Meet the New Common Core - The New York Times

Meet the New Common Core - The New York Times:

Meet the New Common Core

MADISON, Wis. — HATE the Common Core? You’re not alone. The national reading and math standards, set up by a bipartisan consortium of state governors, have turned into a political lightning rod for a coalition of angry parents and education activists. The math component has generated special peevishness. The comedian Louis C.K. was widely cheered in April when he tweeted: “My kids used to love math. Now it makes them cry. Thanks standardized testing and Common Core!”

Governors around the country, including many former Common Core supporters, are considering strangling the Common Core in its crib. Indiana, Oklahoma and South Carolina have already adopted new bespoke state standards. Democracy in action!

There’s just one problem. What’s replacing the Common Core is, by and large, the same thing in a new package.

Standardized tests certainly aren’t going anywhere. States that have dumped exams aligned with the Common Core aren’t dumping high-stakes testing; they’re just switching to new tests, like the ACT’s Aspire. (Other ACT offerings include the Explore, the Engage and the Compass. Apparently standardized tests are titled by the same people who name midsize sedans.)

Frequent testing is locked in by federal funding requirements and, in many states, by accountability statutes long predating the Common Core. Just recently, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey announced that his administration was moving to abandon the Common Core curriculum but sticking with the corresponding state exam, all but conceding that the new standards would be essentially identical with the old.

And what about the material itself? Will new standards banish the homework problems that make Louis C.K.’s kids cry? I doubt it. The South Carolina Education Oversight Committee found that the new South Carolina math standards were 92 percent in alignment with the content of the Common Core. In other words, the math they’re asking students to learn is largely the same.

One controversial Common Core standard is “making 10,” a strategy for first graders learning addition. If you want to remember what 8+5 is, you recall that 8 needs two more to be 10; take those two away from the 5 and give them to the 8, leaving you with 10+3 = 13. One critic of this technique, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, complained about it on TV. But “making 10” is still there in the new Indiana standards. And though Texas itself never adopted the Common Core, it did join the rest of the country in teaching “making 10,” which you can find in Texas’s state math standard 111.3.b.(3).D.

Other activists denounce the Common Core’s emphasis on writing down criticisms of incorrect mathematical reasoning. Isn’t math about getting the right answer, by any means necessary? Not in Indiana, whose post-Common Core standard asks students to “listen to or read the arguments of others, decide whether they make sense, and ask useful questions to clarify or improve the arguments.” That’s the same as the Common Core, word for word.

If the Common Core is so unpopular, why have legislators largely opted to preserve it, even as they ditch the toxic Common Core brand? Why not justMeet the New Common Core - The New York Times: 

Schools get defensive when researchers ask about oppressing of youth of color

Schools get defensive when researchers ask about oppressing of youth of color:

Schools get defensive when researchers ask about oppressing of youth of color

That students of color bear the brunt of the zero tolerance discipline policies in schools has been well-established. What is not so well known is that some school administrations are actually complicit in this act of racial disciplining.

Nationally, students of color are more likely to be suspended than white students. On average, black boys are suspended four times more than white boys. Latino students are also suspended more frequently than white students, and female students of color are also disciplined more frequently than white female students.

The policy ‘problem’

But this is not all. A recent study that we conducted over a period of two years in Texas found that schools were in fact negligent when it came to addressing such practices of disciplining. The study covered four school districts in Texas with a population of nearly 200,000 students.

As researchers, we have been studying this issue since 2010. But what prompted this study was the suspension of one of the researcher’s sons from school. The child was given a US$500 court citation. And when we showed up for our court appointment, we saw that all the children were either black or brown. Did it mean that white children never fought in school?

We knew this was part of what is now known as the school-to-prison pipeline for children of color. It led us to take on a scholar-activist role.

Most schools and districts claim to be following “race-neutral” discipline policies. School officials even point to their race-neutral suspension and expulsion policies to show how they are “fair” with students of all race and ethnic subgroups.

However, researchers have found that the problem lies in the application of these policies.

For example, black students are more likely to be suspended for breaking subjective school rules such as a lack of respect for teachers than for objective ones, like having a weapon. Researchers point to cultural stereotypes and misunderstandings from a primarily white teaching force as the reasons for the “disciplining gaps.”

Data on discipline

Our recent study found that some schools are, in fact, negligent and even defensive when it comes to addressing the problem of school discipline practices and the discipline gap.

