bit more.
Here is where things currently stand.
The high school proposal should start a conversation that could last for a few years regarding a long-term, systematic review of our curriculum and the way it is delivered to serve the interests of all learners. What’s currently on the table is more limited in scope, though it is intended to serve as the foundation for later work.
The principal problem the proposal is meant to address is that we currently don’t have any district-defined academic standards at the high school level. There is no established set of expectations for what skills students should be learning in each subject area each year. Since we don’t have any basic expectations, we also don’t have any specific and consistent goals for accelerated learning. A corollary of this is that we really don’t have many ways to hold a teacher accountable for the level of learning that goes on in his or her classroom. Also, we lack a system of assessments that would let us know how our students are progressing through high school.

Lots of related links:

Q&A with Kaleem Caire: Why Madison needs a charter school aimed at African-American boys

Susan Troller:

CT: How will you bring boys who are already behind a couple of years or more up to grade level so they are fully prepared for college?
KC: One, we will have a longer school day, a longer school year. They will start about 7:30 and end about 5 o’clock. Tutoring will be built into our school program. It will be built into each schedule based on your academic performance. We’re going to use ability grouping to tackle kids who are severely behind, who need more education. We’ll do that if we can afford it by requiring Saturday school for young people who really need even additional enrichment and so we’re going to do whatever it takes so we make sure they get what they need.
CT: What kind of commitment will Madison Prep require of parents or guardians?
KC: They have to sign a participation contract. These are non-binding contracts but it will clearly spell out what their expectations are of us and our expectations are of them. Parents will be given a grade for participation on the child’s report card. There are ways for ALL parents to be involved. You know, some people have asked, ‘What will you do if parents won’t show up to a child’s performance review?’ Literally, we’ll go set up our tables outside their houses and it will be kind of embarrassing but we’ll do it because we won’t allow our kids to be left behind.
CT: You’ve said you’d like to see more flexibility and innovation. Does that mean you’d like to run this school without a union contract?

Watch an interview with Kaleem here. Much more on Kaleem via this link.

Encouraging Deep Learning

David Moltz

Many community college students do not engage in enough classroom activities that enhance their “broadly applicable thinking, reasoning and judgment skills,” according to the latest Community College Survey of Student Engagement released today.
This year’s release of the survey, now in its 10th year, draws from the responses of more than 400,000 community college students in 47 states, the Marshall Islands and the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and Ontario. In addition to the annual set of questions about their classroom and campus experiences, this year’s respondents were asked specific questions about “deep learning” techniques — defined as those “abilities that allow individuals to apply information, develop a coherent world view and interact in more meaningful ways.”
The authors of this year’s survey argue that the percentages of students who reported that they engaged “often or very often” in “deep learning” activities indicate that community colleges must do a better job of promoting them in the classroom if they hope to boost student performance.

Is this the solution to the population crisis afflicting Hong Kong schools?

Elaine Yau and He Huifeng

Much has been written about mainland mothers giving birth in Hong Kong, yet little is known about what happens to the children once their parents take them home.
The number of babies born in Hong Kong to mainland parents surged from 2,070 in 2003 to 16,044 in 2006. The figure reached 29,766 last year – representing 45.5 per cent of all births in the city.
Despite such a sharp rise, the Census and Statistics Department has conducted just one rudimentary survey into the phenomenon.
Some 11,643 parents were polled between 2007 and 2009 at Immigration Department birth registries. They were asked whether and when their children would return to Hong Kong. A majority said their children would come back between the ages of three and 11.

Joel Klein’s Report Card

The Wall Street Journal

Education reformers tend to react to the ferocious opposition of the status quo in one of two ways: Either they fade away in resignation, or they become even more radical. Joel Klein did the latter, which is why he leaves New York City’s 1,600 public schools and 1.1 million students better than he found them.
A Democrat without education experience when he became schools chancellor in 2002, Mr. Klein began as a mainstream reformer. Raise standards, end social promotion, hire better teachers, promote charter schools. But as he was mugged by the reality of the K-12 public school establishment, he began to appreciate that real improvement requires more than change at the margin.
Thus he led the fight for far more school choice by creating charter school clusters, as in Harlem, that are changing the local culture of failure. Kids from as far away as Buffalo will benefit from his fight to lift the state charter cap, which increased to 460 schools from 200. Mr. Klein helped to expose the “rubber rooms” that let bad teachers live for years on the taxpayer dime while doing no work. He gave schools grades from A to F and pushed to close the bad ones, and he fought for merit pay in return for ending teacher tenure.

Teaching Math to the Talented

Eric Hanushek, Paul E. Peterson and Ludger Woessmann

In Vancouver last winter, the United States proved its competitive spirit by winning more medals–gold, silver, and bronze–at the Winter Olympic Games than any other country, although the German member of our research team insists on pointing out that Canada and Germany both won more gold medals than the United States. But if there is some dispute about which Olympic medals to count, there is no question about American math performance: the United States does not deserve even a paper medal.
Maintaining our productivity as a nation depends importantly on developing a highly qualified cadre of scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and other professionals. To realize that objective requires a system of schooling that produces students with advanced math and science skills. To see how well schools in the United States do at producing high-achieving math students, we compared the percentage of U.S. students in the high-school graduating Class of 2009 with advanced skills in mathematics to percentages of similarly high achievers in other countries.

