Author Archives: Thomas J. Mertz

by | October 25, 2009 · 12:55 pm

Who are they kidding? “State Representatives Strive To Continue Wisconsin’s Legacy of Education”

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Video  and story from WSAW (sorry about the advertisement)

There has been a lot of hot air, half truths, spin and misinformation about education funding in the 2009-11 Wisconsin biennial budget, but this story from Wausau takes the prize (for a recent, local entry in this sweepstakes of dishonor, see this column by Madison Rep. Mark Pocan, page 16 of the pdf).  Democratic Rep.  Thomas Nelson and Republican Rep. Jerry Petrowski claim in this report that their parties are constant champions of education who have placed educational excellence on the Fall legislative agenda.

The editing by the reporter may have  skewed things, Nelson and Petrowski may be capable legislators; I really don’t know.  What I do know is that what appeared in this story needs some critical attention.

Time for some fact checking.

So far the only Republican initiative of note is a proposal from Sen. Alberta Darling and Rep.  Brett Davis on “merit pay” for teachers.  Right now the proposal is nothing but a press release.  It is worth noting that previous school reform plans (and here) by Brett Davis never made it past the press release stage.

The announced Democratic Fall agenda is silent on education; Governor Jim Doyle has some ideas, but not much to say about funding these ideas or even the quality of education that Wisconsin has boasted of in the recent past.

Nelson  touts tripling sparsity aid to some rural districts.  What isn’t mentioned is that the resulting $11.18 million for the biennium is a drop in the bucket and doesn’t come near to addressing the unique diseconomies of scale of Wisconsin’s “small but necessary” districts.  Nelson also doesn’t acknowledge that this increase in a categorical aid was accompanied by a much larger decrease in general aids resulting in a substantial  net loss for all (or almost all?) districts receiving sparsity payments (to get the picture compare this list of sparsity distribution estimates with this list of general aid estimates for all districts, or just read this wonderful editorial from Frank Murphy in Florence).  I’m all for an increase in sparsity aid, but that alone does not make for  adequate school funding.

Petrowski is correct when he said “In the last budget that Democrats passed, was a cut for local school districts… and I’m afraid these cuts will affect [property] tax payers.”  What he doesn’t say is that the GOP stance throughout the budget process was to claim taxes and spending were too high and that at no point did the Republicans attempt to increase state education funding.

Enough of the back-and-forth, the real howler is in the closing lines of the story:

But at the end of the day no matter what side of the isle [sic] State Representatives are on..

“Democrats and Republicans in good economic times and tough economic times have always made the consistent decision to fully fund our schools,” says Representative Nelson.

Amazing…after 16 years under our current school finance system, after a Governor’s Task Force, a Special Joint Committee, an independent task force, proposals from Republicans ,  Democrats and advocacy organizations (and here) all agreeing that school finance is broken and needs to be fixed; after a biennial budget that cut state education investments by $535 million, increased the school levy credits — money that never goes near a classroom, but is counted by Wisconsin as “State Aid — by $352,852,200, a 26% increase bringing the total to $1,697,625,200 for the biennium… Nelson asserts a long term bi-partisan consensus for full funding of education.   Who is he kidding?  Who are they all kidding?

For a refreshing (and depressing) dose of  truth see this recent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story: “”State aid drops to many school districts” (or just click around in the AMPS archives).

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | October 21, 2009 · 3:37 pm

Gerald Bracey Will be Missed

Sad news for anyone concerned with honesty and accuracy in education research and reporting, Jerry Bracey has died unexpectedly.

No news reports, but did get a confirmation from Susan Ohanian.

Jerry fought the good fight, with the Education Disinformation Detection and Reporting Agency (EDDRA), on the Huffington Post, in books, articles, columns, calls and notes to editors and reporters, anywhere and anytime that education research was being misused and abused or was simply badly done.

I never met Jerry, but I’ve been a participant in his EDDRA Yahoo Group and have exchanged private messages.  He was combative, friendly and good humored, with a passion for truth and the power of knowledge and education.

