Posts Tagged ‘MPS’

Walker Signs Legislation Allowing Milwaukee to Sell Vacant MPS Buildings, Expands the Scope of Charter Schools

MNS – Milwaukee’s vacant school buildings may soon no longer lie abandoned.

On Monday, Governor Scott Walker signed a bill into law that allows the City of Milwaukee to authorize the sale of empty public school buildings within its district. This currently applies to 13 vacant district properties – and a potential 14 more that are listed as surplus. A building must be ruled to have been either unused or underutilized for 18 straight months to become eligible for sale by the city.

The funds raised by the sales will go to the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) school operations fund. A Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction report suggests that this legislation will decrease costs and increase revenue within MPS through both the sale values of these buildings and the lost costs of having to maintain them. The exact amount of this benefit will be determined once transactions are made.

This has been considered a major step forward for charter schools in the Milwaukee. The access to proper facilities for these schools had been a roadblock in the city whose charter granting authority is the most flexible in the state. Now, growing schools will be able to add campuses close to their student base. New institutions will be able to make use of buildings that declining enrollments had left dormant for years.

“The signing of this bill into law is one more significant effort to enhance the size and quality of independent charter schools in the City of Milwaukee,” said Dennis Conta, Executive Director of the Milwaukee Charter School Advocates. “We hope it only represents the beginning of other initiatives to grow high-performing autonomous charter schools throughout the state.”

Many of Milwaukee’s vacant school buildings remained unsold thanks to MPS’s unwillingness to deal with increased competition for students. Many advocates of keeping the schools under the control of the school board, including Jill Gaskill of the Wisconsin PTA  were willing to sell the properties to developers that would work under MPS, but not to independent educational authorities. The city, which is home to most of the state’s independent charter schools, now has the ability to resolve this impasse.

The bill will create a stronger network of charter schools in Milwaukee, as well as increase the competition that MPS faces. For the city, this bill presents a fiscal benefit for public schools through the sale of unused buildings and allows for more innovative institutions to grow within city limits. Despite opponents’ fears behind the creation of new schools, Milwaukee’s students will stand to benefit from greater classroom options, as well as the competitive effect of a new entity in the marketplace.

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Posted in News | May 25, 2011 | | Comments Off

Reckless Spending at MPS Morally Wrong, Healy Says


Click on bottom right corner to advance to next check

Wasteful Spending Continues in State’s Most Troubled School District

If Wisconsin’s educational establishment want their demands for more funding to be taken seriously, they must stop wasteful spending of tax dollars intended to improve public schools, according to Brett Healy.

Healy, the President of the Wisconsin-based free market think tank the MacIver Institute, specifically points to the continued wasteful spending by the Milwaukee Public Schools, the state’s poorest performing district.

“Before the State and Milwaukee Superintendents start lecturing taxpayers and policymakers on the morality of education spending, they should stop the hemorrhaging at MPS,” said Healy. “The wasteful spending at MPS is not only fiscally irresponsible it is clearly morally wrong.”

For years the MacIver Institute has published a regular feature, entitled MPS Checkbook, wherein they highlight some of the district’s most questionable expenditures. This month’s installment includes some of the most egregious examples of non education-related spending, including:

  • Nearly $50,000 for eight staff members to participate in 13 days of ‘Six Sigma’ leadership training.
  • $1,000 to a local radio station to air commercials celebrating the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday
  • $24,000 to Hewitt Associates for a non-legal review of the district’s United HealthCare  PPO Plan, which brings the year-to-date total for this project to nearly $155,000
  • $4,500 to Jonitha Brown to conduct writing workshops for students at Auer Avenue School
  • $500, bringing the year-to-date total to $17,000 for the “Flood the Hood with Dreams,” campaign for non-violence.
  • $2,000 to Peacemaker Social Services for consulting to “Engage students at transition high school in elemental, historical and performance based residency of Hip Hop culture

“MPS keeps spending money on vendors and specialists to do the job they are already paying teachers to do, which is ostensibly to teach students how to read, write and become proficient in math and science,” said Healy. “Then, to make matters worse, they spend educational dollars on further ‘training’ for staff and administrators–if their staff isn’t properly trained, they shouldn’t be collecting a paycheck.”

