Search Results for: One city
Revisiting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Outcomes At and After Birth
Intergroup differences in health can reflect on and result in unequal life opportunities. In particular, racial and ethnic disparities in birth outcomes have long been a concern for both researchers and policy makers. Differences in health at birth are especially critical because they may lead to disparities in health as well as socioeconomic conditions throughout one’s whole life. This dissertation contributes to three aspects of the existing literature regarding race/ethnicity and birth outcomes: First, it uses a propensity scoring estimation method to reassess the differences in birth outcomes across racial/ethnic groups. The result suggests the use of OLS may not be a practical concern, although propensity score estimation shows its own advantages and thus should be used as sensitivity analysis to complement OLS. Second, an examination of biracial infants shows that father’s race and ethnicity are relatively unimportant, but the presence of unreported fathers has a strong association with birth outcomes, which might be a source of bias in existing data, and a significant signal of potential post-birth health problems. Finally, this research investigates the competing power of different birth outcome measures as predictors of infant mortality. The results show that the importance of risk factors and birth outcome measures varies by race/ethnicity, gender, and time, which suggests a need to tailor prevention and education efforts, especially during the postneonatal period. These results, taken in combination, lead to the conclusion that policy makers need to not only continue focusing on closing the recognized gap between black and other racial/ethnic groups in birth outcomes, but also pay more attention to subpopulations that are traditionally not considered as at risk and certain time periods that are previously regarded as less risky.
Parents prove charter schools work
The magic of charter schools isn’t so much the innovation they strive to achieve. The magic is the effect these schools have on parents.
At the Nuestro Mundo charter school on Madison’s East Side, you have to win a lottery to get your child into the program. This is true even for parents like me who live just a few blocks from Allis Elementary School, where Nuestro Mundo (which means “Our World ” in Spanish) is housed.
Imagine that — parents flooding a city school with enrollment applications for their kids. This is the opposite trend that Madison fears and must avoid.
Though rarely discussed in a frank way, Madison is increasingly nervous about middle- to upper-income parents losing faith in city schools and moving to the suburbs. As so many Madison leaders love to say: “As the schools go, so goes the city. ” Madison doesn ‘t want to become Milwaukee.Related: Where have all the students gone?
“Identical Strangers’ Explore Nature vs. Nurture”
What is it that makes us who we really are? Our life experiences or our DNA? Paula Bernstein and Elyse Schein were born and raised in New York City. Both women were adopted as infants and raised by loving families. They met for the first time when they were 35 years old and found they were “identical strangers”: they had been separated as infants as part of a secret research study of identical twins designed to examine the question of nature verses nurture. “When the families adopted these children, they were told that their child was already part of an ongoing child study. But of course, they neglected to tell them the key element of the study, which is that it was child development among twins raised in different homes,” Bernstein said. The results of the study, that ended in 1980, have been sealed until 2066 and given to an archive at Yale University. Of the 13 children involved in the study, three sets of twins and one set of triplets have discovered one another. The other four subjects of the study still do not know they have identical twins.
Board of Education Progress Report — October, 2007
I hope your school year is going well. Below is the October BOE update. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact myself at asilveira@madison.k12.wi.us or the entire board at comments@madison.k12.wi.us Arlene Silveira Superintendent Search: Our consultants presented a summary of the community input sessions on the desired characteristics for a new […]
“Math Power: How to Help Your Child Love Math Even If You Dont’
“Math Power: How to Help Your Child Love Math Even If You Dont’,” the only book by a mathematician written for parents of children aged 1-10, is about to go out of print for the second time. Both times the publisher sold its trade books to another publisher just as it was published, so none […]
High rate of violence seen in teens’ lives
More than 40 percent of male high school students in Boston say they have carried a knife and more than 40 percent of all students believe it would be easy to get a gun, according to a new public health survey.
One in five students has witnessed a shooting and does not feel safe in his or her neighborhood, the survey found.
The report, which surveyed more than 1,200 students in 18 Boston public high schools in the spring of 2006, found that two-thirds of students said they had witnessed violence in the year before the survey, and one-third had been involved in a fight themselves. Nearly 40 percent of male students had been assaulted, and 28 percent said they did not feel safe on the bus or train.
The report, which city officials are releasing today to launch a series of community meetings on teenage health, highlights the pervasive exposure to violence among city teenagers and the fear it can generate.
The survey’s finding of widespread fistfights – more than one-third of male and female students reported having hit, punched, kicked, or choked someone in the past month – was also disturbing, Ferrer said. Such violence can easily intensify to weapon use, she said.
“We’re missing the precursor to more serious violence, which is a lot of aggressive behavior,” she said. “We need to give our students some skills on how to resolve conflict before it escalates.”
Marcus Peterson, a member of a youth antiviolence group called Operation Greensboro said public apathy contributes to the persistent violence.
“It’s not really an issue anymore,” he said. “It’s just accepted.”
Madison’s charter schools offer unique options
n its fourth year, the Madison school district’s Spanish-English charter school is so popular that the parents who helped found the East Side school are having trouble getting their children in and there’s talk of expanding the program.
The district’s other charter school, Wright Middle, is one student above capacity and this year has a waiting list for the first time.
A growing number of residents say Madison needs more places, like charter schools Nuestro Mundo and Wright, that offer unique options to students. In response, the School Board has begun probing possibilities.
“The critical issue is, ‘What do we need to do to engage a broader range of students in what’s happening in school?'” board member Carol Carstensen said at an Oct. 22 Performance and Achievement Committee meeting that examined ways the district could create programs or schools.
In Dane County, charter schools operate in the Madison, Verona, Middleton-Cross Plains, Monona, Marshall and Deerfield districts.
Fixing the Milwaukee Public Schools: The Limits of Parent-Driven Reform
The Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) district, like many of its big-city counterparts in other states, continues to suffer from poor student performance. Student test scores and dropout rates are at deplorable levels, both in absolute terms and in comparison with the rest of Wisconsin. This fact has led to a veritable cottage industry dedicated to improving educational outcomes in Milwaukee. The district itself has embraced two reforms in particular: public school choice and parental involvement.
Advocates of public school choice claim that by permitting parents to choose among a variety of public school options within the district, competition for students will ensue. This should improve school effectiveness and efficiency, and ultimately lead to better student outcomes.