“We need entirely different schools to fit the needs of students, not the teachers and administrators,” – Kaleem Caire

David Blaska on the recent Community Conversation on Education:

Caire was one of four main presenters, the others being Madison schools superintendent Dan Nerad, the dean of the UW-Madison School of Education, and — sure enough — Madison Teachers Inc. union president Mike Lipp.
Nerad was o.k. He got off a good line: “Children are the future but we are our children’s future.” He even quoted Sitting Bull but on first reference made certain to use his actual Native American name. This IS Madison, after all.
UW Education Dean Julie Underwood was atrocious — a firm defender of the status quo denouncing the “slashing” of school budgets, “negative ads,” and demanding that the community become “public school advocates.” I.E., the whole liberal litany.
Say, Dean Julie, how about the community become advocates for teaching children — in other words, the goal — instead of a one-size-fits-all, government-ordained delivery mechanism? Isn’t competition the American way?
Union apologist Mike Lipp reminded me of Welcome Back Kotter — looks and mien. He could be humorous (I am certain he is a good teacher) but he spent his allotted time on the glories of that holy grail of education: the union’s collective bargaining agreement. I expected an ethereal light beam to shine down on this holy writ, which Lipp lamented that he did not bring with him. His other purpose was to defuse the powerhouse documentary, “Waiting for Superman.”
Indeed, it was that indictment of public education’s “failure factories” and the hidebound me-first teachers unions that prompted Tuesday evening’s “conversation.” I wrote about it, and Kaleem Caire, here.
When Lipp was finished he returned to his table next to union hired gun John Matthews. No sense in sitting with parents and taxpayers.
When it came time for the participants to respond, one parent said of the four presenters that only Kaleem Caire took to heart the evening’s admonition to “keep students as the focus.” I think that was a little unfair to Nerad, who deserves credit for opening this can of worms, but otherwise right on target.
Caire reported that only 7% of African-American students tested as college-ready on the ACT test. For Latinos, the percentage is 14. Those are 2010 statistics — for Madison schools. In these schools, 2,800 suspensions were handed down to black students — of a total black enrollment of 5,300 students!

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

An interview with Kaleem Caire.

Report: “Competency” Should Advance Students

Young people should be assessed and moved through K-12 education at their own pace, after evaluations have determined competencies, rather than the current policy of advancing learners based primarily on seat time, according to a new report published yesterday.
The report, When Failure is Not an Option: Designing Competency-Based Pathways for Next Generation Learners was released today by the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL). Support for the report was provided by the Nellie Mae Education Foundation.
The paper explores competency-based pathways, a necessary condition to realizing the potential of next generation learning. The report promotes a deeper understanding of K-12 education policies and practices for implementing student-centered learning through competency-based pathways through a scan of exemplars across the United States. Also touched on in the paper are the many explorations into next generation learning that are sweeping across the country, as well as the technological advancements that are opening up new student-centered, performance-based, “anytime, anywhere” educational opportunities.

Young, Educated, and Unemployed: A New Generation of Kids Search for Work in their 20s

Amanda Fairbanks

The Lost Generation: What it’s like for 20-somethings to go in search of meaningful work–and not find it.
Since January, for 35 hours a week, at a rate of $10 an hour, Luke Stacks has been working for a home-electronics chain. He answers the phone and attempts to coax callers into buying more stuff. This is not how he imagined he would be spending his late 20s.
Like a lot of us, Stacks was given a fairly straightforward version of how his life would unfold: He would go to college and study something he found interesting, graduate, and get a decent job. For a while, things went pretty much according to plan. Stacks, who now is 27, went to the University of Virginia, not far from where he grew up, majoring in American Studies. He later enrolled in a Ph.D. program at the University of Iowa, with the eventual goal of becoming a professor.

Segregating the smart from the not-as-smart helps nobody

Chris Rickert

I’ve never been accused of having any talent worth nurturing in an Advanced Placement class, although I’m sure there are some who would say I have a gift for irritating people. (Unfortunately, they don’t give out Rhodes Scholarships for that.)
So feel free to take what I’m about to say with a grain of salt, or a healthy dose of sour grapes on my part, but I question the utility of the way we challenge the young brainiacs among us.
Diving deeply into physics or fine arts might make for good rocket scientists and concert pianists, but it would also seem inevitably to exclude a certain less intense, yet broader range of experiences and the people they include.
My new Facebook friends and perhaps the most courteous political insurgents ever, Madison West seniors Joaquin Selva and Jacob Fiksel, admitted to something along those lines when I ran into them Wednesday at the school district’s Community Conversation on Education.

