Charlene Hardin

Some time back, Schools Now promised to profile the four Milwaukee School Board members facing election this year. Unfortunately it stopped at only three. Part of the reason for procrastinating is that it is hard to talk about Charlene Hardin without talking about personality and behavior.

She can be charming in person, but at board meetings is often belligerent. A typical example occurred at the committee meeting considering renewal of Afro Urban Institute. Larry O'Neill expressed is unhappiness with her behavior:

At the meeting, we had board members screaming, shouting at the superintendent, pounding on the table. It is false to say there was not help from the administration. The review committee recommended that it was time to revoke the charter. It was well documented. It doesn't help to do some of the things that were done at that meeting. We don't want to set up children for failure.

Oddly, her outbursts often include appeals to the board to work together.

Other than passionate defenses of any group getting funds from MPS--no matter how ineffective, it is hard to associate any set of policies with Hardin.

School board elections start

Assuming sufficient signatures survive, there will be three district school board races this April, but no primaries.

In the eighth district (south west side), Larry O'Neil decided not to run for re-election. The two candidates to replace him are Danny Goldberg and John Malloy Hagen.

Kevin Ronnie will run against School Board President Peter Blewett in the sixth district (west side).

Bernadine Bradford will run against Charlene Hardin in the fourth district (north side).

In the fifth district (east side and near south side), Jennifer Morales is unopposed, reflecting in part perhaps a belief that she was politically in synch with the political views of many of the east side activists and would be hard to beat. The lack of a contest also seems to reflect a lack of interest in MPS on the part of most east siders, few of whom have children in MPS.

More on this race as it develops. Coming up next: why MPS is important.

Cheating in Texas

The Dallas recently published two articles alleging cheating in several Houston schools on the Texas state tests. It appears that teachers gave students cues so they would score higher on the tests. When these students moved to middle school, suddenly their scores were much lower. Former teachers report that they were told to give their students more help.

At a few Milwaukee elementary schools, there is a similar decline in sixth grade, but it appears no one has examined the reasons.

Part of the problem is that for some schools, principals, and teachers, high test scores become an end in themselves. Rather than looking at the tests as a measure of what students are learning and using them to improve learning, teachers come to look at the scores themselves as the goal. It is then a relatively small step to look at anything that improves the scores as a good, even if it does not improve student learning, and in fact gives a false impression of learning.

Perhaps that cultural shift helps explain why such cheating can go on for years.

The ninth grade problem

Alan Borsuk has an article in today's Journal Sentinel on the MPS report card. Borsuk singles out the ninth grade bulge, reflecting students who are stuck in ninth grade for two or more years. Ninth grade in Milwaukee seems to be a problematic year for several reasons, and not just because students have trouble getting through it.

When I looked at test scores for individual MPS students several years ago, I found that ninth grade was the only year in which the average student scored lower than that same student did the year before. At the time, tests were given in the spring, so most growth (or in this case lack of growth) could be credited to the grade in which the test was given.

There are several possible explanations for this apparent backsliding. The most optimistic is that the ninth grade test is poorly aligned with what is taught in ninth grade, so that students are learning material that does not appear on the test. A far more likely explanation, in my view, is that the high schools don't know their students, so many ninth graders waste the year on material they already had while others waste the year because they are in over their heads.

A look at eighth grade scores for the incoming freshmen painted a picture of the impossible academic diversity facing a typical ninth grade teachers. A class of thirty students would include ones scoring below the average third-grader on eighth grade exams and others outscoring the average tenth grader. How could a teacher hope to meet the needs of this wildly divergent group. If I were running a high school, I would spend the first week testing the student and then sorting them into classes that would meet their needs.

What next for the Democrats?

Today's Washington Post has an interesting article on why Democrats won in Colorado:

Colorado Democrats say their success carries a lesson for the national party. "We campaigned on pragmatism," state Democratic Chairman Christopher Gates said. "We set ourselves up as the problem solvers, while the Republicans were hung up on a bunch of fringe social issues like gay marriage and the Pledge of Allegiance.