Proponents of parental involvement argue that even first-rate schools are limited in their effectiveness unless parents are also committed to their children’s education. Thus, the parental involvement movement seeks to engage parents as partners in learning activities, both on-site and at home. Research has shown that such engagement can produce higher levels of student performance, other things being equal.
Research has also shown, however, that both reforms can be stifled in districts like MPS, with relatively large percentages of poor, minority, single-parent families, and families of otherwise low socioeconomic status. With regard to public school choice, many of these families:
- may fail to exercise choice altogether;
- or
may exercise choice, but do so with inadequate or inaccurate information;- and/or
may choose schools largely on the basis of non-academic criteria.As for parental involvement, disadvantaged parents may withdraw from participation in their child’s education because of lack of time, energy, understanding, or confidence.
This study offers estimates of the extent and nature of public school choice and parental involvement within the MPS district. The basic approach is to identify the frequency and determinants of parental choice and parental involvement using a national data set, and extrapolate those results to Milwaukee, relying on the particular demographics of the MPS district.Alan Borsuk has more along with John McAdams:
Rick Esenberg has beat us to the punch in critiquing the methodology of this particular study. As he points out, it’s not a study of private school choice, only a study of choice within the public sector.
ecently, the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI) released a report entitled, Fixing Milwaukee Public Schools: The Limits of Parent-Driven Reform. Unfortunately, the headline in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel read, “Choice May Not Improve Schools.” That headline not only misrepresented the study, it energized those who are dying to go back to the days when parents were forced to send their children to whichever MPS school the educrats thought best.
So that there is no misunderstanding, WPRI is unhesitant in supporting school choice. School choice is working and should be improved and expanded. School choice is good for Milwaukee’s children.
Here are the simple facts about the WPRI study:
1. The study addressed only public school choice; the ability of parents to choose from among schools within MPS. The author did not address private school choice.Credit is due the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute for releasing a study that confirms what the rest of us have known for some time: So-called “school choice” programs have failed to improve education in Milwaukee.
The conservative think tank funded by the Bradley Foundation has long been a proponent of the school choice fantasy, which encourages parents to “shop” for schools rather than to demand that neighborhood schools be improved — and which, ultimately, encourages parents to take publicly funded vouchers and to use the money to pay for places in private institutions that operate with inadequate oversight and low standards for progress and achievement.
I Just Couldn’t Sacrifice My Son
When a high school friend told me several years ago that he and his wife were leaving Washington’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood for Montgomery County, I snickered and murmured something about white flight. Progressives who traveled regularly to Cuba and Brazil, they wanted better schools for their children. I saw their decision as one more example of liberal hypocrisy.
I was childless then, but I have a 6-year-old now. And I know better. So to all the friends — most but not all of them white — whom I’ve chastised over the years for abandoning the District once their children reached school age:
I’m sorry. You were right. I was wrong.
After nearly 20 years in the city’s Takoma neighborhood, the last six in a century-old house that my wife and I thought we’d grow old in, we have forsaken the city for the suburbs.Related:
- Where Have All the Students Gone?
- This is Not Your Grandchild’s Madison School District
- Promises Betrayed
Megan McArdle has more.
A new pathway out of homelessness
Denver’s mentorship program introduces struggling families to volunteers who can model another way of life.
Arms folded, his chair jammed against the wall, Joe Maestas glowered at the men who could help his family out of homelessness. His wife, Christina, sat at his side, pale and tense.
This meeting was their best chance to escape the filthy motel where they and their four children had lived for two years. A novel city program had offered them $1,200 to move into a decent rental.
But the money came with a catch: For six months, Joe and Christina would have to open their lives to two men assigned to coach the family out of poverty.
The Maestas children warmed to the mentors at once as they all gathered in the break room of Christina’s workplace in mid-March. Corie, 9, drew them a smiling kitty. Domonic, 13, shyly asked for help with his literature homework.
Their father tugged his worn baseball cap down low, so his eyes were nearly hidden. Joe didn’t like anyone presuming to help his family, no matter how good their intentions. “They tell you how to live,” he said.
West High / Regent Neighborhood Crime Discussion
Parents, staff and community officials met Wednesday night to discuss a number of recent violent incidents at and near Madison West High School [map]
I took a few notes during the first 60 minutes:
Madison Alders Robbie Webber and Brian Solomon along with James Wheeler (Captain of Police – South District), Luis Yudice (Madison School District The Coordinator of Safety And Security), Randy Boyd (Madison Metro Security) and West Principal Ed Holmes started the meeting with a brief summary of the recent incidents along with a brief school climate discussion:
James Wheeler:Police beat officer and Educational Resource Office (ERO) patrol during West’s lunch period.
“There have been complaints from the houses around the school” so MPD increased patrols to “make a statement last week”.
Still a relatively safe neighborhood.
3 arrests at Homecoming.
Made a drug dealing arrest recently.
People do see drug dealing going on and have reported it.
There have been additional violent incidents, especially at the Madison Metro transfer pointsEd Holmes
Behavior is atypical of what we have seen on the past . Perpetrators are new to West.
Emphasized the importance of a safe learning environment.
Make sure there are police and school consequences and that they are severe. These crimes are unacceptable and should not be tolerated.Randy Boyd (Madison Metro)
60+ bus runs daily for the school system.
There have been some serious fights at the transfer points. Cameras are in place there.
Main problem is confidentiality due to the students age. Can track them via bus passes.
Adding DSL so that the police precinct can monitor the transfer points. Incidents are about the same as last year but the numbers are going up.
Baptist church elders have helped patrol the South Transfer Point. We are looking for more community help.Luis Yudice
Big picture perspective:
Our community really has changed a lot within the past five years. I sense a great deal of stress within the police department.
Citywide issues
Increasing violence involving girls. He has looked at a lot of data with the District Attorney’s office. Girls are extremely angry.
Angry parents are coming into the schools.
Increasing issues in the neighborhood that end up in the schools. Mentioned South Transfer Point beating and that Principal Ed Holmes mediated the situation at an early stage.
Growing gang violence issue particularly in the east side schools. We do have gang activity at Memorial and West but most of the issues are at Lafollete and East. Dealing with this via training and building relationships
What the school are experiencing is a reflection of what is going on in the community.Parents:
Parent asked about weapons in school, metal detectors and k9 units.
