Monthly Archives: August 2009
Back to School
A couple of great WPA posters, a few songs and a couple of links to take you back to school. Chuck Berry – “School Days” (click to listen or download) Nirvana – “School” (click to listen or download) The Ramones … Continue reading
Filed under education, Local News
WAES School Funding Reform Update
From the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools; table of contents below, click here for pdf of the full update. Now is the time to sign up for funding reform discussion Madison and Beloit newspapers call for funding reform Racine and … Continue reading
Filed under "education finance", education, finance, School Finance, Take Action
AMPS House Cleaning — Link Troubles
One of the truths of the internet is links die. The Madison Metropolitan School District recently remade their website (comments on that welcome). This made many of the links to district documents obsolete. Much of the old material can still … Continue reading
Filed under AMPS, Local News
Education Tweak #10
All Ed Tweaks can be found at: http://edtweak.org/. Thomas J. Mertz
Filed under Accountability, Arne Duncan, education, Gimme Some Truth, National News
Ready, Set,…No
Generation X, “Ready, Steady, Go” (click to listen or download) 1910 Fruitgum Company, “1, 2, 3 Red Light” (click to listen or download) With much joy and no little fanfare, the preliminary budget passed by the Madison Metropolitan School District … Continue reading
Filed under "education finance", Best Practices, Budget, Contracts, finance, Local News, School Finance, Uncategorized
Schools and (Property) Taxes — Misdirection, Wrong Direction
As the state budget was being finalized we heard a lot from the Governor and legislative power players about how they had not raised taxes significantly (and here). That talk was meant to direct attention away from the the very … Continue reading
Filed under "education finance", Budget, education, finance, Local News, School Finance, Take Action
How Long, How Long Blues
Leroy Carr. “How Long, How Long Blues, Pt. 1″ (click to listen or download) There was an interesting quote from my State Representative, Mark Pocan, in the Wisconsin State Journal story on the prospects of Governor Jim Doyle’s agenda as … Continue reading
Filed under "education finance", Arne Duncan, Budget, education, Elections, finance, Local News, School Finance, Uncategorized
“Let’s get to work.”
A hopeful voice emerged today in an editorial in the Wisconsin State Journal, a venue that wasn’t always convinced in the past of the need for education finance reform. School finance reform should be at the top of Gov. Jim … Continue reading
Filed under "education finance", AMPS, finance, Gimme Some Truth, Quote of the Day, School Finance
A need for pigeonholes
Thomas J. Mertz highlighted some inherent problems with the “Cluster Grouping” scheme envisioned in MMSD’s Talented and Gifted Plan. Given the swift policy creation the board is starting to enact, it is useful to highlight some of the potential downsides … Continue reading
Filed under AMPS, Best Practices, education, Equity, Gimme Some Truth, No Child Left Behind
Small Change(s) — MMSD TAG Plan
The changes made to the Madison Metropolitan School District Talented and Gifted Plan, in response to concerns raised by one or more Board members at the August 10 meeting, are smaller than I anticipated. There are also some other — … Continue reading
Filed under Best Practices, education, Equity, Local News, Uncategorized