Lots of related links:

Response to WSJ Article: More Background, Additional Information, Long History of Advocacy

Lorie Raihala, via email

On Sunday, November 7, the Wisconsin State Journal featured a front-page article about the Madison School District’s Talented and Gifted education services: “TAG, they’re it.” The story describes parents’ frustration with the pace of reform since the Board of Education approved the new TAG Plan in August, 2009. It paints the TAG Plan as very ambitious and the parents as impatient-perhaps unreasonable-to expect such quick implementation.
The article includes a “Complaint Timeline” that starts with the approval of the TAG Plan, skips to the filing of the complaint on September 20, and proceeds from there to list the steps of the DPI audit.
Unfortunately, neither this timeline nor the WSJ article conveys the long history leading up to the parents’ complaint. This story did not start with the 2009 TAG Plan. Rather, the 2009 TAG Plan came after almost two decades of the District violating State law for gifted education.
To provide better background, we would like to add more information and several key dates to the “Complaint Timeline.”
November 2005: West High School administrators roll out their plan for English 10 at a PTSO meeting. Most of the 70 parents in attendance object to the school eliminating English electives and imposing a one-size-for-all curriculum on all students. Parents ask administrators to provide honors sections of English 10. They refuse. Parents ask administrators to evaluate and fix the problems with English 9 before implementing the same approach in 10th grade. They refuse. Parents appeal to the BOE to intervene; they remain silent. Meanwhile, parents have already been advocating for years to save the lone section of Accelerated Biology at West.

Brainstorming session to improve Madison public education yields lots of ideas

Devin Rose

Hundreds of teachers, parents and students came together Tuesday night to discuss strategies — which the Madison School District hopes to eventually act on — to ensure quality education for all students.
Key ideas included hiring top teachers, encouraging parent involvement and meeting the needs of an increasingly diverse classroom.
“We are our children’s future,” said Superintendent Dan Nerad, adding strong children are essential for a strong community.
School officials who organized the event hoped the release of “Waiting for Superman,” a documentary that examines the state of U.S. public education, would help spark conversation about improving the way students learn in Madison. Attendees were seated in small groups to brainstorm the successes and challenges of public education as well as improvements that need to be made.

Should We Teach Kids to Play to Win?

Ilya Somin

Political scientist Barry Rubin has an interesting column criticizing the modern tendency to teach kids that playing to win is bad:

My son is playing on a local soccer team which has lost every one of its games, often by humiliating scores. The coach is a nice guy, but seems an archetype of contemporary thinking: he tells the kids not to care about whether they win, puts players at any positions they want, and doesn’t listen to their suggestions.
He never criticizes a player or suggests how a player could do better. My son, bless him, once remarked to me: “How are you going to play better if nobody tells you what you’re doing wrong?” The coach just tells them how well they are playing. Even after an 8-0 defeat, he told them they’d played a great game.
And of course, the league gives trophies to everyone, whether their team finishes in first or last place…..
[A]m I right in thinking that sports should prepare children for life, competition, the desire to win, and an understanding that not every individual has the same level of skills? A central element in that world is rewarding those who do better, which also offers an incentive for them and others to strive….

Teacher’s ed…

The Chicago Tribune

The most critical factor in a child’s education outside the home is the quality of the teacher at the front of his or her classroom. A great teacher can lift a struggling student. A mediocre teacher can set a child back months if not years.
So which Illinois education schools are producing great teachers? And which aren’t?
On Tuesday, the Washington-based National Council on Teacher Quality unveiled a no-punches-pulled report that evaluated 111 undergraduate and graduate programs in 53 education schools across Illinois.
The most disturbing finding: The state’s largest producers of teachers — Illinois State University and Northern Illinois University, — earned poor marks. Illinois State, the report said, merited “exceptionally low grades in its undergraduate elementary and special education programs.” Northern Illinois “did only slightly better, with weak grades in its undergraduate elementary and both its undergraduate and graduate special education program.”

Seattle Schools’ Strategic Plan & School Report Card

Seattle Public Schools:

t Seattle Public Schools, we truly believe in excellence for all. It’s more than a saying; it’s our commitment to this community and the name of our five-year strategic plan to ensure every child graduates ready for college, career and life.
Seattle Public Schools is providing detailed information on how each school, and the district overall, is performing. These reports also explain what we are doing to increase academic achievement and close the achievement gap in each school and across the district.
The second annual District Scorecard shows how our students are
performing across the district – from test scores to graduation rates. The Scorecard also shows how the district is performing operationally, in areas such as facilities, transportation and family satisfaction. District Scorecard
For the first time, we are issuing individual School Reports. We want to give parents, students and the community important information so we can all learn from and act on the data.
You can read about your school’s academic growth, student climate, accountability, family and staff engagement, and overall school performance. We hope you also take time to read the narrative page,

Linda Shaw:

On Tuesday morning, Seattle Public Schools will unveil detailed new reports on 82 of its schools, and a new ranking system that rates each school on a scale of 1-5 based largely on test scores and whether those scores are moving up or down.
The reports, which will be posted on the school district’s website about 10 a.m., will give parents and the public more information than ever before on the city’s public schools.
In addition to test scores, each school’s report includes data about attendance rates, average class size, percent of high-school students taking college classes and much more. The schools also outline their goals for the year and how they plan to achieve them.

N.J. activists, parents warn against promoting charter schools as fix for education system

Bob Braun

From Washington to Trenton to Newark, political leaders from both parties – including President Barack Obama and Gov. Chris Christie — are promoting charter schools as an answer to perceived public school failure. And the privately run but publicly funded schools receive support from some of the wealthiest and most famous people on the planet.
But a few activists based in Princeton — some charter school parents — and a Rutgers researcher want their voices heard above the cheerleading. They warn charters are not panaceas.