Response:
Do we have weapons in school? Yes we find knives in all the schools. No guns. Unfortunate fact is that if a kid wants to get their hand on a gun, they can. They are available.Ed Holmes:
“We took away a gun once in my 18 years”.
I want to get across to the students – if they see something they have to report it. We have 2100 students and 250 staff members.Parents:
Kids are afraid of the bathrooms
Another lunch assault that has not been reported.
Incidents are much higher than we know because many incidents are not reported.
A parent asked why the District/Police did not use school ID photos to help victims find the perpetrators? Ed Holmes mentioned that District has had problems with their photo ID vendor.
Madison School Board member (and West area parent) Maya Cole also attended this event.
Ed Hughes and Marj Passman on Madison’s Small Learning Community Climate and Grant Application
I sent an email to Ed and Marj, both of whom have announced their plans to run for Madison School Board next spring, asking the following:
I’m writing to see what your thoughts are on the mmsd’s high school “reform” initiative, particularly in light of two things:
- The decision to re-apply for the US Dept of Education Grant next month
- The lack of any public (any?) evaluation of the results at West and Memorial in light of their stated SLC goals?
In other words, how do you feel about accountability? 🙂
They replied:
Marj Passman:I am generally supportive of small learning communities and the decision to reapply for a Federal grant. Our high schools continue to provide a rich education for most students — especially the college bound – but there is a significant and maybe growing number of students who are not being engaged. They need our attention. The best evidence is that well implemented small learning communities show promise as part of the solution to increasing the engagement and achievement of those who are not being well served, do no harm and may help others also. My experience as a teacher backs up the research because I found that the caring relationships between staff and students so crucial to reaching those students falling between the cracks on any level of achievement are more likely to develop in smaller settings. Some form of small learning communities are almost a given as part of any reform of our high schools and if we can get financial help from the Federal government with this part of the work, I’m all for it.
I think it is important not to overestimate either the problems or the promise of the proposed solutions. The first step in things like this is to ask what is good that we want to preserve. Our best graduates are competitive with any students anywhere. The majority of our graduates are well prepared for their next academic or vocational endeavors. We need to keep doing the good things we do well. If done successfully, SLCs offer as much for the top achieving students as for any group – individual attention, focus on working with others of their ability, close connection to staff, and consistent evaluation.
You also asked about “accountability” and the evaluations of the existing SLCs. Both evaluations are generally positive, show some progress in important areas and point to places where improvements still need to be made. Neither contains any alarming information that would suggest the SLCs should be abandoned. The data from these limited studies should be looked at with similar research elsewhere that supports SLC as part of the solution to persistent (and in Madison) growing issues.
Like many I applauded when all the Board members asked for a public process for the High Schools of the Future project and like many I have been woefully disappointed with what I’ve seen so far. Because of this and the coming changes in district leadership I’d like to see the redesign time line extended (the final report is due in April) to allow for more input from both the public and the new superintendent.
Thanks for this opportunity
Marjorie Passman
http://marjpassmanforschoolboard.comEd Hughes:
From what I know, I am not opposed to MMSD re-applying for the U.S. Dept. of Education grant next month. From my review of the grant application, it did not seem to lock the high schools into new and significant changes. Perhaps that is a weakness of the application. But if the federal government is willing to provide funds to our high schools to do what they are likely to do anyway, I’m all for it.
Like you, I am troubled with the apparent lack of evaluation of results at West and Memorial attributable to their small learning communities initiatives. This may seem inconsistent with my view on applying for the grant, but I do not think we should proceed further down an SLC path without having a better sense of whether in fact it is working at the two schools that have tried it. It seems to me that this should be a major focus of the high school redesign study, but who knows what is going on with that. I asked recently and was told that the study kind of went dormant for awhile after the grant application was submitted.
My own thoughts about high school are pointing in what may be the opposite direction – bigger learning communities rather than smaller. I am concerned about our high schools being able to provide a sufficiently rich range of courses to prepare our students for post-high school life and to retain our students whose families have educational options. The challenges the schools face in this regard were underscored last spring when East eliminated German classes, and now offers only Spanish and French as world language options.
It seems to me that one way to approach this issue is to move toward thinking of the four comprehensive high schools as separate campuses of a single, unified, city-wide high school in some respects. We need to do a lot more to install sufficient teleconferencing equipment to allow the four schools to be linked – so that a teacher in a classroom at Memorial, say, can be seen on a screen in classrooms in the other three schools. In fact, views of all four linked classrooms should simultaneously be seen on the screen. With this kind of linkage, we could take advantage of economies of scale and have enough student interest to justify offering classes in a rich selection of languages to students in all four high schools. I’m sure there are other types of classes where linked classrooms would also make sense.
This kind of approach raises issues. For example, LaFollette’s four block system would be incompatible with this approach. There would also be a question of whether there would need to be a teacher or educational assistant in every classroom, even if the students in the classroom are receiving instruction over the teleconferencing system from another teacher in another school. I would hope that these are the kinds of issues the high school re-design group would be wrestling with. Perhaps they are, or will, but at this point there seems to be no way to know.
There are some off-the-top-of-my-head thoughts prompted by your question and by Maya Cole’s post about the high school re-design study. Feel free to do what you want with this response.Related Links:
- Involving the Community (in High School Reform) by Maya Cole
- Madison Small Learning Community Grant Application / US Department of Education Response
- Examining the Madison West High SLC Grant Community Connection Results
- Examining the Madison West High SLC Grant Results
- Examining the Data from Earlier Grants, Part 1 (Memorial High School)
- Where does the MMSD get its numbers from?
Thanks to Ed and Marj for taking the time to share their thoughts on this important matter.
Life on the Edge: No place for children
A Different Look at NAEP 4th Grade Math
The NAEP 2007 reports leave me without real understanding of the results, and charts included in the reports do not help. Looking at the state and ethnic data in a slightly different but very simple way, information that seemed to be lacking in the official reports stand out. For the first steps, we’ll look at […]
LaFollette High School Incident
Madison Police Department: On Thursday morning October 11, 2007 seven Madison Police officers and some 30 Lafollette High School staff members were needed to breakup a disturbance at the school around 11:15 a.m.. Officers learned that two adult women and two teenage boys (one of the woman is the mother of one of the boys) […]
New research on school choice: Winning isn’t everything
Anneliese Dickman: How many times have you heard of a lucky duck who wins the lottery, just to squander it all and return to his old work-a-day self? I’m sure those guys thought winning the lottery would turn their luck around forever. Just like education reform proponents who are fond of calling school choice a […]
Schools Without Playgrounds
Diane Loupe: Children’s television show host Fred Rogers understood something that, apparently, Atlanta Public Schools doesn’t. Rogers, the late host of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” said “Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning. … They have to play with what they know to be true in order to find out more, and […]
Special Education: When Should Taxes Pay Private Tuition?