The kind of responses we got when we asked for school districts’ discipline data resembled a “corporate cover-up.”

Some school administrators resisted our attempts to provide information under theFreedom of Information Act (FOIA), and some others released data that were not helpful. For example, in the discipline data submitted by a school district, we were not able to discern the race of the children who had been suspended or expelled from school.

It is hard for us to imagine that schools are not keeping track of usable disciplinary data, considering that in recent years, widespread attention has focused on the disciplinary treatment of black boys and other students of color. President Obama has even initiated My Brother’s Keeper, a national program intended to help black and Latino boys succeed.

Responses from schools

Our biggest surprise was finding out that districts perceived our request for data as a threat. We found that school administrations became secretive, defensive and even more protective of the data. It seemed to us that districts were essentially complicit in the process of oppression of youth of color.

Even the districts that provided the data were very defensive when informed of the discipline gaps that occurred in their schools. For example, when presented with data in his district, one data administrator responded, “Well, other districts in Texas are higher than us” and “We are not far off from the state average.”

It was very troubling for us to see schools reacting in this way, especially when lives of youth were at risk. These responses were unacceptable and deflected the district’s Schools get defensive when researchers ask about oppressing of youth of color:

An Upcoming Frenzy in Education | My Island View

An Upcoming Frenzy in Education | My Island View:

An Upcoming Frenzy in Education

If educators can count on one sure-fired outcome of the largest national education conference in America, it is the information feeding frenzy that accompanies it. Each year that ISTE holds its Annual Conference with 20+ thousand attendees social media lights up all over the world with exchanges of information between educators emanating from whatever city ISTE is in that year. This year it is Philadelphia. I think there might be more social media interaction with east coast events because of the time zones. The east coast is favored by a longer period of time to get to people while they are awake, active and reactive. The #ISTE15 hashtag will probably trend on Twitter several times during the ISTE conference.

There is a reason why Tweets on Twitter are dominated by education topics. It is not that a majority of Twitter users are educators, but rather those educators who are Twitter users are very collaborative and prolific in their use of Twitter. They use Twitter for exchanging and expanding ideas. They are very active in hundreds of education Twitter Chats. I am sure that Twitter’s founders did, not foresee the educators’ use of Twitter as a form of professional development.

The use of social media by educators underscores the glaring need for a better system of professional development for educators. While there are some districts that make PD part of their culture, most districts allow it to continue as it always has: haphazardly, at the whim of administrators, often ill-conceived and too often with minimal impact on student learning. Trends often dominate the choices. A demonstration of some newly acquired App may count for PD for the entire year.

The adoption of social media to deliver “Do It Yourself PD” is an indication for the need, as well as recognition that educators are hungry for direction.

Only a small percentage of educators will ever get to attend an education conference like ISTE. Districts do not budget for teachers to attend. Conferences are not cheap. Often Admins and Tech Directors will attend such events year after year. Those educators who do attend education conferences however use social media to share out what their experiences are like with those folks not able to attend.

Over the next few weeks the #ISTE15 hashtag will begin to appear more frequently building to a crescendo during the conference and continuing a short time after the conference concludes. These “sharings”, whether on Twitter or any other form of social media, are an effort on the part of educators to involve other educators in a collaboration of learning in their own profession. Educators more than anyone see the need for effective PD and are trying to provide what the An Upcoming Frenzy in Education | My Island View:

It’s Raining Meatballs | EduShyster

It’s Raining Meatballs | EduShyster:

It’s Raining Meatballs

What lessons can we fail to learn from Sweden’s disastrous school choice disaster?

Reader: it seems like only yesteryear that you and I were off to Sweden together to tour the wonders of that country’s experiment with skola privatisering, otherwise known as *the magic of the market.* So what happened since we boarded our return flight aboard Scandanavian Airlines? In a word:katastrof. A familiar recipe of vouchers and privately-run, publicly funded schools, spiced up with the profit motive, has had the exact opposite effect from what advocates promised, with international test scores plummeting and gaps between haves and have nots widening, even as for profit school operators have been profiting. So why do I feel like we’ve taken this trip before?

Upps!
As an expert on Swedish-style school choicification, you no doubt recall that the Swedes began breaking up their equivalent of the BLOB three decades ago. Power was decentralized, more than 800 privately-run but publicly funded schools opened their doors, infusing the system with the aquavit of competition, parents got vouchers and a choice to choose the school of their choice. And the kronanow followed the child to whatever choice his or her parents had chosen. In other words, Sweden is a choice lovers dreamscape. Except, that is, when the entire experiment goes meatballs up. Andreas Schleicher: take it away.