One thing that always impressed me was the depth and breadth of his knowledge.   He could always call up and cite relevant reports and articles, new and old,  with apparent ease.  That can’t be replaced.

He will be missed.

Some links to other blogs noting this loss.

DairyStateDad.

EdWonk.

Mike Klonsky’s Small Talk.

Education Notes OnLine.

Giving Jerry the last word (he always seemed to want it), his Nine Myths About Public Schools.

Nine Myths About Public Schools

None of this will likely strike you as particularly new, but it might be good to have a bunch of myths lined up and debunked all in one place.

  1. The schools were to blame for letting the Russians get into space first. Granddaddy of all slanders and a great illustration of the absolute nuttiness with which people talk about education.
    Sputnik, the first man-made satellite to orbit the earth, launched on October 4, 1957. On September 20, 1956, Werner von Braun’s Army Ballistic Missile Agency launched a 4-stage Jupiter C rocket from Cape Canaveral. After the first 3 stages fired, the rocket was 832 miles in the air and traveling at 13,000 miles an hour. The 4th stage could have easily bumped something into orbit. The 4th stage was filled with sand. There were a number of reasons for this including the fact that the Eisenhower administration was determined to keep its weapons rocket program and its space exploration project separate and von Braun’s rocket was clearly a weapon. Its primary intent was to incinerate Russian cities with nuclear warheads. Ike worried how the Russians might react. His Assistant Defense Secretary Donald Quarles actually said “the Russians did us a favor” because they established the precedent that deep space was free and international.Most US engineers in the space program in 1957 would have graduated high school in the 1930s, but in the media, the schools of the 1950s took the hit for Sputnik. Ike was quite puzzled by this.
  2. Schools alone can close the achievement gap. This is codified in the disaster known as No Child Left Behind. Most of the differences come from family and community variables and many out-of-school factors, especially summer loss. Some studies have found that poor children enter school behind their middle class peers, learn as much during the year and then lose it over the summer. They fall farther and farther behind and schools are blamed. Middle class and affluent kids do not show summer loss.
  3. Money doesn’t matter. Tell this to wealthy districts. Money clearly affects changes in achievement although levels of achievement are more influenced by the variables just mentioned. Most studies are short term and look only at test scores, a very foolish mistake. Economists David Card and Alan Krueger also found investments in school show a payoff in terms of long-term earnings of graduates.
  4. The United States is losing its competitive edge. China and India ARE Rising. As economies collapsed all around it, China’s economy grew a remarkable 7% last year. On just humanitarian grounds, we should not wish China and India to remain poor forever, but the more they grow the more money they have to buy stuff from us. As China and India prosper, we prosper. The World Economic Forum and the Institute for Management Development have consistently ranked the U. S. economy as the most competitive in the world. Education is only one part of multi-factor systems in rankings. WEF is especially keen on innovation. Our obsession with testing makes testing a great instrument for destroying creativity.
  5. The U. S. has a shortage of scientists, mathematicians and engineers. This was a myth started oddly enough by the National Science Foundation in the 1980s in a study with assumptions so absurd the study was never published, but the myth lingers on. In fact, Hal Salzman of the Urban Institute and Lindsay Lowell of Georgetown University found that we have three newly minted scientists and engineers who are permanent residents or native citizens for every newly minted job. Within 2 years, 65% of them were no longer in scientific or engineering fields. That proportion might have fallen during the current debacle when people are more likely to hang on to a job even if they hate it. An article in the September 18 Wall Street Journal reported that before the economy collapsed, 30% of the graduates of MIT–MIT–headed directly into finance.
  6. Merit pay for teachers will improve performance. Bebchuk & Fried Pay Without Performance. Adams, Heywood & Rothstein, Teachers, Performance Pay, and Accountability. Bonus pay is concentrated in finance, insurance, and real estate. In most of private sector hard to determine and often leads to corruption and gaming the system. Campbell’s Law: “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort the social processes it is intended to monitor.”
  7. The fastest growing jobs are all high-tech and require postsecondary education. “Postsecondary education” is a weasel word. A majority of the fastest growing jobs do, in fact, require some kind of postsecondary training. But, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, they account for very few jobs. It’s the Walmarts and Macdonald’s of America that generate the jobs. According to the BLS, the job of retail sales accounts for more jobs than the top ten fastest growing jobs combined.
  8. Test scores are related to economic competitiveness. We do well on international comparisons of reading, pretty good on one international comparison of math and science, and not so good on another math/science comparison. But these comparisons are based on the countries’ average scores and average scores don’t mean much. The Organization for Economic Cooperating and Development, the producer of the math science comparison in which we do worst has pointed out that in science the U. S. has 25% of all the highest scoring students in the entire world, at least the world as defined by the 60 countries that participate in the tests. Finland might have the highest scores, but that only gives them 2,000 warm bodies compared to the U. S. figure of 67,000. It’s the high scorers who are most likely to become leaders and innovators. Only four nations have a higher proportion of researchers per 1000 fulltime employees, Sweden, Finland, New Zealand and Japan. Only Finland is much above the U. S.  Consider Japan, the economic juggernaut of the 1980’s. It kids score well on tests and people made a causal link between scores and Japan’s economy. But Japan’s economy has been in the doldrums for almost a whole generation. Its kids still ace tests.
  9. Education itself produces jobs. President Obama and Secretary of Education Duncan have both linked any economic recovery to school improvement. This is nonsense. There are parts of India where thousands of educated people compete for a single relatively low-level white-collar job. Some of you might recall that in the 1970’s many sociologists and commentators worried that America was becoming TOO educated, that they would be bored by the work available