Madison grapples with how to serve ‘Talented and Gifted’

Gayle Worland, via a kind reader’s email:

Three times a week, Van Hise Elementary fifth-grader Eve Sidikman and two fellow students from her school board a bus bound for GEMS, the Madison school district’s “Growing Elementary Math Students” program for students whose math abilities are so high they aren’t challenged in a standard classroom.
Eve’s bus also makes the rounds to Randall and Thoreau before pulling up to the curb at Shorewood Elementary, where Eve and her GEMS classmates have a two-hour math session taught by a member of the district’s Talented and Gifted staff.
“She teaches it in a creative and fun way,” Eve, who was placed in GEMS after her mother sought out and paid for a national test that proved Eve was capable of acing eighth-grade math, said of her teacher. “I think she’s preparing us for our middle school years well.”
The Madison School district is grappling with how best to serve students deemed “Talented and Gifted,” or TAG in district shorthand — partly to stem a talent drain through open enrollment, partly to satisfy a vocal group of dissatisfied parents, and partly to find more Eves who don’t necessarily have a family with the financial means, determination and know-how to capitalize on their student’s untapped talents.
District critics say change is happening too slowly — something Superintendent Dan Nerad admits — and programs like GEMS are few and far between. Advocates also acknowledge, however, there is skepticism of gifted services among both the public and educators at a time when so many students fail to meet even minimal standards.

Lots of related links:

Watch, listen or read an interview with UW-Madison Education Professor Adam Gamoran. Gamoran was interviewed in Gayle Worland’s article.

Well Worth Reading: Wisconsin needs two big goals

Dave Baskerville

Having worked some 40 years in the business world, mostly abroad, with many leaders in business, politics and religion, I believe the most important ingredient for success is setting one or two ambitious, long-term goals that are routinely and publicly measured against the best in the world.
For Wisconsin, we only need two:
Raise our state’s per capita income to 10 percent above Minnesota’s by 2030.
In job and business creation over the next decade, Wisconsin is often predicted to be among the lowest 10 states. When I was a kid growing up in Madison, income in Wisconsin was some 10 percent higher than in Minnesota. Minnesota caught up to us in 1967, and now the average Minnesotan makes $4,500 more than the average Wisconsinite.
Lift the math, science and reading scores of all K-12, non-special education students in Wisconsin above world-class standards by 2030. (emphasis added)
Wisconsinites often believe we lose jobs because of lower wages elsewhere. In fact, it is often the abundance of skills (and subsidies and effort) that bring huge Intel research and development labs to Bangalore, Microsoft research centers to Beijing, and Advanced Micro Devices chip factories to Dresden.
Our educational standards are based relative to the United States. So even if we “successfully” accomplish all of our state educational goals, our kids would still be in the global minor leagues. How about targeting Finland and Singapore in math, South Korea and Japan in science, Canada in reading?
As the saying goes: “When one does not know where one is going, any road will do” (or not do).
Without clear scorecards, we citizens will have little ability to coerce and evaluate politicians and their excuses, rhetoric and laws from the right and left. If JFK had not set a “man on the moon” stretch target, would we have landed there? Do the Green Bay Packers have a chance at winning another Super Bowl if they never tack that goal to the locker room walls?

Clusty Search: Dave Baskerville.

Lying to HS Students

Junia Yearwood

Failure to educate
The Boston school system is churning out illiterate students whose only skills are to pass predictable standard tests
I DID not attend a graduation ceremony in 25 years as a Boston public high school teacher. This was my silent protest against a skillfully choreographed mockery of an authentic education – a charade by adults who, knowingly or unwittingly, played games with other people’s children.
I knew that most of my students who walked across the stage, amidst the cheers, whistles, camera flashes, and shout-outs from parents, family, and friends, were not functionally literate. They were unable to perform the minimum skills necessary to negotiate society: reading the local newspapers, filling out a job application, or following basic written instructions; even fewer had achieved empowering literacy enabling them to closely read, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate text.
However, they were all college bound – the ultimate goal of our school’s vision statement– clutching knapsacks stuffed with our symbols of academic success: multiple college acceptances, a high school diploma; an official transcript indicating they had passed the MCAS test and had met all graduation requirements; several glowing letters of recommendation from teachers and guidance counselors; and one compelling personal statement, their college essay.
They walked across the stage into a world that was unaware of the truth that scorched my soul –the truth that became clear the first day I entered West Roxbury High School in 1979 (my first assignment as a provisional 12th grade English teacher): the young men and women I was responsible for coaching the last leg of their academic journey could not write a complete sentence, a cohesive paragraph, or a well-developed essay on a given topic. I remember my pain and anger at this revelation and my struggle to reconcile the reality before me with my own high school experience, which had enabled me to negotiate the world of words–oral and written–independently, with relative ease and confidence.
For the ensuing 30-plus years, I witnessed how the system churned out academically unprepared students who lacked the skills needed to negotiate the rigors of serious scholarship, or those skills necessary to move in and up the corporate world.
We instituted tests and assessments, such as the MCAS, that required little exercise in critical thinking, for which most of the students were carefully coached to “pass.” Teachers, instructors, and administrators made the test the curriculum, taught to the test, drilled for the test, coached for the test, taught strategies to take the test, and gave generous rewards (pizza parties) for passing the test. Students practiced, studied for, and passed the test–but remained illiterate.
I also bear witness to my students’ ability to acquire a passing grade for mediocre work. A’s and B’s were given simply for passing in assignments (quality not a factor), for behaving well in class, for regular attendance, for completing homework assignments that were given a check mark but never read.
In addition, I have been a victim of the subtle and overt pressure exerted by students, parents, administrators, guidance counselors, coaches, and colleagues to give undeserving students passing grades, especially at graduation time, when the “walk across the stage” frenzy is at its peak.
When all else failed, there were strategies for churning out seemingly academically prepared students. These were the ways around the official requirements: loopholes such as MCAS waivers; returning or deftly transferring students to Special Needs Programs–a practice usually initiated by concerned parents who wanted to avoid meeting the regular education requirements or to gain access to “testing accommodations”; and, Credit Recovery, the computer program that enabled the stragglers, those who were left behind, to catch up to the frontrunners in the Race to the Stage. Students were allowed to take Credit Recovery as a substitute for the course they failed, and by passing with a C, recover their credits.
Nevertheless, this past June, in the final year of my teaching career, I chose to attend my first graduation at the urgings of my students–the ones whose desire to learn, to become better readers and writers, and whose unrelenting hard work earned them a spot on the graduation list–and the admonition of a close friend who warned that my refusal to attend was an act of selfishness, of not thinking about my students who deserved the honor and respect signified by my presence.
At the ceremony I chose to be happy, in spite of the gnawing realization that nothing had changed in 32 years. We had continued playing games with other people’s children.
Junia Yearwood, a guest columnist, is a retired Boston Public Schools teacher who taught at English High for 25 years.
© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.

