Category Archives: Gimme Some Truth

by | April 25, 2010 · 3:41 pm

On the Agenda, MMSD the Week of April 26, 2010 (updated)

[I was contacted by a Board Member with some clarifications, I only have time for some of this before teaching and will go back later with more.]

Still more Budget work for the Madison Metropolitan School District Board of Education.

This week the fun begins at 5:00 PM on Monday, April 26 in the Doyle Building Auditorium.  James Howard will join the Board and Maya Cole and Beth Moss will also be sworn in to new terms.   Then it is time to continue with the Budget work (agenda and other meetings this week posted here).

No public appearances (write the Board at board@madison.k12.wi.us to weigh in), but the meeting will be carried by MMSD-TV.

Lots of news and lots of news coverage this week.  The biggest development was the submission of Budget amendments by five Board members.  These and other developments were the topic of stories in the Wisconsin State Journal, on the Cap Times and an editorial from the State Journal.  The editorial team for the State Journal seems to think that the way to “protect kids” is to keep taxes as low as possible by freezing the wages of teachers whose compensation had been limited by the QEO for a decade and a half.  I certainly want to protect my kids from well compensated professional educators.  Wacky bunch on that Editorial Board; much better at rhetoric than thinking through their positions.

Also lots of news on the SAGE reconfiguration legislation and lots of confusion.  See here and here for news stories and this post and the links for some clarity.  I’m working on a post on this, but haven’t had time to do much yet.  Watch for it.  For now I will say that it was nice to see Mark Pocan make an effort on behalf on MMSD, even if it was too late (and I don’t think it was Pocan who dropped the ball here, this legislation was designed to help districts keep a diluted version of class size reduction and the waivers MMSD had and the problems the legislation caused for them appear to have been unique).

Before digging a little deeper into the amendment material, a little catch up from Monday’s meeting (preview and more links here).  Gayle Worland’s WSJ story covered the removal of the Lindbergh and Penn Park Summer programs from the cut list.  Some Board Members made it clear that there support was due to the timing and in the future they would be open to cutting these if sufficient notice were given.  SAGE was also discussed and the Reorganization Job Postings were approved.  For the record, the item numbers of the cuts approved are: 82, 83, 84, 88, 89, 90, and 187 (membership dues, office supplies and the like).  109 (recruiting expenses) and 226 (Emerson after-school) were offered and then withdrawn.

Also for the record, the tally of Board Member “yeses, nos and maybes” has been posted (without attribution).  On to the amendments.  As I said before, read them yourself, they aren’t that long.  I’m just going to hit the highlights and lowlights.

I guess I’ll do them in alphabetical order (the admin responses are incomplete — check for updates — and have a numbering that begins with Ed Hughes followed by Lucy Mathiak and then Arlene Silveira; with the later posting of Maya Cole’s and Beth Moss’s offerings, Cole’s are now listed first and Moss comes before Silveira…confused yet?).

Maya Cole’s amendments are the most thorough and the ones that least reflect the “if we are going to fund A, we have to cut B” fiction I complained about earlier.  Throughout the Budget process Maya Cole has been particularly concerned about long term sustainability and you can see some of that in her ideas.

Three of the first four deal with administrative and professional pay freezes.  There is lots of confusion on this.   Item 191 in the budget options was labeled “Administrative Salary Freeze.”  The response to a question on this made it clear that the listed $163,925 represents only a partial roll back of step and merit increases and does not touch the across the board 3.0% package (1.48% salary) raises given in December (without a fiscal note or any discussion).   If I read these correctly, Cole is asking for a true freeze, step, merit and a repeal of the December increase.  Total savings = $644,427. Cole offers furloughs as an alternative.   The rationale cites a 2005 study that places some MMSD administrative compensation as above peer districts (referenced here, I can’t find an electronic copy to link and haven’t dug through my files for a paper version).

At the time I was opposed to the salary portion of the December increase.  I support these amendments.  I think that the vast majority of administrators work hard and do a good job, but times are hard all over and those who are compensated the best are those who will feel the least pain from freezes.

[Lots of confusion here on my part, I’m still not clear on all of it.  Much of the savings and difference came from an initial assumption of a 1% pay increase in the cost-to-continue budget when in fact that budget included a 2% increase.  More on this whole thing later.]

Cole also suggests a $200,000 savings in professional dues and subscriptions.  The $200,000 seems like a lot to be spending, but zeroing this out seems wrong too.

Her next amendment has to do with how to pay for the last year on the contracts of eliminated administrative positions.  She suggests the WRS savings.  I don’t care much, but would prefer using tax authority instead of fund equity, contingency monies or other things that may be needed in the future.

Cole’s Amendment VI reclassifies the head of Public Information from an administrative slot to non-union professional.   I think this is in part inspired by the creation of the Chief Information officer in the Reorganization and the consequent shift of the Superintendent’s duties toward Public/Community Relations.  As Superintendent Dan Nerad himself noted at last Monday;s meeting the implications of the Reorganization for his job duties have not been fully spelled out, but the talk so far has been in that direction.  $30,000 is the identified savings and although like so much with the Reorganization the unknowns are huge (and like some other items Cole proposes it may be premature), i can support at least exploring this.

Cole also supports discontinuing the Value Added consultant contract. I’m with her 100% here.  Her rationale is the WKCE is on the way out and that’s the basis of this work.  My rationale is that the information provided is almost useless.

Amendment XIII from Cole cuts Reading Recovery positions.  I disagree here.  The Board has initiated a process of evaluating and perhaps reforming all reading instruction in MMSD and I think that the previous decisions on Reading Recovery should stand till that is completed.  I also think that the statement “RR as implemented for the past several years is not working” is an overstatement of the conclusions and the definitiveness of the recent report.  In Cole’s defense, what she proposes is using the expertise gained from years of Reading Recovery to transition to something more efficient and one would hope at least equally effective.  I still disagree.

Cole also wants to so fund Hmong BRS positions, use ARRA money for Assistive Technology, pay for staff development on the Middle School Standards Based Report Cards, restructure Planetarium fees, add a 430,000 a year “out reach” to “families of color” position and introduce a sliding scale for bus passes whereby “reduced lunch” students pay at a reduced level and (I assume) free lunch students would be unaffected.  With one exception these make sense.  I don’t like the last.  On the second to last,  I think the idea is good — we’ve lost many family outreach positions over the years – but at this pay level it appears to be a “second class” position.  I’d also add that I’d prefer targeting low income families of every background.

Ed Hughes’ amendments are up next (administrative responses here).  Hughes wants to cut the Legislative Liaison, negotiate pay freezes for Painters, Custodians, Clerical positions, Educational Assistants and Security positions with cuts the other option, cut Board compensation by 5%, reallocate some of the savings from the Legislative Liaison position to Community Engagement and Outreach and raise MSCR adult fees by 30%.

The admin response describes 50% of the Legislative Liaison’s work as Community based. As noted above, the Reorganization has many implications for Community Relations (including a reassignment of the Affirmative Action Officer with new duties in this area.  The real question is if in this budget context is the Liaison position a luxury we can’t afford or a necessary part of bringing about the state action that is needed.  I lean toward the latter, but could see the balance of duties being adjusted or split with at least a .25 FTE working on state matters.

I admire the willingness of Hughes to cut his own compensation, but need to note that this would make serving even less possible for many in the Community who do not enjoy his affluence.  In fact. I’d support higher compensation and if any or all Board Members want to quietly donate any or all of their pay to the district, that’s great.

