Daily Archives: April 19, 2007

by | April 19, 2007 · 9:05 pm

Saving Our Schools: State Level Update and Next Steps

The Assembly Parlor was PACKED today for Rep. Sondy Pope-Roberts’ press conference calling on the Legislature to reform school finance by July 2009. Speakers came from the Florence School District up north, Waukesha, Madison and Milwaukee. Madison West Senior Jacinth Sohi did a FABULOUS job putting a human face on what the budget cuts have meant to Madison students. Great job, Jacinth and the Madison Student Council! (Look at the picture in today’s Cap Times to see how our students created a visual image of school funding problems).

So, next steps??

— Contact the two legislative chairs of education and ASK FOR A HEARING ON SCHOOL FINANCE REFORM. (Brett Davis in the Assembly Rep.Davis@legis.wisconsin.gov or 266-1192; John Lehman in the Senate at Sen.Lehman@legis.wisconsin.gov or 266-1832. This can get the ball rolling on encouraging the Legislature to put something concrete into action to reform school finance.

— Contact every member of the Joint Committee on Finance to ask them for increased funding this year for Categorical Aids (special education: $45 million this year; $55 million this year to put the state more in line with its two-thirds commitment to districts to fund special education) and renewed commitment to SAGE Funding in line with the Governor’s recommendations. Joint Finance contact info here and email contacts here.

— Write your letters to the editor:

wsjopine@madison.com
tctvoice@madison.com
edit@isthmus.com

— Attend the April 25 6:30 meeting of the MMSD Legislative Action Group (location to be determined) Contact Ken Syke at MMSD for more info at ksyke@madison.k12.wi.us or Arlene Silveira at

— Meet with Lowell School Parents at 3:30 iApril 25 n the Capitol Rotunda to visit Sen. Mark Miller (joint Finance) and Lowell parent Rep. Joe Parisi. If other parents meet, they can probably split up and visit other key legislators as well. For more info, contact Lynn at 242-9355, Jill at 249-4377 or Jack at mjtrudell@charter.net Find out who your legislators are by going here.

More info on the MMSD website, including sample letters and all Joint Finance contact info.

And for specifics on school finance reform, read “Death by a Thousand Cuts” at the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools site.

Thanks!!
Beth Swedeen

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Filed under AMPS, Pope-Roberts/Breske Resolution, School Finance, Take Action

by | April 19, 2007 · 8:45 pm

My Referendum and Budget Letter

April 19, 2007
Members of the MMSD Board of Education
545 West Dayton Street
Madison, WI 53703

I am asking today that the Board of Education begin planning for an operating referendum to be held on February 19th, 2008 and pending the outcome of that referendum refrain from closing schools and eliminating programs that will be difficult to restart.

The budget recommendations presented by the administration are not unreasonable, but they are far from desirable. The broken state finance system has forced the consideration of many undesirable options. The consolidation plans and the elimination of strings would be difficult to undo and would cause long range harm to our community’s faith in and support for our schools. I believe that there are other, also undesirable but less irreparable ways to balance the 2007-2008 budget. A successful well-designed referendum would move the district’s budget discussions from trying to do the least harm to trying to do the most good.

Referenda are not easy; they require the board to have the courage to say there is no other way, they require hard work on the part of volunteer community members willing to educate the electorate on the good our schools do and the harm being done by the state finance system, they divide our communities and can reveal a loss of faith in our schools, or Board members and our administration. They are also the only tool we have to under the current system to assure that our children get the education they deserve and our community is allowed to support the schools as we wish. I sat through many of the Special Joint Committee on School Finance sessions in 2006. As district after district related heartbreaking stories of the cuts they had made due to the broken school funding system, they were told again and again by some committee members that best and only answer was to “go to referendum.” I don’t believe it is the only answer – I am one of many in Madison and statewide who are working to fix that system – but it is the only answer we have in the short term.

Many in Madison believe that a referendum is needed now or will at very least be needed for the 2008-2009 budget. School closings will make this referendum more difficult to pass.

Referenda are often called band-aids. There is some truth to this in that they do not provide a long-term cure to the ills of under funded schools. However, they do staunch the bleeding and buy time for a cure to be obtained. If your child were bleeding, you would use whatever was at hand to stop that bleeding before they suffered irreparable harm. That is what I am asking the board to do.

I am not alone in this. You will be receiving a letter with close to 150 signatures, asking the same thing. These signatories and those who collected them have demonstrated their willingness to do the work to educate the community and work for the passage of a referendum. Please have the courage give them that chance and give the voters of Madison the opportunity to make their voices heard at the ballot box.

Thomas J. Mertz

J.C. Wright Middle School Parent
2007-2008 Franklin-Randall Parent
Member MMSD Equity Task Force
Member Advocates for Madison Public Schools
Co-Chair Communities and Schools Together
Member Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools

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Filed under AMPS, Budget, Equity, Local News, Referenda, School Finance, Take Action

by | April 19, 2007 · 2:41 am

Listen to Emerson Verse on WSUM 91.7 FM Thursday, April 19th 1 – 2 p.m.

Emerson verse to air on radio
Susan Troller
The Capital Times

It’s fitting that students from Emerson Elementary School will be performing their original poetry on a local radio show on Thursday. After all, their school is the namesake of Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of America’s most famous essayists and literary figures, and April is National Poetry Month.

But when you ask the kids why they like poetry, they don’t talk about history or literature. They just say it’s fun.

Whether it’s a simple “Roses are red, violets are blue, That’s all I can think of, What about you?” or a longer piece on heroic sled dogs, clearly the Emerson students get a kick out of using language to make a creative point.

About 50 students from first through fifth grades have been working on a poetry project with their teachers and volunteer Paul Baker, host of WSUM’s “Wordsalad,” a weekly poetry show on the UW-Madison student station.

Baker has been recording the students’ words and will present them, backed by music, on his radio show Thursday from 1 to 2 p.m. WSUM is at 91.7 FM on the radio dial or can be accessed online. Baker said that it appears that this project combining student poetry and a radio broadcast is unique in the U.S.

Baker, who has a professional job working for the Wisconsin Center for Educational Research, does his radio show as a voluntary labor of love. The genesis for the program came when he discovered there was a large body of poetry recorded in the poets’ original voices.

“There’s poetry recorded by people like Sylvia Plath and Gertrude Stein and, of course, all kinds of new young voices. These words, spoken by their authors, are rarely heard, and I thought that might make interesting radio,” Baker explained.

“There is this bright, shining and pure quality to what elementary kids write, and how they say it,” he added. “It’s refreshing to hear.”

Last fall, Baker began talking with an old friend, Denise Janssen, who is a special education teacher at Emerson, about his radio show. He told her he’d like to include elementary school student poets on the show, and would like to do it in time for National Poetry Month.

Teachers found the project a good complement to their curriculum.

“Poetry enhances vocabulary and encourages fluency, smoothness, rhythm and cadence in language arts,” first-grade teacher Rosy Bayuk said. “It’s fun and playful for all kids, and for the students who are linguistically creative, it’s a wonderful outlet for expression. It really hooks them on writing, and reading.”

posted by Janet Morrow

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Filed under AMPS, Local News