The New Mexico PreK Evaluation: Impacts From the Fourth Year (2008-2009) of New Mexico’s State-Funded PreK Program

Jason T. Hustedt, W. Steven Barnett, Kwanghee Jung, and Allison H. Friedman

The New Mexico PreK evaluation, from the 2008-2009 school year, finds positive impacts from the state-funded prekindergarten program for young children, consistent with previous findings. With statistically significant increases observed in vocabulary, math, and literacy scores for children participating in New Mexico PreK, the authors find New Mexico PreK is helping prepare young children for later school success. The New Mexico PreK initiative began in 2005 and has expanded rapidly. From the beginning, the National Institute for Early Education Research has been evaluating the program using the regression-discontinuity approach.

Related: Madison’s planned 4K program.

Financial Literacy – A Topic Every Parent Must Teach their Child

Thomas

New site provides financial literacy curricula for parents, students, and educators.
Our sister site GoCollege has given a great deal of attention to the current student loan crisis. The problem is actually a very simple one, easy access to loans has led naïve students to borrow significant sums of money as they pursue their college degree.
The problem is that too many students are borrowing far too much and thus are literally mortgaging their entire future. I recently highlighted my concerns with what is happening in my own state where students are leaving the state university with some of the highest average debt levels in the country.
Unfortunately, financial literacy is not a typical topic generally taught in public schools. Thus, educating children about money and the concept of using credit in a healthy manner still falls upon parents. In essence, this is a subject where every family must employ the home-schooling concept.

K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: California’s Budget Agreement May Hurt School Credit Most, Moody’s Says

Michael B. Marois

The budget agreement California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers reached last month will have a “negative influence” on the credit of school districts more than on other parts of local government, Moody’s Investors Service said.
School districts will face cash-flow problems because the state delayed or deferred subsidies they are owed, Moody’s Senior Vice President Eric Hoffmann said in a report today. Counties and cities should be at less risk, he said.
Schwarzenegger signed the $86.6 billion budget Oct. 8 after lawmakers wrestled over an agreement for 100 days into the fiscal year, the longest the most populous U.S. state has ever gone without a spending plan. It eliminated a $19 billion deficit by cutting spending almost $8 billion, half of that from health and welfare programs administered by local governments. It also delayed paying more than $5 billion in subsidies to schools and community colleges.
“These new cross-fiscal year deferrals could particularly pose a challenge for school districts with narrow liquidity and outstanding tax and revenue anticipation notes due on June 30, the last day of their current fiscal year,” Hoffman said in the report.

Our View: Maine Governor Elect LePage will get a shot at reforming education

Maine Sunday Telegram

A lot of harsh words are thrown around during a campaign, and Gov.-elect Paul LePage was on the receiving end of many of them, particularly regarding his positions on education.
But now that the votes have been cast the rhetoric can die away. Although there is still considerable flesh that has to be added to the policy bones that LePage campaigned on, we like much of what he proposed in regards to education reform, which includes ideas that we have been championing for some time.
LePage supports public charter schools, funded from the same sources as traditional schools. Charter schools have a mixed track record, but the best ones serve as innovative laboratories for new approaches to teaching and learning.
They also offer school districts a way to pilot alternative programs, like schools that meet at night, during the weekend or combine with a vocational focus, which could bring dropouts back into education.

