School Board approves closings

The School Board last night approved closing Milwaukee Academy of Aviation, Science and Technology and Milwaukee Business High School at the end of this school year. The Board told the administration to find a new home for MAAST's aviation program.

The lure of easy, distracting money

Superintendent William Andrekopoulos: "The testimony to an organization that is really focused and targeted is when you turn down money....If you have someone willing to give you money and coming in to sell a plan or sell something to do, and you're saying that's taking you further away from what you want to do, then that's really a sign of an organization's discipline. So it might be interesting to actually track the money we turn down as a benchmark of our success."

Samuel Morse school move proposed

Samuel Morse Middle School for the Gifted and Talented would move to the Marshall High School complex to accommodate expansion of the Samuel Morse middle school program to
a grade 6-12 combined middle and high school, under an administration proposal.

W.E.B Du Bois High School would move from Marshall as a result, but a new Du Bois site has not been identified.

The Milwaukee Board of School Directors approved the Morse grade expansion last year, but had directed the administration to come back with a full implementation plan and a recommendation for a new location for Morse, which will outgrow its current building once more grades are added.

Morse has been a middle school located at 4601 N. 84th Street since 1983 after the program relocated from Rufus King High School. Its current enrollment is 983 students.

The administration is preparing a Morse relocation proposal for possible consideration at the Feb. 10 meeting of the School Board's Innovation/School Reform Committee. Two community meetings are scheduled in early February. Members of the public are invited to come to learn more about the proposal.

Community meetings
Tuesday, Feb. 3, 6 p.m.
Location: Morse Middle School, 4601 N. 84th St., in the library.
Please use N. 84th Street entrance.

Thursday, Feb. 5, 6 p.m.
Location: Marshall High School Campus, 4141 N. 64th St., in the library. Please use N. 64th Street entrance.

The Board had directed the MPS Administration to consider locating the new Morse School in the building that had housed Webster Middle School, which closed in 2006. The Administration will not recommend the Webster facility as a site for Morse, however, because of the large amount of remodeling that would be required.

The administration instead will recommend the Board approve Morse's move to Marshall in time for the start of the 2010-2011 school year. Morse would add a grade level each year starting in fall 2009, until it has a full offering of grades 6-12 in the fall of 2012, when enrollment is anticipated to reach 1400 students.

Marshall currently houses three small high schools, a program serving students with special needs, and the district’s professional offices along with the offices of MTEC, the Milwaukee Teacher Education Center. One of the small high schools, the Milwaukee Academy of Aviation, Science and Technoloty, is proposed for closure at the end of the current school year, and another, Marshall Montessori High School, will move to the Juneau High School facility, 6415 W. Mt. Vernon.

“These two anticipated actions have made the Marshall High School Campus the appropriate location for the Samuel Morse School for the Gifted and Talented,” said MPS Superintendent William Andrekopoulos. “This is what we will recommend to the Board in February in an effort to increase the high quality options for our families on the north side.”

The proposed move of Morse to the Marshall campus will mean it will be necessary to relocate W.E.B Du Bois High School from the Marshall Campus to a location elsewhere in the district for the 2010-2011 school year. The Administration will devote further study to an appropriate location for Du Bois, which currently enrolls 319 students. The Morse program would merge with the special education program that is currently housed at the Marshall complex.

$204 million for MPS in House stimulus bill

MPS would get an additional $204.2 million in Title I, IDEA and construction funding over two years under the federal stimulus bill pending in the US House of Representatives, according to a new analysis of the spending.

The district would get about $40 million in new Title I money and $16.6 million in IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) funding this year and $40 million in Title I and $19 million in IDEA funding next year, according to figures prepared by the Congressional Research Service. New construction funding would amount to $88.7 million over the two years.

Superintendent William Andrekopoulos said any new funding would be spent in alignment to the "Working Together, Achieving More" strategic plan.

Public accountability and transparency in stimulus spending, as called for by President Obama, would be important components of MPS implementation efforts if the package becomes law, Andrekopoulos said.

Coming up this week

The Ko-Thi Dance Company will perform at the Lincoln Center of the Arts, 820 E. Knapp St., on Tuesday through Friday. The performances are at 10 a.m. and noon each day and will be followed by a talk back with the artists. The adminission price is $2.50 per person and reservations can be made by calling Ko-Thi at 273-0676.

The School Board meets Thursday at 6:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the central services building, 5225 W. Vliet St. On the agenda: proposals to close Milwaukee Academy of Aviation, Science and Technology and Milwaukee Business High School; the 2008 district audit; and a proposal to sublease to the Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs of Greater Milwaukee part of the space at the Holy Redeemer Academy site at N. 35th St. and W. Hampton Ave.