Healy’s comments come in the wake of a statewide tour by State Superintendent Tony Evers, who is campaigning against giving parents and taxpayers more educational options beyond the traditional public school system.

“Does Tony Evers think spending thousands of dollars to teach ‘Hip Hop Culture’ is a wise use of scarce educational resourses?” Healy asked. “Would Mr. Evers or MPS Superintendent Thornton care to justify MPS spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on consultants whose work has little or no impact in the classroom?”

Healy said one expenditure the MacIver Institute found was particularly galling: -$45,000 to UWM Employment & Training Institute to conduct a demographic study of the school age population within Milwaukee to support facilities planning.

“MPS spends $45,000 to study the city’s demographics for facilities planning, meanwhile it pays a million dollars a year to maintain vacant buildings they refuse to sell to choice or charter schools,” said Healy. “They will protect their monopoly no matter the cost in dollars and human potential–that, folks, it the definition of immoral.”

The MPS Checkbook feature is part of a comprehensive body of work examining MPS, which can be found at MacIver’s website: www.MacIverInstitute.com.

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Posted in News | May 24, 2011 | | Comments Off

Eleven MPS High Schools – Including Four Charter Schools – Get Low-Performer Tag in 2011; Will Federal Intervention Help?

By Christian D’Andrea
MacIver Institute Education Policy Analyst

Eleven schools in Milwaukee have been identified as some of the lowest performing in the state and are in line for over $6.3 million in federal grants to spur a turnaround. If MPS’ targeted plans go through, more than half will be looking for new principals for the 2011-2012 school year – and one will be closed altogether.

Major reforms are in line for four of the schools, according to city superintendent Gregory Thornton. The city will adhere to the federal turnaround model designed specifically to combat the culture of failure in these schools. As a result, Pulaski High School, Northwest Secondary School, Washington High School of Information Technology, and Advanced Language and Academic Students (ALAS) will have their entire instructional staff released.

These schools will be tasked with finding a new principal and several new teachers, as only half of the existing teaching corps is eligible to be rehired. Many of these changes will come with assistance from outside sources, which will be accommodated by $6.3m of federal funding.

Two other schools, the Hamilton and Montessori High Schools, are in line for less drastic reform, but will still need to adjust their leadership. These institutions will have to hire new principals while bringing on outside consultants to work with the remaining staff.

The four charter schools, which include the non-instrumentality Wings Academy and the Wisconsin Career Academy, aren’t eligible for the federal assistance and will instead be placed on probation. The terms of this probation aren’t entirely clear, but will include additional monitoring from MPS, as well as classroom reforms. Should the schools in question end up on the list in 2012, additional action will be taken.

Finally, Washington High School will be closed altogether under the federal model.

These are bold steps to address the growing education problem in Wisconsin’s largest city. However, recent data suggests that the turnaround model is a longshot at best. A December 2010 study by David Stuit of the Fordham Institute examined success rates in low-performing charter and district schools across the country. His report, titled Are Bad Schools Immortal? found a dire connection between America’s worst schools and their ability to transform into sufficient educators.

Between 2003-04 and 2008-09, eliminating or improving these bad schools has been a rarity. Of the 2,035 schools nationwide that were examined in the study, only 26 (one percent) were able to claim significant turnarounds (from the bottom 25% of all schools to the top 50% of all schools) in the five year period. 164 schools were able to show modest gains (into the 25-50% range). 224 more were shut down entirely.

In Wisconsin, the results weren’t much more optimistic. Only one out of the 56 schools classified as low-performing in 2003-04 made any improvement – a significant turnaround. Nine other schools were shut down, while no schools showed moderate gains over this period.

Additionally, many of these schools were previously covered here at the MacIver Institute in an examination of operating budgets at MPS schools. Of the 11 schools located in Milwaukee that were designated as low-performing, four racked up yearly debts of nearly $350,000. Four others recorded surpluses of almost $120,000. Three other schools did not have operating budget data readily available.