Schools that go it alone do best – report

Jeevan Vasagar:

The most successful schools ignore government advice and set their own standards for effective teaching, according to a thinktank report published today.
The best schools have an “open culture”, in which heads regularly pop into classrooms informally, the thinktank Reform says.
“The teachers view this as supportive rather than threatening … the best schools foster an expectation and culture of perpetual improvement.”
This change in culture leads to failing teachers either improving or leaving, the report says.
Being taught by a good teacher rather than a poor one improves a student’s results by half a GCSE grade a subject, according to academic research quoted in the report.
By contrast, class size makes little difference.
Korea and Japan, which have bigger class sizes, do better at maths than pupils in England, according to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) figures.

Will Jerry Brown Rescue Public Education?

NBC Bay Area

The election is over, and yes, California has a new governor–well, actually a previous governor back for another turn.
Jerry Brown will return to the state’s highest office but in a radically different political setting. Term limits, federal mandates, and tough requirements for raising taxes have created a political environment that makes it almost impossible for any governor to govern, yet that is what Brown must do.
Brown re-enters the office under conditions similar to those encountered by his predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger: fiscal crisis. To some, this almost sounds like the boy who cried wolf–surely we must have solved the revenue and spending problem
by now.
But we haven’t. Current projections show California about $15 billion in the red for the new fiscal year, perhaps more. This after several years of draconian cutbacks.

International Benchmarking: State Education Performance Standards

Gary W. Phillips, Ph.D., via a Richard Askey email

It is worth looking at the data to see how Wisconsin compares with some other states. Here is the mathematics comparison with Minnesota.
The “state” results are the percent of students ranked as proficient on the state test with the current cut scores being used. The international percent was obtained by using the state results on NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) and this was mapped by comparing levels of problems to the level on TIMSS, (Trends in Mathematics and Science Study).
Grade 4 Mathematics Percent proficient
State International
Wisconsin 74 45
Minnesota 68 55
Massachusetts 49 63
Grade 8 Mathematics
Wisconsin 73 33
Minnesota 56 41
Massachusetts 46 52
No, the Massachusetts scores were not reversed here. Their cut score levels are set higher than the TIMSS levels.
It is time for the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction to redo the cut score levels to make them realistic. Parents in Wisconsin are mature enough to be told the truth about how well their children are doing.

Future teachers must show, not just tell, skills: Teacher Performance Assessment program

Chris Williams

Standing at the edge of a pond surrounded by her class of fourth-graders, Jasmine Zeppa filled a bucket with brown water and lectured her pupils on the science of observing and recording data. Many of the children seemed more interested in nearby geese, a passing jogger and the crunchy leaves underfoot.
Zeppa’s own professor from St. Catherine University stood nearby and recorded video of it all.
“I think it went as well as it possibly could have, given her experience,” the professor, Susan Gibbs Goetz, said. Her snap review: The 25-year-old Zeppa could have done a better job holding the students’ attention, but did well building on past lessons.
Zeppa is among the first class of aspiring teachers who are getting ready for new, more demanding requirements to receive their teacher license. A new licensing system is being tested in 19 states that includes filming student teachers in their classroom and evaluating the video, also candidates must show they can prepare a lesson, tailor it to different levels of students and present it effectively.

Teacher Performance Assessment program

Influence of teachers unions in question

Mitchell Landsberg

The groups have been slow to come to terms with the push for reform. Some see them as obstacles to change, and even union sympathizers agree that their voice in the education debate has been muted.
Teachers unions have a well-deserved reputation for exercising political clout. With a nearly unparalleled ability to raise cash and organize their ranks, they have elected school boards, influenced legislation and helped set the public school agenda in major American cities for decades.
Now, that clout is in question.
A nationwide school reform movement with bipartisan support has collided head-on with unions over three ideas that labor has long resisted: expansion of charter schools, the introduction of merit pay for teachers and the use of student test scores in teacher evaluations.
Even the long-held protections and prerogatives conferred by seniority and tenure no longer seem sacrosanct.

Houston School District to hold meetings on special education program

abc13

The Houston Independent School District is holding ten public meetings during two days in November to gather feedback from parents and community members regarding the effectiveness of the district’s special education program.
During the meetings, the public’s input will be gathered on a series of questions which have been developed by the TEA to gather information on the effective operation and performance of special education programs throughout the State. The questions include:
One purpose of the Individuals with Disabilities with Education Act or IDEA is to strengthen the role of parents and ensure family participation in the education of their children. Within the context of the Houston Independent School District, how are parents involved in the educational process for their children?

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels explains his plans for education in Indiana

Mitch Daniels

A wave of change and reform has finally begun moving across American public education. Across the political spectrum from President Obama rightward, people now agree that our children must learn much more than they are learning now, and that major change is necessary to enable them to do so. Only the most selfish special interests still insist on defending the status quo.
Indiana has led the nation in many areas lately. Fiscal responsibility, a pro-growth business climate, property tax reduction and infrastructure are good examples, but we can make no such claim about K-12 education. Only one in three Hoosier eighth-graders is able to pass the national reading and math tests; if we compare their scores to those of children in foreign countries, they look even worse.
It’s not that we have made no headway. We have doubled the number of our 5-year-olds with access to full-day kindergarten, although a quarter still do not have it. We have strengthened the ability of teachers and principals to maintain classroom discipline by immunizing them from lawsuits. We have ended the “social promotion” of third-graders who cannot read to the fourth grade and almost certain failure in high school and life.

Much more on Mitch Daniels here.