John Hechinger: A decade ago, Tom Freston, then a top Viacom Inc. executive, began a legal battle to force New York City to pay for his son’s tuition at a Manhattan private school for children with learning disabilities. Today, the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments to resolve the central question of the […]
Commentary: State vs. Federal (NAEP) Tests
Diane Ravitch: THE release this week of national test scores in reading and math was an embarrassment for the state Department of Education. Scores nationally and in many individual states showed modest gains from 2005 to 2007, but New York did not – even though the Education Department had trumpeted “gains” on its tests just […]
9/24/2007 Performance & Achievement Meeting: 4 Year Old Kindergarden & “A Model to Measure Student Performance with Ties to District Goals”
The Madison School Board’s Performance & Achievement Committee met Monday evening. Topics discussed included: 4 Year Old Kindergarden A Model to Measure Student Performance with Ties to District Goals (39 Minutes into the mp3 file). Growth vs status goals. MMSD proposes to adopt a “Valued Added” which will “control for the effects of different external […]
An Update on the Foundation For Madison Public Schools
Susan Troller: “Be true to your school” could be the motto of a challenge the Foundation for Madison’s Public Schools has issued to friends and supporters of public education here. According to Martha Vukelich-Austin, foundation president, it’s taken less than 10 months for over half the schools in Madison to meet a challenge grant aimed […]
Residents Meet to Discuss Future of Madison Schools
Channel3000: Madison residents met Thursday night to share ideas and concerns about the future of area schools. A district-wide community roundtable tackled issues dealing with budget cuts, school closures, and school board leadership. Residents from all over the city also discussed statewide education funding reform, keeping neighborhood schools open and improving the overall budget process. […]
“Why are You Sweating?”
Teacher Lance Chapman: I asked all 140 of my eighth-grade students to divide 10 by 2. Just eight of them wrote down 5. I knew my students would need remedial work, but I had no idea it would be to this extent. One of the first standards for eighth-grade physical science is manipulating this equation: […]
The Legacy of Little Rock
Shelby Steele: ifty years ago today, riot-trained troops from the 101st Airborne Division escorted nine black students through the doors of Central High School in Little Rock. Just 48 hours earlier, President Eisenhower deployed–in a single day–1,000 troops to restore order and to reassert federal authority in Arkansas’s capital city. For weeks the entire nation […]
Board Talks Will Focus on a New Blueprint
Susan Troller The Capital Times September 25, 2007 Football coach Barry Switzer’s famous quote, “Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple,” could easily apply to schools and school districts that take credit for students who enter school with every advantage and continue as high achievers all […]
“Politically Correct Trumps Substance Every Time”
Paul Soglin on Why the Prospects for Madison are so Bleak, Part II: “Struck by the number of residents who said if things don’t improve soon, they’ll consider moving elsewhere.” Good grief. Its been going on for over a decade and really picked up around 2000. The school enrollment figures clearly show that. And go […]
The HOPE (Having Options in Public Education) Coalition
The HOPE (Having Options in Public Education) Coalition is a grassroots group of concerned parents, educators, and community members who believe creating and sustaining new educational options would strengthen MMSD. New options in public schools would benefit students, families, teachers, and our community. Options are needed because “one size does not fit all”! The diversity […]
The Achievement Trap: How American is Failing Millions of High-Achieving Students from Lower-Income Families
Groundbreaking report just released by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. Here is the September 10, 2007, press release: MAJOR TALENT DRAIN IN OUR NATION’S SCHOOLS, SQUANDERING THE POTENTIAL OF MILLIONS OF HIGH-ACHIEVING, LOWER-INCOME STUDENTS, NEW REPORT UNCOVERS Current education policy focused on “proficiency” misses opportunity to raise achievement levels among the brightest, lower-income students WASHINGTON, […]
Engaging Our Community in Meaningful Public Deliberation: Facilitating Large Scale Dialogue
UW-Madison & Carolyn Lukensmeyer, via a reader’s email: UW-Madison is pleased to welcome Carolyn Lukensmeyer, founder and President of AmericaSpeaks, to our campus for a unique day-long workshop on Monday, September 24, 2007. “Engaging Our Community in Meaningful Public Deliberation: Facilitating Large Scale Dialogue” will provide a special opportunity for us to experience Carolyn’s special […]
Dual-language classes give U.S. an edge
AP: Days before the start of the school year, Fabrice Jaumont walked out of the French Consulate’s mansion on Fifth Avenue, his arms filled with boxes containing books, DVDs and CDs in his native tongue. He loaded them into the trunk of a car. Destination: the Bronx. The 35-year-old diplomat was headed to the public […]
French & British Education Climate Update
The Economist: Bac to School: LADEN with hefty backpacks, French children filed back to school this week amid fresh agonising about the education system. Given its reputation for rigour and secular egalitarianism, and its well-regarded baccalauréat exam, this is surprising. What do the French think is wrong? Quite a lot, to judge from a 30-page […]
Opportunities and Risk with the Departure of Madison School District Superintendent and Staff
Jason Shephard: This week, nearly 25,000 Madison schoolchildren will settle into the routines of a new school year defined by anticipation and anxiety about big changes to come. After eight years as superintendent, Art Rainwater, 64, will retire in June. Last week, the Madison school board moved decisively on its new top priority by agreeing […]
The Toughest Assignment: A Year with Montie Apostolos’ Eighth Grade Class
Stephanie Banchero & Heather Stone: At a school where every other reform had failed, Montie Apostolos was the last, best chance for students to succeed. She had been brought in because she produced impressive gains in reading test scores at her last school. She was tough. Her lessons were rooted in the best research, and […]
The Story and Science of the Reading Brain
Michael Dirda: Anyone who reads is bound to wonder, at least occasionally, about how those funny squiggles on a page magically turn into “Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang” or “After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain.” Where did this […]
Paying Parents to “Do the Right Thing”
Raina Kelley: Paying kids for good grades is a popular (if questionable) parenting tactic. But when school starts next week, New York City will try to use the same enticement to get parents in low-income neighborhoods more involved in their children’s education and overall health. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has raised more than $40 million (much […]
Kewaunee High School goes solar
From WFRV: KEWAUNEE (WFRV) – Tuesday morning, solar-electric panels were installed on the roof of Kewaunee High School. The panels are part of a system that will produce about 2,800 kilowatt-hours of electricity each year – that’s enough electricity to power three classrooms, which amounts to approximately $200 in energy savings per year to the […]