"The notion that moral issues won the 2004 election was disproven in Colorado," Gates continued. "We offered solutions, not ideology, and won almost everything."

Colorado, in Schools Now's view, also has lessons for Wisconsin Democrats. Despite Kerry's close win in Wisconsin, Republicans increased their domination of the legislature. The danger is that Democrats will look to their base in Milwaukee or Madison for a solution rather than finding ways to convince voters that they can solve problems better than Republicans can.

With the concern over high taxes, Governor Doyle and the Democrats will lose if they are viewed as the party representing the interests of public employees rather than those of the public (especially the public as taxpayers). With the so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights, Republicans are cleverly defining the contest as one between government and taxes.

Doyle and the Democrats have apparently decided that taking the WEAC position on school choice and charter schools incurs little political risk, since the parents who benefit have not thus far become an effective political force. But the political danger to Democrats may come from a different direction: that by toeing the WEAC line they position themselves as the friends of those who benefit from the status quo in government programs rather than as problem solvers. In doing so, the play the Republican game,

Post Election Notes: What Didn't Work

Schools Now takes note of two campaigns that apparently did not work in the recent election:

1. Ads from WEAC (the state teacher's union) accusing Republicans of favoring Milwaukee for supporting charter schools. Of the eight seats targeted by WEAC, Schools Now counts only one Democratic victory. This seemed like a strikingly stupid campaign for many reasons, but satisfaction about its failure is tempered by the increasing Republican monopoly in the legislature. Schools Now can only hope that the results might finally jolt the Democrats into thinking about developing a compelling vision for Wisconsin.

2. The ads paid for by at least one pro school choice group and run on black-oriented radio stations. The only likely effect is to increase antagonism among legislators who, by rights, should be the strongest supporters of school choice. Schools Now suggests that the folks sponsoring these ads should also take a long break to think about how to win friends and influence people.

School Boards and Secrecy

In his response to Ken Johnson's letter criticising his visit to the MTEA (the Milwaukee teacher's union) during negotiations, Peter Blewett devotes considerable space to arguing that everything said in an executive session should be secret. This could represent a major advance for the cause of school board secrecy.

Here is an example. Let's say a school superintendent wants to inform the board about major financial problems, but does not want the press or public to pick up on the story. So he asks for an executive session of the board, only to be informed that state law requires that discussion of district finances be held in public. Thus he is out of luck....or is he?

However the board can meet in executive session to discuss its bargaining strategy with the union, one of the exemptions from the state open meetings law, on the theory that disclosing the strategy to the other side could put the negotiators at a disadvantage. As part of the discussion of strategy, the superientendent may talk about the district's precarious financial situation as background to why the offer cannot be more generous.

If board members are now obligated not to disclose anything they learned about the district's financial situation, on the grounds that this information came out in an executive session, the superintendent is able to achieve his original, illegal, goal.

For a more detailed critique of this expansion of secrecy, see my letter here.

New Flash! Peter Blewett reads Schools Now!

Schools Now welcomes MPS board president Peter Blewett to its ranks of loyal readers. In July, we published an item that Blewett had been freelancing in negotiations with the MTEA. Yesterday, we received the response to our freedom of information request:

• A letter from board member Ken Johnson to Blewett charging him with an improper visit to the MTEA (which was mentioned in our earlier item) and accusing him of impugning the integrity of the MPS staff. This letter is heavily redacted--meaning lots of heavy black lines hiding the good stuff, so it is hard to tell what Blewett proposed to do with the information he got from the MTEA.
  
• A response from Blewett denying the accusations (the visit was purely to gather information; he has "high respect" for the staff), and waxing indignant that someone leaked this controversy to Schools Now. Exhibit 1 is a printout of the offending post from July.

Click here to view the Johnson and Blewett letters.

Who is better for Milwaukee education--Bush or Kerry?

While this blog is focused (obsessed perhaps) on education in Milwaukee , it may be wise to take a moment to observe that there is a national election this Tuesday. How will the outcome affect Milwaukee education? Or, to suspend reality for a moment, assume there is a voter who will decide solely on who will make Milwaukee schools better? How should that voter vote?

The No Child Left Behind Act has effectively neutralized those on the Milwaukee school board and outside it who would like to roll back the measurement of student outcomes. Bush, of course, put a major effort into passing this measure, and Kerry supports it. While Kerry has criticized the funding levels, there is every reason to believe he would continue to support the use of measurement. In fact, his proposals for teacher incentives make use of value-added measures of student achievement.

Milwaukee has been a leader in opening more alternatives for students, especially charter schools and the school choice program. Both Bush and Kerry are strong supporters of charter schools. Bush supports, while Kerry opposes, private school choice. The future of school choice in Milwaukee, however, will largely be decided by state politics, not national politics.

Thus on issues, Schools Now gives a slight advantage to Bush, both because of his support for private school choice and the political capital he was willing to invest in pushing the NCLB legislation.

A second question is political courage: how willing is the candidate to support reforms that may offend important parts of his base? While Bush's support for a more active federal role in education ran counter to those conservatives who would prefer to abolish the Department of Education, his support of school choice is practically risk free. Kerry, however, risks offending an important part of his base through his support of the NCLB, of teacher incentives, and of charter schools.

On political courage on education issues, then, Schools Now gives the edge to Kerry. The danger is that teachers' unions and others opposed to school reform may expect a president Kerry to show his gratitude for their support by backing down on his positions. Yet, having shown his willingness to buck them before the election, it would be puzzling if he buckled afterwards.

A final issue is the effect of the election on the political viability of reform in Milwaukee. NCLB was the one truly bi-partisan major legislative initiative of the Bush administration. Yet despite the active involvement of Democrats like Edward Kennedy, opponents of measurement and accountability have tried to paint this measure as a plot by conservative Republicans to destroy public education. Support from a president Kerry could restore a measure of bi-partisan support to the NCLB reforms and offer a dollop of succor to Milwaukee reformers not eager to be cast as conservatives or Republicans.

Likewise, Milwaukee's charter schools are placed at risk by WEAC's current campaign attacking Republicans for supporting them. Optimistically perhaps, having a Democratic president who supports charters might take some of the wind out of this campaign.

Finally, it seems unlikely that the election will have much effect either way on the present entanglement of the school choice program with state partisan politics. As I suggested earlier, this is likely to change only when choice supporters learn how to build a political base in the low-income areas where most of the families who benefit from the program live.

Thus, in terms of making support for reform easier in Milwaukee, Schools Now gives a strong advantage to Kerry.

Larry O'Neill

Larry O'Neill is by far the senior member of the Milwaukee School Board, having been first elected in 1977. Despite his longevity, he has not left much of a mark on MPS. Cautious by nature, he seems reluctant to take the lead on issues, even those he has long supported. For example, his board profile lists a goal as "the reduction of student busing through the establishment of neighborhood schools." Yet he was reluctant to embrace the Neighborhood Schools Initiative when it was first introduced. Although likeable, he appears to have no interest in building coalitions among board members for specific measures.

O'Neill has an occasional independent streak. He was the only board member to oppose the proposed bond issue twelve years ago, probably reflecting its unpopularity in his district. Although generally considered part of the 5-member pro-MTEA majority, he regards Morales and Blewett as overly ideological. His sense of propriety is offended at Charlene Hardin's sometimes disruptive behavior; at a recent board meeting, he took time to denounce in detail her behavior in committee--without mentioning her name.

It is unclear if he will run for re-election.

Congressional candidates follow the script

I stopped by a forum today between the two Milwaukee congressional candidates: Democrat Gwen Moore and Republican Jerry Boyle. While both declared how much they respected each other, they both hewed to their party line, meaning that Boyle has no chance of election in this district. (I keep hoping that a Republican will put a seat in play by breaking with his party on one of the big issues--no such luck this time). Moore seemed to be running mostly against George Bush, not Jerry Boyle.