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | October 21, 2009 · 8:06 am

Headline of the Day — “School budget decreases, tax levy increases”

down-and-up-arrows

Parilament, “Up for the Down Stroke” (click to listen or download)..

This headline from the the Beaver Dam Daily Citizen succinctly captures what is happening all over Wisconsin, including Madison.  This is what the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools and the School Finance Network are talking about here.  This is why we need Pennies for Kids to meet the unfolding crisis and why we need comprehensive reform to assure a strong and prosperous future for our state.  This is why you need to get involved.

Here are excerpts from the story on the Waupun Area district:

School budget decreases, tax levy increases

…“It’s a concern Randy [Refsland, district administrator] and I have because next year’s budget might look even tougher,” Zeininger said. “The state of Wisconsin is in bad shape and I think it’s going to take longer than just this year to turn things around.”

…“With economics the way they are, I have real sympathy for the tax payers,” Lori Lemmenes, school board president, said. “We also need to look to the future.”

Really, the headline says it all.

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | October 19, 2009 · 3:49 pm

Doyle Races for the Top and One Reaction (and one more, updated)

Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle held events around the state today to tout the work being done on the Race to the Top application.  You can read the press release here and reports here and here (more on AMPS in the coming days).

The Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools was first out of the blocks with a reaction. WAES notes that this set of proposal comes at a time when districts around the state are raising property taxes and cutting programs.

Governor Jim Doyle has introduced a plan to exempt from revenue limits school districts that meet specific criteria. The plan does recognize the need for change in the funding system, but it fails to address the crisis our schools find themselves in and doesn’t start the fundamental restructuring of our school finance laws that is so badly needed.

“While we appreciate the governor’s efforts to address the problems, the plan just doesn’t get the job done and continues the trend of shifting the responsibility for funding schools onto local property taxpayers,” said Kim Suhr, co-founder of GrassRoots of Waukesha County and a member of the board of directors of the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools (WAES).

“The fact is that the way we fund schools is broken. Wholesale reform of school funding is needed now─reform that benefits both children and their communities.”

First, however, Wisconsin needs to quickly reverse the trend of declining public school aid started in the 2009-11 state budget. In total, 336 school districts lost over $175 million in general aid, a cut of over 15 percent for many communities and 10 percent or more for 181 districts.