*It was in the early 2000s that the Swedish school system somehow seems to have lost its soul. Schools began to compete no longer on delivering superior quality but on offering shiny school buildings in shopping centres, and I think that’s the issue we are really seeing.* Andreas Schleicher, OECD.

Choice, with a side of choice
Oh well, as long as the test scores go Upp, Upp, Upp, which is the true measure of any choicetastic experiment. What’s that you say, Mr. Schleicher? Sweden’s PISA scores haveplummeted like a rock to the bottom of Lake Torneträsk? Dropping further since 2000 than any other participating country? And causing Swedish officials to make bleak statements like *the bleak picture has It’s Raining Meatballs | EduShyster:

Ohio Charter Schools: A National Laughing Stock | Diane Ravitch's blog

Ohio Charter Schools: A National Laughing Stock | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Ohio Charter Schools: A National Laughing Stock

Just when I think the charter scandals in Ohio can’t possibly get worse, they do. The State Auditor, a Republican named Dave Yost, reported that a charter owner had inflated enrollment and overcharged the state by $1,3 million.

“General Chappie James Leadership Academy in Dayton reported enrollment of 459 students, however an investigation by state Auditor Dave Yost found nearly half of those students had never attended or long since left the school.

“To illustrate the extent of the deception, Yost said one parent told investigators “her kid could not have been in school because the child was incarcerated for two years. Another family had moved to Georgia.”

The state may never recover the money because the school closed a year ago. “Results of the investigation have been passed along to the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s office for review and possible criminal charges.”

When will Ohio taxpayers wake up?

Valerie Strauss sums up the embarrassing situationS of the Ohio charter industry: It has become a national joke.

Strauss quotes a story in the Plain Dealer in Ohio saying:

Ohio, the charter school world is making fun of you.

Ohio’s $1 billion charter school system was the butt of jokes at a conference for reporters on school choice in Denver late last week, as well as the target of sharp criticism of charter school failures across the state.

The shots came from expected critics like teachers unions, but also from pro-charter voices, as the state considers ways to improve how it handles charters …

Even charter supporters were laughing at Ohio’s troubled charter sector, which is low-performing and riddled with ethically challenged charter operators who care more about profits than education.

Strauss quotes:

An example of a joke from the conference: “Be very glad that you have Nevada, so you are not the worst,” charter researcher Margaret “Macke” Raymond said of Ohio. Raymond, from the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, conducts research on charter schools and issued a report Ohio Charter Schools: A National Laughing Stock | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Gates $2.3B driving Common Core as a 'de facto and de jure national school curriculum'

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Gates $2.3B driving Common Core as a 'de facto and de jure national school curriculum':

Gates $2.3B driving Common Core as a 'de facto and de jure national school curriculum'

The new curriculum driven into law by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, the Common Core Standards, is a product of massive spending on an unprecedented historical level by Bill Gates.



Guerin Lee Green at the North Denver News reports that Gates has spent $2.3 billion pushing the Common Core. More than 1800 grants to organizations running from  teachers unions to state departments of education to political groups like the National Governor’s Association have pushed the Common Core into 45 states, with little transparency and next to no public review.

The Common Core now represents a de facto and de jure national school curriculum, something theoretically prohibited by federal law. But the Common Core comes with common high-stakes tests and common textbooks, making the standards far more than standards.

The Gates involvement, profiteering by testing publishers like Pearson and the heavy-hand of federal coercion in the Common Core has aroused political opposition from right and left, as well as from education experts who have called the standards inappropriate Schooling in the Ownership Society: Gates $2.3B driving Common Core as a 'de facto and de jure national school curriculum':

Refresher: What's in the Senate ESEA Rewrite, and Amendments to Watch For - Politics K-12 - Education Week

Refresher: What's in the Senate ESEA Rewrite, and Amendments to Watch For - Politics K-12 - Education Week:

Refresher: What's in the Senate ESEA Rewrite, and Amendments to Watch For

As the U.S. Senate braces for debate on a bipartisan reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act—which could get underway as early as Thursday—we thought it would be a good idea to freshen up on what's in the bill.