They also followed the script on education. Moore talked about the need for more money; Boyle about charters and vouchers. All dog bites man stuff. Now if Moore pushed vouchers and Boyle talked about getting more resources into schools, that would be exciting.

Choice seat allocation toasted

Tomorrow's Journal Sentinel reports that a legislative committee shot down proposed rules to allocate school choice seats when enrollment hits the cap. The Department of Public Instruction had proposed the rules in the hopes of reducing the impact of the caps--for example, by giving priority to siblings.

By contrast, it appears that without the rules the impact will be harsher. Apparently, schools would estimate their enrollments, the estimates would be totaled, and if the total exceeded the cap all allocations would be reduced by the same percentage. This would seem to create a huge incentive to game the system: schools that overestimated their expected enrollment would see less of a cut than those who submitted a more honest estimate. At the end, it is possible that some schools would have to turn away students while others had unfilled seats.

Oddly, it seems clear that the committee rejected the proposed rules at the behest of school choice advocates. Apparently they hope that a messier implementation will create pressure on Governor Doyle to raise the caps. I am skeptical, but hope I am proven wrong. I expect the governor to blame any mess on the Republicans who control the legislature and the school choice advocates.

Jennifer Morales

Jennifer Morales represents the fifth school board district, stretching from the East Side to the near South Side. For most of her term it appears that the school board has been her only employment, reflected in her comments during the board pay hike controversy: "It's very hard to hold another job while we're doing this work." However, she is currently listed as Development Director for 9to5.

Prior to joining the board, Morales worked for Alex Molnar at UWM. Her primary role there seems to have been compiling examples for an annual survey of commercialization in education. While Morales describes herself as an educational researcher, it appears she has little experience with measuring educational effectiveness and has been particularly hostile to using tests to measure student learning. When Molnar moved to Arizona, he took the commercialization center and its grants along with him and Morales' job ended.

Prior to the Molnar gig, she wrote several articles for Rethinking Schools:
"Apple Tries to Censor History"
"Buying Minds"
"Fasting for Funding"
"Massachusetts Policy Protects Gay/Lesbian Students"
"Really Rich White Guys"
"Sex Harassment Rampant in Schools"
"School to War?"
"Wisconsin Explores Funding Alternatives"
Since those articles predate the time Rethinking Schools was placed on the web, they are not easily accessible. Judging from the topics, however, it appears evident that her themes were typical of Rethinking Schools.

Despite this background in education, Morales has been surprisingly unclear as to her vision for MPS. She has expressed reservations about many of the MPS initiatives (neighborhood schools, decentralization of funding, testing, reduction of busing, etc.), but has usually acquiesced in the end. A theme both in her election campaign and since is the need for more funding, but she has not shown a viable strategy to obtain it.

While on the board, much of her energy seems to have been devoted to issues peripheral to education (bus driver contracts or the radio station), external to MPS (opposition to vouchers), or outside of education entirely (opposition to the Iraq war, support of grocery unions). She has been particularly active as a spokesperson for groups opposing vouchers.

In the view of some of her colleagues, the explosion of outrage over the board pay raise she supported and then-mayoral candidate Tom Barrett's proposal to have the mayor appoint the board shocked Morales. As a result, she has recently adopted a more moderate, and less strident and ideological tone, breaking with her ally Peter Blewett by supporting renewal of the superintendent's contract and supporting his budget proposal.

Recently, she is emerging as a Democratic Party activist. She was a delegate to the Democratic convention in Boston. She is currently running as a Democrat against Senator Alberta Darling on the North Shore. While it appears she has little chance of winning (she has little money and if the party thought it had a good chance of winning the seat it is likely they would have recruited a more moderate candidate with a better chance of appealing to independents), this race should seal her Democratic party identity.

It appears Morales is a good bet to win reelection in the fifth district, even if her interests are less in how to make MPS more effective than the traditional liberal issues played out in the legislature. As a woman, Hispanic, and "out-bisexual," she hits the trifecta of identity politics important to many in the district. Particularly if Bush is re-elected, stoking anger among Democrats, her emergence as a Democratic activist should play well in the district.