“After 15 years of cuts to programs and services under the present funding system, that is unacceptable,” Suhr said. “The best way out of our current economic downturn is to graduate the best trained and educated young people possible from our schools. Decreasing that investment in public education is heading in the wrong direction.”

As a matter of fact, in his announcement today, the Governor had many good arguments for a longer school year, longer school days, and many other suggestions for better educating children. We need to have discussions about the educational merits of those proposals, but in many case such changes will require additional funding.

The WAES statement points to confusing fact that the programs proposed in this scramble for approximately $80 million in one-time federal funds cost money, money that districts do not have because the recent state budget included lower revenue caps, a cut in state funding of $535 million over two years, and increased the school levey credit by $352 million (the levy credit is called “state aid” by Wisconsin, but not a penny goes to schools).  The first step toward educational excellence has to be getting state support to the level it should be.

WAES also has an idea for that, a Penny for Kids dedicated sales tax.

To address the crisis by getting needed revenue back into schools as soon as possible, WAES has proposed “Pennies for Kids,” a plan to increase Wisconsin’s sales tax─one of the lowest in the country─by one-cent. Suhr said that will raise about $850 million a year that could be used to educate children and lower property taxes in every community in the state (2009 Wisconsin Act 28, 2009-11 State Budget; Summary Tables and Charts, July 22, 2009).

A discussion of the Governors proposals could be good for education in Wisconsin.  Whatever reforms are eventually enacted and whatever the result of Wisconsin’s Race to the Top application; if there aren’t provisions for adequate, equitable and sustainable investments, all the good ideas in the world won’t make a bit of difference (see what is happening with SAGE for an example).  A Penny for Kids could make  a big difference.  Pennies add up.

For an AMPS post on an earlier version of the Governor’s proposal, see here.

Update

The School Finance Network has  issued a statement.  SFN also zeroes in on the lack of attention to needed educational investments.

Earlier today, Governor Jim Doyle proposed exempting school districts that meet specific criteria from revenue limits. While the governor’s proposal reflects Wisconsin school districts’ need for greater flexibility, it falls well short of the fundamental restructuring of our school finance laws that is so badly needed.

“While we appreciate the governor’s efforts to address the problems with school funding in this state, his proposal simply papers over holes in the current funding plan and continues the trend of shifting the responsibility for funding schools onto local property tax payers,” said Jill Gaskell, Legislative Liaison, Wisconsin PTA. “Wholesale reform of school funding is needed now – reform that benefits both children and their communities.”

….It is important to note that revenue limits were brought in as part of the state’s commitment to funding two-thirds of the costs of schools. Over the years, that support has decreased considerably, creating a situation where the cost of schools has been increasingly shouldered by local taxpayers.

“The state continues to pass the school funding buck to local property tax payers,” said Gaskell. “The governor’s plan simply speeds that process up.”

Allowing for greater property tax increases is not only bad in theory, in practice very few districts will be able to take advantage of the offer. With the recent shift in education investments from state aid to local property taxes, more and more districts are already unable to reach their revenue limits. This situation has become so pronounced that Assembly Bill 461 has been introduced to make sure that districts that go under the limit are not punished with lower limits in future years.

SFN closes by pointing to the advantages of their proposals

Instead of piecemeal reform and the continued burdening of taxpayers, a statewide coalition of educational and community-oriented organizations, known as the School Finance Network (SFN), is suggesting that structural reform of school financing should be made now.

The School Finance Network has identified flaws in the current system and its plan bolsters efforts to comply with the Vincent v. Voight court ruling, which requires the state to take into account districts with disproportionate numbers of disabled students, economically disadvantaged students, and students with limited English language skills.

SFN has determined that overall annual increases in allowable funding fail to keep pace with real world costs over which school districts have little to no control, such as utilities and transportation. By crafting proposals to fix these flaws, the SFN proposal will allow school districts around the state to maintain coursework in art, music, foreign language, business, and vocational training, all of which are now being cut, providing children with high quality education for which this state has a proud tradition.