The compromise bill, which was brokered by Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., and introduced in April, includes education policies that are attractive to both sides of the aisle.

Among other things, the measure would:

• Maintain the annual federal testing schedule;
• Provide some flexibility on testing through a limited pilot program that allows states and school districts to develop innovative assessments;
• Not include any provision allowing Title I dollars for low-income students to follow them to the school of their choice;
• Maintain the requirement that states report disaggregated data for subgroups of students;
• Require states to use disaggregated data in their accountability systems, but give them leeway to craft their own such systems;
• Require states to identify low-performing schools, but wouldn't be specific about how many schools states need to target;
• Maintain a dedicated funding stream for school improvement efforts
• Require states to establish "challenging academic standards for all students," but prohibit the federal government from playing a role in the process of states choosing standards;
• Specifically prohibit the federal government from pushing the Common Core State Standards;
• Eliminate the No Child Left Behind Act waiver requirement that states develop and implement teacher-evaluation systems (though they could if they wanted);
• List early-childhood education as an allowable use of funding for a broad swath of programs in the ESEA.

There are a lot of new policies this bill would implement, so be sure to read the more detailed run-down...Refresher: What's in the Senate ESEA Rewrite, and Amendments to Watch For - Politics K-12 - Education Week:

Regents make amendments to highly criticized teacher evaluation scheme - Times Union

Regents make amendments to highly criticized teacher evaluation scheme - Times Union:

Regents make amendments to highly criticized teacher evaluation scheme

The state Board of Regents on Monday agreed to amend the state's controversial new teacher evaluation system by allowing what could be a yearlong delay in implementation, and placing less emphasis on student test score results when it comes to judging teachers.

Significant as those changes were, hardly anyone at Monday's meeting — not the teachers union representatives, nor parents groups, nor the Regents themselves — were happy with the result, which Regents Board member Roger Tilles had earlier referred to as "lipstick on a pig."

"It was not the most attractive piece of legislation that was written," Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch said after the morning session. She was referring to the law, introduced by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and passed by the Legislature in March, that ordered the new system.

Because Cuomo put the new evaluation process in the state budget, lawmakers said they felt compelled to pass it, or else risk a late budget and in the process endanger school funding. The legislation instructs the Regents to approve and the State Education Department to develop the evaluation system by June 30.

It would mean the state's nearly 700 school districts would have to approve the system and in some cases offer their own "locally based" tests used to rate teachers. With schools starting summer break soon and a Nov. 15 deadline to adopt the program, many said it was unrealistic.

As a result, a divided panel of the Regents agreed to allow school districts to seek a four-month "hardship" delay if they couldn't hit the deadline.

With that four-month break pushing them into March, such delays would essentially put off implementing the new plans until September 2016 rather than September 2015 as envisioned.

If the state Education Department was unable to examine and approve an alternate local test that a district wanted to use in time for this coming school year, that could count as a hardship.

Monday's votes came from the Regents P-12 committee. The full board is set to give final approval on Tuesday.

Regents also approved a reduction the reliance on state-issued standardized exams in developing teacher ratings.

While the change lowered the chances that teachers whose students consistently get low scores could be fired, those at Monday's meeting were satisfied.

Part of the issue was the complicated grid or "matrix" in which test results play a role in an educator's final evaluation. Tisch at one point told Regents members to draw a box and rectangle as an aid to help visualize the various options.

"My head is spinning,'' Regent Kathleen Cashin later said.

Under the amendment, less than half of the total evaluation could be dependent on a score.

Despite that change, the powerful New York State United Teachers union said the revised Regents make amendments to highly criticized teacher evaluation scheme - Times Union:

Nebraska Loves Public Schools - Documentary provides balanced understanding of charter schools

Documentary provides balanced understanding of charter schools:

Documentary provides balanced understanding of charter schools

 Nebraska Loves Public Schools | Click Here to Get to know us…

A documentary dealing with education reform will be held in the Keene Memorial Library’s East Annex Building at 4 p.m. Thursday.

Presented by the film-making group Nebraska Loves Public Schools, the documentary “Consider the Alternative” dives into the complex issue of school choice, particularly the controversial discussion on charter schools.

Charter schools are independent, tax-payer funded schools typically run by private groups or companies. Nebraska is currently one of just a handful of states that still doesn’t have charter schools. In recent years, multiple bills that would allow charter schools in Nebraska were shot down in the Legislature.

