Ad Age has a report out on a move by McDonald’s to pick up the printing costs for report cards.
A Happy Meal coupon is included on the card’s cover. “With 27,000 elementary school kids taking their report-card jackets home to be signed three or four times a year, that’s less than 2 cents per impression.”
I guess healthy food advocates can pay for their own report cards.
Robert Godfrey
Filed under AMPS, Best Practices, Budget, National News, Quote of the Day
I have the honor of serving on the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools interim board with Ruth Page Jones. She also heads up Project ABC (Waukesha). She has been fighting the good fight on many fronts for many years.
Her testimony before the Senate Education Comittee speaks for itself (click here for the video). One thing I’d like to highlight is her remarks about guidance counselors, they reminded me of this recent quote of the day from Gloria Balton of Anacostia High School, Washington DC:
“You need more psychologists in the school. You need more counselors in the school, because when you can address the needs of the soul, then you can get them to perform.”
Ms Page Jones also had a great guest column in the Milwaukee Jounal Sentinel recently. Here is an excerpt:
The alliance champions an adequacy approach to reform because we put education and kids first. The Pope-Roberts/Breske resolution that was the topic of the recent Senate Education Committee hearing asks all members of the Legislature to do the same…
The resolution offers a road map to better education for our children. Rep. Sondy Pope-Roberts (D-Middleton), Sen. Roger Breske (D-Eland), their 60 co-sponsors and innumerable supporters ask only that our elected officials commit to making a positive change. That means providing the resources schools need based on the actual costs of effective education while holding the line on local property taxes.
Numerous experts from across the United States have defined the resources necessary for schools to meet state and federal performance standards as well as addressing the diverse needs of districts and students.
Funding adequacy is a critical first step toward restoring educational excellence in Wisconsin, moving us all to a more prosperous future.
Video from Wisconsin Eye — the full November 15 hearing can be accessed here — , excerpts posted via YouTube, playlist of all hearing videos posted thus far, here.
Thomas J. Mertz
Former Madison Mayor Paul Soglin has given sporadic attention to state school finance issues on his blog. More would be better, but today’s is good:
The Tragedy That is California Education and Now Wisconsin
A trip last week to Los Angeles and San Francisco served as a graphic reminder of the rise and fall of public education in the state of California since the adoption of Proposition 13. The enactment of that law after a 1978 referendum created an unfair tax system, taxing property not on its use, its present value, or its potential for development, but the assessment on the day it was purchased.
The result not only creates an imbalance in taxation but it strangles deprives government of needed revenues. The most important example is California public education. In the three decades following World War II, California public schools were the best in the nation. Now they are among the worst.
Within California, test results and rankings of their schools show a clear delineation along economic lines. Schools in wealthy communities score the best. Obviously, schools in low income areas do poorly.
Starved for adequate funding, each school is dependent upon activist parents and community leaders to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars each and every year. It is no surprise that the poorest communities fail miserably at this semi-privatization of education.
One impact of Proposition 13 was, in part, to privatize the schools. Public schools cannot survive without private resources. The same thing is occurring in Wisconsin where restraints on school expenditures from public funds results in continued fundraising. Some communities like Madison centralize the fundraising for the entire district so that all schools share equitably in the private monies.
In the meantime, while some taxpayers can point to significant savings, the quality of education suffers at greater expense to all of us, particularly those dependent upon a well educated workforce.
If there are problems with the public education system, then fix it. Ensuring failure was not a wise choice.
One correction, Soglin wrote: “Some communities like Madison centralize the fundraising for the entire district so that all schools share equitably in the private monies.”
Madison does not do this. PTO raised funds are not pooled, individual donations may be targeted to individual schools or purposes, the Foundation for Madison Public Schools’ grants are often for a single school and their endowment program is based on matching grants. There is much, much inequity in MMSD fundraising.
For more on wealthy schools (or schools serving wealthy kids) scoring high, see the US News and World Report “Best High Schools” ranking/.
I hate these rankings. If I have time I’ll do a little thing on the method and methodology of the US News & World Report ranking, but without taking the time to look closely at how the rankings are made they are a complete waste of time. Sometimes even after looking they are a waste of time, more often they are interesting but not useful. At least this one is an improvement on Jay Mathews’ ridiculous “Challenge Index” (scroll to comments).
Thomas J. Mertz
Filed under Accountability, AMPS, Best Practices, Gimme Some Truth, National News
Fund a Classroom Project in Madison
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