More in the coming days and weeks.

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | October 17, 2009 · 1:10 pm

SAGE on the (Chopping) Block

chp_socratesAs the struggles of underfunded education in Wisconsin continue some of our best programs are being placed in danger.  This is starting to happen with the Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE) initiative and like so much else will be worse in the 2010-11 district budgets.

SAGE includes four components:

  • class sizes of no more than 15:1 in grades K-3;
  • increased collaboration between schools and their communities;
  • implementation of a rigorous curriculum; and
  • improved professional development and staff-evaluation practices.

All of these are to one degree or another “best practices” backed by research and common sense.

While good, SAGE isn’t perfect.  Only a limited number of SAGE contracts are available, meaning that some districts don’t have access to the program and others like Madison must make hard choices about where to implement SAGE.   SAGE is supposed to be targeted to children in poverty, but there are no direct strictures requiring a certain number or percentage  of students in poverty in the SAGE contracts.  Unlike the more comprehensive poverty aids in the School Finance Network plan, SAGE is limited to only those students in the earliest grades.  On top of all this, SAGE is woefully underfunded, requiring extensive money from district’s general operating budgets for implementation in in all schools but those with the highest poverty levels.

I’ve written about these issues before; recent events have made them more relevant than ever.  SAGE is currently funded by the state at $2,250 per low income student in a SAGE classroom.   If you have nearly 100% poverty this funding covers the cost of the additional class rooms and teachers needed to reach 15-1 ratio; as the poverty percentage goes down, the need for local funding to reduce class size goes up (see some calculations here).  One unfortunate ‘solution” that has been broached is to concentrate students in poverty in certain schools.

Madison has mostly used a percentage over numbers approach, meaning that SAFE contracts have been assigned in a way that serves the schools with the higher percentages of students in poverty, but not the highest numbers of students in poverty.  This is because implementing SAGE in a large scho0l with a middling poverty level is expensive.  I think (I’m not 100% sure) , in part due to this approach the MMSD budget passed in May projected that there would be 100 fewer children in poverty in Madison SAGE classrooms.

The reality is that as general operating budgets get squeezed, the local funds won’t be there, even the promise of the SAGE partial reimbursement will not be enough and districts will abandon the program.  As 2009-10 district budgets are finalized, SAGE is on the chopping block.

A school in Wisconsin Rapids came close to losing SAGE because they couldn’t meet the 15-1 ratio, but the Department of Public Instruction gave a temporary waiver.  The future status is still undecided.

Superior is also requesting a waiver.  Without the waiver, the district will have to spend an additional$240,000 to meet the 15-1 ration.   Even if the waiver is granted,  Superintendent Janna Stevens “intends to assemble a group to look closely at SAGE and determine the program’s future in Superior.”  this doesn’t sound too promising.  Business manager Jack Amadio has described the general operating fund as cut “to-the-bone” and projects “another tough year in 2010-11.

“We’ll start looking ahead because we know we’ll have to trim some more out of 2010-11,” Amadio said. “We’ll try to do whatever we can. Maybe we’ll try to limp through for a year, and hopefully in the next biennium, the 2011-13 biennium, there might be a rebound.”

It will take more than hope, it will take action on the part of our elected officials.

Stevens Point has a referendum on the ballot Nov. 3.  If that does not pass, SAGE will be among the items considered for cuts in 2010-11.

I’m guessing SAGE will be targeted for cuts in many more districts in 2010-11.   This is what is happening with class size reduction in California.  California once had a proud public school system, but the anti-tax crowd drowned out common sense, state support kept getting cut and now points of pride are getting scarce.

We can’t let Wisconsin go down this path.  Somebody has to stand up for the good public education does and advocate for full funding.  Recent events and statements indicate that it won’t be our elected officials of either party, so it has to be you and me.  Get involved.