Charter schools are prevalent in large cities with urban areas that struggle to meet required test scores designated through the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Initially, schools throughout Nebraska needed students to meet a 60 percent level of proficiency on test scores in math, science and English, but now proficiency is expected to be at 100 percent district-wide elementary through high school, said Gale Hamilton, executive director of instruction and secondary operations.

Although it is nearly impossible to meet a 100 percent proficiency rate, requirements can be met under a “safe harbor” provision. It forgives schools for low test scores from one or more subgroups if those students show yearly improvement and if the school scores well on the whole.

Many large urban areas struggle meeting these requirements, and there is a great deal of pressure from the federal government to have a certain level of achievement in school districts, Hamilton said.

“In many urban locations the public school system has not been as effective as some of the private schools have been,” Hamilton said.

Issues with funding and various other reasons can play a role in this, he said. Many parents attempt to enroll their children in charter schools because they believe students receive a superior education.

“Consider the Alternative” looks at the life of a parent moving through the education system, who is trying to understand what is best for her children. The movie focuses on school choice through the lens of charter schools as it explains how charter schools operate, while both sides of the school-choice debate are presented.

Parents in the Fremont Public School District do not have full discretion over where there children attend school. Transfer requests can be made, and if possible, students can transfer if they can fit into a schools current enrollment figures.

“We try to accommodate requests the best we can,” he said.

Hamilton believes the documentary will give a good glimpse into the current school situation. Fremont Public Schools does not condone the views in the movie, nor does it affiliate with Nebraska Loves Public Schools. However, parents interested in different educational issues should find the film helpful, he said.

Gov. Pete Rickets has shown interest in approving charter schools, and Hamilton believes there’s a good chance a greater push will be made to open them in years to come.

Hamilton is proud of the Nebraska Public School System. Nebraska has some of the lowest national dropout rates, highest graduation rates and some of the better testing scores.

“Our best of the best are competitive with students from anywhere across the country,” he said.Documentary provides balanced understanding of charter schools:

 Nebraska Loves Public Schools | Click Here to Get to know us…

Charter Schools In Perspective - A Guide to Research

In Perspective - A Guide to Research:

Charter Schools In Perspective

A joint project of the Spencer Foundation and Public Agenda

In Perspective is an effort to enlighten and improve the conversation about charter schools in the United States.

Communities across the country are grappling with different approaches to improving their schools. Introducing or expanding charter schools is one of the approaches that states and school districts have considered or implemented.

Charter schools serve more than 5 percent of public school students nationwide and make up close to 7 percent of all U.S. public schools. Yet they can be deeply polarizing. This polarization can use up policymakers’, educators’ and community members’ limited time, energy and resources, making it that much more difficult to find practical solutions to improve schools for all children.

Charter Schools In Perspective, a partnership between Public Agenda and the Spencer Foundation, is designed to counter this controversy by contributing to a more informed, civil dialogue about charter schools. We hope the resources developed for this project enable policymakers, educators and communities to better grapple with decisions about whether and how to introduce or expand charter schools in their states or districts.

Grappling with these decisions requires understanding a range of issues that researchers have addressed: What are charter schools’ effects on student achievement? Who operates charter schools? How are they financed and governed? How do charter schools affect neighboring traditional public schools?

This guide to research is a nonpartisan, nonideological overview of some of the key research on these and other aspects of charter schools. It provides policymakers, journalists and community members with an easily digestible summary of a very wide body of research, including studies that are typically accessible only to academics.

Charter schools and the policies that govern them vary considerably from city to city, state to state and even school to school. We use the symbol to the left throughout the guide to highlight variation. Understanding these variations is key to avoiding misleading generalizations about charter schools and their benefits and trade-offs. Some of the data covered in the research guide are national in scope, while some are specific to certain locations or types of charter schools.

A Guide to Research

 Key Facts about Charter Schools 
 Reading the Research 
 Student Achievement 
 Diversity and Inclusion 
 Teachers and Teaching 
 Innovation 
 Finances 
 Governance and Regulation 
 Charter School Operators 
 Families 
 Public Opinion 
 Questions for Future Research 
 References 
 Download the PDF 

In Perspective - A Guide to Research:

Kevin Johnson welcomes GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson | The Sacramento Bee

Kevin Johnson welcomes GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson | The Sacramento Bee:

Kevin Johnson welcomes GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson

Republican Ben Carson, the former neurosurgeon and unconventional presidential candidate, has no doubt received some glowing receptions during his career.