I strongly oppose targeting the lowest paid employees for wage freezes.   I should say at this point that my spouse is an SEA with the district, so I have an interest.   This is more of a general thing about inequality and the growing distance between the haves and have nots.  I can’t support freezing the wages of the have nots.  I’ll add that the contracts were negotiated in good faith and that the Board has the tax authority needed to honor those contracts; there is something unsavory about seeking these changes in order to provide tax relief.

[The contracts in question are currently under negotiation and the amendments would not roll back raises, but would not include any raises in the 2010-11 year.  It should also be noted that food service workers — the absolutely lowest paid — were exempted.]

This may sound hostile to Ed Hughes, but it isn’t meant to be.  I think he’s searching for answers to difficult matters, trying to do the right thing and simply ended up in a place that I strongly oppose.  I admire the effort and disagree with the proposals.  The same is true with the proposals from other Board Members that I oppose.

The Administration responses to the pay freeze proposals suggested they be taken up outside the public view in executive sessions.  I’d like as much as possible concerning these and other contracts to be handled in public.

On to Lucy Mathiak’s amendments (some administrative responses here and here).  Mathiak’s cuts and choices to fund are all linked, but I’m going to list them separately.  The cuts are $1.2 Million from the Teaching and Learning supply budget, the Expulsion Navigator position, travel and conference costs, and a 10% cut to supply budgets other than T&L.  These cuts would be used to fund Instructional Resource Positions, Special Education Assistants, Painters, Facilities, the Omega School, and the Penn Park and Lindbergh Summer Programs.  It should be noted that many of these have already been “taken off the table” and all could be funded with plenty of room to spare by using the tax authority granted by the voters of Madison and the state.  There is also a shift from unallocated Title I positions to IRTs.

I can see some cuts to supply budgets but the T&L one is too extreme by a mile.   No real opinion on the travel budgets.   I don’t think that the Title I and IRTs should be an “either/or” but a both and if we have unallocated federally funded positions that are supposed to serve our neediest students the answer is to use those positions, not reallocate.  Take look at the achievement gaps and tell me we are doing all we should.

On the Omega School, the Summer programs and so much more, I return to the fact that the tax authority is there to support these worthwhile programs and positions.  Use it!.

Beth Moss has two amendments covering multiple items.  She wants to Fund Schools of Hope (item 168) and the Omega School (item 162).  To do this she proposes cutting CESA dues, Lighthouse Project (Board development) spending and $85 in WASB conference fees.

First I have to say that the whole idea of the Board and the Administration deliberating over $85 is the height of absurdity and an illustration of how bad things have gotten.

I’m all in favor of funding Schools of Hope and the Omega School.  With the CESA, Moss states we aren’t using the membership.  Before supporting this I’d like to explore if the better option would be to get more involved with the CESA.  I like the Lighthouse Project as a source of ongoing research to draw upon, but I think most of the benefits can be accessed without fees or participation.  I refuse to comment further on the $85 WASB fees.  You have to draw the line somewhere.

Last, the amendments from Arlene Silveira (some administrative responses here and here).  Silveira also links cuts/savings to funding choice and I’m going to separate them too.  The cuts are Outside Legal Consulting, confirming the $43,000 saved by not funding the Communications Consultant and taking an additional $25,000 from Strategic Plan initiatives, increases to Planetarium fees. a $.9 Million cut to supplies and materials, increases to MSCR adult fees in the 30% to 40% range (the latter for non-residents),  some cuts to the Athletics items with the discretion given to Athletic Directors, and consulting fees.  Silveira’s amendments fund the School Forest,  Engagement Coordinators, Library Pages, Security Assistants, Educational Assistants, GLBTQ Resource Teacher, Media Clerk, The Planetarium and IRTs.  Silveira also directs the use of the  Microsoft settlement money.

All the things Silveira funds are good (and many have been “taken off the table” already.   The cust to supplies seem more reasonable than Mathiak’s, the Consultant cuts are fine (with the exception of the Communications consult that I still think is necessary),  and the MSCR and Planetarium fees aren’t too burdensome.   I don’t like the cut to the Strategic Plan funds; this is our main hope for improvement and should be fully funded.

Many of the savings and efficiencies identified by Board Members (and by the administration previously) are good things;; some aren’t.  As these come under consideration I think key parts of the big picture don’t get lost.  The biggest of these is that significant investments in education are essential to address inequality, keep democracy healthy, and creating a  strong economy.

More directly, at two budget hearings hundreds of citizens took the time to let the Board know that increased property taxes were preferable to most of the cuts they were considering.  (Almost) nobody likes the increased reliance of property taxes to fund education but the state passed the buck on adequately funding education.  State officials have been criticized by the Board and others for their reluctance to raise taxes in order to preserve beneficial expenditures.   If cuts go too deep, the Board of Education will criticized for the same reasons and will lose much of the high ground and maybe their local support in their efforts to bring about state reform.

Insert obligatory Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools and Penny for Kids links along with discretionary School Finance Network link.

Two other meetings this week.  The 4K Curriculum Sub Committee at 8:00 AM Monday (4C
5 Odana Court, Madison, WI) and the Talented and Gifted Advisory Committee at 4:00 PM Tuesday (Lapham Elementary School, 1045 E. Dayton St., Madison, Library).  Glad to see the $K going forward.  Much to say about the TAG work, but that will have to wait till post-Budget.  It is worth noting that with 8.5 FTE serving as of last count 896 students —  many only by placing in existing advanced Math classes — both the Administration and Board Members have exempted TAG from Budget scrutiny.  I don’t support cuts to TAG, but I also don’t support cutting many of the other things on the chopping block.

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | April 18, 2010 · 9:30 am

On the Agenda — MMSD, the Week of April 18, 2010

The most important Madison Metropolitan School District Board of Education meeting this “week” is Sunday’s Budget Hearing (April 18th at 1:00 pm at Warner Park Community Recreation Center — 1625 Northport Dr).  Read more about it and some calls for action here.  An extra meeting prior to Monday’s District Awards Ceremony has been called to wrap up some loose ends and possibly move budget matters forward.

The meeting commences at 5:30 and the Award’s Ceremony is scheduled for 7:00. Here are the details: Memorial High School, 201 South Gammon Road. Madison, WI, Room 500.  As of last Monday, it appeared that MMSD-TV would be covering the Ceremony, but not the meeting.  If I hear different, I’ll post.

The first item on the agenda is “Position Descriptions for Deputy Superintendent/Chief Learning Officer; Director-Professional Development; Director-Early and Extended Learning; Executive Director of Curriculum and Assessment” and this comes with some new information, as requested by the Board.  The related documents are: Position Descriptions; Organization Chart; and an updated Reorganization Budget (what was previously presented as the Side-by-Side).  There are a couple of other related items that have been received by the Board but do not appear to have been posted yet on the district site.  The first is a new memo on the Reorganization from Superintendent Dan Nerad.  The second is a new version of the Department and Division Reports portion of the Budget Book (old version here), with at least some of the Reorganization interpolated in Budget Figures but not in the narratives or organization charts.  I haven’t had the time to do a page-by-page, so I’m not sure what has been changed or what still needs changing.  I am sure that the that the “Proposed Expenditures: Summary by Department” reflecting the Reorganization (beginning on page 5 new Department and Division Reports pdf), along with the Reorganization chart, is very useful in getting a handle on both the Reorganization and the budget.

Some things to note from this set of documents.

First, there are lots of vacancies in important positions and not all are Reorganization related.  This brought to mind that Arlene Silveira and Lucy Mathiak, now poised to begin their fifth years of service, are the longest serving Board members.  Maybe we were spoiled and some may say that turnover is good, but there does seem to be a deficit of the kind historical memory that long-serving Board members and administrators provided.

I’ve been trying to figure out the new Talented and Gifted arrangement.  Direct supervision of the Coordinator is split between Elementary and Secondary Assistant Superintendents (serve two masters?) and I think the budget lines for the TAG IRTs appear as Elementary Bldg Support and Secondary Elementary Bldg Support.  Talented and Gifted is one area where the narrative has not been updated in the new documents.

I also want to repeat three things.  1) This Reorganization seems to me to also change the job description of the Superintendent and that remains unexamined.  2) There has been some complaining about adding the Chief Learning Officer position at a time of budget difficulties, but the salary and benefits lines for that position replace the Chief of Staff and only add about $6,000 in projected expenditures. 3) The matter of using Fund Balance money to pay for the remaining contracts on eliminated postilions remains unresolved and the larger discussion of best practices on Fund Balances and debt refinance that I’ve been calling for the last year and a half does not appear to be part of the plan.

The next item is the “Legislation relative to the Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE) Program.”  This really deserves a post of its own as a state matter, but that hasn’t happened.  I did write a long comment and I’m going to cut-and-paste that and add some things.

I’ve been meaning to post on this, but haven’t found the time.

The proposal is to raise SAGE class sizes to 18. It is part of a series of band-aids in a package from the Rural Caucus. Most of them are fine, but they are pretty minor. Tom Beebe from WAES made that point in his testimony at the Assembly Education hearing. (full hearing video here). The bill itself is here; the press release on the Rural Caucus package is here; and there are news stories here and here and here.

Most of the package is fine, too little, but fine. I have mixed feelings about the SAGE part. Many districts are faced with the prospect of giving up SAGE all together (as Madison gave up fully locally funded class size reductions a few years ago). 18 is better than 22. For more on the economics of SAGE as an underfunded program, see these this post: SAGE Thoughts.

The research on class size doesn’t make a big distinction between 15 and 18, but experience and common sense tell me that whatever the test score correlations, the quality of the educational experience is more likely to be higher in a smaller class. A bunch of links to research: Reducing Class Size, What Do We Know?; For African-American Students, Class Size Matters; The Benefits of Small Class Sizes.

It wasn’t in the MMSD Budget Options because it wasn’t on their radar.

As I said in the post, this is part of the “we’d rather lower our ambitions than raise taxes” mentality that is destroying so many good things.

The biggest thing missing from this comment is the part of the legislation that I think makes SAGE contracts available to more schools.  I believe MMSD has 19 contracts and 25 elementary schools with poverty levels above 30% .  If I read this correctly, the six non-SAGE, 30%+ schools would be eligible (MMSD used to do fully locally funded class size reductions for non-SAGE schools, but that fell under the budget axe three years ago).  Expanding SAGE to more schools would be a good thing, but one with budget implications, requiring more local money too.

I also neglected to mention that coupled with the new 18/1 policy is the elimination of the DPI power to grant waivers.  MMSD has registered in opposition to this portion of the legislation.

A quick recap of the economics of SAGE and this proposal is probably in order (fuller ones in this post and this one).  SAGE is underfunded and the lower the poverty percentage in a school/grade/class, the more underfunded it is.  You have to get in the 90%+ poverty range for state funds to fully cover the costs of lower class sizes.  The class size limits also create sweet spots and sour spots.  At 15, 30 or 45 (or any multiple of 15) is a sweet spot where SAGE dollars are maximized and local dollars are minimized (at 18 it would be 18, 36, 54…).  The sour spots are all other numbers, but especially those just over the multiples of the limits.  Under current law 30 kids in a grade means two classes but 31 means three classes.  That’s a sour spot.  raising the limit gives more flexibility and makes many of the sour spots less sour (under the new limit of 18, 31 kids wouldn’t be the sweetest spot, but it wouldn’t require a third class either).

As a general thing, I like the expansion of contracts and have mixed feelings about the higher limits.  Many districts have been contemplating withdrawals from SAGE because they can’t afford it and while I believe 15 is better than 18, 18 is better than 22 or higher.  In an ideal world (and in the plans put forth by the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools and the School Finance Network), districts wouldn’t have to make these choices.  Even the Pennies for Kids proposal includes a Poverty Aid that would address most of this dilemma.  One friend suggested a local policy that would seek to keep the 15/1 at the highest poverty schools and use some of the flexibility at lower poverty schools.  I like that.

The last item is “2010-11 MMSD Budget Reductions, Efficiency Options, and Other Measures for Addressing the Property Tax Impact of and Revenue Gap within the Projected Budget (action may be taken). ”  The Budget Page is here (with a link to a summary of the actions they took last Monday, but not some of the documents linked above).

This is as good a place as any to say few words about the MMSD Budget article that appeared in the Isthmus this week (a very few words).

There is no question that there have been serious problems with the process this year.  Some of this is because the the tax or cut decisions before the Board are very different from the traditional cut to meet the revenue limits decisions of the past.  However, both the Board and the administration knew this in advance and I don’t think they fully thought out or implemented procedures that would make things as clear and smooth as possible.  I hope some planning is done to make next year better.

There is also no question that the timing and quality of information provided to the Board and public has been lacking in some significant ways.  Work needs to be done to tighten this up also.

The whole thing has the feel of a collective improvisation and a rushed one at that.  This isn’t good.

The one place where I think the analysis presented in the article is wrong is on the nature and size of the gap and the problems with the confusion around that.  I’ve said before, “tax authority is tax authority, is tax authority” and there was a an over $28 million gap between the authority exercised last year (the “no new taxes” level) and the allowed authority this year.  I don’t like the “no new taxes” formulation, but till the Board decides otherwise (as they did on March 22), that’s the baseline.

There was also a slightly over $1 million gap between allowed authority and initial cost-to-continue estimates.

When presented with this information, the Board asked for $30 million worth of options for cuts, efficiencies and savings.  This is what the administration provided and this is the source of the “sky is falling” ideas.   You can watch the press conference when this was unveiled and see that every attempt was made to clarify things, but the reality is that $30 million worth of cuts were on the table and until the Board was clear that they would exercise revenue authority above last years level (raise taxes) a forecast of a falling sky was part of the picture that had to be considered.

A couple things on the Awards.  I don’t know many of the recipients, but I want to give Sheryl Rowe (my younger son’s teacher this year) and Jill Jokela (who I often have disagreed with but have great respect for her dedication) special congratulations.

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | April 16, 2010 · 9:46 am

Wrong Way

The Rulers, “Wrong Em Boyo” (click to listen or download).

On and around April 15, “Tax Day,” you always expect to hear destructive messages from the likes of those now in the teabag crowd.   Unfortunately, we are now hearing  them from “liberals” and Democrats also.  What is wrong with these people?

Oliver Wendell Holmes observed, “Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.”  This truth seems to be lost as Democrats and Republicans rush to assume the anti-tax mantle.

First up is all-but-certain Wisconsin Democratic Gubernatorial nominee Tom Barrett.  In a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report this week, he joined the leading Republican candidates in vowing not to raise taxes in his first biennial budget.  To Barrett’s credit, unlike the leading Republicans Scott Walker and Mark Neumann he did limit his pledge to the first biennium and said it would be “unrealistic to cut taxes now given the giant budget hole expected to face the next governor.”  Offsetting that credit are a clear pledge of no increases in shared revenue for local governmental units  (I assume that includes schools) and  vague statements about more “efficiencies.”  It is hard to say if  Barrett’s equally vague statements about tax credits targeted to to job creation and eventual property tax cuts are positive nor negative;  the devil is in the details.

Leading “liberal” blogger Jay “Folkbum” Bullock jumped on the “taxes are bad” bandwagon with a post titled “On Tax Day, thank Democrats for your lower tax bills.” In the same vein was an email from state Democratic Chair Mike “With this [2009-11] budget package, Democrats have strengthened K-12…education” Tate.  Like Bullock, Tate boasts that  “With Democrats in full control of government, Wisconsin’s tax ranking has improved for the first time in decades.”

One thing missing from this formulation are the increases in property taxes.

In a larger sense what is missing is the willingness to make a positive case for government programs and the taxes that pay for them.   Barrett, Bullock and Tate all cede the ground to the anti-tax crowd.  They begin by assuming taxes are bad and that cutting taxes is good.  With this as your starting point it becomes necessary and difficult to continually justify every expenditure and revenue source.  It is a constant game of defense with victory defined as not giving up too much ground, not cutting too many programs and services.  Progress is a thing of the past — the pending changes to the SAGE program are a perfect example.

The other mistaken assumption of this formulation is that current revenue policies are superior to any changes other than tax cuts.  This is just silly.  Tax codes are not divinely inspired, they are the product of years of messy legislative log rolling, horse trading and sausage making.  There is plenty of room for improvement, involving increasing some taxes and cutting others (see the Institute for Wisconsin’s Future/Wisconsin Council on Children and Families Catalog of Tax Reform Options for Wisconsin).

In fact, some limited improvements were made in the last state biennial budget, including closing the Las Vegas loophole, increasing income taxes on the top 1% of earners and improving the homestead credit.   Is it too much to ask that these be included in statements of the Democrats’ tax related accomplishments?

I want elected officials, political leaders and pundits who are willing to fully embrace the work of revenue reform.   Making the case for the good government does and can do isn’t that hard and is essential;  reforming revenue policies is harder but not impossible.  With each and every statement like those of Barrett, Bullock and Tate, it gets even harder.   They are heading the wrong way, but we don’t have to follow.

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | March 19, 2010 · 2:04 pm

Farley vs Howard, School Board Race Update

Cleveland Municipal School District Visions of Democracy - Digital Gallery, Click on the image for more.

Well past time to catch up on the James Howard/Tom Farley contest.

First, a couple of forums.  The first is Saturday, March 20.  Here is what the State Journal has to say:

A Madison School Board candidate forum with simultaneous translation in both Spanish and English will be held at 12:30 p.m. on March 20, at Centro Hispano, 810 W. Badger Road.

Topics will include Latino student progress, possible expansion of Nuestro Mundo Community school, charter schools and the school district’s equity policy. Audience members may also pose questions.

The event is sponsored by Centro Hispano of Dane County, Communities United, Latinos United for Change and Advancement, Latino Education Council, Nuestro Mundo Inc., and the Wisconsin Charter School Association.

The other is March 25:

25 March 2010
Community Forum- Involving the Candidates of the April Madison School Board Election; 6:00-7:30 p.m., THE NEW Urban League Center for Economic Development & Workforce Training, 2222 S. Park Street, Madison, Wisconsin || Sponsored by the African American Communication and Collaboration Council (AACCC)

Both candidates weighed in on MMSD budget issues in the Wisconsin State Journal and have guest columns up at the Cap Times: James Howard; Tom Farley.

I have seen nothing in he ay of a ground campaign from either, no lit drops, no yard signs…maybe I’ve just missed it.

I’m not going to go through these statements line-by-line, you can read them yourself.  I am going to point put a couple of things about each.

Tom Farley:  In the State Journal article, Farley said he “favored dropping the district’s plans to institute four-year-old kindergarten in the 2011-12 school year.”  This is the exact opposite of what he said when asked directly about this at the Progressive Dane Forum (and here).  Beyond that the recent things from Farley are filled with empty buzz words about innovation and transformation, ill-informed criticism of the recent work of district,  a misunderstandings about how schools and districts function (here is a hint, classrooms and classroom teachers do not stand alone, they need supports), and seeming reversals about the need to fund education.  Charters have become more and more prominent in his campaign.

James Howard: Howard has touted his knowledge and experience, but by beginning his Cap Times piece by proposing and rejecting another operating referendum when anyone who has paid attention knows that a referendum would do nothing to help the current situation in Madison (they have most of the necessary the tax authority, the choice is whether to use it) he creates real doubts about how deep that knowledge is.  At least he has been consistent in supporting 4K and on school fiance issues (some waffling on school closures and consolidations). Like most candidates, Howard is also not immune to empty buzz words.

At this point I’m leaning Howard, between the two and leaning toward writing in Art Rainwater overall.

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | March 9, 2010 · 10:08 am

Another Lesson in Leadership from Jim Doyle

The Journal-Sentinel is reporting that “Doyle drops plan on school funding.”  I think they got that wrong.  Replays show that Governor Jim Doyle never actually had a plan in his possession.  What he had were some ideas scribbled on a cocktail napkin and trotted out to a gullible press.

He also had little or no interest in working with the legislature or stakeholders to actually arrive at a plan, put it into legislation and get it passed.  He had little or no interest in doing anything about what he has repeatedly — since his first campaign — identified as a priority. His words have been good about the need to provide the resources to give all children in Wisconsin a quality education, but his actions — from getting rid of 2/3 state funding in his first budget, to the cuts in aid in his last budget — have repeatedly moved our state further from this goal.

As usual, he does have excuses and blame for others:

“The governor’s obviously always been interested in moving this forward, but the Legislature needs to approve it,” [Spokesman Adam] Collins said Friday. “It looks like the Legislature has other priorities.”

Anyone who has paid attention knows that the educational priorities in recent months have been driven by the Governor’s obsession with the failed Race to the Top application and bills to enact mayoral control and and give the State Superintendent the power to essentially take over any district that he label as “in need of improvement” (is there a single district that doesn’t in some sense need improvement?).

I think it might be time for Doyle to resign, before he embarrasses himself or the state any further and makes a successful Democratic 2010 election cycle even less likely.

This one goes out to Jim Doyle: Charlie Rich, “Feel Like Going Home [demo]” (click to listen or download).

Lord I feel like going home

I tried and I failed and I’m tired and weary

Everything I ever done was wrong

And I feel like going home

Meanwhile, districts around the state are doing triage, trying to clean up the mess the state has created and neglected and do the best they can for their students under the conditions created by the state.

For more on Doyle’s leadership in education finance see what Rep. Mark Pocan had to say last November.

I don’t want to let the legislative “leadership” off to easy.  They too have neglected and continue to postpone addressing the difficulties on school finance reform.

It isn’t too late.  The Penny for Kids proposal would undo much of the recent damage and begin moving Wisconsin in the right direction.

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | March 5, 2010 · 3:18 pm

MMSD Cut List (For Consideration), Updated

Update: The district lists, presentation and impact statements are up here.

Channel 3000 has an initial and likely misleading report up on the possible cuts that the Madison Metropolitan School District will be considering over the next months.  There is a Press Conference scheduled today for 2:30 and the documents related to budget matters will be posted here on the district website at about that time (I’ll be updating this post also).  MMSD-TV has has promised updates on Facebook throughout the process.

The Channel 3000 headline — “Sources: Madison School District Plans Cuts, Close Lindbergh School” — is certainly misleading.  At this point, the district is not “planning” anything.  The Board of Education asked the administration for lists of possible cuts and savings totaling about $30 million.  The Board will now consider those options in relation to the property tax increases required to maintain the programs.