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by | October 12, 2009 · 8:07 am

Quotes of the Day — Compiled by Edwin C. Mertz

Dad-cropMy father, Edwin C. Mertz, died last week.

Shortly before he died he gave me a little book where among lists of many things he had recorded some quotes that had struck him in some way.  Here are three.

“There is a lot to be said for making people laugh. Did you know that’s all some people have? It isn’t much but it is better than nothing in this cock-eyed caravan.”

From the movie Sullivan’s Travels.

“What I want is so simple I almost can’t say it: elementary kindness.   Enough to eat, enough to go around. The possibility that kids might one day grow up to be neither destroyers nor the destroyed.”

Barbara Kingsolver

“We ended legal segregation. We ended the idea that you can send a million soldiers ten thousand miles away to fight in a war that people do not support. We ended the idea that women are second class citizens…we were young, we were reckless, arrogant, silly,  headstrong – and we were right.”

Abbie Hoffman

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | October 5, 2009 · 9:00 am

Looking to the Future: The Crystal Ball on 2010-11

alexander_the_mentalist_crystal_seer_poster-p228218383358690222qzz0_400There is much appropriate attention on how Wisconsin school districts are dealing with the decreases in state aid and well below cost-to-continue revenue limit increases in their 2009-10 budgets.    More attention needs to be given to 2010-11.

The state budget came too late for many districts to make extensive cuts in programs and services (although Oshkosh closed two schools and districts around the state have scaled back), instead districts are spending down fund balances, refinancing to shift the costs to the future and raising property taxes to get through the year.

They are also planning for cuts in 2010-11.  Here is a sample of what school district officials from around the state have been saying recently about their budgets in the future.

Next year could be even worse for property taxpayers. The district projects a jump of $192.50 in taxes on a $250,000 home.

“These (numbers) are ugly,” said Kass. “What I try to do is always show what I believe to be the worst-case scenario. We have 12 months to figure out what areas of flexibility we have. We’ve done a lot of stuff this year. The problem is, when you come up with ways to address those concerns, they’re not there every single year. Areas like decreasing our debt service, which we’re able to do through some refinancing – that’s not going to be there in the future.”

Madison Asst. Superintendent Erik Kass, quoted in the Wisconsin State Journal.

Even with the 8% increase, it is anticipated that deep budget cuts of over $1 million will be necessary for the 2010-11 school year.

River Falls Superintendent, Tom Westerhaus.

While the district finalizes the 2009-10 budget, officials are already preparing for foreseen difficulties in the 2010-11 budget, for which stimulus money would not likely be available and which may further be hampered by changes in state law.

HalesCornersNow on the Whitnall School District.

School Board member Dave Szychlinski said it was a tough budget to prepare in light of the recession, especially given many residents’ own financial battles.

“We know that people are struggling, many people in our community have lost their jobs, and yet we have an obligation to prepare our young people for their futures,” he said.

The district was forced to make some tough decisions because of losses in state aid, and officials made about $833,500 in cuts, he said.

Next year will likely bring more cuts, Szychlinski added (emphasis added).

Franklin Board of Education Member Dave Szychlinski quoted in FranklinNow.

Despite last year’s surplus, [Reedsburg School District Business Manager Pat] Ruddy anticipates major deficits in the future if enrollment holds steady — as much as $1.2 million in 2010-11.

Reedsburg School District Business Manager Pat Ruddy quoted in the Reedsburg Times Press.

With the recent repeal of the state’s qualified economic law aimed at limiting teacher salaries and a shortfall in state aid, the district’s budget woes promise to only get worse, [Greenfield Superintendent Conrad] Farner said (emphasis added). School officials say the 15.1 percent drop in state aid was the main reason for the tax levy increase.

Farner and other school officials urged the public to contact their state representatives to voice concern over school funding mechanisms.

Greenfield School District Superintendent Conrad Farner in GreenfieldNow.

The projection for the 2010-2011 school year includes further reductions of teaching and support positions as the district continues to meet the challenges caused by declining resident enrollment.

MequonNow on the Mequon-Thiensville School District.

[Menomonee Falls School District Director of Business Service Jeffrey] Gross is projecting a $1.6 million deficit in the 2010-11 school and a $2 million deficit the year after that.

Menomonee Falls School District Director of Business Service Jeffrey Gross in MenomoneeFallsNow.

Neenah faces a $2.8 million budget deficit in 2010-11 after its $6 million in referendum money runs out. The shortfall represents about 3 percent of the proposed 2009-10 budget of $84.1 million.

The Northwestern on the Neenah School District.

He [Randy Fredrikson, district administrator for Two Rivers Public Schools] said the district will face similar financial circumstances next year.

“It’s not a one-year ‘we’ll get through’ (situation),” he said. “This is going to be the way it is in school budgets for a while.”

Randy Fredrikson, District Administrator for Two Rivers Public Schools in the Northwestern.

School boards across Wisconsin are developing their budgets for the 2010-11 school year, and the early calculations aren’t looking good for property taxpayers.

Appleton Post Crescent editorial “Blame school tax hikes on state budget.”

Something needs to be done for both the long and short term.  The long term answer is comprehensive school funding reform along the lines proposed by the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools (WAES), the School Finance Network and others.

The short term must come first and the answer is the Pennies for Kids dedicated sales tax for education proposal WAES is working on.

The prognostications quoted above are only about the 2010-11 budget; looking  beyond next year, the future of our state and our children are at risk if action is not taken to head off these scenarios.

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | October 2, 2009 · 10:55 am

WAES School-Funding Reform Update — “Pennies for Kids”!

waesgraphicFrom the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools.  Table of contents below, click here for the a pdf of the full update, click on linked items for related content on AMPS.

I also want to highlight the most important and exciting item:  the “Pennies for Kids” dedicated sales tax campaign.  This is a major initiative to try to get our state lawmakers to enact a new revenue source for investments in education.  Although not the “big fix” comprehensive reform so many of us have been working for, it would provide crucial resources to meet the growing crisis caused by decreased state aid and rising school property taxes, while simultaneously moving Wisconsin closer tor adequate, equitable and sustainable school funding.  Watch for more in the coming weeks and months (Disclosure:  I am on the Board of WAES).

Here is what the WAES update has to say:

As crisis grows, WAES goes after “Pennies for Kids”

The crisis of funding in Wisconsin ’s public schools is so deep and so wide that immediate legislative action is needed to just protect the education our children have now─much less the education they deserve in the future.

To address that crisis, WAES has launched “Pennies for Kids,” a campaign to raise the sales tax one-cent to help fill the gap in public school funding created by the 2009-11 budget and to try to keep the lid on property taxes. At the same time, WAES will continue to work for comprehensive reform, understanding the long-term answer to the problem is a new, sustainable funding system that recognizes the needs of children and the goal of quality education for every student.

If passed, a one-cent increase in the sales tax will raise about $830 million annually. According to the plan being worked out by WAES members, the largest portion of that revenue would be devoted to children in classrooms through increases in categorical aid. Additionally, because it would increase the state’s share of school aid “Pennies for Kids” would slow increases in property taxes expected in the wake of the most recent state budget. To find out more about this new initiative — and to find out how you can get involved — got to http://www.excellentschools.org.

WAES School-funding reform update, week of Sept. 28

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | September 25, 2009 · 4:34 pm

MMSD & MTI Contract “Tentative” Settlement

According to a Madison Teachers Inc. press release and NBC15, a tentative agreement has been reached between the Madison Metropolitan School District and MTI on the July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2011 teacher bargaining unit contract.  MTI members will vote on the terms October 15 and the Board of Education is tentatively scheduled to consider the settlement on October 19.

The base salary increase is 1%, the total package 3.93%.   There appears to be some tinkering and savings, but no major changes in health insurance provisions.   This is about what would have happened if the QEO was still in force.

