Category Archives: Local News

by | July 28, 2007 · 3:46 pm

Cities and Schools working Together

From Brenda Konkel:

Cities and Schools working Together

A former City Council member sent me this article about how Portland is spending spending $1.6 million to keep poorer kids in their schools. They have a program they initiated to keep poorer students in gentrifying areas of the City. Apparently they lost 11,000 students as the poorer people move out of the area and the richer people move in and send their kids to private schools. And of course, that then meant that the school district was losing state aids. The money is used for rental assistance, gap mortgages and grants to parent and neighborhood groups.

The program is called the Schools, Families, Housing Initiative. And the money will be spent as follows:

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    *$950,000, will go to the Portland Schools Foundation for grants aimed at promoting neighborhood schools, so newcomers will decide to send their children to them. The grants could be for anything from repairing broken windows to designing an after-school program.<br /

      *$450,000 in rental assistance for families with school-age children in schools with high student turnover. I should help 80 families avoid eviction and keep their children in the same school.

        *$200,000 for a cash reserve, allowing the Portland Housing Center to offer about 40 below-market second-mortgages to help first-time home owners bridge the gap between the money they borrow and the house they want. The average amount would be about $5,000 per family.

      This is an interesting concept. It’s great to see the City working with their School Board. Do you think the City of Madison City Council, the School Board, Mayor’s office and School Administration will ever get to the point where they are actively looking at the impact of schools on our neighborhoods and develop strategies to help keep our schools and neighborhoods strong? Or will we continue down the path where we say “It’s the school board’s problem”? And the School Board says “It’s the City’s problem”? It’s not our responsibility, with everyone pointing in the other direction.

      It’s painfully obvious to so many in the community that as the schools go, so goes the City. I had thought there was some serious momentum to work on these issues between the City and Schools after last year’s school budget, but those efforts seem to have fizzled or taken the back seat to other issues and I think that is a shame. In fact, the Board of Education-City Liaison Committee hasn’t even met since the new council has been appointed. They have agendas for January, February and March but only minutes for their February meeting. Note, the two City Council members (Knox & Thomas) didn’t even show up.

      Just think, if the Cities and Schools were working together in a meaningful way, perhaps we could find partnerships and ways to help each other with the following:

        Getting kids safely to schools

        Crossing Guards
        Bussing (I think the schools spend something like $750,000 to get kids to school, in addition to $250,000 for bus passes for poor kids.)

        Space sharing

        Community and Neighborhood Meetings
        After school uses of space for community uses

        Sporting events & activities (We could coordinate usage of the parks. Most notably rentals at Breese Stevens, Warner, and a West Side park plus MSCR activities cost $80,000)

        Police Officers in the Schools – The schools pay for 4 police officers

        Coordinating planning efforts so that when we create new neighborhoods we are working with the schools to figure out where the kids will attend schools and what impacts it will have on the school district

        Coordinating human services

        Coordinating services at our libraries

      I’m sure you can probably think of more areas where we could overlap and mutually benefit each other. But it seems, we can’t even get this conversation started. I’d like to see it happen before the schools face their next big crisis and before our neighborhoods have to struggle more. Now is the time to be working on these issues, instead of taking a 4 month vacation from meeting. Or worse, before we’re spending even more money like Portland to fix the problems we helped to create.

There is some kind of “Education Summit” involving MMSD, the city and the county in the works. I hope both the Portland example and Brenda Konkel’s ideas are on the agenda.

More on municipal/school cooperation:

Engaging Cities: How Municipal Leaders Can Mobilize Communities to Improve Public Schools

Civic Capacity – What, Why and Whence

Investing in Urban Public Education Matters (ppt)

Civic Supports Publications (from the Annenberg Institute)

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | July 24, 2007 · 4:11 am

Wisconsin Values Event

via Vicky Selkowe, Wisconsin Council on Children & Families

Help Ensure Wisconsin’s Budget Reflects Our Values!
Wisconsin Values Event
State Capitol Building , Senate Parlor
Thursday, July 26th @ 11:00 a.m.

Join us in Madison for this important & timely event!

    Budget Background:

The Wisconsin legislature is continuing its work on the state budget. The eight legislators who make up the conference committee (see bottom of this email for names & contact information) are expected to start their work on the state budget very soon. They face the daunting task of trying to reconcile the vastly different Senate and Assembly versions of the budget – budgets with very different priorities and competing visions for our state’s future. Whatever budget document the conference committee comes up with goes back to the Senate and the Assembly for up or down votes (no amendments, or changes, are allowed) and then to the Governor – making the work of the conference committee tremendously important.

    The Wisconsin Values Event:

A large and diverse set of organizations (including AARP, AFT, WEAC, the Survival Coalition, Make It Work Milwaukee! Coalition, Wisconsin Counties Association, WI Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Planned Parenthood, SEIU, Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault, Wisconsin Early Childhood Association and the Wisconsin Council on Children & Families) are coming together this Thursday, July 26th for this Wisconsin Values event to ask the state legislature to ensure that the state budget is firmly rooted in the values that have made Wisconsin great. As the legislature’s conference committee begins its deliberations, we raise our united voices to ask legislators to craft a biennial budget that reflects the value Wisconsinites place in strong communities, good schools, care for vulnerable populations, quality health care and childcare, and affordable higher education.

    You’re invited (and needed!):

To ensure that the state legislature sees the strength represented in our collective voices, we need you to join us at the Capitol this Thursday morning for this important event! The event will last less than an hour, and participants will then stop by conference committee members’ offices to deliver a Wisconsin Values message about the budget. Your participation in this event is critically important and we hope you can take the time to join us.

    If you can’t make it:

If you’re unable to join us in person on Thursday, we need you to take just FIVE minutes THIS WEEK to call or email your own legislators and also write to the leaders of the conference committee, Sen. Judy Robson and Rep. Mike Huebsch. (If you have time to send a message to all members of the conference committee, that’d be great, but if you have limited time, please just write to Sen. Robson & Rep. Huebsch.) Make sure they know what YOU value and urge them to craft a biennial budget that reflects the value Wisconsinites place in strong communities, good schools, care for vulnerable populations, quality health care and childcare, and affordable higher education.

    Questions?

Contact Vicky Selkowe at WCCF at vselkowe@wccf.org or (608) 284-0580, ext. 326.

Hope to see you on Thursday, July 26th in the State Capitol to ensure that the legislature hears our united voices calling on them to preserve our Wisconsin values!

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | July 20, 2007 · 2:32 pm

Citizen members for Board of Education committees needed

From Beth Moss:

Hello,

I am the new Chair for the Board of Education Communications Committee for 2007-08. Thank you for your support of the MMSD and your interest in advocating for change in the state school funding system.

There are currently 2 vacancies on the Communications Committee for citizen members and 1 on the Community Partnerships Committee. Serving on a committee is an excellent way to become educated on the issues that affect our district, play a role in policy-making, and serve the community and our children.

We are looking for fresh ideas and new perspectives, so please take this opportunity, and send in your name. The directions for applying are attached. Also please forward this message to anyone you think may be interested. If you have any questions about the positions, please email or call me at 833-8717.

Thank you for your support of the MMSD, and I look forward to working with you.

Sincerely,

Beth Moss
Member, Board of Education

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by | July 19, 2007 · 6:13 pm

Key K-12 budget provisions for Madison Schools

A memo delivered to the Governor and our legislative delegation by MMSD. These would serve as good talking points when (not if!) you call or write your Reps, the Conference Committee or the Senate and Assembly leadership.

Thomas J. Mertz

Key K-12 budget provisions for Madison Schools
TO: Members of the 2007-09 Budget Conference Committee

FROM: Joe Quick, MMSD Legislative Liaison/Communication Specialist

DATE: July 18, 2007

RE: Key K-12 budget provisions for Madison Schools

Wisconsin’s school districts face a monumental challenge: continued pursuit of academic improvement by students, under the pressure of annual decreases in resources due to state-imposed revenue limits. While general school aids have increased annually, the resources are not targeted to classrooms.

Since the first year of revenue limits in 1993-94, Madison Schools have pared over $60 million from its annual cost-to-continue budget. This has forced larger class size at all grade levels, curtailed services for children in special education, diminished course offerings and extracurricular opportunities for children, and many other detrimental affects. Empty rhetoric maintaining that school officials need to find more “creative” ways to provide more with less is disingenuous, and harmful to our state’s premier K-12 system.

The following lists critical elements of the K-12 budget important for Madison Schools.

Allowable Revenue Limit Increase — Support the Senate position to provide an inflation-adjusted per pupil increase of $264 in 07-08 and $270 in 08-09. Where is the logic in penalizing a school district with an allowable $200 per student revenue limit increase because a district has already settled 2007-08 and 2008-09 contracts, as is the case with Madison and a few dozen other districts?

SAGE — Support the Senate position, ensuring the $250 per pupil increase for SAGE students — the first increase in the program’s 10-year history. This is in accord with the agreement between the Governor and legislative Republicans in 2006, as part of the Milwaukee voucher program enrollment expansion. Oppose Assembly action to dismantle SAGE by making 2nd and 3rd grade optional.

School Safety — Support the Senate position to provide revenue limit flexibility to help ensure safety for school staff and students, by allowing $100 per pupil to be spent — outside the revenue limits — for the critical needs of school safety equipment/personnel.

Bilingual-Bicultural Aid — Support the Senate position, which provides enough funding to maintain the inadequate resources for this state and federally mandated program. When revenue limits began, school districts were reimbursed by the state for 33% of related program expenses. With the additional funds recommended by the Governor and supported by the Senate, the reimbursement remains at 12%.

Special Education Aid — Support the Senate position to increase special education aid by $53.6 million, nudging the state support for special education to 29% by the end of the biennium. When revenue limits began, districts were reimbursed for almost 45% of costs.

Combined, since the inception of revenue limits, the diminished state reimbursement for SPED and bilingual-bicultural aid to Madison Schools translated to a loss of $11.6 million in resources for 2006-07. The District estimates it will have to cut $5-7 million from its “cost to continue” budget for 2008-09 in order to comply with revenue limits.

School Breakfast reimbursement — Support the Senate position to increase by five cents the reimbursement from $0.10 to $0.15 per meal served.

Chapter 220 — Oppose Assembly provision to eliminate the program, a loss of nearly $500,000 for Madison Schools.

Policy Items — Delete policy items in the K-12 portion of the budget, including, but not limited to: school referenda elections, the “autism scholarship” program, distribution of Common School Fund resources to school districts, elimination of the Qualified Economic Offer, and, the expansion of the Milwaukee voucher program to all of Milwaukee County and Racine County.

If you have questions about these positions, or would like more information, please contact me at 663-1902.

C: Madison Legislative Delegation
Gov. Jim Doyle

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by | July 17, 2007 · 5:06 am

State Budget News Roundup

The biggest news is the appointment of the Budget Conference Committee. Here are the members’ home pages:

Senate

Judy Robson (D)
Russell Decker (D)
Robert Jauch (D)
Scott Fitzgerald (R)

Assembly

Michael Huebsch (R)
Kitty Rhoades (R)
Jeff Fitzgerald (R)
James Kreuser (D)

Not really news, but I think it is timely to give a plug for the Take Back the Assembly project.

In Effect is optimistic (more here and some good links in both):

Sure, a handful of Republicans in the Assembly will hold out for a budget like this one, but enough will ultimately side with a budget that looks far more like what came out of the JFC last month.

Adam Wise (Wisconsin Rapids Tribune) correctly locates education issues at the center of the budget conflicts.

WCLO (Janesville) reports that “Assembly budget would hurt many school districts.”

The Herald Times (Manitowoc) editorializes “Major policy issues don’t belong in budgeting process.”

The Journal Sentinel (Milwaukee) saw through the GOP rhetoric on school funding and correctly reported “Assembly aims to limit taxes, as well as school funds.”

The Beloit daily News continues this theme with the story: “Proposed budget hurts schools.”

The Appleton Post Crescent reports on the partisanship of the process but also includes a reminder that the state GOP is not all on board with the extremism of the Assembly budget.

Appleton Mayor Tim Hanna sided with the governor, literally, at a news conference at an Appleton fire station.

“I don’t necessarily agree with everything the governor has to say, but I do agree that that what’s in the Republican Assembly package would be bad for Appleton and it would be bad for the state,” said Hanna, a longtime Republican. “However, I believe the Senate Democratic package is just as extreme on the other end.”

More reports and press releases from the Governor’s swing around the state:

Milwaukee, Madison, Superior, La Crosse, Wausau, and Kenosha.

As always, the WisPolitics Budget Blog has more.

Don’t forget to let your Reps and Senators know how you feel.

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | July 16, 2007 · 5:24 pm

Moving the Center

I’m going to post more state budget links as soon as I get a chance. Just an observation for now.

The Assembly budget is a GOP policy wish list. It is extreme. The Senate budget, with the possible exception of the Healthy Wisconsin initiative is a little left of center, but hardly a left wing document. The JFC and Gov. Doyle’s budgets were even more centrist.

Now the fun comes. As the conference committee works to reach an agreement the first and maybe only issue is where the center is, where the compromises will be. All the Democrats involved moved toward the center with their initial proposals, adopting for the most part realistic proposals. In contrast the GOP controlled Assembly swung for the fences. If the conference committee seeks a middle ground, the GOP will have won. The Dems need to adopt a stand firm and “give no quarter” stance (with the possible exception of Healthy Wisconsin). This won’t be easy and may be a tough play on the public opinion front, but anything else is a clear win for the extremists in the GOP and a clear loss for the people of Wisconsin.

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | July 11, 2007 · 10:18 pm

Rep. Pope-Roberts Calls for Immediate Action on School Funding Reform

In a press release and letter to Rep. Donald Pridemore, chairperson of the Assembly Education Reform Committee, Rep. Sondy Pope-Roberts (D-Verona) expressed her disappointment that he had not scheduled a hearing on Assembly Joint Resolution 35 (AJR35), which calls on the state to change the school-funding system by July 1, 2009.

“I am disappointed in Representative Pridemore’s continued excuses for turning his back on students, educators and administrators desperate for debate on school funding. I have been told that Representative Pridemore has not scheduled Assembly Joint Resolution 35 for a public hearing because he has yet to receive a formal request from my office.

“This is nothing but a petty partisan excuse; he is making up rules and placing the blame elsewhere. I was hopeful at the beginning of this legislative session that we would be able to act together as legislators invested in education instead of continuing these political games. I have now formally requested a public hearing for AJR 35 which calls upon the legislature to make changes to the school funding formula by July of 2009.”

“If Representative Pridemore isn’t even willing to hold a public hearing on this Resolution, I find it hard to believe he has any intention at all to “bring about meaningful reforms” that will help our education system or any intention of running this committee in a “fair and impartial fashion” as he wrote to me in January.”

In a letter to Pridemore, Pope-Roberts talked about the many phone calls, e-mails, and letters from all over Wisconsin asking that a hearing be scheduled on AJR35.

Please take a couple of minutes to contact Rep. Pridemore. He can be telephoned at 608-267-2367; faxed at 608-282-3699; e-mailed at rep.pridemore@legis.wisconsin.gov; or written to at State Capitol, P.O. Box 8953, Madison 53708. Make sure to ask him to copy your message to the members of the Assembly Education Reform Committee.

Robert Godfrey

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by | July 11, 2007 · 5:32 pm

More on the Assembly Budget

The assembly budget passed today with no ammendments. With the exception of Rep. Jeff Wood, R-Chippewa Falls voting against, it was a party line vote.

The DOA has issued a preliminary analysis of the impact on school funding. Madison would lose $1,586,393 this year, $3,346,026 the following and $4,932,419 the year after. That is in addittion to the “normal” $7 million to $9 million in anticipated annual cuts due to the structural gap between costs and allowed revenues. Ugly.

WiscPolitics has a nice set of links to reactions from elected officials to the Assembly’s proposed budget.

Governor Jim Doyle, joined by Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk have scheduled a press conference for 2:00 PM today (7/11) at Fire Station #1 (316 West Dayton St.). Be there to show your outrage!

Some suggestions on contacting legislators in this post. Contacting the press is also a good idea (info here).

Thomas J. Mertz

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by | July 8, 2007 · 9:16 pm

Bad Idea

Announced Madison school board candidate Ed Hughes had a guest column in last Sunday’s Wisconsin State Journal suggesting that MMSD sell the naming rights to the new school. For many reasons, but mostly because of the messages this sends our children, our citizenry and our elected officials, his is bad idea.

US Court of Appeals Judge Joseph Blocher has written about the first amendment issues involved in the policy Hughes supports. Blocher predicts a coming “wave of school naming rights cases,” maybe Madison would have nice ride, but the possibility of wiping out exists. Hughes blithely asserts that the Board could not accept purely commercial names, but Blocher indicates that once naming is put out to bid the allowable restrictions are not clear. Even if the rejection of crass commercialism is allowed, the Board could be faced with a situation where the supporters of Vang Pao or much worse were the highest bidders. That’s a hornet’s nest I don’t think we want to enter.

During the Marquette–Lapham controversy, Paul Soglin noted the futility of one time sales of assets in order to meet operating expenses. Although I am less absolute than Soglin on this, he makes a good point. Hughes imagines interest from the money going for a literacy coordinator. Assuming this is feasible, I think the experience of the Overture Centure should have taught us about relying on projected endowment earnings for operating expenses. What happens when the money is gone? I suppose that the “one time” aspect could be circumvented by leasing naming rights or selling them piecemeal – so much for the auditorium, so much for the principal’s office, so much for the computer lab – in order to keep the money flowing. This would make a bad idea worse. Our Board has enough to do without going into the auction business and each sale would compound all the negatives discussed below.

Hughes draws upon the example of the Atwood Community Center being renamed the Goodman Atwood Community Center, but neglects to mention an important distinguishing characteristic. The Goodman Atwood center is a private entity, the public schools are not.

Given the state of school finance, I understand the pragmatic desire to secure funding wherever possible, but with funding comes control. Whatever their failings, I prefer control remain with the voters and our elected board. Thanks to a successful referendum, the construction for the new school in Madison school has already been secured but in other districts naming rights are being sold in order to fund construction. Madison will need other new schools in the coming years and it doesn’t take much imagination to see that right to name a school in a wealthy area will bring more than the right to name a high poverty school and in this manner and whatever the real needs private funds could easily become part of the equation. Most of the districts that have put naming rights on the market have also sought monies for specific programs or facilities, like the The Electronic Arts (video game company) Learning Center in Belmont Ca, Acuity Auditorium in Plymouth, WI or the Shoprite playgound in Brooklawn NJ. Compter labs, playgrounds and auditoriums are great, but how many corporations or individuals would pay to have their name attached to school psychologist office or remedial math programs? I don’t want our school’s priorities shaped by wealthy (any more than they already are).

Back to Hughes’ literacy coordinator, maybe there are other schools in the district with a greater need for this position but Hughes attaches it to the new school. Tough luck for those kids in the schools with nothing desirable to sell.

Seeking this kind of funding also undermines the efforts for tax fairness and adequate funding of education. By definition, individuals and corporations who can afford to purchase the honor of naming a school have accumulated excess wealth. It would be swell to see some of that wealth go to public schools but I much prefer that it go their via taxation and not in order to market a product or as a purchased ego trip. And with each sale the anti tax people and the privatizers gain momentum: “Why should we pay taxes when there is unrealized revenue from naming rights? Why have public schools at all, let’s let those who can afford it decide what kind of schools we should have?’

All the above recommend at very least a more thorough exploration of the issues involved than Hughes seems to have made and in my opinion provide sufficient grounds for the Board to not go into the business of selling naming rights, but the primary reasons I hope the Board rejects this out of hand are more basic to the purpose of our schools.

Our schools are there to transmit knowledge and values and the knowledge and values inherent in the selling of naming rights are not the ones I believe we should be transmitting. My elementary school was named after Martin Luther King Jr. To this day, I take pride in that and I believe that my values have been shaped by the impression made on my young mind by my community’s choice to honor King. The odds of anyone ponying up a cool million to name a school after MLK are pretty slim. Selling the naming rights takes away opportunities of this sort. Assuming Hughes is right and commercial messages could be avoided and that names of insufficient honor could be rejected, resulting in a bought names that were “less prominent but still honorable,” the message remains that ours is a society where honor is for sale. Is this what we want to teach our children? Do you want to explain that Rev. JC Wright dedicated his life to our community and he is being honored for that and Joe Schmoe was an OK guy who made a killing in real estate so he gets a school named after him too? I don’t.

Our schools should represent the best of our society, our hopes and aspirations for the future, our quest for equity. Everywhere, inequality is in control, wealth is celebrated and rewarded and there are too few places where other values get their due. The schools should be one such place. Our schools are far from perfect and their quest to live up to these ideals will always be a work in progress. Still, we lose much when we were to sell any portion of that vision. Schools should not be for sale, not to the highest bidder, not to the highest non-commercial or “less prominent but still honorable” bidder.

Some ideas are so bad that their failings are apparent at a glance. Selling the naming rights falls into that category for me. Still, I can respect others who are less certain and want to explore the possibilities (if they do, I hope the issues I have touched on here are part of the discussion and I’d be glad to consider what others have to say). I have more trouble with a school board candidate who is so dazzled by the possibility of “easy” money that he has given no apparent attention to the difficulties inherent in and the possible negative consequences of his proposal. Maybe Hughes has considered these and come to an opposite conclusion. Even if that is the case, his simplistic boosterism is not the sort of public discussion our schools benefit from. We need leaders who understand that very little in educational policy is simple and demonstrate a willingness to transparently grapple with the complexities.

The Board of Education will decide on a process for the naming on Monday. Let’s all hope that they don’t end up with something like Hughes has proposed.

Some additional links (more food for thought and discussion):

Law Professor Anne Bartow: “Trademarks of Privilege: Naming Rights and the Physical Public Domain”

Savvy School or Capitalist Tool? (Wired)

Commercial Alert (education issues)

Commercialism in Education Research Unit, Education Policy Studies Laboratory, Arizona State University, Tempe

Campaign For A Commercial-Free Childhood

In Public Schools, the Name Game as a Donor Lure (New York Times)

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by | July 5, 2007 · 7:56 pm

We are not alone #13

It has been a while since I’ve posted one of these round ups of Wisconsin school budget news. This one is going to be in the quick facts and short excerpts style.

Menomonie
School board nixes four-year-old kindergarten

The recent referendum in Menomomie lost, the start up and operating costs for 4K are only partially covered by state aid and allowable local revenues, so even though a majority of the Board believe it would be “beneficial for kids,” there will be no 4 year old kindergarten in Menomonie.

“I voted against this two years ago, but since then I’ve read some positive information about four-year-old kindergarten,” said Bud Karis, board member.

The referendum that was recently defeated, however, was not for new programs, but to maintain existing programs, he said.

“If we can’t maintain existing programs, then we should not start new programs. Where are we going to get the start-up funds when we’re already broke?” Karis said.

Four-year-old kindergarten is educationally sound and is fiscally sound over time, said Jesse Harness, district administrator.

Ashwaubenon
Ashwaubenon lays off 8 teachers

The headline kind of says it all. One interesting note is that like MMSD and other districts around the state, Ashwaubenon is considering following the state law that allows districts to move community education programs to a fund that is not under the revenue caps.

The district also would like to start a community service fund, Lucius said earlier this spring. With that fund, programs that benefit the community — such as Ashwaubenon High School’s indoor pool and other programs — fit under a different tax levy not tied to the state-mandated revenue caps for school districts. That would free up about $300,000 in the school budget, Lucius said, but does require approval at the school district’s annual meeting in July.

Neenah
Neenah cuts in-city busing for students

Like in Madison, busing for both public and private school students was cut.

School board member Scott Butler said in-city busing is not required by law and falls below other priorities of the district. A majority of the board agreed with him Tuesday.

Tight budgets mean a close look at priorities.

Kaukauna
Budget woes plague Kaukauna schools

Board trims $500,000 in projected SAGE costs

Read both linked stories to get the sad story of how the district tried and failed to keep all the SAGE class size reductions that the state would co-fund. The Governor’s budget this year contains the first increase in SAGE reimbursement ever, but even if that goes through the state funding will fall short of meeting the true expenses in all or most schools. Like so many other state and federal programs, SAGE is underfunded and the difference has to be made up out of the general budget.

“I appreciate what they (administrators) did to get to where we are,” said Todd Arnoldussen, the board’s vice president and a staunch supporter of retaining the SAGE program. “But I can’t see all that work going out the window. … This is the right way.”

Hustisford
Preliminary school budget approved by Hustisford board

The schools in Hustiford will again run a deficit and dip into their fund balance this year (to the tune of $654,437). the familiar story of allowed revenues not rising as fast as expenses. Although familiar, the reporter (Pat Hahn) did an exceptional job explaining state and local school finances and I urge you to read it. Here is one good quote:

“It looks dismal, and it is,” Van Ravenstein told the board. “Each year since I’ve been here, I’ve trimmed the budget as much as I could. This year there isn’t anything left to trim.”

Thomas J. Mertz

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Filed under AMPS, Best Practices, Budget, Local News, Referenda, School Finance, We Are Not Alone