School FY’10 Operating Debt/Surplus
Pulaski HS -$30,262
Washington HS of IT $42,307
ALAS $58,529
Northwest Secondary n/a
Hamilton HS -$26,009
Montessori HS -$227,998
The Alliance School -$64,207
Community HS $18,102
Wings Acad. n/a
Wisconsin Career Acad. n/a
Washington HS $119,335

The question that remains is whether or not an infusion of $6.3 million of federal funds and the addition of outside forces can change the culture of low performance at these schools. In 2010, the first year of the program instituted by President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, 11 MPS schools were subject to tighter regulations and drastic change. So far, there haven’t been any significant changes to suggest that the program has taken effect – though it’s still very early into the re-haul process.

Time will tell if the program can take hold in Milwaukee and turn around the city’s worst schools. Recent history suggests that it may be a losing battle. Still, it’s a valiant attempt by MPS to take legitimate action in the schools that need it the most.

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Posted in mi perspectives | April 14, 2011 | | 1 Comment

Attainment, Not Achievement, is the Most Meaningful Benefit of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program

By Christian D’Andrea 
MacIver Institute Education Policy Analyst

The School Choice Demonstration Project, a state-mandated consortium of research assessing the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program’s effects on students and schools, released its fourth annual report on the state of the MPCP last Wednesday. The findings painted an optimistic picture for the future of Milwaukee’s schoolchildren.

While DPI released data one day prior that could be considered the surface of MPCP research, the SCDP’s latest work helps flesh out the actual effects of the voucher program in Brew City. The 2011 release is the fourth year of reporting on the project, which tracks longitudinal trends to create a more comprehensive view of the impact of America’s first modern school choice program.

This includes reports on student attainment (including graduation rates), student achievement (performance on statewide testing), independent charter school performance, and school participation in the program. Of the four major categories examined, three found significant positive effects from the MPCP. The fourth category – student achievement – found no statistically significant effect.

Educational attainment, culminating in high school graduation, has become the biggest benefit of the MPCP. Statistically similar student groups were compared from both private and public schools that were exposed to vouchers. The SCDP’s fourth year study, which was the first to encompass a full high school graduating class, showed a distinct advantage in graduation rates amongst MPCP students when compared to regular MPS kids.

In all, 686 MPS students and 640 MPCP students were observed over the four-year period. In regular Milwaukee Public Schools, students from the sample graduated at a 69.4% rate. In Milwaukee Parental Choice Program schools this figure was 76.6%. Students remaining in the same sector for all four years observed in the study – either public schools or private schools –had a major positive effect on graduation rates on both sides. However, in all instances the graduation rate for voucher students was significantly higher than their peers in public schools.

Milwaukee Graduation Rates

All Students
Same Sector
Left Sector
MPCP Students76.6
94.3
59
MPS Students
69.4
74.8
44.7
*Sample size includes 686 MPS students and 640 MPCP students

The data wasn’t so conclusive or optimistic when regarding student achievement in standardized tests. Matched comparisons, which compared students from similar backgrounds, including census data, baseline test scores from previous years, and demographic variables, found no statistically significant increase or decrease in student achievement related to the MPCP. Reading and math growth across both sectors was similar enough that there was no significant link between achievement and what kind of school students attended.

This finding relates to the Department of Public Instruction’s data, which was released Tuesday. The DPI research showed that students in the MPCP lagged behind their public school counterparts in testing areas that included math and reading in 2010. The SCDP’s research dug into this data more deeply and found that while MPS scores often had slightly better outcomes, there was no significant link between the two. As more data becomes available we may soon be able to find a distinguishable effect, but four years of scientific data shows that there is no direct link between rising or declining results on standardized testing between MPS and MPCP students.

In short, while the DPI data suggests that MPS students are performing at a higher level of achievement as a whole, the SCDP study uses regression analysis to prove that there has been no significant impact on student outcomes on testing in either direction because of vouchers.

Another major takeaway from the Project’s results was a strong pattern of student growth amongst Milwaukee’s independent charter schools. The report followed nearly 2,300 students in these schools from 2006-07 to 2009-10 and found impressive returns from charter school education. Controlling for baseline achievement and other student characteristics (in order to ensure a fair comparison), the data showed that there was a significant positive effect from these schools when it came to educating Milwaukee children.