Systemic changes coming for Wisconsin public school teachers

Alan Borsuk

An educational earthquake aimed at improving the effectiveness of teachers is rumbling across the nation.
So far, the quake is only beginning to affect Wisconsin. But the tremors of change are already being felt here, and more are coming.
In the process, a new world of teaching is being built.
Nationwide, the federal government and giant philanthropies such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are putting hundreds of millions of dollars into underwriting work in dozens of states and cities on better ways to select teachers, monitor their work and pay them.
President Barack Obama has taken on teachers unions – traditionally partisan allies – over teacher improvement issues, while many Republicans, including Wisconsin Governor-elect Scott Walker, say they support reform in teachers’ pay.
National leaders of teachers unions, long opposed to change, are willing to talk about once-taboo subjects such as making it easier to get weak teachers out of classrooms.
Multiple factors have ushered in this new era. First, it is now widely understood that not only are teachers the most important school-related factor in student learning, but that teacher effectiveness varies drastically. Second, the recession – and the resulting stimulus package – gave Obama a chance to launch large programs focused on increasing teacher effectiveness. Third, data about students and teachers has improved greatly, providing better tools for figuring out the success of many teachers on an individual basis.

T.S. Eliot and the Demise of the Literary Culture

Joseph Epstein

No one writing in the English language is likely to establish a reigning authority over poetry and criticism and literature in general as T.S. Eliot did between the early 1930s and his death in 1965 at the age of 77. Understatedly spectacular is the way Eliot’s career strikes one today, at a time when, it is fair to say, poetry, even to bookish people, is of negligible interest and literary criticism chiefly a means to pursue academic tenure. Literary culture itself, if the sad truth be known, seems to be slowly but decisively shutting down.
The fame Eliot achieved in his lifetime is unfathomable for a poet, or indeed any American or English writer, in our day. In 1956, Eliot lectured on “The Function of Criticism” in a gymnasium at the University of Minnesota to a crowd estimated at 15,000 people. “I do not believe,” he remarked afterward, “there are fifteen thousand people in the entire world who are interested in criticism.” Eight years earlier, in 1948, he won the Nobel Prize in literature. In later years, when he went into the hospital, which he did with some frequency, suffering from bronchitis and heart troubles, news of his illnesses appeared in the press or over the radio both in England and America; and so too did news of his second marriage, in 1957, at the age of 69, to his secretary, a Miss Valerie Fletcher, 38 years younger than he. He lectured often and everywhere, so much so that Lyndall Gordon, his most penetrating biographer, wrote that his “face acquired a sort of exposed reticence from the habit of looking down from a lectern into rows upon rows of eyes.” Eliot was the equivalent in literature of Albert Einstein in science in that everyone seemed to know that these men were immensely significant without quite knowing for what.
An immitigable highbrow, Eliot was concerned about the slackening of high culture and the diminishing quality of education–concerns that have proved prophetic. The poetry on which his reputation as a leading figure of the modernist avant-garde was based was not easily comprehended. “Poets, in our civilization, as it exists at present, must be difficult,” he wrote, but he also wrote that “genuinepoetry can communicate before it is understood,” which seems to have been the case with his. His criticism, much of which began as lectures, always came from on high. This was not a man who wrote or spoke down to his audience, ever. Which makes all the more curious his widespread fame.

Wisconsin Public schools likely to face cash drain

Alan Borsuk

So let’s think out loud about what might lie ahead:
State aid to schools. It’s hard to see how Republicans are going to keep their campaign promises and fund the same percentage of statewide costs for kindergarten through 12th grade. The state committed itself to paying two-thirds of those costs in the 1990s (under Republican Gov. Tommy G. Thompson). The current rate is a bit below that. But look for Walker to want to do something about this multibillion dollar annual spending. Reductions in state aid would translate into large increases in property taxes (that hardly seems likely, given the state of public opinion) or large cuts in school spending. That leads us to:
Teacher benefits. Look for a lot of action around this. Teachers are deeply defensive of their benefits, especially health insurance plans that are substantially above what almost anybody else has these days. But WEAC, the state teachers union, was among the biggest losers on Tuesday and has few friends in the Capitol now. There’s been talk about trying to bring teachers into the state employees’ health plan, which costs less than most teacher plans. Now is likely to be the time for doing that. Or maybe other ideas will surface.
Teachers contracts are negotiated locally, so the most powerful thing Republicans can do might be just to give local districts less money and let school officials and local unions figure out what to do about it. My guess is that the Milwaukee teachers union agreed recently to a new contract that goes until 2013, two years longer than the normal agreement, in hope of staving off more concessions at least for that long.