The three-choice school selection period ends Friday. Parents interested in enrolling children in MPS are able to make their selections at any school during school hours or at MPS central services, 5225 W. Vliet St., from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Department of Parent and Student Services will stay open until 7 p.m. Wednesday to accommodate enrollments as well.

The Chinese New Year will be celebrated from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Friday at the Milwaukee Academy of Chinese Language, 2430 W. Wisconsin Ave. There will be food, fun, traditional Chinese dances and a Lion dance performed by the MACL students, family members and staff.

Brown Street Academy's Todd Hartwig is an Excel winner

Yes, there is school on Monday

It's time to pay that piper.

Students who thought they had the day off Monday because it was a banking day -- sorry, you have school instead.

It's a make-up day for one of the three bad weather days that closed school.

Yeah, life is tough.

African-Americans' test scores rose after Obama election

Test score differences between black and white students disappeared after Barack Obama was nominated for president and then after the general election, according to a study.

From the New York Times:

...Researchers have documented what they call an Obama effect, showing that a performance gap between African-Americans and whites on a 20-question test administered before Mr. Obama’s nomination all but disappeared when the exam was administered after his acceptance speech and again after the presidential election.

The inspiring role model that Mr. Obama projected helped blacks overcome anxieties about racial stereotypes that had been shown, in earlier research, to lower the test-taking proficiency of African-Americans, the researchers conclude in a report summarizing their results.

“Obama is obviously inspirational, but we wondered whether he would contribute to an improvement in something as important as black test-taking,” said Ray Friedman, a management professor at Vanderbilt University, one of the study’s three authors. “We were skeptical that we would find any effect, but our results surprised us.”

The study has yet to undergo peer review.

The instructional improvement plan

Superintendent William Andrekopoulos gives a high-level outline of district's instructional improvement plan.

The Keefe Ave. Inauguration Ball

Keefe Ave. school, 1618 W. Keefe Ave., held an Inauguration Ball yesterday at the school. Principal Erica Hendricks' request that students dress appropriately in suits and dresses became known in the community last week and volunteers stepped forward with donations of tuxedos, gowns and alterations. The stores are Tuxedo Alley, GiGis Bridal and Beratti Bridal. Volunteer Nancy Camden, of Mequon, is featured in the video.

The inaugural effect

Yolanda Claybrooks, a senior at Northwest Secondary, talks about what watching the Barack Obama inauguration means to her and about public schools.

Obama attended public school in Indonesia and for a time in Hawaii.

Yolanda was interviewed by MPS Director of Communications Roseann St. Aubin.

Inauguration day at MPS

A few of the activities:

At Dover Street School, 619 E. Dover St., students and their families are working on an All-School Homework Project about inauguration traditions, an element of Dover’s First Amendment curriculum. They will sign guest books in their classrooms before they watch the inauguration, and send the guest books to the White House.

Staff and students of Northwest Secondary School, 5496 N. 72nd St. will gather in an all-school assembly to watch the inauguration. Students will receive a commemorative bookmark highlighting milestones in the life of President-Elect Barack Obama. In addition, National Honor Society students will present an award for outstanding service in honor of the President-Elect’s call to community service.

Keefe Avenue School, 1618 W. Keefe Ave., has an Inauguration Ball scheduled for from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the school. Principal Erica Hendricks’ request that students dress appropriately in suits and dresses became known in the community last week. Now, three local formal wear stores have stepped up with donations of tuxedos and gowns. The stores are Tuxedo Alley, GiGi’s Bridal and Beratti Bridal.

Twenty Grantosa Drive students have been invited to a luncheon at 11 a.m. on Tuesday where they will watch the inauguration live. The luncheon is at the Wisconsin African American Women’s Center at 3020 W. Vliet St. The event is sponsored by 100 Black Men and the Wisconsin Black Chamber of Commerce.

Oliver Wendell Holmes students will watch the Oath of Office on television. They will host a parade outside the school at 1 p.m., weather permitting. Holmes School is located at 2463 N. Buffum St.

Elm Creative Arts School, 900 W. Walnut St., will have Red, White and Blue Spirit Day on Tuesday. Students have been asked to wear patriotic clothing.

At Milwaukee School of Languages, 8400 W. Burleigh St., students and staff will wear "Inaugural ribbons" and will open the day with special announcements. One of MSL’s teachers is attending the ceremony in Washington, D.C. Community High School, 1017 N. 12th St., also has a teacher attending the inauguration. Educators have promised to document their experiences to share with students.

Director Petersons: Will you tell us when we get off track?

Director Tim Petersons asks if the administration will let Board members know when their resolutions steer them away from functional plan objectives and intentions.