NY State Names 17 More ‘Persistently Dangerous’ Schools
Jennifer Medina: New York State education officials yesterday added 17 schools to the list of those considered “persistently dangerous,” substantially expanding the list for the second year in a row. All but 2 of the 27 schools on the new list are in New York City, including a dozen schools designed for students with severe […]
Education in Mexico: La Maestra
The Economist: A YEAR ago Felipe Calderón won a desperately close election for Mexico’s presidency by a margin of barely 200,000 votes. While there were many factors behind his victory, one that may have tipped the balance was the support of Elba Esther Gordillo, the head of the National Educational Workers’ Union, as the country’s […]
After School Activities Declining
Sarah Carr: During Rick Xiong’s first two years at Milwaukee’s Madison High School, his habit was to “go to school and get back home as fast as possible.” Sometimes Xiong, now a 19-year-old student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, would hear about after-school activities advertised during the morning announcements. But they never enticed him to […]
In Hong Kong, Flashy Tutors Gain Icon Status
Jonathan Cheng: When Richard Eng isn’t teaching English grammar to high-school students, he might be cruising around Hong Kong in his Lamborghini Murciélago. Or in Paris, on one of his seasonal shopping sprees. Or relaxing in his private, custom-installed karaoke room festooned with giant Louis Vuitton logos. Mr. Eng, 43 years old, is one of […]
Bringing Diversity to New York Elite High Schools
by Christine Kiernan Luis Rosario just completed fifth grade but he already thinks about attending an Ivy League college. And he would seem to be on his way. He won first prize in his district’s fifth grade science fair, scored high on the state math test, gets straight A’s and is fascinated by robotic sciences. […]
Fresh from the frontlines, New York Teaching Fellows tell all
Stacy Cowley and Neil deMause: The subway ads promise inspiration, fulfillment, and the kind of career satisfaction rarely found in an office cube. “Your spreadsheets won’t grow up to be doctors and lawyers,” one gently chides. “You remember your first-grade teacher’s name. Who will remember yours?” asks another. The posters are an effective lure for […]
Building ‘Smart Education Systems’
Robert Rothman: As the unprecedented push to improve American education enters the midpoint of its third decade, reformers can claim some success. Yet no one would argue that the job is done, particularly in the nation’s cities. Even the most successful urban school districts, the winners of the Broad Prize for Urban Education, would acknowledge […]
What Autistic Girls Are Made Of
Emily Bazelon: Caitlyn & Marguerite sat knee to knee in a sunny room at the Hawks Camp in Park City, Utah. On one wall was a white board with these questions: What’s your favorite vacation and why? What’s your favorite thing about yourself? If you could have any superpower, what would it be? Caitlyn, who […]
District SLC Grant – Examining the Data From Earlier Grants, pt. 1
The Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) recently submitted a five year, $5 million grant proposal to the US Department of Education (DOE) to support the creation of Small Learning Communities (SLCs) in all four high schools (See here for post re. grant application). While the grant proposal makes mention of the two smaller SLC grants […]
Governance Changes in the Milwaukee Public Schools
A surge of action and proposed action, a president who wants his hands on a lot of things and bad blood between board members – the heat is growing at Milwaukee School Board meetings, and it is creating an environment in which Superintendent William Andrekopoulos is facing the stiffest political challenges of his five years in office.
The election in April of Michael Bonds to replace Ken Johnson on the board, followed by the election of Peter Blewett as the board’s president, have put into power two people with strong feelings about doing things differently from the way Andrekopoulos wants.
And they are acting on those feelings.
A central role for the board president is to name members of the committees that do most of the board’s work. The president usually gives his allies the dominant positions but doesn’t put himself in many roles.
Blewett has done much more than that – he named himself chairman of two committees, one that handles the budget and strategic direction of Milwaukee Public Schools and one that handles questions of policy and rules, and he named himself as a member of two other major committees, handling finance and safety. He also named Bonds to head the Finance Committee, an unusual step, given that Bonds was brand new.
Blewett and Bonds, who have formed a generally close relationship, have also been submitting a relative flood of proposals for the board to take up. Since May 1, the two have submitted 34 resolutions between them, with nine others coming from the other seven members of the board.
Some seek major changes in MPS practices or to reopen issues previously decided by the board. Included would be reopening Juneau High School, reuniting Washington High School into one operation (it has been broken into three), restoring ninth-grade athletics and building up arts programs in schools.
The total of 43 resolutions is more than board members submitted in the entire year in six of the eight previous years. Seventeen resolutions were introduced at a board meeting last week, 14 of them written or co-written by Blewett or Bonds.
Although this might seem like a bureaucratic matter, it is a key element of efforts by Blewett and Bonds to shake up the central administration of MPS. They are challenging Andrekopoulos openly in ways not seen in prior years, when a firm majority of board members supported Andrekopoulos.
He and Bonds have been critical of Andrekopoulos and the previous board for not doing enough to listen to people in the city as a whole and for not providing enough information to the board.
Blewett said his main agenda item as president is “to engage the community.” Just holding public hearings or meetings around the community is not enough, he said, referring to a round of community meetings last fall on a new strategic plan for MPS as “spectacular wastes of time and money.” He said people who work in schools, parents and the community in general need meaningful involvement.
“I really want to make sure that we’re investigating every opportunity to engage the public and provide our students with quality learning experiences that get beyond reading and math,” he said.
Bonds said, “I have a very aggressive agenda to change the direction of the School District.”
He was strongly critical of policies such as the redesigning of high schools led by Andrekopoulos in recent years, including the creation of numerous small high schools.
“Given the resources we (MPS) have, we should be providing a better product,” he said. “I feel the administration has led us down a failed path.”There are similar issues at play in Madison. The local school board’s composition has significantly changed over the past few years – much for the better. Time will tell, whether that governance change translates into a necessary new direction for our $339M+, 24, 342 student Madison School District. Alan Borsuk is a Madison West High Grad.