But it’s unlikely he expected such a warm welcome from Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, a Democrat who once borrowed the Chicago Bulls theme music to introduce President Barack Obama at the White House.

Johnson relied on fewer theatrics Monday in Sacramento’s Oak Park neighborhood, where he talked up the long-shot GOP contender in front of a large picture of his latest book, “One Nation.”

Johnson commented on Carson’s “impressive” education (Yale, and medical school at the University of Michigan), and his Presidential Medal of Freedom. And he gently ribbed Carson, who used to favor an afro hairstyle, for his more recently coiffed look.

“Look how smooth he looks now,” Johnson said to laughter, comparing Carson to the actor who played Lando Calrissian in “Star Wars.”

“Man, he’s smooth. He got a little Billy Dee (Williams) in him,” he added to more laughter, including from Carson.

Admired by evangelicals, Carson came onto the national stage with a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in 2013. Speaking then next to a poker-faced Obama, he focused on the dangers of political correctness and warned about America going the way of the Roman Empire, drawing praise from conservative commentators.

Still, Johnson’s lauding went beyond his looks.

“Our goal should be the best that we can be. And when you strive for excellence, and you become excellent, nobody ever cares where you’re from or what you look like or the color of your skin,” Johnson told the crowd of about 325 people at his Indivizible African-American empowerment organization.

“And the person that to me best represented that was Dr. Ben Carson.”

For his performance, Carson, before getting down to signing books, reprised much of what he’s been saying on the campaign trail, notably his opposition to Obama’s health care overhaul.

Carson touched on his rags-to-riches tale in which he rose from a childhood of poverty to, by his mid-30s, the youngest-ever division head at Johns Hopkins University. Monday’s audience heard a little about his methods for separating conjoined twins.

Johnson wanted to know his favorite food (vegetarian chili), book (The Bible, Book of Proverbs), and movie (“True Lies”). But he wasn’t getting off that easy. The mayor alsoKevin Johnson welcomes GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson | The Sacramento Bee:

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article24562219.html#storylink=cpy

Wisconsin Public Education Network ALERT : blue cheddar

Wisconsin Public Education Network ALERT : blue cheddar:

Wisconsin Public Education Network ALERT

by blue cheddar • June 16, 2015

Please review this important alert from the Wisconsin Public Education Network and take action.

The deadline to gain additional co-sponsors is Friday.

THANK YOU.

————————————————-

Two education bills are circulating for co-sponsorship that deserve support from every legislator, taxpayer & parent in Wisconsin!

At this stage the bills are given “LRB Numbers” before formal introduction. These bills respond to the needs and concerns shared by parents and school districts all over the state, and provide an opportunity for legislators to come together in bipartisan support of the public schools that are the hearts of our communities.

Contact your legislators TODAY and ask them to co-sponsor these bills. Then call on your local school board and administrators to show their support for this legislation. And be sure to thank them for their support of our public schools when they do!

LRB-2356 would allow locally elected local school boards to increase local levy limits to keep up with inflation. This would bring us back to a standard established by former Governor Tommy Thompson that puts control of levy limits in the hands of locally elected officials, who are accountable to local taxpayers. School districts all over the state have been asking for this flexibility, which would allow them to off-set the effects of decreased state funding to local schools.

LRB-2357 would provide some relief to local districts by increasing the state-level support for special education costs to 33%. While the state used to fund over 70% of special education costs, Wisconsin currently only pays for 26% of these high and growing expenses.

Special education funding has been frozen for 8 years at this rate, and school districts all over the state have long been asking for more support. This modest increase would be a dramatic improvement from the current situation and help districts meet the needs of all students.

Deadline for co-sponsorship is Friday, June 19. Urge your legislators to sign on to this bill and vote YES on any bill or budget amendment that allows for more local control and fair funding of our excellent public schools!

See the bills here:

LRB-2356 (Increase Revenue Limits):https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxHr6KXdn27kVWE1S05SbzdEVV9DNllzTFFVd3gwUG83U2pJ/view

LRB-2357 (Increase Special Education Funding):https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxHr6KXdn27kNndFUDRBSGpGdmd6eS1rclRVSzVnc3BoZi1R/view

Find your legislators here: http://maps.legis.wisconsin.gov/

Wisconsin Public Education Network ALERT : blue cheddar: