Posts Tagged ‘Education’

Study: Wisconsin Has the Worst Science Education Standards in the Country

By Christian D’Andrea
 MacIver Institute Education Policy Analyst

The grades are out – Wisconsin is the worst in the United States when it comes to science curricula in the classroom. In the words of a recent study, our state’s science standards are “simply worthless.”

A 2012 report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute gauged the strength of science programs across the nation. With several different approaches to teaching science in the classroom, every state presented a different challenge to students and analysts. This study, authored by a cabal of notable researchers, broke down the difference in science standards throughout the country. Without a “Common Core” of data standards for scientific studies, each state has a significant amount of freedom with which to determine what their students learn about science in the classroom.

However, many of these state-mandated standards leave students behind when it comes to comprehensive knowledge about the subject. Wisconsin’s is one of them.

The Badger State earned a failing grade when it came to the science standards that students are supposed to be held to, posting a 0/10 score and a “F” grade. This was the lowest recorded score in the entire study.

Wisconsin earned marks so low that they were practically nonexistent. The Fordham Institute study put blame on the state for tying their standards to the outdated National Science Education Standards (NSES) and failing to elaborate or personalize these guidelines to better fit its students.

The authors’ distaste for Wisconsin’s approach is apparent in the study:

Any educator who might hope to create a curriculum from the Wisconsin science material would be stranded in a dismal, content-free desert. True standards are provided for just three grades, and the content provided for those grades is almost nonexistent.

Scientific Inquiry and Methodology

Like most of the content standards, the standards for inquiry and methodology are devoid of any real substance. For example, a fourth-grade standard tells students, “When studying a science-related problem, decide what changes over time are occurring or have occurred.” What this is meant to signify—or what skills are intended for mastery—is impossible to know.

All Content Areas

It’s virtually impossible to evaluate the content of the Wisconsin science standards because almost none is presented. Of the eight strands, only three—physical science, earth and space science, and life and environmental science— address bona fide scientific content. (The other five are devoted to process and inquiry). Moreover, all the content that students are expected to learn at each grade is presented in less than a page. Thus, all the science content Wisconsin students are expected to learn is presented in fewer than ten pages.

These shortcomings were responsible for Wisconsin’s ranking of 51st out of 51 states and Washington D.C.. The Badger State’s closest competitors at the bottom were Montana and North Dakota.

Science has been a subject that has fallen to the wayside in America. In 2009, only one-third of American students scored “proficient” or better when it came to scientific studies in the fourth grade. By eighth grade, this score sunk to 30 percent, and in 12th grade it was just 21 percent. All figures come courtesy of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as “The Nation’s Report Card.”

However, despite the lax science standards, Wisconsin performed above the national average when it came to NAEP testing in fourth grade, where 42 percent of students taking the test rated out at “proficient” or above. In eighth grade, the state’s results were the same as the national average. State data in 12th grade was not available.

Across the country, only five states and districts – California, Virginia, South Carolina, Indiana, and Washington D.C. – received “A” grades. Wisconsin was one of 10 states to earn a “F,” alongside Alaska, Wyoming, the Dakotas, and others. Michigan and Minnesota each earned a “C,” while Iowa and Illinois recorded “D”s. For the Badger State, this grade maintained the status quo of years past – Wisconsin also graded out at “F” in the 2005 version of this same report.

The Fordham report deals a damning blow to the state’s science standards. While many have often focused on the state’s reading and mathematics results, it appears that science has taken a back seat when it comes to creating a defined and comprehensive curriculum for Wisconsin’s students.

This lack of foundation may have a significant effect on the state’s lagging test scores in the subject. It could be leaving pupils behind the curve as they grow. Though some students will be able to go above and beyond the vague standards that Wisconsin puts out when it comes to science, others will be caught up in a less stringent system that provides little direction in this area of study.

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Posted in News, mi reports | February 1, 2012 | | No Comments

Wisconsin Advances an Amazing Education Reform Measure

By James Wigderson
Special Guest Perspective for the MacIver Institute

Parents in Wisconsin had a tremendous victory last week when the legislature passed a change in the state’s open enrollment law making it easier for students to transfer from one school district to another. The change in the law expands the traditional window for parents to participate in the open enrollment program from three weeks to three months. The change in the law also includes a compromise that allows for year-round transfers of students between school districts if the students are welcomed and if the parents find it necessary.

These changes in the open enrollment law were a tremendous victory for supporters of public school choice in Wisconsin and the victory was the highlight of the annual “School Choice Week.”

The expansion in the allowed open enrollment time also comes at a time of renewed energy in reforming education under Governor Scott Walker and the legislature. Under ACT 10, the school districts in Wisconsin have greater flexibility in setting the work rules, including expected hours in the workday and with seniority.

The sweeping changes of ACT 10 are also allowing school districts to experiment with merit pay. As the MacIver Institute recently reported, the Cedarburg and Hartland-Lakeside School Districts will be among the first to try merit pay to see if it improves student performance.

The governor has also announced new legislation is coming that will rate all schools on proficiency and student progress, create a teacher and principal evaluation system, and implement the Read to Lead proposed reforms.

This is a dramatic change in direction from when school choice was on the defensive during the Jim Doyle era. Then Doyle and the teachers unions tried to prevent public online charter schools from using open enrollment, effectively shutting them down. When that was unsuccessful they capped enrollment just as they fought raising the caps on enrollment in the Milwaukee Choice Program.

The compromise legislation that just passed allows parents to move their children to another school district under the open enrollment program year-round provided the resident school district agrees it is in the child’s best interests. However, if the parents are unable to get the approval of the resident school district, they can appeal to the state Department of Public Instruction whose determination of what is in the child’s best interests would be final.

As a parent of two children in elementary school I understand the need for options. I went through a situation myself when it was no longer in my children’s best interests to continue in our ‘home’ public school district after it became clear that my newspaper columns for the Waukesha Freeman had made some unprofessional teachers hostile toward my kids.

Unfortunately I was not made aware of the situation until well after the open enrollment period had ended. It was too late for us to consider an online charter school in another district or switching my oldest son to a neighboring district. There was no way I could allow my children to be deprived of a proper education with parental involvement in their activities, so I had to make the decision to switch them to a private school. I might have made a different decision had those options been available to me at the time. Thank heavens we were able to afford it.

We can all imagine other scenarios under which a parent may discover, at an inconvenient time for the school bureaucrats, that the school system is inadequate for their child. For example, a child may find that the district’s reading program is incompatible with the child’s needs. While it may work for other children, for some reason it doesn’t work for that child, and the parents discover that it isn’t working after the school year has started. Wouldn’t it be preferable to move that child as soon as possible into a district that has a reading program more tailored to that child’s needs?

Before the passage of SB2, parents would have to wait until the following February to pursue other public school options for their kids, and would have to wait until the following September before their child would get into a new public school.

Thanks to SB2, students will no longer be able to be held captive by arcane regulations or an occasional inconsiderate administrator.

This is at the heart of the school choice movement—giving parents the ability to make the proper educational choices for their children.

There is still work to be done when it comes to educational choice. Just last week the National Alliance for Charter Public Schools ranked Wisconsin 36 out of the 42 states with public charter school laws. Wisconsin was faulted limiting the authorizers of public charter schools to local school boards and a few universities. They suggested Wisconsin needs a board that can authorize charter schools statewide.

However, the latest expansion of public school choice enrollment statewide, year wide is welcome news for parents looking for the best educational opportunities for their children. How fitting that this news came during School Choice Week. Kudos to Governor Walker, who is poised to sign SB2, and to members of both parties to voted for this reform.

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Posted in Breaking news, mi perspectives | January 30, 2012 | | No Comments

Statewide Public School Choice Coming to Wisconsin

MacIver News Service | January 26, 2012

[Madison, Wisc...] More than a year after it was introduced, legislation that will bring unprecedented school choice to families who wish to enroll in Wisconsin’s public schools passed the Assembly Thursday.

Senate Bill 2, which expands the timing and options behind the state’s open enrollment policies, will allow parents and children more freedom than ever before when it comes to choosing the school that is right for them.

The legislation, now on its way to the Governor for his signature, will change the process of open enrollment. The law will allow for a freer transfer of students between public schools across districts. This legislation expands the formal application process from a three week span to three months and include provisions for year-round transfers for students that aren’t happy with their current schools.

The sweeping reform comes at the conclusion of  National School Choice Week and the new policy is a major victory for educational freedom for parents and schools alike. Families will now have greater options to find the public school that works best for their children.

This will have a significant impact reaching from regular public schools to charter and virtual schools across the state. Along with the labor reforms enacted in 2011, this legislation has the potential to dramatically change the education landscape in Wisconsin. By creating a free market within Wisconsin’s public schools the new law is expected to foster competition between school districts and increase the influence of parents in areas as far reaching as curriculum development and school operations.

Currently, families have a three-week window in the beginning of February during which they can apply to attend a public school other than their local neighborhood school. The resident school board can prevent students from leaving by rejecting their application and informing parents by April.

Parents will now have the ability to apply to up to three districts in an expanded timeline for open enrollment transfers. The application period will now run from the beginning of February to the end of April and families will know whether or not their transfer has been approved by June – in time for the upcoming school year. This means that parents will have a better idea of the options available for their children and in a more timely manner than the previous system.

Moreover, stipulations exist that will allow students to transfer outside of this window as well. If students meet certain conditions parents can apply for their transfer at any time during the year. If the receiving district has room available for the student, then they will be compelled to accept the transfer unless the district and the Department of Public Instruction both rule that the transfer does not have the student’s best interests at heart.

In short, parents disappointed with their child’s school will have more options for transfer – and they won’t have to wait for that three-week period in February to act. This means greater freedom for parents and, ideally, fewer instances of students being trapped in schools that don’t fit them for long stretches of time.

School districts will have to determine the number of open slots for all students – both regular and special education based – in January. These limits will be determined by criteria such as class size, student-teacher ratios, and enrollment projections. Students that are excluded from transferring thanks to these limits will be put on a waiting list, and parents will know whether or not they have been accepted by the third Friday in September.

The legislation had the support of educational groups across the state. The Wisconsin Coalition of Virtual School Families was the legislation’s leading proponent and the American Federation for Children, the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, and the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators all rallied behind the plan. The expansion is not expected to have a significant fiscal effect on public education, but will reach thousands of parents and families across the state. It is expected to be signed into law by Governor Scott Walker within days.

Parent advocates boast that this bill amounts to is the passage of year-round public school choice for Wisconsin’s families. Parents will have more flexibility and a greater awareness not only of their schooling options, but also over when their children can transfer if they decide that their neighborhood school is not for them.

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Posted in Breaking news, mi reports | January 26, 2012 | | 1 Comment

UW Prof Solicits His Students for Help on Political Project While They Await Their Final Grades

MacIver News Service | January 20, 2012

Joel Rogers Says College Credits May Be Available to Those Who Help Build Liberal Alternative to ALEC

[Madison, Wisc…] One of the University of Wisconsin’s most renowned liberal professors attempted to recruit his students to work on an elaborate private political project while final grades in their class were pending, the MacIver News Service has learned.

At the conclusion of his end-of-the-year email to his UW Law School students, Professor Joel Rogers wrote: “I think I mentioned a little project I’m doing now — which thus far involves professors from such crummy law schools as Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, Virgina [sic] and elsewhere, but thus far, beyond your lonesome, NOBODY from UW — to build a partial counter to ALEC. It’s going to involve a lot of law students. If you’re interested in helping out with that (no money, but possible credit), or know of somebody else who might be, please let me, or even better, “Nate Ela” <nela@cows.org>, a lawyer and now sociology grad student, know. Project description attached.“

Rogers is the Director of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, a 501(c)(3) nonpartisan, educational, and charitable organization. COWS was founded in 1992 by Rogers, a professor of Law, Political Science, and Sociology at UW-Madison and a longtime commentator on economic development and democratic institutions.

COWS is based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the Social Science Building.

According to its website, COWS current and past funders include: the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Carolyn Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Garfield Foundation, Living Cities, the Joyce Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Surdna Foundation, the Wallace Global Fund and the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.

This last semester, Rogers taught a class titled: Law & Contemporary Problems: Public Law & Private Power to approximately a dozen students at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Coursework was completed in December, but grades had not been issued at the time he sent his email to students.

Rogers’ email was provided to MacIver News Service by someone who received the email from one of Rogers’ students. The MNS has confirmed the authenticity of the email, although we have not found a student who was willing to comment on the record.

ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, is based in Washington D.C. and is frequently the target of liberal groups’ and lawmakers’ ire. ALEC bills itself as the ‘State Legislators’ Think Tank,’ and with nearly 2,000 members is the nation’s largest nonpartisan, individual membership association for legislators. Nominal membership dues paid by lawmakers and voluntary contributions from private sector companies and foundations also fund the organization.

ALEC’s stated mission is to advance the Jeffersonian principles of free markets, limited government, federalism, and individual liberty, through a nonpartisan public-private partnership of America’s state legislators, members of the private sector, the federal government, and general public. Their many task forces construct model legislation that is often introduced by ALEC members in legislatures across the country. Many liberal organizations and lawmakers decry the private sector participation in the crafting of such model laws, viewing it as undue influence peddling by corporate interests.

According to his official biography, posted on the COWS website, Rogers has written widely on American politics and public policy (books include On Democracy, Right Turn, The Forgotten Majority, What Workers Want, and, most recently American Society: How It Really Works). He is a MacArthur Foundation Fellow and a longtime social and political activist.

Rogers is also the author of an article entitled “ALEC Exposed: Business Domination, Inc.” which appeared in the July 2011 edition of The Nation Magazine.

Have UW students received credit for helping Rogers with other political projects? Do Rogers, the UW Law School or the University of Wisconsin condone such solicitations from faculty using University resources? Do they believe it is a problem to solicit help from students while their grades are pending?

The MNS is awaiting comment from Rogers, the dean of the UW Law School and the UW Chancellor and will update this story to reflect their responses in the coming days.

According to a three-page description of his project, which Rogers attached to his email to students, He is attempting to form an organization called ALICE. “ALICE, like ALEC,” Roagers wrote, “would be administered as a values-­‐based 501(c)(3) organization, also offer model legislation, and also do so in a wide variety of areas. But it would differ in at least three ways. First, its central aim would be approximately opposite to ALEC’s, viz. to help state and local officials advance shared prosperity, sustainability, and effective democratic government (aka “high road” ways of governing ourselves and the economy). Second, it would include models of local as well as state legislation, and executive orders as well as laws.  Third, at least at first, it would be limited to such model bills/orders, not other supports.”

He later writes more about funding and granting credit to students who help on the project:

“On money, I don’t have any existing grant or donation dedicated to ALICE, but have reserved some unrestricted money at COWS for it. This is not big money, and not enough to pay outside contributors to the project, but it is enough to cover several months of the costs of graduate students and staff working on project start-­‐up, and travel subsidy for those in want for needed in-­‐person meetings. On governance, I imagine ALICE at least starting as a project of COWS, but with its own web identity and distinct advisory board, membership of which I’m sure we can figure out. On credit, we can talk about how much people or organizations want to be identified as contributors to different model bills, but so far as I’m concerned anybody contributing should get whatever credit they want.”

The full email:

———- Forwarded message ———-

From: Joel Rogers ‪<jrogers@ssc.wisc.edu>‬

Date: Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 1:47 PM

Subject: grading done, liked the class, keep in touch if you want to

To: law 940 2011 <law940-1-f11@lists.wisc.edu>

Just wanted to tell you all that I graded your exams, which I thought were pretty good. Jane Ford-Bennett tells me she’ll be posting your grades soon. I’m not supposed to tell you what they are until you already know.

I haven’t seen your evaluations of the course yet (I assume they’re searing!), but just wanted to say again how much I enjoyed having you in class and to emphasize, since I don’t have an office at the Law School and we’re liking not going to just bump into each other randomly, that you shouldn’t hesitate to be in contact. Email is good or call my assistant, Michelle Bright, who keeps more regular hours than I. Her number is 890-2543.

All best, hope you liked you grade, and Happy New Year.

PS – This really wasn’t the purpose of this note, but just occurred to me. I think I mentioned a little project I’m doing now — which thus far involves professors from such crummy law schools as Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, Virgina and elsewhere, but thus far, beyond your lonesome, NOBODY from UW — to build a partial counter to ALEC. It’s going to involve a lot of law students. If you’re interested in helping out with that (no money, but possible credit), or know of somebody else who might be, please let me, or even better, “Nate Ela” <nela@cows.org>, a lawyer and now sociology grad student, know. Project description attached.

Here is a link to the document describing the project: ALICE-1

Coming soon in this series: University of Wisconsin officials and state lawmakers react to this story; What is COWS?

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Posted in Breaking news | January 19, 2012 | | 2 Comments

Governor Unveils School, Teacher Grading Systems as Part of Education Reforms

MacIver News Service | January 19, 2012

[Madison, Wisc...] Governor Walker took the first steps in unveiling the state’s latest education reforms Thursday afternoon, discussing the final recommendations of three major K-12 efforts at a gathering of educational professionals.

“Improving our schools, measuring student achieving growth, and increasing accountability and transparency in education will help our children succeed,” said Governor Walker, who announced the reforms at the 2012 State Education Convention in Milwaukee. “While members of the working groups deserve credit for their recommendations, our work is not yet done. I encourage parents, teachers, school board members, and all community leaders to help implement these reforms that are key to our state’s long‐term prosperity.”

The Governor discussed the bi-partisan efforts behind the Read to Lead, Educator Effectiveness, and School Accountability programs that are aimed at improving public education and providing parents and students with a stronger, more transparent grading system for Wisconsin’s schools.

The three programs are all items that have been in the works for nearly a year. Task forces and design teams have labored to create a comprehensive system of accountability for schools, teachers, and students that have included input from almost every player in the educational process. Today’s announcement was the first public unveiling of the final recommendations of the school accountability and educator effectiveness programs. The Read to Lead guidelines were announced by Walker and Superintendent Tony Evers January 4.

The Educator Effectiveness program will give schools, administrators, and parents a better idea of how teachers are performing in the classroom. These evaluations will incorporate equal parts student outcomes and observed practices to create a balanced view at what educators bring to their classrooms.

Of the three reforms, the Educator Effectiveness plan was one of the most divisive. The Wisconsin Educators Association Council (WEAC), the state’s largest teachers’ union, refused to participate after a contentious battle over Act 10. Instead, the union organized their own focus group and released their recommendations for a new teacher evaluation system late in 2011. Another group of educators, the Southwestern Wisconsin Teacher Evaluation Consortium, devised a localized system to gauge classroom effectiveness. This group of over 60 school districts banded together to create a customized system for implementation in their schools. They have also worked with DPI to develop best practices that could be absorbed into the statewide program.

“We spent a significant amount of time last year engaged in design team processes to make important decisions about how to improve students’ reading scores, ensure every classroom has an effective teacher, and gauge school success by looking at both growth and attainment,” added Senate Education Chairman Luther Olsen. “This education package puts into law essential elements to help these initiatives succeed.”

The Educator Effectiveness program is based on widely accepted 2011 Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC) Model Core Teaching Standards. They’ll give parents and administrators the clearest picture of the value a teacher adds to their classroom that Wisconsin has ever had. However, questions remain over how this data will be handled, what will constitute a “bad” teacher, and how long teachers have to receive poor grades for parents to be notified that a low-performing educator is teaching their children.

The second new piece unveiled today was the School Accountability system, which will grade and categorize schools based on factors like student growth and college or career readiness. This program will replace No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in the measurement of the state’s public schools, and will create a more accurate and realistic metric by which to rate Wisconsin’s institutions. Upcoming legislation for this act will have to be strongly influenced by the Department of Public Instruction’s upcoming waiver for release from NCLB standards.

The centerpiece of the School Accountability program will be a report card that touts a school’s grades and will be displayed prominently on the school’s website. How these schools are graded, however, is still unknown. Both the metric for these grades and the grading system (for example an A-F system compared to Proficient, Advanced, and other labels) has yet to have a formal release. While this represents a new step forward in transparency, the lack of easily understandable grades could create some confusion amongst parents and sap the program of its impact.

The two programs, along with the previously announced Read to Lead plans, are expected to have a significant effect on Wisconsin’s public education.However, whether or not these plans will go far enough to create true reform will depend heavily on their implementation.This implementation will be a hot topic in Madison over the next several months as lawmakers draft the legislation to make these programs a reality in the state’s public schools.

Although Superintendent Evers joined Gov. Walker at the Read to Lead announcement earlier this year, he offered this statement Thursday afternoon.

“[D]espite my leadership in these arenas and constitutional authority, I have not been involved in the drafting of the education proposals that have been announced,” said Evers. “Clearly, it is essential to see the details of this proposed legislation and ensure they match the intent and spirit of all the work that so many groups and individuals put into improving schools and academic achievement for all students in Wisconsin.”

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Posted in News | January 19, 2012 | | Comments Off

What the Wisconsin School Accountability Program Should Look Like

By Christian D’Andrea
 MacIver Institute Education Policy Analyst

In the near future the final recommendations of three task forces dedicated to improving public education in Wisconsin are expected to be unveiled. This includes the work of the Wisconsin School Accountability Design Team, a group saddled with creating a metric by which the state’s schools will be graded.

The ultimate goal of this task force is to create a comprehensive and transparent system that helps parents, students, and citizens better understand the quality of their neighborhood schools. Ultimately, it would gauge the progress of both students and teachers and provide performance comparisons across districts, states, and even countries. It will take the place of the beleaguered No Child Left Behind program, a federal mandate that often failed to create meaningful positive change in the state’s public schools.

However, creating a metric to include all these goals is the difficult part. Issues like the inclusion of different subjects, determining which tests will be used to gauge progress, and how to weigh low-performing and underprivileged students has caused turmoil design team meetings that have occasionally become contentious. Some school leaders are concerned that they could be unfairly graded and carry the stigma of low-performance into the future. Others worry that a lax accountability system will offer little differentiation and obscure the transparency that the program is aiming to create.

Ideally, the school accountability program would include:

  • Transparent grades that the public can easily digest. This means an A-F system that people can understand, rather than more cryptic terms. This will allow for an easy comparison across the state and across districts themselves. This will empower parents and help families find the right schools that fit their children best. While this will add an element of competition to the grading process, schools in danger of losing students thanks to low grades may find extra motivation for improvement.
  • Extra attention – potentially through additional grading weight – for the lowest performing students. Florida’s school grading system, considered to be a model for Wisconsin’s school accountability program (or at least a starting point) emphasized the performance of the students that needed the most help. They essentially double-counted the reading and math scores of the pupils in the bottom 25 percent of their schools when factoring them into a school’s grade. This ensured an additional focus on students that are struggling without abandoning the performance of a school’s top students.
  • Considerations to the amount of low-income students in a school. This would effectively curve the grading system to reward schools that are making progress with economically disadvantaged students. Wisconsin is a very unbalanced state when it comes to per capita income. The state’s 426 school districts often swing wildly from region to region when it comes to the economic backgrounds of students. Most often, areas with the highest concentrations of low-income pupils fare the worst when educational progress is measured.How to implement such a program has several moving parts. However, it’s clear that, in order to create comparisons that can be accurately gauged across the state, this is a necessary piece in ensuring fair, easily comparable grades from Milwaukee to Superior.
  • Value-added testing data to gauge student progress and a teacher’s value over the course of a school year. Tests taken in the fall and spring could measure how students are learning at each grade within an institution. Not only would this show Wisconsinites how its students are progressing, but also fall in line with the upcoming Educator Effectiveness program, which will grade a teacher’s performance in the classroom. It would give parents a better idea of just what an educator has added to their child’s education.The idea behind value-added testing is that students that enter a grade behind their peers won’t drag down their classroom’s average. Instead of an overall grade level, this testing will measure the growth of a student – so if a student that has fallen behind is motivated and taught well enough to meet the class average, he or she would produce a higher value-added score than a student that maintains that average. In short, it rewards progression and penalizes regression beyond just what WKCE averages tell us.
  • Proper standards for choice and charter schools. These schools should be held accountable as much as traditional public schools. The use of value-added testing and student data that tracks progress rather than benchmarks will ensure that these institutions are fairly graded and given more direct comparisons to the regular public schools in their regions.
  • Turnaround measures for failing schools. So now that we know how schools are performing, what do we do with them? Policy needs to be put in place that allows these schools to remove ineffective educators and administrators and bring in the talent they need to make strides towards a better education. This should align with the upcoming teacher evaluation systems in order to help these schools identify which individuals are bringing value to their classrooms. This intervention will put an onus on underperforming institutions and highlight the need for real reform when students aren’t learning in Wisconsin’s schools.
  • Data measurement systems that can sync with national and global rankings. This metric needs to be able to measure up from state to state and even across countries. Adopting Common Core of Data standards should help create a comparable and accurate system of measurement that allows us to compare Wisconsin’s schools with other across the country. Global comparisons are a bit trickier – but PISA or TIMSS testing, even on a limited basis, could provide valuable information when it comes to stacking Wisconsin’s public schools against those of worldwide leaders.
  • Revisable options to accommodate a new breed of teachers and students. The accountability system has to have a dedicated board to track results and address any shortcomings the program may have. This includes adopting new measures and self-reporting flaws and problems that may arise and negatively affect schools.

Ideally, the school accountability design team will create a program that presents clear and understandable data for parents and students so they can better understand the quality of their public schools. This needs to go beyond an insulated neighborhood level to work beyond districts, into other states, and even to other countries. Wisconsin’s educational outcomes have hit a disappointing era of limited growth and even regression. Increasing the public’s awareness of just how strong their neighborhood schools are will not only empower parents, but pressure underperforming institutions to improve.

It will be a large task to undertake, and the debates that have raged at design team meetings suggest that consensus outside of major topics has been hard to find. Still, the successful implementation of a program that accurately grades Wisconsin’s public schools and delivers more information to citizens will be powerful. It will give legitimacy to the state’s more successful schools and spur improvement in ones that are falling behind. However, this metric must be comprehensive and fair to ensure that grades are earned properly rather than just being the product of a potentially gamed system.

This is a major task for the design team, but with members ranging from almost every aspect of Wisconsin’s public education, it’s something that can be done. If these groups can work together, we’ll soon have a comprehensive system by which we can grade schools. If these groups can’t agree or exercise too much caution in their system, we may just end up with another set of standards that tell us little about Wisconsin’s classrooms – almost like the WKCE.

If the system is well constructed and implemented properly, students, teachers, parents, and Wisconsinites everywhere will benefit.

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Posted in News, mi perspectives, mi reports | January 18, 2012 | | 1 Comment

Tracking Return on Investment in the “Green Economy”

MacIver News Service | January 16, 2012

ZBB Energy, a Menomonee Falls based green energy company, is in a race to bring new green technologies to market as it finds itself in the center of the debate over whether government financial assistance can launch and sustain a green economy here in the United States.

President Obama visited ZBB Energy back in August of 2010 to promote the green economy and why the federal government should step in to get this sector of the economy off the ground.

“At this plant you’re doing more than making high-tech batteries.  You’re pointing the country towards a brighter economic future,” Obama said.

During his visit, President Obama vowed to create 800,000 green energy jobs by 2012.

ZBB Energy makes batteries specifically designed to store electricity from renewable sources. At least, that’s the plan.  ZBB Energy is in the middle of a major overhaul and currently does not have any products on the market. It plans to launch a new line within weeks.

“The product we’re developing will be the only storage device like it in the world,” Will Hogoboom, CFO, told MacIver News. “We’ve already closed orders for the new product even though it’s not in production.”

Investors and the stock market have not always appeared to share in the President’s optimism.  ZBB Energy stock ended the year at 71 cents a share. The day of Obama’s visit, the stock closed at $.70. Some believe investors are generally weary of green energy companies, especially startups, because these companies have high risk: they incur high overhead and generate low revenue while they attempt to develop new technologies that may or may not be profitable.

That’s where federal and state governments step in, providing those companies with massive tax breaks and loans. Many companies state in their SEC filings they could not survive without this preferred treatment. However, as we’ve seen, government favoritism is not a guarantee of success.

Solyndra, a solar panel manufacturer in California, received a $535 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy in 2009. Two years later the company was out of business.

ZBB Energy has received significantly less help from the federal government than Solyndra. In June, the IRS awarded it a $14.7 million Clean Energy Tax Credit.  In 2009 it received a $1.3 million stimulus loan.

The stock market has been a consistent challenge for ZBB Energy. In December 2010, AMEX notified ZBB its shareholders’ equity was below the minimum $4 million required to continue being listed. This December, the company announced its shareholders equity was at $4.1 million and it was back in compliance.

However, ZBB’s stock still trends downward. It closed at $5.80 on June 18, 2007, three days after the company executed a 1:17 reverse split. Since then, it’s been downhill. On December 20, 2011 it closed at 74 cents a share and has not broken $1/share since September.

Courtesy of NASDAQ.com

ZBB’s market trouble is reflected in its SEC reports. Its Q3 revenue was at $1.637 million. ZBB’s payroll alone was $60,000 more than that. The total operating loss was $1.696 million.

The company hopes to turn all this around with the release of a new line of batteries, which are in the final stage of testing.

“Once we start actually producing and shipping, it will mean the world to us,” Hogoboom said.

The company has also added a number of new employees. At the time of its overhaul two years ago, ZBB employed 25 people. Today it employs about 60 people and has 7 open positions.

Over the past few months, while developing its new product, the company has also been forging new partnerships. In fact ZBB is opening a new factory in China in the next few weeks.

On December 15th, ZBB announced a new joint venture partnership with an unnamed “global technology company,” to help in product development. That partner is investing $800,000 in the project, and bought $700,000 of ZBB stock.

Company insiders appear to be confident. Hogoboom bought 14,000 shares on December 13. Buoyed by the government investment in the firm, investors purchased 1,307,860 shares over the last six months, all at market value.

To achieve President Obama’s goal to create 800,000 green energy jobs by 2012, the federal government has invested heavily in companies like ZBB. Yet, there is presently no official way to verify the success of such job creation efforts since the Labor Department does not track green jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is in the process of conducting a survey to find out exactly how many green jobs there are in the country and hopes to have that complete by the middle of this year.

Meanwhile, announced expansion projects, a new product line, and large stock purchases have not been enough to give non governmental investors in the market confidence in this green energy “startup.” ZBB’s stock opened at 78 cents a share on December 15, 2011 and closed at 81 cents a share on Jan. 13, 2012.

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Posted in News, mi investigations, mi reports | January 16, 2012 | | 2 Comments

Charter School Data Shows Gains for Elementary School Students in Milwaukee – but Effects Trail Off in High School

by Christian D’Andrea
MacIver Institute Education Policy Analyst

Milwaukee’s charter schools outperform the regular public school standard when it comes to reading – but these returns appear to diminish as students progress, according to state data

Milwaukee’s charter schools have been a topic of discussion lately in the face of educational reform across Wisconsin. Earlier in the month, we have covered the economic backgrounds of the students that attend these schools. We have also examined the educational trends behind reading scores in the city’s independent 2R charter schools. It showed that these schools – which are authorized by either the city of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee rather than the city’s school board and enjoy more autonomy than their counterparts – produce greater educational returns than the regular public school average.

When you expand this scope to reading across all public charter schools, this result holds true in elementary schools. However, these results regress as students get older and advance to high school. While charter schools hold an edge over the city’s regular school students when looking at students scoring “basic” or better in core reading concepts, these traditional schools are more likely to have students scoring towards the higher end of the metric in both high school and middle school.

The city’s independent 2R charter schools outperformed regular charter school students at fourth grade, though not by a significant amount. Charter schools, as a whole, outperformed their regular school MPS counterparts at all observed grades when accounting for students scoring “basic” and higher. However, when the bar is set at “proficient” or better, students in traditional public schools recorded a stronger score.

In grade 10, the only representative 2R school, Tenor High School, outgained the regular charter school average, especially at the higher levels of achievement. However, since this sample size is limited to just one school, it’s difficult to make a significant comparison between the two charter types.

The metric used to compare student performance comes from the state’s Department of Public Instruction. It measures outcomes in reading on a pair of tests – the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination (WKCE) and the Wisconsin Alternate Assessment for Students with Disabilities (WAASwD). Combined, these are referred to as the Wisconsin Student Assessment System (WSAS). While these exams are a poor indicator of value-added information for students, they do allow us to made school-to-school comparisons within a district relatively well.

This report deals with reading results across three different grades. In elementary schools, a fourth-grade score was chosen. A sixth-grade mark was used to gauge middle school progress and a 10th grade score was chosen for high schools.

These results show that students in the city’s charter schools are demonstrating stronger learning skills than their regular public school classmates. However, these data also suggest that the city’s charter institutions may not be as effective in higher grades than they are in elementary schools. Furthermore, even with this improvement, it is important to note that these scores still rank amongst the worst in the state. In fact, recently released NAEP results suggest that Milwaukee is regressing when it comes to literacy in its public schools.

These results from the WSAS are observational. That means that they cannot tell us why students between these schools are performing in this manner. However, they do paint a telling picture of just how the children in these schools are performing. Students in a different, charter-driven environment from the traditional public school are outscoring their colleagues, particularly at a younger age. While this effect is reduced as students grow up, it’s an encouraging sign for Milwaukee’s charter schools, even though these test results trail the statewide averages.

At a time when Milwaukee’s educational system is posting stagnant returns when it comes to student achievement, this puts some hope back in the city’s public school system. The state has recently authorized the ability to sell vacant MPS buildings – something that could only have been done with Milwaukee School Board approval in the past. This could open opportunities for more of these schools, schools that educate more economically disadvantaged students and often post better reading scores, to operate within city limits. The upcoming arrival of Rocketship Schools – an independent charter that has seen strong successes in California – will provide another strong option for Milwaukee’s families.

The results are encouraging. However, there is still much work to be done. The next decade will provide a strong litmus test of how effective these schools can be. The differentiation between regular, non-instrumentality, and independent 2R charter schools could play a key role in showing what methods and missions work best in Milwaukee’s classrooms. Deeper looks into changing the culture of failure within the city’s high schools – across all schools – will also pay dividends. The end goal will be to provide a new layer of quality education in Wisconsin’s urban center. When that happens, the city’s children will be better prepared for the future than ever before.

Data for Milwaukee’s Independent 2R Charter Schools:

Data for Milwaukee’s other Charter Schools:

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Posted in News, mi reports | December 30, 2011 | | Comments Off

DPI Data Shows That Independent Charter Schools Outperform Traditional MPS Schools on the WKCE

By Christian D’Andrea
 MacIver Institute Education Policy Analyst

Last week, we examined the population of students by  independent 2R charter schools in Milwaukee and Racine. State-collected figures suggest that these schools educate a higher percentage of low-income students than regular public schools in Milwaukee.

A further look into DPI’s numbers reveals an impressive fact about students in these schools – the majority of them are outperforming their MPS counterparts when it comes to reading skills on the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination (WKCE).

Twelve schools have reported data from 2010’s round of WKCE testing. Eleven of these schools offered fourth grade classwork for students. Of these 11 schools, nine posted higher reading results when it come to Wisconsin’s standardized test than the citywide average.

The WKCE isn’t a perfect measure by any means. In fact, it tells us little outside of raw scores and fails to create meaningful, value-added data that can be applied to classrooms or compared across states. However, for the case, it will have to do, as it does provide a solid comparison point between schools within the same districts. In 2010, the Wisconsin Student Assessment System (WSAS) and the WAASwD – an alternate assessment for students with disabilities – supplemented the WKCE.

The WKCE has four different categories for scoring – minimum performing, basic, proficient, and advanced. Each measures the level of mastery that a student shows on the comprehensive tests.

In Milwaukee, the citywide public school average for students scoring “basic” or above amongst fourth graders was 88.9 percent. Nine schools, including six that educate a greater concentration of economically disadvantaged students than the MPS average, posted higher scores than this average.

The public school average for students rating “proficient” or better in fourth grade was 62.3 percent. Eight independent 2R charter schools bested this mark. Five of these schools educated a greater percentage of low-income students than the average MPS classroom. This suggests that students in independent charter schools – charter schools that are authorized by either the city of Milwaukee or local higher education powers – are more likely to have a stronger grip on reading concepts beyond rudimentary skills.

These schools, on average, had nearly 10 percent more students scoring at “proficient” or better when it came to fourth grade reading. Nearly four percent more students scored “basic” or above.

Tenor High School, the only 2R charter high school with recorded data, also outperformed the MPS standard in literacy in 2010. As a whole, non-instrumentality schools were nearly seven percent better when it came to students scoring proficient or advanced on these tests. They were nearly two percent better when expanding the metric to include pupils that rated basic and better.

This DPI data suggests that not only are these schools educating more low-income students than the city’s regular public institutions, but the majority of these charter schools are also performing better when it comes to the WKCE.

EDIT: This table previously had used an incorrect student count to determine how many students in these charter schools had taken the WKCE in 2010-2011. The article has been updated to reflect the accurate counts, as provided by the Department of Public Instruction (12/14/2011).

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Posted in mi reports | December 11, 2011 | | 9 Comments

Milwaukee’s Charter Schools Enroll Large Number of City’s Poorest Children

By Christian D’Andrea

MacIver Institute Education Policy Analyst

One myth that seems to surround charter schools in Milwaukee is that they are able to pick the cream of the crop when it comes to their student body. Most recently, we saw this rear its head in a discussion of the most recent NAEP data, which detailed the disparity between high-income and low-income students when it comes to test scores. Some people believe that these charter schools educate an overwhelming number of students that come from more financially-stable backgrounds.

However, that’s not the case.

Just examine the Department of Public Instruction data from within the district and its non-instrumentality charter schools. There are 19 2R charter schools in this group — schools that are sponsored by either the city, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, or the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.  They are not authorized by a school board, like charter schools in the rest of the state are.

These schools are similar types of schools as the ones that would potentially be created by a statewide charter authorizer. They have more autonomy than regular public schools, but also lack some of the benefits, including teacher pension programs.

Sixteen of these schools have enrollment data available on the Wisconsin Information Network for Successful Schools (WINSS). This database can be found here. One school had an official enrollment count so low that data could not be revealed due to privacy concerns. The other two – Milwaukee Scholars and Milwaukee Math and Science Academy – are entering their first year of existence and have no data available.

WINSS is able to tell us the population and income status of the children that attend these schools. The 16 recorded schools educate approximately 7,030 students in the city of Milwaukee. Of these, over 5,897 were considered to be “economically disadvantaged.” WINSS defines this as students that are eligible for federal free or reduced lunch benefits. Nearly 84 percent of non-instrumentality charter school students fit this description.

All data is from 2010-2011.

The concentration of students that hail from low-income backgrounds is over six percent higher in the city’s independent 2R charter schools than the Milwaukee average. This shows that not only are these schools educating some of the toughest students, but they are actually doing it on a greater scale than traditional neighborhood public schools.

The myth that Milwaukee’s charter schools aren’t educating the city’s poorest students holds no weight. The student populations within these independent charter schools help confirm that. In fact, DPI has deemed that some of these schools teach this group on a nearly exclusive basis. However, the achievement group between pupils from high-income backgrounds and low-income backgrounds not only persists, but is growing to become a major problem in Wisconsin’s largest city. For Milwaukee to improve, these public schools will have to find a way to reach the children that have historically been tougher to teach.

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Posted in News, mi reports | December 8, 2011 | | 9 Comments
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