Tiptoeing around race issue doesn’t solve anything

Chris Rickert

It was a forum held Wednesday by the Dane County League of Women Voters on “how changing demographics are affecting Dane County schools and human services,” and the speakers — Madison school superintendent Dan Nerad, Sun Prairie district administrator Tim Culver and Dane County director of Human Services Lynn Green — aren’t exactly right wingers.
But it’s odd how the best of intentions can muddle a message, especially when it comes to race, and especially in Madison.
The panel was nothing if not well intentioned, not to mention extremely careful in its language.
Happy- and/or neutral-sounding words like “diversity” and “changing demographics” took the place of the more direct “black” or “Latino” or “poor.” And while it was clear that these changing demographics meant higher rates of poverty and single-parent families, which in turn correlate with more problems in the schools or need for services, the panel chose not to identify them as problems. They were instead “challenges.”
They were also careful to frame their remarks in a spirit of inclusiveness, and Nerad and Culver described efforts to inject “culturally relevant” instruction into their curriculums and to hire more minority teachers.
(I wondered how conservatives would respond to such efforts, widely applauded and rarely questioned in places as liberal as Madison. What does cultural relevancy have to do with learning the three Rs? Do you have to be black to teach a black child?)
The audience was provided with graphics showing student achievement rising during this period of increasing student poverty and diversity, but Nerad and Culver did not make a big deal of that in their remarks. Nerad said after the meeting that too much emphasis on the district’s successes can invite criticism about areas where it isn’t doing so well.

Christie Hovers Over Teachers Battle With Governor Is on Minds at the Union’s Convention in Atlantic City

Lisa Fleisher

Even when gathering in Atlantic City, New Jersey’s teachers can’t get Gov. Chris Christie out of their minds.
For the past year, their largest union has been the prime target of Mr. Christie’s wrath, a battle that has made him famous and the hero of Republicans across the country.
Mr. Christie extended that fight to the annual convention for the New Jersey Education Association, which represents 200,000 current and retired education workers, through his acting education commissioner, who informed the union this week that she would not attend the event.
The union says the education commissioner has never before failed to address one of its conventions.

Madison High School Reform: Dual Pathways to Post-Secondary Success High School Career and College Readiness

Daniel A. Nerad, Superintendent, Pam Nash, Assistant Superintendent, and Susan Abplanalp, Deputy Superintendent

Enclosed is an update report regarding the High School Career and College Readiness Plan. This plan is written as a complement to the first document entitled “Dual Pathways to Post-Secondary Success”. The original document was intended to outline both a possible structure for organizing accelerated and preparatory courses for high school students. The original document was also intended to serve as an internal document outlining a planning process. Since, the dissemination of the “Dual Pathways to Post-Secondary Success” many questions and concerns have been expressed by a variety of stakeholders. Through feedback and questions brought forth by teachers, students, community members and the Board of Education it is understood that our original plan did not effectively communicate the rationale, scope, scale, and end outcomes as intended. The conversations that occurred as a result of the dissemination of the “Dual Pathways to Post-Secondary Success” have been at times difficult but they have also been the right conversations for us to have in order to move forward as a district. These conversations have highlighted the interconnectedness ofall grade levels, calling on us to proceed with a k-12 district wide curricular alignmentprocessinwhichhighschoolisembedded. hlordertomoreaccuratelycapturetheintentofouroriginal work we have renamed the plan High School Career and College Readiness to accurately reflect the intended goal; for all MMSD graduates will become self-determined learners able to access a wide array ofpost-secondary options. For these reasons, we have not included the original “Dual Pathways to Post-Secondary Success” plan in this report. Rather we have created this document to serve as bridge that more clearly articulates the history, rationale, data, work to date and next steps that are outlined in the original plan. Our Theory of Action, process
and end goals have not changed, but how we articulate this work has become more explicit, transparent and responsive. Weare in process ofcreating a more comprehensive plan to be shared with a broad range ofaudiences. We will share that plan with the Board of Education when finalized. We will also share periodic updates with the Board of Education. ill the meantime, the enclosed report serves to answer questions, concerns received to date and provide more detailed and accurate iuformation. Attached is the original document, unchanged.

Asia’s Expanding Middle Class Presents Huge Opportunity for Region, World – Report

Asian Development Bank

Developing Asia’s rapidly expanding middle class is likely to assume the traditional role of the US and Europe as primary global consumers and help rebalance the global economy, says a new report on Asia’s middle class from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
The report, published in a special chapter of Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific 2010, the flagship annual statistical publication of the ADB, found that Asia’s consumers spent an estimated $4.3 trillion (in 2005 purchasing power parity dollars), or about one-third of OECD consumption expenditure, in 2008 and by 2030 will likely spend $32 trillion, comprising about 43% of the worldwide consumption.
The special chapter, titled “The Rise of Asia’s Middle Class“, examines the rapid growth of Asia’s middle class, how the poor advance to the middle class, factors that characterize the middle class, and pathways through which they become effective contributors to growth and poverty reduction in the region.

10 Ways Teachers Make a Difference

Education-Portal

Education is one of the building blocks of society. Educated individuals tend to be happier and healthier, and study after study has found that an educated populace leads to a stronger economy. So what’s behind all these educational benefits? Teachers. To show our appreciation, we here at Education Portal would like to take a moment to reflect on some of the ways in which teachers make a difference in our world.
1. Inspiring
Maybe your love of poetry was inspired by your first grade teacher reading Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends. Or perhaps you became an engineer because of that cool experiment in your fifth-grade science class. So often it is teachers who provide that initial inspiration that becomes a lifelong passion.
2. Encouraging
As a kid, this blogger never had any trouble with reading but was terrified by math. But with the patient encouragement of my teachers, I learned to like – and excel at – math all the way through calculus. When students say ‘I can’t,’ teachers are always there to say ‘yes you can.’