Parents still seek the elusive ‘right’ school
Howard Blume & Carla Rivera: When it comes to looking out for her children and grandchildren, Patricia Britt, a no-nonsense hospital nursing director, is nobody’s fool. Yet here she is, in late July, beside herself because she hasn’t yet settled on a school for her 8-year-old grandson Corey to attend in the fall. Britt and […]
Tests Shouldn’t Be Last Word on State of Writing
Katherine Kersten: Minnesotans got what seemed like great news on the education front last month. The state Department of Education announced that in 2007, 92 percent of Minnesota 10th-graders and 91 percent of ninth-graders passed a writing test needed to graduate from high school. Cause for celebration? I must confess to skepticism. These through-the-roof passage […]
Madison School District Small Learning Community Grant Application
Madison Metropolitan School District: A Tale of Two Cities-Interrupted
Smaller Learning Communities Program CFDA #84.215L [Clusty Search]
NEED FOR THE PROJECT
Wisconsin. Home of contented cows, cheese curds, and the highest incarceration rate for African American males in the country. The juxtaposition of one against the other, the bucolic against the inexplicable, causes those of us who live here and work with Wisconsin youth to want desperately to change this embarrassment. Madison, Wisconsin. Capital city. Ranked number one place in America to live by Money (1997) magazine. Home to Presidential scholars, twenty times the average number of National Merit finalists, perfect ACT and SAT scores. Home also to glaring rates of racial and socio-economic disproportionality in special education identification, suspension and expulsion rates, graduation rates, and enrollment in rigorous courses. This disparity holds true across all four of Madison’s large, comprehensive high schools and is increasing over time.
Madison’s Chief of Police has grimly characterized the educational experience for many low income students of color as a “pipeline to prison” in Wisconsin. He alludes to Madison’s dramatically changing demographics as a “tale of two cities.” The purpose of the proposed project is to re-title that unfolding story and change it to a “tale of two cities-interrupted” (TC-I). We are optimistic in altering the plot based upon our success educating a large portion of our students and our ability to solve problems through thoughtful innovation and purposeful action. Our intent is to provide the best possible educational experience for all of our students.Much more on Small Learning Communities here [RSS SIS SLC Feed]. Bruce King’s evaluation of Madison West’s SLC Implementation. Thanks to Elizabeth Contrucci who forwarded this document (via Pam Nash). MMSD website.
This document is a fascinating look into the “soul” of the current MMSD Administration ($339M+ annual budget) along with their perceptions of our community. It’s important to note that the current “high school redesign” committee (Note Celeste Roberts’ comments in this link) is rather insular from a community participation perspective, not to mention those who actually “pay the bills” via property taxes and redistributed sales, income and user fees at the state and federal level.
Rating Our High Schools
Mary Erpanbach: Art Rainwater didn’t want us to do this. “I cannot imagine anything more destructive to how hard people in this community are trying to work together,” the city’s school superintendent said when we called to ask him the best way to compare Dane County’s high schools. And yet. It’s lost on no one, […]
California’s students get into college, but not always out
Justin Pope: For most of history, higher education has been reserved for a tiny elite. For a glimpse of a future where college is open to all, visit California — the place that now comes closest to that ideal. California’s community college system is the country’s largest, with 109 campuses, 4,600 buildings and a staggering […]
Helping students become ‘responsible citizens’?
Vin Suprynowicz: John Taylor Gatto, honored on several occasions as New York City and New York state teacher of the year, has made it the second part of his life’s work to determine why our government schools are so ineffective — why he always had to fight the bureaucracy above him in order to empower […]
Harvesting Kids
Andrew Gumbel: When I told some actor friends about my experience, they immediately labeled it a scam. So did officials from the Association of Talent Agents, and from the Screen Actors Guild. What surprised me was how sophisticated the scam was – the company had my children (and, I would imagine, many parents) eating out […]
150 Years of Milwaukee Marquette High School
Alan Borsuk: They don’t have that at Marquette University High School anymore. “I may have been in the last class where you were required to take Latin,” said Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who graduated in 1972. “There was something about the Gallic Wars the second year, that’s about all I remember.” Some things do change […]
Best And Worst School Districts For The Buck
Via a reader email: Christina Settimi: More spending doesn’t necessarily buy you better schools. With property taxes rising across the country, we took a look at per-pupil spending in public schools and weighed it against student performance–college entrance exam scores (SAT or ACT, depending on which is more common in the state), exam participation rates […]
High School of the Arts gets creative to erase debt
Sarah Carr: Prospects are looking brighter for the coming school year at cash-strapped Milwaukee High School of the Arts. But long term, the school’s fate will provide a case study for some of the major challenges facing public education today: Can a financially struggling public school find major private donors? Can a school with a […]
The “Small School Hype”
Diane Ravitch: I like small schools, but I also like middle-size schools. About ten years ago, Valerie Lee of the University of Michigan did a study in which she asked what was the ideal size for a high school, and she concluded that the ideal school was small enough for kids to be known by […]
Schools Diversity Based on Income Segregates Some
Jonathan Glater & Alan Finder: When San Francisco started trying to promote socioeconomic diversity in its public schools, officials hoped racial diversity would result as well. It has not worked out that way. Abraham Lincoln High School, for example, with its stellar reputation and Advanced Placement courses, has drawn a mix of rich and poor […]
“A Loss of Innocence: Young brothers’ lives are example of the lure of gangs”
Donovan Slack: Seven-year-old Brajon Brown is clearly a child. He hasn’t committed a crime, though he talks about it. His 12-year-old brother, Malcolm also is not in a gang – at least not one police recognize. He runs with a “crew” of friends formed when Malcolm was 9. Boston police call them “wannabes” and say […]
Board of Education Activity in 2006-07
A few weeks ago, the Madison BOE received a summary of what the board and its committees had done in its meetings during the past year. I am posting the entire document as an extended entry as community information. It provides a lot more detail, a good overview, and a glimpse at the pieces that […]
Education Leadership Policy Toolkit
Education Commission for the States, via MetLife: The Toolkit is the product of a two-year effort by ECS, underwritten by the MetLife Foundation, to enlarge awareness and understanding of the policies, practices and processes that serve to strengthen leadership for reform and improvement in schools and districts. Policymakers and educators across the nation can tap […]