The story does get the basic idea right.  Unlike in past years the big problem isn’t the revenue authority to fully fund education (the 2008 referendum and some savings mostly took care of that for this year).  The big problem is that cuts in state aid as applied via the broken school finance system means that fully funding education would require unprecedented property tax increases.  So, the Board, will seek to strike a balance.

The TV station is also reporting that possible cuts will be presented in four tiers; from undesirable to really, really, really  undesirable (OK, I made up the labels, once the lists are out, maybe we should have a naming contest).  If accurate, one of the “lower” tiers (really, really undesirable or really, really, really undesirable? — I’d call these the higher tiers) includes school closings and consolidations :

One of the cuts in the lowest tiers includes a consolidation plan that would save the school district nearly $1.3 million, that would shift Blackhawk Middle School students to O’Keefe and Sherman middle schools, then close Lakeview, Mendota and Lindbergh elementary schools, and move those students into the building with Gompers Elementary.

The report also states that “no teacher layoffs” are in the options.  Unless the retirement numbers are huge, I find this difficult to believe.

Update:   I just heard that Elementary School Class Size increases are among the tier four (or least recommended) cuts (I was misinformed, there are no Elementary School Class Size increases in the options, Middle and High School in tier four).

More as things are released.

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | March 4, 2010 · 1:54 pm

An Also Ran — Wisconsin in the Race to the Top Sweepstakes

The news is out, Wisconsin was not among the finalists in the Race to the Top bribery to deform education con game.  Here is the list from EdWeek:

Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

Most of the also rans, including Wisconsin, rushed through ill-conceived and ill-considered policy changes but didn’t get a sweepstakes ticket for the possibility of  splitting the pot (the “winners” only won a chance at a payday).  Unfortunately, there is always round two, which makes this a “long con.”  Arne Duncan is quite the grifter.

As we’ve come to expect from him, Wisconsin’s lame (duck) Governor Jim Doyle has issued a misleading statement  that seeks to avoid responsibility by blaming others.

“The train is leaving the station. But because the Milwaukee School Board continues to cling to the status quo – and because the State Legislature has so far failed to make real reforms – Wisconsin is not on that train,” Governor Doyle said. “Today’s announcement should be a wake up call to many. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has made it clear. The federal government will provide significant resources to states that are serious about reform. Milwaukee needs clear, consistent, accountable leadership focused on reform.”

Last I checked the legislature enacted laws that met all the criteria.  Last I checked, neither the Milwaukee School Board nor the legislature prepared the application (that was done out of Doyle’s office in near secrecy, with school districts and others given only the choice to sign on or not and only given that choice at the last minute).  Last I checked — despite the implication in Doyle’s statement — mayoral control was not among the criteria by which the applications were judged (unless of course the fix was in).

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | March 3, 2010 · 2:06 pm

Coming Transformations

Credit: Computer Vision Laboratory, Columbia University

I want start off with one of the most egregious aspects of a horribly underfunded public school system and what acts of desperations that can ensue, followed by some “respectable” examples of education reform percolating around the country and ending with the next big “shining object” that will command our full attention here in Wisconsin shortly, whether we like it or not.

We begin with Charlotte Hill’s recent reporting at the change.org site that highlighted a distressing development; four inner-city schools in Detroit are “partnering” with Walmart

to offer a course in job-readiness. Student participants earn school credit while learning how to hold down one of the superstore’s infamously low-paying positions. When the bell rings at 3:30, off the students go to their new entry-level jobs, where they work for minimal pay.

Their public school system, like the majority in the country, are struggling. They need money. Enter Walmart, licking their chops to come in and fill the breach. And in their world, students will be conditioned to accept a work environment that is “notorious for its low wages, discriminatory [in its] treatment of female employees, mass lay-offs and refusal to acknowledge, much less support, employee unions,” says Hill. 29 schools were closed this past fall, with 40 more due to be shuttered in the coming year – “financial need — not educational integrity — is driving the decision.”

At the end of the day, Walmart is the true winner in this partnership. Hill reported that

According to the Department of Labor, “Employees under 20 years of age may be paid $4.25 per hour during their first 90 consecutive calendar days of employment with an employer.” From my calculations, 11 weeks of training amounts to just under 90 days of employment. Looks like whichever Walmart executive made the decision to partner with Detroit schools was just living by the corporation’s own slogan: “Save money. Live better.”

As Alex DiBranco pointed out:

The real message goes more like: Your educational system has failed you. Because of mass class inequities, you will not be offered opportunities to succeed in life. In fact, we’ve so given up on you, that even though you still come to school, we’re going to turn school into training on how to hold down the worst job possible and suffer all sorts of labor abuses. Just in case you’ve made it to your teenage years without realizing this, know the world doesn’t care about you, and you might as well give up on your dreams now.

Proposals for enormous changes in the school system have always been a feature during times of economic crisis, but you have to stop and catch your breath at times when some of the more “throw the baby out with the bathwater” schemes get a serious airing from our self-appointed “out of the box” thinkers on education “reform,” or, as one of our local school board candidates would prefer, “transformation.” Take for example Utah state senator, Chris Buttars. He has introduced a bill that would eliminate 12th grade in all public schools in his state, saving, according to Buttars, $60 million dollars from a state shortfall of $700 million. You might say to yourself that such a large hatchet would appear to have a fairly minimal impact on such a large deficit, and would therefore be dismissed out of hand, but you would be wrong. Eight other states are contemplating similar moves. It also wouldn’t probably surprise you to learn that the Gates Foundation is providing the initial planning grant to get this initiative off the ground. And while the impetus for having a so-called board exam system in which students must achieve some core competencies, instead of seat time in a classroom, has some laudatory elements to it, the larger gorilla in the room is that it will take an enormous amount of one-time stimulus money just to get this initiative off the ground in these handful of states.

A question I continue to ask is: why, in all these reports on new initiatives for “reform” (or if you like “transformation”), is it rarely mentioned or raised as a concern, the issue of how these initiatives will be paid for in a long term, sustained way?

Getting back to the actual students who are at the center of this maelstrom of education innovation, as Jessica Shiller has noted:

Seems like the students that would benefit most from having public school for longer would get left out in the cold. Graduating in 11th grade and having to look for a job in a dismal market is not much of an option. Going to community college or a vocational program could offer more, but with graduation rates pretty low, around 25% — to the point that the Gates Foundation is getting involved to help community colleges do better by their students — this also doesn’t seem like a suitable substitute for a full high school education.

Students who don’t do well early in high school might be left with dead-end options. At least if those students have a couple more years, they can try and improve their grades for college, but under these grade elimination plans, there is no room for that. Young people will be sorted into vocational and college-bound tracks at age 15. No more messing around kids: decisions about your futures will be made very early on in life. So much for the late bloomer.

It is rumored that shortly the beautiful minds behind the Wisconsin Way initiative, will finally roll out their plan, one that will have been already largely crafted in the minds of its corporate interests from the get go when they first held their state-wide forums a couple of years ago. It is likely that the fait accompli plan will contain much that is good, some that seems “sensible,” inducing the pundits to skim past the troubling parts in their embrace of “transformations.” For an excellent primer on the Wisconsin Way, please reread the warning signs that Thomas Mertz was writing about already 2 1/2 years ago.  Also, look for his excellent coverage of this roll out/fall out to come.

Meanwhile, it doesn’t take great creative thinking to know that the oxygen will be largely sucked out of all the hard work of analyses and stakeholder development that WAES has been engaged in for over a decade and its more recent Pennies for Kids initiative. Perhaps, when the chips are comfortably resting on the ground for a while, some parts or aspects of actual education finance/tax reform will get a hearing. But as we’ve seen in the past, nothing gets done in an election year. Sadly, the struggle for real finance reform, will continue for a long time to come.

Robert Godfrey

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by | March 1, 2010 · 12:44 am

On the Agenda (#1) — MMSD, Week of March 1, 2010 (Updated)

Update: The High School Report and the Infinite Campus proposal to increase usage are off the agenda due to time considerations.  There is also a new Re-Organization Budget (appendix A) updated with corrected calculations showing different “savings” figures.

Another very busy week with Madison Metropolitan School District governance matters.  So busy that I’m doing a once over “lightly” (can’t really call something this long light) with this post and time permitting intend to post in more detail on some of the items such as the much-delayed and unacceptable Equity Report,  and maybe the budget matters (five year analysis here , MSCR cuts and effciencies here and  time-line here), the Reorganization proposal (memo, appendix one, appendix two) and perhaps others.  You can access the entire week’s notice of meetings here.

The week starts bright and early with a Monday, 8:00 AM visit from the Madison Legislative delegation to Falk Elementary School.  This is something Board Member Maya Cole has been pushing.  The idea is to bring those in control of school funding into the schools to witness and here about the difficulties their actions and inaction have created.  Beyond actually getting the legislators there and listening, the key to success is to find the right balance between “we are doing a good job” and “the children’s education is suffering.”  Professional educators have a lot of trouble with the latter.   Here is a guide to a similar exercise from the Illinois Education Association, the key point they make is to stay on message.

This is a Committee meeting week.  Most items are first presented this week to the Board — meeting as Committees — for discussion and then return next week to the Board — meeting as the Board — for votes.   The Committee meetings are consecutive and commence at 5:00 PM in Doyle Administration Bldg., 545 W. Dayton Street, Room 103.  Like almost all Board meetings, these will be carried by MMSD-TV.  Public appearances for all items and committees are at the start of the first meeting.

This week, the first Committee is Planning and Development.  Here is the agenda.

The big item is the Reorganization (memo, appendix one, appendix two).  This is the first public look and it is listed as an action item for the March 8 meeting (the Board previously discussed some version or some aspects in closed session, the big problem with closed sessions is you don’t know what happened).   There is a lot here and I have not had time to look closely, but will offer some initial observations.

  • The big idea is to align the structure with the Strategic Plan.
  • The “side by side” is nice, but comparative organizational charts would be useful too.  You really can’t tell the players without a scorecard.
  • What might be the biggest change is the adding Chief Learning Officer to the title of Deputy Superintendent and changing the duties and structure accordingly.  I say might, because it is difficult to see how this will not continue to be a primarily administrative (as opposed to educational) position.  Steve Hartley who holds the position now is retiring.  I’ve heard nothing about who might be filling the revamped position next year.
  • The other big change involves what is now Teaching and Learning.  A  new Department of Professional Development is being created, moving this out from under Teaching and Learning.
  • Teaching and Learning will be re-dubbed Curriculum and Assessment.
  • TAG moves to the Elementary and Secondary departments (I’m not clear on waht that means or who they will report to).
  • The Special Asst. for Race and Equity becomes the Assistant Director of Equity and Parent Involvement, in the Curriculum and  Assessment Department, with Cultural Relevance Resource Teachers and Minority Service Coordinators in the new division.  The emphasis on Parent Involvement in the new name doesn’t jibe with the new organizational home.  Come to think of it, it also doesn’t jibe with the definition of Equity in the district Policy (curriculum and assessment are only two parts of that and not — in my opinion or as reflected in the policy — the most important parts.
  • In a related matter, the Affirmative Action officer will be moved Superintendents officer with duties involving Community Partnerships.
  • Although Community Partnerships are being moved, the Public Information Department becomes the Public Information and Community Engagement Department.  Partnerships to the left, engagement to the right?
  • There are things going on with a “Cluster Program” that I’m not clear about.  It appears to be about delivering central office support services via quadrants or clusters, but also appears to be headed by the a principal of Shabazz, with support by principals from small elementary schools and I’m not sure how that will work in practice.  I think I’m missing something.
  • As part of a related restructuring, Alternatives becomes Alternative and Innovative Programs, with some new duties for the director and day-to-day responsibilities for the students and staff of the programs housed in Marquette and Lapham devolving to those principals.  This is another one that doesn’t feel right.
  • MSCR will report to Asst. Sup for Business and Finance.  I think this is to get control of things.
  • The Lead Elementary Principal postilion has been axed, replaced by Director of Early and Extended Learning (4K, after-school, Summer…).
  • The net cut is (I think) five administrative positions.
  • Savings are in the $550,000 range (which as far as I can tell is the same range as the administrative raises recently given without a fiscal analysis or any discussion and not including the raise recently given to Supt. Nerad, also without a public discussion).
  • The savings figure ($556,439.50) includes positions that have been eliminated but due to continuing contracts the personnel involved will remain on the payroll in temporary positions and the proposal calls for Fund Balance money to be used for their salaries and benefits.  This totals $337,538.3, leaving a little under $220 Grand in savings for the 2010-11 budget.  As the Board looks at the 2010-11 Budget, these kind of deceptive labels need to stop.
  • A lot of people are being asked to do more, some with less to work with.
  • Much, much more on rationales, leadership councils, renamed departments and positions…I get some of it, but am not clear on the what, or why with much.

Next on the agenda is the Badger Rock Charter School Planning Grant Application.  This looks unchanged from the last time it was before the Board.

This Committee closes with the Lindbergh Elementary Community Garden Proposal.  This looks great.   More on school/community gardens here (with music!).

Operational Support is next (agenda linked).

Any good feelings lingering from the garden proposal won’t last long as the Board takes up the Five-Year Financial Outlook to include Projected Budget Gaps and Tax Impacts.  No smiles here.

Lets’ start with the projected deficits (the gap between allowed revenues and cost-to-continue):

These are with 4K.  That’s about $19.5 million in savings, efficiencies, program and service cuts over four years (on top of whatever is saved/cut in 2010-11).  Yow.

The projected levy and tax impact numbers are another “yow.”  Some of these come in with 4K and without 4K versions.  These don’t reproduce well, so some just selected parts, figures and notes.

One interesting thing is that they are based on an assumption of no property wealth growth.  My guess is that property wealth in Madison will continue to grow slowly (easing the burden on individual taxpayers), but will grow faster than the rest of the state (leading to cuts in state aid).  How this balances out, I don’t know except that recent history inclines me to believe that Madisonians will be hurt more than helped.

In the “with 4K” projections, if the district taxes to the max and the deficits are met with Fund Balance spending and not cuts etc, the district goes broke in 2014 (no “without 4K version on this one).  Our younger son would be in Middle School that year.

Here is what the tax-to-the max mill rates and taxes look like for 2011-12 through 2014-15(with and without):

The current mil rate is 10.18 (on page nine of the linked document there is a fuller chart, with projections for homeowners that did not reproduce well enough to post).  These are huge tax increases.    Talk about unsustainable.

Insert obligatory Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools and Penny for Kids links along with discretionary School Finance Network link.

Next up is MSCR Proposed Budget Reductions and Efficiencies for 2010-11.  There is much here.; position cuts, schedule changes to save overtime, program cuts, fee increases…much.