Peter Blewett

Peter Blewett is an adjunct faculty member at the university of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he teaches several sections of an introductory writing course. He also writes poetry. On the MPS school board, he represents the sixth district on Milwaukee's west side and is currently the board president. Like the other three members in this series, his term expires in April, with the campaign starting December 1.

The major theme of Blewett's first campaign--recurring often since--was the need for more money from the state. He can be counted on to appear at any rally protesting funding levels. Given the current obsession with high tax levels, it is not surprising that these efforts have been totally unsuccessful.

He and Jennifer Morales are considered the most ideological members of the board. Even those who are normally allies are discomfited by this pair's tendency to use their position on the board to promote various causes, including some with little connection to MPS.

It appears he does not have a broad vision for MPS. While strongly opposed to testing, he seems to have given up on altering the MPS assessment policy. His initiatives have largely consisted of trying to give something to various groups, including trying to mandate that all schools have librarians or involving MPS in negotiations between bus companies and their drivers. While these initiatives would further restrict schools and consume resources, they are most striking for their irrelevance to the big issue at MPS, increasing student achievement.

Blewett has been active in opposing the school choice program. When Rudolph Giuliani visited the Milwaukee voucher schools, according to an anti voucher newsletter, "Blewett organized protests in Milwaukee at every stop." Those fighting vouchers in New York then brought Blewett, Morales, and Charlene Hardin to New York for an anti-voucher forum.

A theme in Blewett's opposition to school choice is the need for "full accountability for all schools receiving public funds." It is ironic, then, that he joined in killing a proposal to explore inviting the choice and charter schools to participate in the MPS testing and data collection program. The irony deepened when he opposed terminating the contract for the failing Afro Urban Institute charter school.

As plans to invade Iraq heated up, Blewett and Morales introduced a resolution to require all MPS schools to devote at least one period to discussing the war, a proposal that was widely seen as an attempt to politicize the public schools. Eventually it was replaced by a resolution restating MPS policy that deals with controversial issues.

Blewett also created controversy within the board for his actions in the current labor negotiations. While president he met with union leadership to discuss their proposal on medical insurance. He then suggested that MPS adopt the union proposal. This action was criticized for undercutting the district's negotiators and raised concerns about a possible sell-out, especially because he is dependent on union political support.

While Blewett and Morales seem ideological soul-mates, recently there are signs of a split, at least in style. Morales, always smoother and less blustery than Blewett, seems intent on building a more moderate image. For example, she supported renewing the superintendent's contract, while Blewett voted against it.

George Bush the Liberal

For a certain type of liberal, good intentions trump good results. Thus it doesn't really matter if an integration plan actually promotes integration so long as its supporters sincerely want integration. If an alternative to the plan is suggested, supporters instinctively attack the motives of those suggesting the alternative. Whether or not the alternative would do a better job of promoting integration is largely irrelevant.

Likewise, these people admire the school board members who loudly demand more money from Wisconsin, even though the results have been nil--and will continue to be in the present financial climate. Milwaukee School Board meetings always attracted a disproportionate number of people demanding the board prove its concern for children by taking some action that had no chance of success.

Watching the debate last night, I was struck that George Bush had adopted this liberal mindset. The president talks about his good intentions, firmness, etc., as if those justify the lack of a well thought out plan for success. Confirming their belief that intentions are all that count, Michael Moore-type liberals construct elaborate conspiracy theories about Bush's evil motivations for the invasion. I think a more plausible explanation is that a sincere conviction in the rightness of one's intentions can lead to a simplistic view of the world, ignoring information that does not fit that view.

Vouchers and graduation rates

The very prolific Jay Greene is out with a new study comparing graduation rates at Milwaukee public high schools with those at voucher schools. The study is described in this article and sponsored by School Choice Wisconsin, which unfortunately does not yet list it on its website. The authors, themselves, seem cautious about their results--and rightly so. They point out that their study does not follow actual students from freshman to graduation; rather it compares the size of the freshman class with that of the graduates.