The study uncovered statistically significant gains for charter school students, including better performances on reading and math assessments. These results were significant up to a 99 percent threshold, suggesting that this impact is very strongly tied to these classrooms. This data builds upon previous SCDP studies that had found gains in charter schools against the public school average over time. As a result, students in these institutions – particularly students on the lower end of the grading curve – have benefited from a substantial positive effect that they would not have received in their neighborhood schools.

In all, the data presented by the School Choice Demonstration Project painted a more complete picture of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program than almost any other reports that have preceded it. Over the past four years, the program has been successful in helping students graduate and indirectly creating effective charter schools while having no significant effect on student achievement. When vouchers have had a discernible effect on Milwaukee’s children, they’ve done so in a positive way.

This week’s reports showed that the choice program isn’t a cure-all, but there’s no denying its significant effect in helping students. Kids in choice programs are more likely to graduate from high school, especially when they stay in the same school for all four years of post-elementary education. Kids in independent charter schools outgain their MPS peers in key subjects like reading and mathematics. The MPCP has shown to provide positive outcomes for students at less than half the cost of Milwaukee’s public schools. Combined, that creates a winning combination for both students and taxpayers.

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Posted in mi perspectives | April 4, 2011 | | Comments Off

Study Finds School Choice Students Who Stay in High School More Likely to Graduate, Go to College than MPS Peers

MacIver News Service | March 30, 2011

[Madison, Wisc...] The latest in a series of long-term academic studies tracking the Milwaukee Parental Choice Programs shows that 94.3 percent of pupils who stayed in the MPCP through their high school career graduated, a rate much higher than attained by Milwaukee Public Schools (74.8% ) and just below suburban districts such as Waukesha and Wauwatosa.

University of Arkansas professor Patrick J. Wolf heads their School Choice Demonstration Project and has been conducting the five-year longitudinal study as authorized by a 2005 Act of the Wisconsin legislature. On Wednesday the Project released their fourth annual report.

“In terms of concentrated area where parents have a lot of school choices, Milwaukee is perhaps exceptional,” said Wolf. “In Milwaukee, School Choice developed organically, over a long period of time, with a lot of fits and starts and twists and turns; so that makes it a really fascinating place to evaluate these kinds of programs.”

Among the findings:

  • Students in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program have higher graduation rates than similar students in MPS
  • That graduation rate is significantly higher for choice students who attended the same school for four years as opposed to their MPS counterparts who did the same
  • Students in the Choice program are more likely than MPS students to go on to four-year college
  • Students in the Choice program are less likely to drop out of high school than their MPS peers
  • More than 20,899 students attended the 115 schools that participated in the MPCP for the entire 2009-2010 school year.
  • Most students (82.4 percent) in MPCP schools are minority, compared to 88.9% of MPS students.
  • Schools in the MPCP offer programs and services similar to those offered by MPS including: art programs (77.6 percent), after school programs (70.1 percent), tutors (60.9 percent), gymnasiums (88.4 percent), and programs for students with learning problems (71.3 percent).
  • The average student-teacher ratio is smaller for MPCP schools (14.7) compared to MPS (16.3).
  • The average per-pupil costs at participating schools for the 2008-09 academic year (the most recent figures available) was $7692 while the maximum scholarship amount was $6,607. Since then the maximum scholarship amount has been lowered to $6,442—the lowest maximum scholarship amount since the 1997098 school year
  • There was no significant difference between MPS students and MPCP students as measured by three years of achievement on the state standardized test scores.

In an obvious attempt to preempt the release of the latest findings of the longitudinal study, Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction (DPI) released a comparison of student scores from the Wisconsin Knowledge Concept Examination (WKCE), the statewide standardized test.

That snapshot did not paint a favorable picture for the Choice Program.

However, in August of 2009, Wisconsin Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers, who heads the DPI, announced plans to scrap the WKCE because of its widely acknowledged deficiencies.

“A common sense approach to assessment combines a variety of assessments to give a fuller picture of educational progress for our students and schools,” Evers said at the time. “Our next statewide assessments must balance the needs of students, teachers, and parents as well as providing public accountability for student learning,”

Professor Wolf says the longitudinal study takes a different approach than measuring the proficiency of students on one test on one day a year.

“Longitudinal studies have a major benefit over snapshot studies, like the DPI report” said Wolf. “We can basically look at achievement gains, for similar students, over time. I think it’s very important to avoid really limited reports and very limited views of what the voucher program is or is not accomplishing.”

The findings were released at a forum on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, which was jointly sponsored by the Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs and the Center for the Sutdy of Liberal Democracy.

MacIver News Service’s Bill Osmulski has more in this video report from Madison.

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Posted in News | March 30, 2011 | | 2 Comments

Senate Education Committee Hears 10 Hours of Testimony for Charter School, MPS Related Bills

MacIver News Service | March 24, 2011

[Madison, Wisc...] From 10 am to 8 pm Wednesday, members of the Senate Education Committee listened to testimony regarding three bills that would change education across the state of Wisconsin. One, however, sparked more debate than others.

A stream of concerned citizens lined up to testify in favor or in opposition of Senate Bill 22, which would change how charter school are authorized in the state. This bill would extend the current authorizing process beyond local school boards and create a statewide, independent Charter School Authorizing Board to establish schools across the state. It would also allow all four-year University of Wisconsin campuses to sponsor their own schools; currently, only UW-Milwaukee, Milwaukee Area Technical College, and UW-Parkside have this ability.

The bill would open up the charter school process in Wisconsin, one that’s been labeled by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools as “need[ing] a major overhaul in several areas.” Currently, the state only allows local school boards (outside of Milwaukee and Racine) to authorize charter schools, which has affected their growth across the Badger State. However, it was clear from some constituents at Wednesday’s meeting that this statewide authorizer and expansion of charter school law wasn’t going to be embraced by everyone.

Arguments against the bill harped on the idea that smaller districts could not afford to lose more students in the face of statewide cuts. Their local schools, testifiers argued, would not be able to maintain a quality level of education if they lost students and the funding attached to them to charter schools.

Further concerns that the makeup of the board – which in its current form would be populated by appointees from the governor, speaker of the assembly, and senate majority leader – would be unbalanced were also brought up.

Arguments in favor of the expanded charter school legislation focused on the ability of these schools to provide additional public school educational options for students who have no other choice but to attend a failing neighborhood school. They also included a simple response for parents and citizens concerned about enrollment declines in their local schools – if parents are satisfied with their neighborhood schools, they won’t be tempted to leave.

In all, the testimony – despite being mostly limited to three minutes per registrant – rolled on for over seven hours. This eclipsed the hour-long portions of the hearing devoted to the other two bills on the docket – SB 34 and SB 20.

Senate Bill 34 takes the city of Milwaukee’s residency rule for teachers into question, looking to strip the requirement that all Milwaukee Public Schools teachers live within city limits by 2015. This issue spurred concerns that teachers would flee the city, leaving neighborhoods vacant and communities weakened. Proponents argued that the bill would allow more freedom for teachers in the system, as well as aid in recruiting new teachers to MPS from outside the direct city limits. Senator Alberta Darling, who was the primary sponsor of all three bills heard Wednesday, also pointed out that residency requirements had been lifted in Chicago – and all across the country – without damaging their communities.

Senate Bill 20 led off the day’s hearings and fell under the least amount of scrutiny. This law would authorize the city of Milwaukee to sell vacant MPS school buildings, which would create opportunities for area charter, private, or other schools to expand or emerge in the city. Currently, the district counts 27 surplus buildings – 13 of which are regarded as empty. The bill would allow competing schools to move in and buy these properties, creating extra funds for MPS to pay off their facilities debt.

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Posted in News | March 24, 2011 | | Comments Off

National Assessment of Educational Progress: Milwaukee

Milwaukee’s Students Rate Poorly on 4th and 8th Grade Science Nationally

By Christian D’Andrea
 MacIver Institute Education Reform Analyst

When it comes to science, students in Milwaukee are falling behind their counterparts in America’s largest cities.

Newly released data from the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) chronicles Milwaukee’s performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) science assessment from 2009. Brew City was matched up against 16 other American urban areas to track their knowledge regarding science concepts in 4th and 8th grade, including metropolitan hubs such as Atlanta, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, and Boston. When the results were sorted out, Milwaukee’s students trended towards the bottom of the list.

The city ranked at or below the large city average for all student categories and placed 12th out of the 17 districts amongst 4th graders and 13th for 8th graders testing at a “Basic” level or above. However, the results got a little better when looking at the cities’ average scores as a whole.

Milwaukee’s average marks of 126/122 for 4th/8th graders, respectively, trailed behind the metropolitan average of 135/134, but were better than similar scores in cities like Detroit, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Baltimore and Los Angeles. In fact, the state jumped to 10th of 17 amongst 4th graders and 12th of 17 for 8th grade subjects, suggesting that Brew City’s failing students are likely closer to the “Basic” mark than students in some of the competing cities.

Despite the varying ranks, the results themselves weren’t very optimistic. Amongst fourth graders, 56 percent of the city’s students failed to register a passing score, falling below the “Basic” benchmark. Only approximately 12 percent rated “Proficient.” A negligible amount of students tested at “Advanced” or better.

These figures regressed for Milwaukee’s 8th grade students. A shocking 72 percent of all students that were tested failed to reach the exam’s baseline for passing. Only five percent were “Proficient” or better. This emphasizes a recurring theme contained in the NAEP data; the city’s 8th graders are being outperformed by their younger counterparts.

The tests focused on three subject areas – physical science, life science, and earth/space sciences. These exams included between 143 and 162 multiple choice and written answer questions. It is designed to gauge a student’s understanding of scientific concepts.

For example, one 4th grade sample question reads “Which animal lives in water when very young and then lives on land as an adult?” and then offers four choices for answering – shark, snake, frog, and penguin.

Milwaukee’s students tested below the national average – and even further below Wisconsin’s average. The average score for all Wisconsin students in 4th grade was 157 in 2009 – a mark above the national average. This trend continued for 8th graders, where the score remained the same. Milwaukee’s mark of 126/122 was over 20 percent lower than their statewide counterparts.

The issue of the achievement gap was an issue in Milwaukee for 4th graders – but not much more of an issue than it has been in America’s major cities. The city’s white students performed 42 points better on NAEP testing than their African American classmates at this level – but this was only two points more than the national metropolitan average. Amongst 8th graders, this gap was cut to a 28 point difference between the two groups; a figure less than the 39 point average across the country.

The city’s Hispanic students also posted scores that reflected a narrowing achievement gap, posting closer scores to white students than the national average in both grades.

These overall results, however, reflect both Milwaukee’s deficiencies in the classroom and Wisconsin’s lack of progress when it comes to nationwide testing as a whole. NAEP testing has been a key part of analyzing the state’s ranking nationally – and while the Badger State has posted above average scores, they’re treading water thanks to some stagnant educational progress. The problem in Brew City highlights this; the kids in the state’s largest district aren’t just falling behind their classmates across the state, but students in similar big-city settings are beating them across the country.

The expectation with NAEP data lately has been to see just how much the rest of the country has caught up to – and is now passing – Wisconsin. The results in Milwaukee are just more evidence that something needs to be done to fix education in the Badger State. Until then, both Milwaukee and Wisconsin will continue to trend downward to mediocrity.

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Posted in mi perspectives | March 23, 2011 | | Comments Off

MPS Sends Cash to ACLU for Public Art Program

MacIver News Service | February 24, 2011

[Milwaukee, Wisc…] While Milwaukee Public School Board members publicly bemoan the impact of pending state-funding cuts, the MacIver News Service has learned that MPS gave nearly $20,000 to the ACLU this school year.

The ACLU of Wisconsin and Milwaukee Public Theatre applied for a $19,990 Partnership for the Arts grant late last year to launch the Public Arts Student Alliance (PASA). The funds go toward a program that promotes community engagement to confront civic apathy by “identifying community/social issues of concern: planning ways to address them through public art, and honing their skills in speaking, writing and visual art/puppetry and theatre.”

MPS Communications Director Roseann St. Aubin explained the rationale behind giving the ACLU funds from the school district’s coffers

“MPS leaders created the Partnership for the Arts with the knowledge that it is essential to foster learning in all its forms and that the arts teach ways of learning, thinking and inquiring that can be applied back to all subjects,” said St. Aubin.

For the ACLU program, that means going beyond simply exposing students to art, steering them towards a specific ideology and encouraging political action.

In the past, the ACLU has “found that the arts are particularly effective in working with youth. Examples of past workshops include: ‘Creating Audio & Video PSAs’, ‘1st Amendment Rights and T-Shirt Screening’, ‘Political Cartooning and Art’, ‘Freedom of Speech and Screen Printing’, ‘Art, Graffiti, Stenciling and Protest’. Their youth-created videos have been shown throughout MPS,” according to the grant application.

The ACLU’s stated mission in the application is “to promote and protect the civil liberties and civil rights of all people in Wisconsin in a non-partisan manner.”

Students involved in PASA will participate in the Summer of Peace Parade, the All-City People’s Parade (Labor Day) and the Youth Social Justice Forum.

The ACLU program will involve at least 60 students from three different MPS high schools: Madison University High School, Alliance High School, and New School for Community Service.

“These schools are in areas where these is disproportionate minority contact with the police. Many of these young people do not understand their rights and responsibilities during an encounter with law enforcement, and risk incarceration. The skills and avenues for expression that offered [sic] through the Public Arts Student Alliance will help them to better navigate and address the conflicts they will invariably encounter,” reads the application.

For some of the students, the program may lead to a summer job.

“A core group of 6 youth, two from each school, will be selected from these workshops and be paid in the summer as youth peer leaders and mentors, helping to facilitate and document ongoing workshops and using popular social media like twitter to reach out to other youth and families,” according to the proposal.

MPS said it is fully aware of what the program entails.

“Proposals are reviewed by a team of experts prior to any award,” said St. Aubin. “The project addresses issues of racial discrimination, violence prevention and civic apathy through public arts and leadership training that are designed to increase self esteem, team work and community engagement. The program includes arts residencies, a mentorship program and free-to-the- public arts workshops as well as opportunities to perform/exhibit student’s work through free public art events.”

Milwaukee Public Theatre will also pitch in $5,600. That groups funding comes from a variety of private and public sources including the Milwaukee Arts Board, Milwaukee County CAMPAC, and the Wisconsin Arts Board.

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Posted in News | February 24, 2011 | | Comments Off

WEAC’s Suggested Reforms Could Have Earned Wisconsin $250 million if Advocated Months Earlier

The Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC) recently raised eyebrows by promoting a set of reforms, some of which it had previously opposed, that would drastically change everyday education in the Badger State. If WEAC had accepted and promoted these changes over the summer, the state could have earned hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to make them work.

The rejection of tying teacher evaluation and administrative decisions to student performance was a major facet in the state’s Race to the Top failures over the past year. As a result, Wisconsin missed out on up to $250 million in federal grant money in 2010.

WEAC’s change of heart included three big changes; the fragmentation of Milwaukee Public Schools, more rigorous teacher evaluations based on value-added student data, and a merit pay system that would reward educators based on student performance. The last two are particularly surprising given the organization’s official stance to prohibit tying teacher assessment to student results.

In fact, WEAC and local unions across the state almost uniformly rejected proposals that would make teachers accountable for the progress that students made in their classrooms. Nearly two out of every three districts in Wisconsin flatly rejected a program that would tie value-added test results to any administrative action – including benefits – amongst their teaching staff.

Unfortunately, those proposals were part of Race to the Top (RTTT), a federal grant program that rewarded education reform across America. By rejecting these RTTT tenets, WEAC may have cost Wisconsin $250 million in educational funding.

