Lawmakers Desire to Destroy MPS
HALL MONITOR — Lawmakers deal MPS deathblow
By Jay Bullock June 1, 2015 Bayview Compass
See blog at: http://bayviewcompass.com/category/hall-monitor/
See blog at: http://bayviewcompass.com/category/hall-monitor/
After Wisconsin’s Joint Finance Committee finished its late-night work on education funding last month, I posted this line from Shakespeare to Facebook, spoken by Romeo’s friend Mercutio, “Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this world.”
Mercutio has just been stabbed and he staggers offstage to die a few lines later.
It was, I thought, the only fitting response to the committee’s votes—and here I do not exaggerate—to bankrupt the Milwaukee Public Schools if its plan works as designed.
The JFC’s education policy hacks and slashes at MPS and public schools around the state, via a massive expansion of statewide private school vouchers, tight limits on how MPS deals with empty (or partly empty) school buildings, and even meddling in how some school boards are constituted.
But the deathblow is a plan to take schools from MPS and give them—buildings, contents, and students (but not the teachers!)—to voucher school operators or charter school programs. The plan would take up to three schools a year in the first two years, and up to five schools a year after that.
It’s the loss of funds from those students that will do the real damage. All of us in MPS, from Superintendent Darienne Driver to folks like me in classrooms, know that it won’t take much of a fiscal hit to send us into a spiral of default and dissolution. Driver who told a local TV program that MPS wouldn’t survive thisLawmakers Desire to Destroy MPS | Educate All Students: Larry Miller's Blog:
Who Is Representing the Citizens of Milwaukee in the Bucks Arena Negotiations?
Franklyn Gimbel calls Bucks arena negotiations ‘uncivilized’
MJ Sentinel Bice 6/11/15
The head of the Wisconsin Center District has attacked those working on a deal to build a new $500 million arena for the Milwaukee Bucks, saying the talks were too secretive and “uncivilized.”
The head of the Wisconsin Center District has attacked those working on a deal to build a new $500 million arena for the Milwaukee Bucks, saying the talks were too secretive and “uncivilized.”
Franklyn Gimbel, chairman of the district, said he was particularly upset that he has yet to be informed about the details of the plan even though it would require the district to borrow heavily, take on new responsibilities and restructure its board.
Gimbel would be ousted as board chairman under the proposal.
“I’m very unhappy with how this financing bill was handled because it wasn’t transparent,” Gimbel said Friday. “Stakeholders like the Wisconsin Center District weren’t at the table. Decisions were made about them that were uncivilized.”
Last week, Gov. Scott Walker and other top officials unveiled the details of their plan to provide $250 million in public financing for the new arena.
The plan calls for the Wisconsin Center District to sell $93 million in zero-coupon bonds that would be repaid with income from the hotel, car rental and food and beverage
Who Is Representing the Citizens of Milwaukee in the Bucks Arena Negotiations?
Wisconsin Rapids Principal Schools Legislature on Qualified Teaching
Education: An endeavor to help build better lives
By Matt Renwick June 6, 2015
There are lots of occupations out there that do not demand a bachelor’s degree, including governor of Wisconsin. But teaching shouldn’t be one of them.
There are lots of occupations out there that do not demand a bachelor’s degree, including governor of Wisconsin. But teaching shouldn’t be one of them.
I was a classroom teacher for eight years, and now a school principal for just as long. Teaching is an incredibly complex and challenging craft. In my estimation, it takes at least three years of classroom experience beyond completed college experience for a teacher to become very good at his or her work. The foundational learning that occurs in undergraduate courses and during student teaching is essential. It is also only the beginning. Teaching truly is a profession that one learns as one does it, and the learning never ends.
Recently, I observed a teacher facilitate a math lesson on arrays (rows and columns of tiles to convey an equation or to form a shape). An uneducated bystander without the requisite background knowledge to understand teaching and learning would observe this lesson and probably think it was fine.
But that bystander would have no idea why. With a highly trained eye, here is what I saw:
■The intent of the lesson was clearly stated in writing, verbally and visually.
■The teacher kept the students active, allowing them to get up every 10 minutes or so between activities. This is pedagogically sound (How many people without a degree in education
■The intent of the lesson was clearly stated in writing, verbally and visually.
■The teacher kept the students active, allowing them to get up every 10 minutes or so between activities. This is pedagogically sound (How many people without a degree in education
Wisconsin Rapids Principal Schools Legislature on Qualified Teaching
Voucher Leader Jim Bender Once Again Exemplifies Double Standard
In today’s MJS article on pushback to attacks on public education, Jim Bender a leader of School Choice Wisconsin (# 1 voucher industry organization in Wisconsin), said that superintendents statewide are “lobbying using state and local resources.” (See article at http://tinyurl.com/q42sq44)
This is the same voucher industry that has filled the halls of the Wisconsin state capital with bus loads of students to lobby for public funds to go to private schools. This was done on school days during school hours.
If Jim Bender really cared about educating all children, he would cut his ties with tea party politicians, the American Federation for Children and the Koch brothers. He would fight for more resources for public schools and demand real accountability.