One problem with the Greene approach is that it apparently makes no adjustment for ninth graders who are repeating that grade (around 30% in Milwaukee). This inflates the denominator of the ratio. In other words, 30% of the students counted as starting the race to graduation one year would have been counted in the previous year.

Another problem is the simplistic model it implies: of a contest between two groups of students, one in public schools, the other in private, to see which will have the most survivors over the next four years. An alternative model is at least as plausible: that many students first try the public schools, later switching to private schools. (I am aware of a private school--not a voucher school--with 27 freshmen and 211 seniors--which would, under the Greene calculation, give it a graduation rate of almost 800%.)

In the alternative model, the voucher schools are more a complement than competition to public schools, particularly valuable in serving students who might otherwise be lost.

Value added strikes again!

A Journal Sentinel article describes a new study from the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance comparing school districts' performance on the fourth grade reading exam. From the article, it appears the methodology used is very similar to one I have been pushing for several years: first predict the performance of a district based on its poverty rate and other available data. Then compare its actual performance to its predicted performance. At the very least this answers the most common complaint about school performance comparisons: that schools serving wealthier students have an unfair advantage.

The Taxpayers Alliance web site gives little information on the study's methodology or conclusions, but does offer to send a copy for free. I may comment further when I have had a chance to read the report.

Why liberals lose

For a certain type of liberal, good intentions are far more important than good outcomes. Thus they are far more interested in making emotional statements about the need for more money for schools than making sure that the money being spent is actually helping students. In some cases, in fact, the high-minded statements about the need for more money are much more important than figuring out how more money could be obtained. Schools Now finds this tendency particularly frustrating because he usually sympathizes with liberal goals.

Two articles in the Sunday Journal Sentinel illustrate this face of liberalism. Onedescribed the rally of a group a churches, who promise "to vote against candidates in the Nov. 2 election who fail to support alternatives to prison, better funding for public education and greater civil rights for immigrants." There seemed to be no discussion of--or a recognition of the need to consider--how to make these goals compatible with an environment obsessed with cutting spending and taxes.

The other described an ad campaign by the state teachers' union. (To view the ad, click on this link.) It shows a group of "politicians and profiteers" discussing how to increase class sizes, cut programs, increase testing to fail more schools, "let the market decide" who gets educated, and privatize the schools. Eventually we realize they are sitting in a classroom and the teacher throws them out, accusing them of interfering with her ability to teach. The announcer comments the "state and federal interference are threatening the quality of our schools."

In both of these, intentions are everything. Whether the proposals discussed have a positive or negative effect is irrelevant. Unfortunately, obsession with intentions leads to a failure to propose plausible solutions to problems, so liberals as a group come to viewed as irrelevant.

Spring school board elections

Four of the nine Milwaukee school board members are facing elections this spring: Peter Blewett, Jennifer Morales, Charlene Hardin, and Larry O'Neill. The campaign will start in earnest right after the presidential election, with December devoted to collecting nomination signatures, a primary on February 15, and the election itself on April 5.

Over the next few weeks Schools Now plans a series on each of these races including the strengths, weaknesses, effectiveness, and vulnerability of the incumbents. Readers are invited to submit their insights.

Each of the incumbents is different. Yet they have one thing in common: all were elected with the support of the MTEA. Along with Tom Balistreri, they give the MTEA a 5-4 majority on the board. Thus the defeat or replacement of any one of them would make the board much more independent of MTEA. If history is a guide this would make major reforms much more likely and could ease contract negotiations.

New "failing schools" list published

The Journal Sentinel reports that 123 schools in Wisconsin--and 67 in Milwaukee--failed to make adequate progress under the standards of the No Child Left Behind act. As in past years, the schools on this list are heavily skewed towards those serving low-income kids.

Schools Now feels that identifying low-performing schools is a good thing and can serve as an incentive to improve, but the means of identifying these schools could be much better. The present system does too little to separate factors under the control of the school from those outside its control. Value-added measurements offer a way to get around this dilemma, particularly with next year's introduction of annual testing.