School board budget hearing

I dropped by Thursday's public hearing on the MPS budget at Madison high school. Compared to previous hearings, where hundreds turned out to denounce the school board, this was a real yawner. There were about as many people on stage as in the audience. Only two members of the public spoke--someone who speaks at almost every meeting and a retired principal--and both left the board puzzled as to what point they were trying to make.

The proposed budget, with less than a 1% tax increase, seems like good news. But that good news is hugely dependent on decisions by others. It assumes both that the state legislature will agree to restore two-thirds funding and that MPS will win the current arbitration on its contract with the union to reduce health care costs.

Director Tom Balistreri (who seems perpetually angry, about what is not clear) threatened to vote against the 1% tax increase. In effect this would be a vote to permanently reduce MPS funding, since revenue caps reflect the previous year's spending. This raises the question: where are organizations like MICAH and the Institute for Wisconsin's Future? For years, these organizations have criticized the school board for not convincing the legislature to increase funding. Yet when a school board member threatens to cut funding, they are strangely silent. For that matter, where is the Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association?

Schools and property values

This morning's Journal Sentinel reports on a dramatic rise in Milwaukee property values. This is the most convincing evidence yet that the Milwaukee education reforms are working.

For the past few years Milwaukee has experienced a surprisingly robust boom in condo construction, in areas like the Beer Line and the Third Ward. However, the connection with education reform has been easy to dismiss because the majority of condo purchasers seem to be people with little direct concern about the schools--empty nesters, young professionals, single people, gays.

Yet the growth in property values is quite different. The poorest areas experienced by far the highest percentage increases in property values. (See the graph in the post below.) These are areas with a great many children. Concern about education should have a much greater effect on property values in these areas. Here is my hypothesis about what happened:

The Milwaukee reforms were aimed at empowering parents by giving them choices over their children's education. In recent years, the number of real choices for Milwaukee parents have vastly increased. These include the school choice program (and recall that most residents of the areas with the biggest jumps in property values would qualify for this program), a wide and growing variety of charter schools, and continuing efforts by MPS to restructure its schools to make them more attractive (such as the move from middle schools to K-8s).

All of these changes would have the greatest impact on the areas with the most children and the lowest incomes, precisely the districts seeing the greatest percentage increases in property values. So families that in the past might have struggled to buy a house in the suburbs for better schools now find more opportunities in Milwaukee.

Increases vs Values 

Senate restricts special elections

An article in this morning's Journal Sentinel reports that Wisconsin's senate voted to restrict local school boards' power to call special elections to exceed the spending caps. From a strictly MPS point of view, this measure is a moderately good thing. For a number of reasons, particularly the increasing disconnect between voters and MPS, all informed opinion agrees that a proposal to exceed the spending cap has no chance of passing in Milwaukee. Thus the ability of other districts to (sometimes) get voters to agree to raise their spending limits has the effect of increasing the financial gap between MPS and its neighbors. This in turn makes it more difficult for MPS in the competition for teachers.

That said, the vote is a sad one for what it says about the growing willingness of conservatives and Republicans to violate their own most basic principles. One of the most cogent critiques Republicans have made over the years is that Democrats are too eager to centralize authority when they don't like what local government does. Yet in this vote the Republicans show the same disdain for local government. As more decisions move to Madison, it will be increasingly difficult to interest capable people in serving on school boards or to interest citizens in what school boards do.

In praise of partisanship

Tomorrow's Journal Sentinel has an article by Sarah Carr, "School Board president denies posts to opponents," noting that Ken Johnson did not appoint any of the four Defenders on the board to committee chairmanships. Carr clearly disapproves, predicting the board will "grow more polarized and combative."

Another interpretation is that the appointments represent a determination to make significant progress on improving MPS in the next two years. Reforming large urban schools systems is immensely difficult under the best of circumstances. Putting in place committee chairs prepared to obstruct reform would seem to be a recipe for futility.

One size fits all students

There are intriguing parallels between Joel Klein, the New York City public schools chancellor, and Alan Bersin, the recently-departed San Diego schools chief (who was just appointed by Arnold Schwarzenegger to be education secretary and member of the California school board). Both were federal prosecutors who depended on high-profile educators to pick their instructional programs. Both centralized authority.

Fundamental to their approach is the belief that there is one right model of education that works for all students. Many of their critics believe that Klein, Bersin, and their educational mentors chose the wrong math and reading programs. But even many of these critics believe the same fundamental idea--that there is one model that is right for every student, just not the ones chosen for New York and San Diego.

A contrasting concept is that there is no one right model that will fit every student. This was the central organizing idea behind the Milwaukee educational reforms. In this view as much decisionmaking as possible should be moved to the schools and to parents. As parents search and find schools that work for their children, successful schools will expand or be replicated; unsuccessful schools will change or close. Almost all of the reforms--admissions standards, school councils, neighborhood schools, letting schools choose principals, changing the way principals were chosen and trained, per pupil funding, charter schools, annual testing, and even support of vouchers--can be viewed as tools to make decentralization work.

The challenge for the school board over the next two years is to determine how to make these tools more effective and what additional tools are needed.

New Joe Williams book

Connoisseurs of MPS board fights will recall that Joe Williams covered MPS for the Journal Sentinel over several years before moving on to the New York Daily News. He had a singular knack for making the often arcane board controversies into matters of high drama. I received a note that he has a new book coming out October 7 titled: Cheating Our Kids: How Politics and Greed Ruin Education. He promises that Milwaukee, "figures prominently in several chapters." As a former greedy politician myself, I look forward to reading it. It can be pre-ordered from Amazon.

New MPS Leadership

The annual organization meeting of the MPS board holds a strange attraction--offering drama, bitterness, and surprises. Tonight's meeting made it abundantly clear that the board is split along party lines. Even the opening role call underlined this division, with Reformers answering "here" to the Defenders' "present." I leave it to a better psychologist than I to figure out whether the difference simply reflects group identification or a difference in views as to how active a board member should be (voting "present" on an issue is to obstain, after all).

An early mini-drama was played out over a Morales proposal to change the voting procedure. Although it was unclear exactly what she had in mind, apparently it involved being able to argue the merits of the candidates. Not necessarily a bad idea, I think, but it appeared to be a last minute idea that had neither been fully developed nor discussed with anyone in the Reform group. The proposal was defeated 5-4 along party lines.

The board then elected officers in its traditional fashion, with each member announcing their preference in turn. Ken Johnson was elected president by the five Reformers, with all but one of the Defenders voting for Peter Blewett. (Morales voted for Joe Dannecker, but this seemed a tactical move, since she did not support Dannecker for vice president.)

Again voting along party lines, the board elected Dannecker as vice president on a 5-4 vote.

Not at all surprisingly, the board voted not to increase its own pay.

Overall, I got the impression that several of the Defenders were quite bitter about their current minority role. This does not bode well for collegiality but may be good for reform.

Time ripe for MPS reform?

The headline for an editorial this morning expresses the hope and expectations for the new board: "Time ripe for MPS reform." But will MPS be noticeably more effective in two years than today? Will the public perception that MPS is irrelevant to the daily lives of Milwaukeeans--reflected in the miserable voter turnout--start to reverse?

The challenge for the reformers is to develop a few priorities that will start to reconnect MPS to its communities. Their danger is that they heed the calls to build a consensus with the defenders, resulting in little reform, poorly implemented.

End free busing!

One of the most important challenges faced by the administration and new board is to make the Neighborhood Schools Initiative work. Kids have to get off buses and move into neighborhood schools. This has a number of advantages, especially in encouraging schools once again to play a role in creating strong neighborhoods. But without stronger measures, it seems unlikely there will be a significant reduction in busing or a significant increase in attendence at the neighborhood school.

One approach is simply to end busing. Denver, for example, ended busing when the state subsidies stopped and reassigned all students to schools in their neighborhoods. Probably the strongest argument against such a drastic measure is fear that it would kill the citywide specialty schools--the Montessori, arts, gifted and talented, language immersion, and others that attract students from all over the city because of the strength of their programs. From a business sense it hardly seems intelligent to kill the most successful products. Thus MPS has arrived at a standoff: it needs to drastically reduce busing but not at the expense of killing the specialty schools.

There is a solution that could achieve both aims: keep busing but charge parents for it. Thus, parents who found busing beneficial because it allowed their child to attend a specialty school could continue to do so if that was high on their priority list. Those parents who chose busing as a form of free day care might take another look at real day care.

If parents paid the cost of busing there would no longer be reasons for the rules aimed at reducing the number of children eligible for busing but also forming an incentive to send kids to distant schools so they would qualify for free busing. For example, when my daughter was five, I found she did not qualify for a bus ride because her day care was too near the school. If we had moved her to a center across the city she would have qualified for a free trip. Because of the MPS rules, I was unable to get her on the bus even if I paid for it.

An immediate criticism of this proposal is that it is unfair because low income parents will find it harder to pay for busing than middle class parents. One solution might be to set up a fund to subsidize busing on a sliding scale based on income. But if MPS has the money for such a fund, is busing the best use for it? One can think of many uses that might better benefit low-income students: subsidized tutoring after school, a longer school day, or books for the student's home, for example.

Andrekopoulis the election winner?

In an interesting article in this morning's Journal Sentinel, Alan Borsuk points out that the superintendent is a "significant winner" of the election. This is both because control by the reform group on the board would give the Andrekopoulis more support in pursuing his agenda and also because Danny Goldberg's opponent would likely have joined Tom Balistreri as a strident critic of Andrekopoulis. I encourage everyone to read this article.

I note that the Journal continues to have trouble figuring out how to identify the two groups--or "factions" in Journalese--on the board. Borsuk identifies the reform group through indirection: that it has been on the short-end of the 5-4 split on the board over the past two years and that none of its members were endorsed by the union. I continue to think my terms of "reformers" and "defenders" are both far more succinct and recognize that the differences are not superficial personality clashes but instead reflect very different views on the role of the board.

Reformers and Defenders

With the recent school board election the balance on the board has shifted from five to four in favor of one group to five to four in favor of the other. But what should each of these groups be called? Despite the many years of this divide, even the members of these groups have trouble agreeing on labels. In its report on the election results the Journal Sentinel reverted to the practice of identifying each group with an organization that supported it: “candidates backed by the teacher’s union and those backed by the school choice community.”

But both these designations are problematic as well as cumbersome. Teacher union backing only helps explain behavior on the minority of issues of concern to the union; on most issues the union is indifferent. The use of school choice as the defining issue is even more problematic since the school board has no say in the school choice program and the school choice community sat out the last election.

In an effort to come up with better terms, I took a look at how the supporters of the two groups described their favored candidates. Specifically, I looked at what terms the endorsement editorials in the Journal Sentinel and the Shepherd Express used to praise the candidates the endorsed and to criticize their opponents.

There is no question about the Journal’s favorite term. In a fairly short editorial, I count it using “reform” or “reformers” nine time. But, one may ask, doesn't everyone want to be considered a reformer? Does also claim the mantle of reform? Not at all. In a much longer series of endorsement editorials, the Shepherd does not once mention reform.

Instead of reform, the Shepherd wants strong loyalty to MPS from its board members. One candidate is described as a “defender of public schools.” A second is an “advocate for public schools.” A third a “passionate advocate of public education.”

What form does this defense of public education take? In the Shepherd’s view it largely consists of opposition to anything that might compete with conventional public schools. The only word I found shared by both editorials was “charter.” But the attitude towards charter schools were diametrically opposed. While the Journal praised candidates’ involvement charter schools as reflecting a willingness to innovate, the Shepherd found such involvement showed alarming disloyalty to MPS.

Thus the reformers and defenders–and their supporters–have very different philosophies as to the proper role for board members. Reformers want the board to push for improvement while defenders see it as protecting MPS from its enemies.

Wisconsin Citizen Action

A flyer from Wisconsin Citizen Action sets a new low for sleaze:

Rampant corruption. No accountability. Dangerous criminals in taxpayer-supported schools. Does that sound like a program you would support? Danny Goldberg does.

More on the Shepherd Express

A while back, I expressed surprise about actually agreeing with the Shepherd Express. In their school board pre-election articles, however, they returned to form. In an article speculating on pro-voucher money the paper expected in the election, the paper said "Bruce Thompson .... wouldn't reveal his plans for this election." I suspect most readers would interpret this to mean the paper asked me for my plans and I refused to discuss them. In actuality the Shepherd never talked to me. So I never had a chance to refuse to reveal my plans.

The reporter did leave a message on my phone but stressed that there was no urgency in returning the call. When I called back, his message said he was out of town for the week. I haven't heard from him since.

This could be racked up to sloppy reporting, but over the years I have noticed the Shepherd's sloppiness has a purpose. If a story works against the cause of reform in MPS, the Shepherd will run it whether or not it is true.

This is unfortunate on several levels, I think. First unethical journalism hurts our society whatever the ideology of the publisher. Second, there are a number of strong conservative voices in Milwaukee; it would be beneficial to have a strong, trustworthy, liberal voice to balance them.

Bicycles and School Board Elections

With the (sort of) coming of spring last weekend, I took a bike ride from the East Side to Muskego. One striking change crossing into the suburbs was the explosion of signs for school board candidates. By contrast, in Milwaukee, even in districts with races, the number of signs was pitifully few.

Why do suburbanites care so much about their school systems? Part of the explanation is simply size; MPS seems too large and too remote. But suburbanites also recognize their stake in the schools. Even if they have no children in the schools, their property values and their neighborhood depend on the attractiveness of the schools.

In Milwaukee, unless they either work for the schools or have children enrolled, most people seemed profoundly uninterested in who runs the schools. The schools simply seem irrelevant to most.

Can this situation be changed? Part of the answer may be to really push the Neighborhood Schools Initiative to restore the local school as the glue that holds its community together.

Another is to get better leadership on the school board, so that once again there is a sense of progress. This morning's Journal Sentinel points out that Kevin Ronny, Danny Goldberg, and Bernardine Bradford offer much more effective leadership than their opponents.

Where are the children?

A Thursday New York Times article (sorry, don't have a link) and a follow-up NPR program describe cities that have been most successful economically but find they have fewer and fewer children. Portland Oregon, for example, has about half as many children as it had in the 1960s.

On a much smaller scale than the cities described in the article, Milwaukee has also enjoyed a revival, notably in Brewer's Hill and along the river. But as with these other cities, few of the people moving in are families with children. An article about Brewer's Hill in the current Milwaukee magazine (not available on the web) describes, inadvertently perhaps, why making schools attractive to middle class parents is so difficult. Palmer elementary school is in the heart of Brewer's Hill but is considered unacceptable to most residents. By most measures, Palmer has been among the poorest performing of all MPS schools for many years.

Yet all schools, no matter how much in need of change, have their passionate defenders. The article describes a proposal from then-board member John Gardner that quickly bogged down in racial and class politics. Yet, according to the same article, few of the Palmer students came from its attendance area.

Side Note: I am increasingly puzzled by Milwaukee magazine's practice of hiring partisans to do reporting without disclosing potential biases. For example, the author of this article is a retired teacher and former union officer who ran against Joe Dannecker (an ally of John Gardner) for school board. The magazine simply describes him as a free-lance writer.

Funding school choice

At a candidates' forum this last week MPS board president Peter Blewett suggested that funding of school choice should be changed so that choice students should be included in the MPS count for figuring state aid. While he is right, his support probably comes too late to help Milwaukee taxpayers.

Some years ago I became convinced that the state funding formula for choice schools was unfair to Milwaukee taxpayers. By not including choice students in the overall count, it made Milwaukee’s financial resources per student look stronger than they really were. After considerable resistance, the choice coalition finally agreed that the fairest solution would treat those students as if they attended MPS. Once convinced, the coalition went to work and convinced the Republican leadership in the legislature to support this change.

Unfortunately this change died when none of the Democrats on the Joint Finance Committee–including those from Milwaukee–supported it. Much of the opposition seemed to stem from fear that including choice students in the MPS count would offer legitimacy to the choice schools. As became clear later some of the Democrats also hoped to defeat Republicans by charging them with favoring Milwaukee. This vote happened early in Blewett's term on the MPS board. Perhaps his involvement in support of the funding change--along with other opponents of school choice--might have changed a vote or two, saving the proposal.

In essence, Milwaukee Democrats voted to raise their constituents’ tax burden in order to thumb their noses at choice schools. I suspect the Democrats' lack of support for Milwaukee, combined with the later attempt to capitalize on the Republicans' vote, would make it very hard to enlist Republican support for a similar measure today. Sometimes, there is a window that closes if the opportunity is not seized.

Too often, the battle about school choice becomes an end in itself. People forget that the children involved are some of the neediest in Wisconsin. And Milwaukee taxpayers are not well served by this obsession.

"Attract and Retain"

One symptom of becoming an adult is the recognition that the world is full of limits and trade-offs. To have more of one thing, it is often necessary to have less of something else.

One course I teach includes something call linear programming. It is part of a larger group of models described as "constrained optimization." These are based on the recognition that most real-world problems have a set of constraints or restrictions, such as budgets or limited resources. The aim, then is to find the best solution (optimize) that fits those constraints. The organization whose leaders recognize the constraints and optimize most effectively within them will prosper while others will fall behind.

Unfortunately, while recognizing constraints is the mark of a good leader, pretending they don't exist can be good politics. Of course we can cut taxes and increase spending. We shouldn't worry about global warming, running out of oil, or environmental pollution because some new technology will come along and solve the problem. The politician who also wants to be a responsible leader is at a disadvantage.

The "Attract and Retain" signs that sprouted around Milwaukee a while back fit into the politics of unconstrained optimization. They tell the school board and administration it should be generous to the teachers, a sentiment that only a grouch could disagree with. Yet those displaying the signs don't suggest where the money for this generosity should come from. That a majority of the school board subscribes to this sentiment goes a long way to explain why MPS's financial problems continue to grow. Unfortunately, good leadership requires the ability to make hard decisions.

Wasserman poll on vouchers

State representative Sheldon Wasserman posted a constituent poll that included a question on school choice. While 43% said they did not support the program, 44% supported one of three expansion proposals (remove the income limits, expand state-wide, or do both). The remainder had no opinion. Oddly the expansion proposals are more radical than those proposed by the choice coalition. Apparently the position adopted by mayor Barrett and governor Doyle--keep the program as it is--was not included as an option.

Constituent polls are notoriously unreliable as random samples of all opinion. This poll is particularly interesting, however, when opinions on choice are compared to responses on other issues. It seems evident that the North Shore residents responding to this poll are a predominantly liberal group. For example, the ratio of those describing themselves as pro-choice to pro-life was about 3 to one. 81% opposed concealed weapons. And 71% supported same-sex marriage or civil unions compared to 27% supporting present law or a constitutional amendment.

Thanks to Davey Moore for pointing out the link to this poll.

Democrats and Vouchers (cont)

Davey Moore comments further on the Democrats problem: "At what point did petty political bickering become more important than social justice for the neediest families in Milwaukee?" I think the Democrats' weakness reflects a broader problem: they lack a vision and an overall sense of what they stand for.

Rather than come forward with an overall vision of what direction Wisconsin should be heading, they hope to develop a winning coalition by appealing to people as members of one or another interest groups. (I was first struck by this tendency twenty-five years ago as a delegate to the state Democratic convention. Resolution after resolution was passed demanding rights for this or that group.)