MSCR is an orphan.  Some with the school district believe that it is outside the “core mission” and this is true if you look at the strategic plan.  It isn’t true if you look wider and note that MMSD has accepted the taxation authority and responsibility for providing recreational programing.  I wish there was a Parks & Recreation Department in Madison (not necessarily under Kevin Briski), but there isn’t.  There is a hodge-podge and some of it is the the responsibility of the district.   Quality of life in Madison depends in part on a wide variety of recreational activities accessible to all  and like other quality of life matters this means that it is proper for tax dollars to be used to create and to some degree subsidize these activities.   There are a couple of places in the document with asides like (paraphrased)  “based on fees, more like the YMCA” or “maybe the Boys & Girls Club will do something.”  To me this is shirking responsibility.  Maybe not in every case, but as an attitude.

My impression is that there are real savings and efficiencies to be found, some justifiable cuts and fee increases, but a real need to keep opportunities and keep them affordable for all.

The total savings is $1,838,928.  Some big items (dollars and impact, no order):

  • Discontinue after-school contract for low income at Red Caboose and YMCA (my note:  the variety of after-school programs and varied costs of these needs to be addressed).
  • Reduce School Year and Summer Transportation (my note:  all good, except many parts of the city have no or almost no MSCR programing, I’d like to see this addressed also).
  • Increase staff to student ratio by 2.5%.
  • Shift Safe Haven Fee Waivers to Dane County Childcare Assistance (does the County know? Robbing Peter to pay Paul?).
  • Reduce Fee Waivers (adult and youth).
  • Raise Program Fees (some big and OK, some small, some seem too big).
  • Reduce Programing (Middle School, Summer, Penn Park, after-school enrichment, adult…)
  • Discontinue Safe Haven at Lindbergh (this isn’t sitting well with that neighborhood).
  • Much, much more.

Take  a look yourself, but do keep in mind that if we want Madison to be a rich and attractive place to live, part of the price is public support for the things MSCR provides.

Next, Proposal for a Lease and Contract to Permit the Construction of a Cellular/Communications Tower on Gompers/Black Hawk Property.

Then it is time for Approval of the “Resolution Authorizing the Issuance and Sale of $28,590,000 Taxable General Obligation Refunding Bonds”.  This is the retirement refinance/4K finance voted on here.

The last big item for this Committee is the budget time-line.  Feast your eyes:

It looks like an intense and unpleasant couple of months.

Everything else is Bills, Purchases and Contracts, Other Financial Transactions as well as the Human Resources update, (with lots of retirements, including Debra Stanko who did more than right in recognizing and addressing our older son’s talents and needs at JC Wright).

Among these, the Formative Classroom Assessment Tool Development and Data Sharing Agreement caught my attention and not in a good way.  The contract is with UW to pay a Grad Student to develop an I-Pod Touch assessment app.  Do we need this; do we want this?

The only reason that I can see to have an assessment app on a handheld device is to be able to assess while teaching, to enter assessment data while walking around the classroom.  I want my teachers in the moment, teaching.  This is the current obsession with data over teaching in a nutshell.  If this is the future, I don’t like it.

The last meeting is the Student Achievement and Performance Monitoring Committee.

The first item is a Madison School & Community Recreation (MSCR) After School Programs report.  This and other reports on MSCR should inform considerations of the proposed changes discussed above.

Then it is time for the long awaited (well over a year and a half late) Annual Equity Report.  A full consideration of this will appear in a subsequent post.  My initial impression is that there is one part part I think is based on a very good concept, but overall it is more than a day late and more than a dollar short.

The lateness and shortness are related significant failures.  The idea was to measure progress or document the lack of progress and the not only has much time been lost in setting the benchmarks, but the shortness has to do with the reports failure to provide those very benchmarks.

First the part I like conceptually.  The final portion of the report takes strategies recommended by the Equity Task Force and links them to things the district is doing, “Programmatic Resources.” . This is very interesting and useful.  I’ve got some doubts about some of the links and there is a certain impression of “we’ve got this covered” that can lead to complacency where urgency is needed.  Still I like the idea and much of the execution.

The Board Equity Policy includes this reporting requirement:

Administration will report on an annual basis to the Board of Education the extent of progress on specific measures in eliminating gaps in access, opportunities and achievement.

Obviously with the first report, progress will be difficult to report (that timing issue again); because of the lack of specific measures it will also be difficult with next year’s (the shortness).

At this time I’m not going to question the measures chosen for achievement, but rather criticize the presentation of the data related to these measures.   There is no raw data, no analysis (statistical or otherwise). Instead we are given selected factoids (the State of the District presentation which serves as the basis for much of the report suffered from a similar lack of information and rigor).

For now a couple of examples will suffice.

Is there any possible way to use this to measure progress or lack of progress?  Remember, this isn’t the analysis of the data presented, this is totality of the data.  They aren’t all that bad; this one is more typical:

At least here there are some numbers.

The other reporting requirement reads:

Administration will develop an annual report that will provide data on the distribution of staff, financial, and programmatic resources across all schools.

As I said above, the programmatic portion is a positive thing.  The staff and financial parts are another story.  Instead of looking at the staffing at particular schools (as was done for middle schools in 2006)  or reports on diversity in various jobs or schools (there was a Human Resources Report about 6 months ago that did the former, I’ll link to it when I get a chance) we get this:

There is no there, there.  Factoids.  Nothing to work with.

In terms of resources, we are given explanations of the Equity Resource Formula and Title I, but no “data” on how these are distributed  “across all schools.”  Information is similarly lacking in other areas:  the goals of the Technology Plan are presented with an Equity framework (good), there is no information on the technology in or slated for particular schools and how that related to Equity (bad); The School Improvement Process is sketched and funds are mentioned (good), but there is no accounting of those funds (bad); Professional Development and Indigent Bus Passes are also mentioned.   More than a dollar short.

As I noted, I’ll be returning to what is and is not here in a subsequent post (see here for an earlier related post).

In closing this topic, I was recently reminded that the Board accepting a report is not the same as approving it.  I understand that, but think that this report should not be accepted.  It is unacceptable.  It does not meet the requirements of the Policy by any stretch of the imagination and does not provide a basis for assessing the future success or failure of the district’s Equity work.  We’ve waited long enough and can wait longer if we must; there is no excuse for not doing this right.

The High School Initiatives agenda item has much of interest on the REal work, the ACT/Eplore initiative, AVID, and the Individual Learning Plan implementation.  I’m not sure how much is new here and don’t have time to dig tonight.

The action items are Recommendations to Increase Usage of the Infinite Campus Student Information System, Renewal of DPI Waiver for Days of Instruction for Sixth and Ninth Grade First-Day Transitions, and Five-Year Education for Employment Plan (precursor to the first and the last were covered in previous “On the Agenda” posts).  Consent items are Learning Materials purchases, 57 High School Diplomas and the enrollment of students in Equivalency programs.

The other meetings this week are the Common Council/BOE Liaison Committee, Wednesday 5:30 PM at the City/County Building and the Superintendent’s Human Relations Advisory Committee, Thursday, 1:15, Doyle Building room 103 (agendas on the Weekly Notice).

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | February 21, 2010 · 11:34 pm

On the Agenda — MMSD, Week of February 22, 2010

The main Madison Metropolitan School District meeting this week is on “Branding.”  The other meetings noticed are of the  Four-Year-Old Kindergarten Advisory Council (Monday, 9:00AM at 4C, 5 Odana Court), the Wellness Committee (10:00 AM Tuesday, Hoyt Building) and the Talented and Gifted Advisory Committee (Tuesday, 4:00 PM at Lapham).

The “Branding” meeting is labeled a “Community Engagement” session and  will be held at Marquette on Monday at 6:00 PM.   Here is how it is described on the District website:

Hosted by the Board of Education, the Engagement Session is an early step in the development of a communications plan aimed at ways to focus on positive branding of the MMSD school experience and to publicize the benefits of graduating from the MMSD.

The overall goal – from the school district’s new strategic plan — is to identify ways the MMSD can actively promote the benefits that all students derive from the challenging, respectful, inclusive education that Madison Schools provide.

The session is open to the public. Parents of MMSD students are particularly welcome.

After a short introductory presentation, attendees will break into smaller groups for discussion, followed by a brief report-out period. The session will be facilitated by Superintendent Dan Nerad and other district leaders.

Gayle Worland has more in the Wisconsin State Journal.  Some excerpts:

The desire to spiff up the public perception of Madison schools came out of months of discussions last year as a community team formed a five-year strategic plan for the district, said Superintendent Dan Nerad.

“There was a strong feeling that, one, we have a lot of positive things that need to be more proactively discussed,” Nerad said. “And two, as we face our challenges, (such as) becoming a more diverse School District and needing to meet the needs of a broad range of learners, it is even more important that we do this work.”

….

The district has given marketing firms until March 1 to apply for a two-year contract, at $43,000 a year, to create a communication plan. Monday’s public meeting is billed as an “early step” in the process, and officials said they have no idea what form any branding efforts might take.

….

Part of the message that needs to get out is how well Madison schools prepare students for college, said School Board member Ed Hughes.

“The benefits of going to a diverse school are really apparent to our graduates once they’re out in the world,” said Hughes. “But we could be better, I think, in communicating those benefits to people.”

Counteracting “street-corner conversations” is another hurdle, he said.

“You hear a discussion about school safety issues and concerns about academic rigor, and I think a lot of those are based on less than a full understanding of what’s really going on in our schools,” Hughes said. “The problem is that there is some kind of information that is kind of sticky – people hear it and that’s what they remember. If there’s a fight in the school, that’s what they know about. And how you get over those images and get people to take a fresh look at what’s really going on in the schools is a challenge.”

This school year alone, 589 students living in Madison opted to attend a different school district, while 172 students living outside the city’s boundaries asked to attend a Madison school.

Meanwhile, online schools run by districts throughout the state have ramped up their advertising in the Madison market, which only raises the stakes. For every student that leaves the district, it loses $6,443 in state aid.

More on Ed Hughes’ attempt to call attention to the way Virtual Schools are being used as a a “cash cow” to the detriment of state taxpayers and other districts and the benefit of the districts that host them in Susan Troller’s Cap Times post and Amy Hetzner from the Journal-Sentinel.  Some background on how the well-funded lobbying campaign led by former State Superintendent candidate Rose Fernandez scared the Democrats off from addressing this issue here.  I wish Ed luck, but doubt that in this election year the Democrats have any more backbone.

For some background on the the long-delayed Communications Plan see the minutes of the August 23, 2007 Board meeting here.  The Request for Proposals for the Communications Consulting contract can be read here.

My own thoughts are that A) With the contact pending the session this week is putting the horse before the cart; B) The RFP could be more about enhancing communication with families with students in the district — something that has a direct effect on climate and achievement — and less about spreading the word to others; and C) I am glad this is getting some attention, think a consult is  agood idea but am skeptical that the potential will be realized.

The 4K group will be reviewing “output” (input?) from forums (I believe these are forums with providers) and setting a time-line for the next year.

I got nothing on the Wellness meeting.

I got lots on the TAG meeting agenda, but no time to write some of it up.  Unfortunately, I will not be unable to attend, so there won’t be a meeting report ( I can’t attend the “Branding” meeting either).

The most interesting thing on the agenda is a presentation on “Comprehensive Identification” by Committee Member,  UW- Whitewater Professor and Gifted Education professional Scott J. Peters.  Peters is a former student of “Cluster Grouping” researcher and consultant Marcia Gentry and recently completed a dissertation entitled “Practical instrumentation for identifying low-income, minority, and ethnically diverse students for gifted and talented programs: The HOPE teacher rating Scale.”

I am glad that they are starting with improved identification procedures.  As I have said, a successful and equitable TAG program must begin with purring in place procedures that are much, much better than those that have been used.

The work by Peters that I have had a chance to review holds some promise and serves as a reminder of why this is and will be difficult.

The key difficulty is that there is no real definition of giftedness; no scientific, professional or lay agreement about who should be receiving gifted services or interventions (much less what those services, programs or interventions should consist of).   Note I phrased this as “should be” not “would benefit from.”

I firmly believe that almost all students would benefit from most of the services, programs or interventions in place or contemplated for those classified as “gifted.”   This isn’t to deny that there are some students who “need” these services, programs and interventions or that there are some who are “profoundly gifted” and I agree that it is the duty of any responsible educational institution to recognize and address this.

There is a related difficulty and that is that gifted programs have historically been disproportionality populated by white, middle and upper class students (for an exploration, see:  Barlow and Dunbar, “Race, Class, and Whiteness in Gifted and Talented Identification: A Case Study“).  This has become politically untenable and has been morally indefensible.  For advocates of expanded TAG programing and those in the gifted industry (like Peters), the lack of a definition provides a way around or out of the problem of disproportionality.

Whether it is by promising to recognize giftedness in multiple domains or  — as Peters’ work does — improve teacher referrals, the lack of a definition means that there is  a lot of room to work with.  Gifteness is whatever they say it is and with that as the first principle it is possible to say 1% or 30% or 99% of students are gifted and locate giftedness among diverse students in any proportion you desire.

Of course in these days of  data fetishes, it helps to have some numbers to crunch.  Peters crunches numbers and crunches them very well.  With the Hope Scale, he has produced an instrument for teacher referrals that is consistent and clean internally and demonstrably nearly sociio-economically non-discriminatory (his sample had very few African Americans and he presents this as a work in progress).  See his “Initial Validity Evidence for the HOPE Scale: New Instrumentation to Identify Low-Income Elementary Students for Gifted Programs” for some fine number-crunching and note that the “validity” in the title is internal validity because with no definition there is no possibility of external validation.

Returning to the elasticity of definitions  as both an opportunity and problem, I was particularly struck by this instruction given to teachers using the Hope assessment (there is a discussion of this in this paper co-authored by Peters):

“When completing this form please respond by thinking about the student compared to other children similar in age, experience, and/or environment”

Elsewhere, in a review of  David Lohman’s Identifying Academically Talented Minority Students Peters wrote:

Lohman’s argument is thus that the more specific the norm group used for comparison, the better. This is true for groupings such as income, race/ethnicity, as well as school or grade-level groups. The use of narrowly defined comparison groups allows educators to see which students are achieving or have the potential to achieve given similar background and circumstances.

I have to think about this.  On one hand, I appreciate the recognition of bias and the desire to overcome it.  On the other hand I see something like “she’s smart, for a poor girl” happening and I don’t like that.  I have to think about it.

I have friends who say that whenever I write about TAG issues it is overwhelmingly negative.  I like to think of  it as more skeptical than negative (and in this post also observational/analytical), but they do have  a point.

With that in mind, I want to close by emphasizing how happy I am that MMSD is trying to improve identification,   repeat that despite my criticisms I see promising things in Peters work and am glad that MMSD has the benefit of both his general knowledge of the field and his ongoing research, and once again say that I support efforts to improve transparency, consistency and services in the TAG area (not every manifestation, but the some and the idea of doing these things).

On an unrelated topic, Lucy Mathiak’s “The Edgewater TIF. Or, Can I Use My MasterCard to Pay My Visa Bill???” is a must read (I don’t know when the Edgewater TIF will go before the Board of Education — not “on the agenda” yet —  but Lucy Mathiak is the Board rep to the TIF Board).

Thomas J. Mertz

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