Wisconsin failed on both iterations of Race to the Top, finishing worse in the national standings on their second attempt despite declarations of improvement from education leaders across the state. As the MacIver Institute covered here [LINK], six major themes emerged in Wisconsin’s failure:

1)   LEA (local district) commitment to change

2)   Teacher quality and improvement issues

3)   A weak recent history of meaningful reform

4)   Standardized testing and student data collection

5)   Stagnant charter school regulations

6)   A staggering achievement gap with inconsequential improvement.

Based on these problems, Wisconsin rated out in the bottom quartile of all applicants, failing to qualify for the second round of judging both times. As a result, the state lost out on its $250 million bid for funding to make the improvements included in their application. Many of these problems can be traced back to conflicts between teachers and statewide administration; problems with Wisconsin’s application that could have been alleviated back in July by some of the reforms that WEAC suggested Tuesday.

Though the application boasted a nearly universal buy-in from local districts, this simply wasn’t the case. The biggest sticking point on Wisconsin’s failed application was a refusal to allow administrative decisions regarding teachers to be tied to student performance. Though 94 percent of LEAs signed off on the state’s application as a whole, only 36.4 percent agreed to the stipulation that value-added test added could be used to affect teacher compensation, retention, or promotion.

Now, after sweeping changes in state government and major reforms on the horizon, WEAC seems to have had a change of heart.

WEAC president Mary Bell suggested that the Race to the Top problems weren’t based on teacher evaluations, but was rather a rejection of other proposals in the grant. However, this doesn’t change the fact that nearly two-thirds of all local educating authorities still singularly rejected any tie between student outcomes and teacher evaluations just months earlier.

“We’re prepared to talk about them now as union-supported proposals,” said Bell.

Unfortunately, the damage has been done.  Hundreds of thousands of students have been left behind because Wisconsin has refused to be an education innovator and hundreds of millions of potential funding dollars have gone to other states in the meantime.

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Posted in mi perspectives | February 14, 2011 | | Comments Off

Can Breaking MPS Down Into Smaller Districts Work When Schools are Financially Dysfunctional on a Singular Level?

One of the biggest stories of the past week has been the Wisconsin Education Association Council’s recommendation to fragment Milwaukee Public Schools into smaller districts. According to WEAC, this would create “more manageable components” as well as “drive greater accountability within the system.” However, a look at how Milwaukee’s public schools operate as separate entities suggests that these schools will run into problems regardless of the size of their district.

In 2009, Milwaukee’s schools carried over operating debts of over $8 million into the new school year. Of the 148 schools surveyed in October of 2010, 93 (62.8%) finished the preceding school year in the red. 42 of these schools racked up debts of more than $100,000. 20 more overspent their budgets by $40,000 or more.

As the MacIver Institute has previously noted, schools like Bradley Tech (running a deficit of over $750,000), Vel Phillips (-$475k), Audubon Middle (-$436k), and Wedgewood (-$382k) are some of the city’s biggest offenders. While some schools have been able to create careful surpluses with their funds, the system as a whole has shown to be flawed. In all, the city’s school-by-school deficits added up to over $10.7 million dollars in 2009-2010 alone.

MPS audits have helped delve into some of the problems that are helping fuel this mismanagement. High-risk non-compliances make many of the city’s schools prime targets for inefficient spending and budget overages. In 2010, the average Milwaukee public school had 11.5 high risk non-compliance issues, and 24 of the 27 schools audited rated poorly for their maintenance of fixed asset and payroll management. These schools contributed to over $2.2 million of the local school deficit in the past year –an average of $85,890 per institution.

This suggests that MPS’s problems don’t exist solely on a macro level. Breaking down the district will create smaller organizations and a wider leadership structure, but it won’t get to the root of the problem itself — the schools. Drastic reform is needed to turn around schools that are awash in a culture of sub-par administration. Change is going to have to come from the bottom up in a wave of sweeping reform to fix these problems.

Breaking down MPS won’t fix the problems that haunt its schools; it will only move them to a new district. Wisconsin will need to do more to produce gains in Milwaukee, and it won’t be easy.

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Posted in mi perspectives | February 10, 2011 | | 1 Comment
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