Prep School Mired in Cheating Claims
Nanette Asimov: University Preparatory Charter High School in East Oakland bills itself as a high-end academy where students attract recruiters from the nation’s top universities. Photos of young scholars in caps and gowns grace its Web site above the names of colleges that accepted them — Oberlin, Dartmouth, Pomona, Whitman. But that bright image belies […]
In School Takeover, Newark Union Tries to Prove It’s Part of the Solution
Winnie Hu: When teachers are removed from their schools here, their first phone call is often to the powerful Newark Teachers Union. But now the union is telling as many as a dozen teachers at the troubled Newton Street School that they have to leave because they do not fit in with a plan to […]
A More Global Approach to Education
Jon Boone: Two of the world’s most buccaneering education entrepreneurs have teamed up to build 60 multimillion-dollar schools in big cities across the world. The network of high-end international schools will cater to the children of bankers, diplomats and executives who have to regularly uproot their families. With annual fees between $15,000 and $40,000, depending […]
Union to Help Charter Firm Start School in the Bronx
Jennifer Medina: Green Dot Public Schools, a charter school operator from Los Angeles, is seeking to expand into New York with the cooperation of the teachers’ union. Under the proposal, Green Dot, which is heavily financed by the billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad, would open a high school in the South Bronx. The school, which must […]
Wisconsin “Languishing” on Policies Affecting Teachers
National Council on Teacher Quality: [864K PDF Report] Area 1 – Meeting NCLB Teacher Quality Objectives: Grade C Wisconsin has better data policies than many states, which can help it ameliorate inequities in teacher assignments. The state’s subject matter preparation policies for future elementary teachers need improvement. Its requirements for future high school teachers are […]
More on WKCE scores – Missing Students
Chan Stroman posted a valuable and in-depth examination of the District’s WKCE scores, and is it in the spirit of that posting that I would like to share my own little examination of our most recent test results. Rather than focusing on the scores of our students, this is an investigation of the numbers of […]
Recruited to Rescue Washington’s Schools
Diana Jean Schemo: Fresh out of college, Michelle A. Rhee joined Teach for America, the fast-track teacher training program, landing at Harlem Park Community School in Baltimore. The public school ranked near the bottom in city reading and math scores, and as a new teacher, Ms. Rhee got a classroom of 35 children achieving the […]
Violin students traveling to Costa Rica
Jacob Stockinger: Nineteen middle school and high school violin students from the Madison area will tour Costa Rica, where they will perform for a week, starting Monday. The Sonora Strings, an advanced touring group of a private Suzuki string school in the city, will be led by Maria Rosa Germain, a classically trained violinist who […]
An Open Letter from Shwaw Vang on the Vang Pao Elementary School
Former Madison School Board Member Shwaw Vang, via Kristian Knutsen: The Board of Education will discuss reconsidering its decision to name the new elementary school after General Vang Pao because Vang Pao has been charged with a plot to overthrow a foreign country. Since the fall of the Laos monarchy and democracy in 1975, the […]
What is the price of a good education?
The Economist: AMONG the most commercial of cities, Hong Kong follows many markets; but none more intently than the trade in debentures tied to admissions to the city’s international primary and secondary schools. These non-interest-bearing bonds are typically issued to pay for construction or other costs. Bought by parents anxious to do the best by […]
Can D.C. Schools Be Fixed?
After decades of reforms, three out of four students fall below math standards. More money is spent running the schools than on teaching. And urgent repair jobs take more than a year . . .Dan Keating and V. Dion Haynes: Yet a detailed assessment of the state of the school system, based on extensive public […]
Accelerated Biology at West HS Stands Still
I have a friend who is fond of saying “never ascribe to maliciousness that which can be accounted for by incompetence.” These words have become a touchstone for me in my dealings with the Madison schools. I work harder than some people might ever believe to remember that every teacher, administrator and staff person I […]
“End the Vang Pao Debacle”
Marc Eisen: Finally, the Madison school board is showing signs it may back away from its wrongheaded decision to name a new elementary school for Hmong warlord Vang Pao. To a remarkable degree, the board has stubbornly ignored all evidence of Vang Pao’s bloody past. That’s because Madison’s emergent Hmong community has rallied behind the […]
The Next School Name
A Capital Times Editorial: The new elementary school on Madison’s far west side will not be named for Hmong Gen. Vang Pao, who has been arrested by federal authorities on charges of masterminding a plot to use money collected from Hmong refugees in the United States to massacre Laotians in a violent coup. Whether the […]
Mission Creep: How Large School Districts Lose Sight of the Objective — Student Learning
Mike Antonucci: The growth of education bureaucracy constitutes what former Education Secretary William Bennett once called “the education ‘blob.’” A 1998 study by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution defines “the blob” as nearly 40 Washington-based organizations, with more than 3,000 employees and combined budgets of more than $700 million. They have inter-locking directors, share staffs […]
Chinese See Piano as Key to Children’s Success
Robert Turnbull: Shanghai — NO one paying attention to recent musical trends in Asia can have failed to notice it: The Chinese are crazy about piano playing. Among city dwellers, there’s been nothing like this enthusiasm since the ’80s, when an embrace of the Japanese-originated Suzuki teaching method created a national army of child violinists. […]
Where Education Is a Matter of Prestige
Abdul Kargbo: In today’s debates about how best to improve student performance, little mention is made of how students’ personal views on learning may affect their academic achievement. Specifically, commentators seldom discuss students’ understanding of the utility of an education and the effects of this perception on how much they value education and how well […]
Law Enforcement and Crime Control in Madison — The Business Forum
Thursday, June 7, 2007 The Madison Club 11:30 a.m. – Networking 12:00 noon – Lunch & Program Sponsor: Jennifer Krueger, Murphy Desmond, S.C. The Madison area, we like to believe, offers many of the advantages of a larger city without the worst trials of big-city life – crime and violence among them. Recently, however, the […]
Madison School Board “Kowtows to Complainers”
Susan Lampert Smith: So kids, what did we learn from the Madison School Board’s decision Monday to reverse itself and not consolidate the half-empty Marquette and Lapham elementary schools? We learned that no doesn’t really mean no. We learned that, oops, maybe there is money after all. And most importantly, we learned that whoever yells […]