Provisions to enable 4 year-old kindergarten are included.

The key players — Dan Nerad and John Matthews —  had somewhat different spins:

Superintendent Daniel Nerad said, “I am very pleased that we have reached this tentative agreement after an extensive period of bargaining. We have addressed a significant number of contract language related items. A key example lies in the area of elementary planning time. Of greatest significance to the District is an agreement over language that would allow for the implementation of a four-year-old kindergarten program.” “Also, in working with MTI we have been able to provide a salary increase, in part, as a result of reductions in health care costs. I appreciate working with John Matthews in accomplishing these insurance savings. I look forward to presenting this tentative agreement to the Board of Education in the near future.”

John Matthews said, “But the economic provisions do not adequately reward those who have made the Madison schools among the best in the country. With the State usurping local control as regards to school funding, this is a matter that the State must fix; there is nothing local school boards can do, given the State’s heavy hand. The State must realize that their funding formula for education is inadequate, and that it is causing the dissolution of the great education once available to Wisconsin children. That must be fixed and it is up to the Governor and the Legislators to do it.”

One thing I like about John Matthews is that he always can be counted on to focus attention on growing need for our state government to enact comprehensive school funding reform.  An agitator after my own heart.

As one who follows these things, I have to note that the press release includes MTI and MMSD contact info, but is only posted on the MTI site (not the MMSD, as of 4:30 PM, 9-25-09).

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | September 25, 2009 · 1:33 pm

Evers promises “education for all children”

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State Superintendent Tony Evers gave his first “State of Education” speech on September 24, 2009 (full video from WisconsinEye, here).  The DPI press release highlighted an “agenda for all children,” leading with this quote from the speech:

“I pledged to the citizens of Wisconsin that I would work to ensure every child is a graduate. To do this we must: recruit and retain quality educators, invest in innovation, ensure safe and respectful schools, advance common sense and transparent accountability, and work toward fair and sustainable school funding. We must educate children now for jobs that will be the foundation of Wisconsin’s prosperity.”

He hailed accomplishments of the recent past,  spoke of implementing innovative teacher compensation systems, the ongoing work on “common core standards,” the importance of improving education in Milwaukee, new and better assessments  and —  as the news report at the top indicates —  expanded learning opportunities through technology.

Evers recommitted to  his priorities from his inaugural:

• recruit and retain quality educators,

• invest in innovation,

• ensure safe and respectful schools,

• advance common sense and transparent accountability, and

• work toward fair and sustainable school funding.

He also acknowledged that these are difficult times but emphasized:

We must commit now to increase resources to schools and libraries as the economy improves. I repeat. We must commit now to increase resources to schools and libraries as the economy improves.

Looking to the future with hope and working for a better future were major themes, especially in the closing paragraphs.

In the next couple of weeks and months, I will work with many of you to move these dreams to reality.

Expect more to come. This is no time to have an aversion to risk. Life is too short. My parents taught me to leave this world a better place than you found it. We all need to help and provide our ideas. And, we all need to join together for our kids’ education.

This past year has hit many hard. We know that the struggles of families too often hit hardest on those we aim to protect and help flourish: our children. In many cases, our schools and public libraries are the only place of certainty and security for our children.

But in the end, it’s all about the people who serve children. Every day our educators and public librarians are there for our kids. We must value their work; raise the level of public discourse; and provide all we can to support their missions: to educate Wisconsin’s children. These hard-working public servants modestly reach for those small successes that add up over years of schooling to an educated, productive member of our society.

Educators are building Wisconsin’s economic future every day. Educators are tomorrow’s job creators. They don’t expect shout outs, high fives, or tweets.

They do expect and deserve our support and commitment to educating all our students. Let’s work for our kids and their parents, our educators, and for Wisconsin’s future.

Thank you for being here today.

God bless all of our children, their parents, and educators.

There is much here to like and many ways that we as parents, educators and citizens can help.  It will take the efforts of many

Jackie Woodruff

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