Denver’s Attempt to Address Their “Enrollment Gap”
Superintendent Michael Bennet and the Denver School Board: The Rocky Mountain News series, “Leaving to Learn [Denver Public Schools Enrollment Gap],” tells a painful and accurate story about the state of our school district. It is hard to admit, but it is abundantly clear that we will fail the vast majority of children in Denver […]
Radical Math in the NYC Department of Education
Sol Stern: Late last month, over 400 high school math teachers and education professors gathered in Brooklyn for a three-day conference, titled “Creating Balance in an Unjust World: Math Education and Social Justice.” Prominently displayed on the official program’s first page was a passage from Paulo Freire, the Brazilian Marxist educator and icon of the […]
A Model Middle School
Winnie Hu: Across New York State and the nation, educators are struggling with performance slumps in middle schools and debating how best to teach students at a transitional, volatile age. Just this week New York City put in place a new budget formula that directs extra money to middle schools. Briarcliff has emerged as a […]
Making Education Safe
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Editorial: More and more kids are arriving at school in Milwaukee with a bellyful of anger, which they vent by lashing out at teachers, other staffers and fellow students. Intensifying violence is bedeviling the Milwaukee Public Schools, distracting the system from its main mission: education. Advertisement Buy a link here Journal Sentinel reporter […]
Milwaukee Public Schools Violence Intensifying
Sarah Carr: An 18-year-old punches his school’s football coach and grabs his genitals. • Two middle-school age sisters jump a police officer called to calm a disturbance. • A grandmother charges a group of students at an elementary school, and then strikes the principal. • A boy tries to sell a gun to his friend […]
A public school with a private-school mission
The “Stuyvesant of the East” has become one of the most sought-after public schools in the city. It got that way by leaving much of the public out. Jeff Coplon: As light faded on the first arctic day of winter, a band of 40 die-hard parents huddled on Seventh Avenue, outside Region 9 headquarters of […]
Letter to School Board Members & a Meeting with Enis Ragland
Sue Arneson, Jason Delborne, Katie Griffiths, Anita Krasno, Dea Larsen Converse, Diane Milligan, Sich Slone, Grant Sovern, Lara Sutherlin: Dear School Board Members: A group of neighbors from the Marquette and Tenney-Lapham communities met this morning with Enis Ragland, Assistant to the Mayor. While we didn’t claim to represent any organizations, many of us have […]
Lapham Marquette Statement
There has been bitterness, surprise and resentment over my vote with respect to the Lapham/Marquette consolidation. I would like to let people know why I voted to move the alternative programs to Marquette. I have a mix of emotions several days after the storm and hope you find it helpful to understand the process from […]
Chicago Public School Leaders Seek Governance Changes
Tracy Dell’Angela: For the second time in a decade, Chicago Public Schools leaders are making a push in Springfield to restrict the power of local school councils to hire and fire principals. Board President Rufus Williams and other district leaders met with key legislators last week to discuss possible changes to the 1995 School Reform […]
School district biting hand that feeds it
A letter to the editor from The Capital Times: Dear Editor: With the multitude of challenges it’s facing, the Madison Metropolitan School District needs all the friends it can get. But the district is alienating central city neighborhoods that value quality public education and the people who are willing to pay for it. At election […]
Class Dismissed: NYC’s Rubber Rooms
Mara Altman: Imagine that your boss wants you to sign a document accusing you of something you don’t believe you did—a fireable offense like assaulting someone at work, for example—and your response is not only to refuse to sign, but to let loose a damning accusation that your boss was making up the allegation. And, […]
Isthmus growth continues; closing plans shortsighted
Development on the isthmus continues, according to two two stories in the news today, making the prospect of closing central-city schools rather shortsighted. From a longer story by Mike Ivey in The Capital Times: E. Dayton Apartments: In other action Monday night, a plan from developer Scott Lewis and architect John Sutton for a five-story, […]
Looking at KIPP, Coolly and Carefully
Jay Matthews: Some critics decry the way the Knowledge Is Power Program presents itself as the savior of inner city education. My answer: KIPP doesn’t do that. We sloppy journalists do. Let me present Exhibit A: The latest annual report card from the KIPP Foundation in San Francisco. It has 93 pages of remarkable data. […]
NYC Schools New Deal with their Principals
David Herszenhorn: The deal would increase base pay by 23 percent, compounded over nearly seven years, and add 15 minutes to principals’ and assistant principals’ workdays. The contract would also revamp how principals are rated on their performance each year, discarding the blunt thumbs-up or thumbs-down system under which they are labeled either satisfactory or […]
Schools out: Detroit closures complicate education, economics
Sandra Svoboda: No one talked about — unless asked, and then only in hushed tones so the 238 children who attend school there couldn’t hear — the Detroit school board’s recent vote to close the building at the end of this academic year and to relocate students and staff. “It’s always in the back of […]
“Time for National Standards”
Denis Doyle: The case for national standards is so self-evidently powerful that I am always surprised that it has to be made. Indeed, for years I have expected national standards to emerge spontaneously, with state after state seeing the wisdom of pooling resources rather than re-inventing standards 50 times over. After all, America is rich […]
Grade 5 Strings – Letter to School Board
Please write the School Board about what is important to you and your state legislature about funding our public schools. Following is a copy of my letter to the school board on Grade 5 strings: Dear School Board Members (comments@madison.k12.wi.us), I am happy to serve as a member of the newly created Fine Arts Task […]
Thank you from Marj
From Marj Passman’s Web site: Thank you Madison voters: This campaign began, in my mind, for the children of Madison. ALL the children. It wasn’t about the parents – let me repeat – it was about our young people. Every single person who came on board and worked their hearts out did it for the […]
Ruth Robarts: Let’s take school closings off the table, start the planning needed for another referendum
Ruth Robarts, who supports Maya Cole and Rick Thomas for School Board, wrote the following letter to the editor: I voted no on Carol Carstensen’s proposed three-year referendum for several reasons. First, a referendum requires careful planning. Two weeks’ notice did not allow the School Board to do the necessary analysis or planning. Second, the […]
Keep the board functional: Vote Cole
A year ago, I joined other volunteers to help with the recount of the votes in Maya Cole’s slim loss to Arlene Silviera. After the recount had been going for a while (I can’t remember whether it was the second or third day), the process clipped along smoothly with volunteers and the city clerk’s staff […]