What others are saying

MPS teacher Jay Bullock on his Folkbum's Rambles and Rants blog:

In the past few months we have seen an increase in the calls for something to be done by--or, more often, to--MPS, precisely because of the two crises I opened with. Yet, the single best way to improve both the financial status of the district and the achievement level of its students is to do something to--or, rather, for--the city of Milwaukee. If the status and lives of our children were different (the poverty, the unemployment, the poor health care, the unstable families, the moving all the time, and all of that), the results would be different, and far cheaper to achieve.

The problem, of course, is that, again, there is no one to blame for the problems of urban Milwaukee. There's no one agency or organization or prime mover to identify and change. God speed to David Riemer and his new group trying to something about it, though.

Instead, we're left with a bunch of people pointing at MPS and offering "solutions" that will ultimately solve nothing.

The Public Policy Forum, on its Milwaukee Talkie blog, takes up district funding dilemmas.

Is there no way to holistically approach the many facets of the MPS problem? New commentary in Education Week by three professors with the Center on Reinventing Public Education argue that there is a way to address these problems simultaneously: policymakers and district administrators should be focused on "productivity." Instead of pruning around the edges by cutting teacher's aides or football programs when in a fiscal crisis, districts should analyze which instructional programs bring them the biggest bang for their buck and cull those that aren't cost-effective. Perhaps those new laptops didn't have any impact on student learning--well, then, cancel the plans to buy more for every school. Perhaps a full-time arts teacher is associated with higher attendance rates--maybe arts shouldn't be the first thing to go in a budget crunch.

Focusing on productivity may seem like a good idea, but, as the proponents themselves concede, it is nearly impossible to do in most districts.

Freedom Eden's Mary doesn't think there would be a special School Board meeting to discuss how to mark the inauguration if John McCain had been elected:

No chance. No way. Instead of encouraging kids to wear red, white, and blue, teachers would probably be in mourning and dressed in black.

If students watched the ceremony on TV, that would probably be followed by a Republican bash fest.

The inauguration would not be seen as a celebration. There would be no discussion of the significance of the first woman becoming the vice president.

Milwaukee Public Schools are Republican-free zones, aren't they? I think there's a zero tolerance policy in place.

Dan Cody of Left on the Lake weighs in on a proposal to allow some advertising in MPS:

The last thing kids in school need is even more advertising aimed at them, and don’t forget that you’d have to create a whole extra layer of bureaucracy in MPS to approve, monitor, and manage anything like this.

Of all the ideas that have ever come out of the administration building, this one would have to rank up there as one of the most poorly thought out and harmful to kids in MPS.

(The Legislation, Rules and Policy Committee last night delayed action on the matter.)

The JS reports on the success of anti-violent initiatives in the district.

Despite the tough work environment for Roberson and other new youth advisers, their role in what's known as the Violence-Free School Zone initiative appears to be having a positive impact, according to a new study by researchers at Baylor University.

The research indicates that schools with the Violence-Free School Zone initiative have reduced the number of reported violent and nonviolent incidents in school, as well as the number of student suspensions, when compared with other high schools that don't have the program.

Dovetailing on the release of the study Tuesday was an announcement by MPS Superintendent William Andrekopoulos that student suspensions throughout the district are down more than a quarter in the first half of the 2008-'09 school year, when compared with the same time period a year earlier.

According to district data, MPS has issued 9,000 fewer suspensions this year, with particular improvement in seventh, eighth and ninth grades.

Hey! Suspensions are down!

Some really positive news on discipline -- suspensions are down across the district during the first six months of the school year.

"These numbers show us that changes we’ve made, such as having school resource officers, introducing restorative justice, writing classroom discipline plans and using the fire department’s Staying Alive program, are bringing results," said MPS Superintendent William Andrekopoulos in a prepared statement.

The numbers by grade level.

School closings advance

The School Board's Innovation / School Reform Committee on Tuesday night recommended that Milwaukee Business High School and Milwaukee Academy of Aviation, Science and Technology be closed at the end of this school year.

For more on the proposed Business High closing, click here; for more on the proposed Aviation closing, click here.

State likely to dodge educational funding reform, Assembly leader says

The state is unlikely to aggressively overhaul the state's educational funding formula, which levies a special tens-of-millions of dollars private school property tax on city of Milwaukee property owners, but on no one else in the state.

From the Appleton Post-Crescent:

KAUKAUNA — Educators who think the state's funding formula for public schools has a better chance of an overhaul under Democratic control should not hold their breath.

"The timing could not be worse," said Assembly Majority Leader Tom Nelson, D-Kaukauna, whose party will have to deal with a state budget deficit that could swell to a record $5.4 billion by 2011.

The bleak scenario has left school districts like Kaukauna with little choice but to talk about teacher layoffs in excess of more than 10 percent if it receives state aid in 2009-10 at a lower rate than the current year.

Director Thompson: Make the solution size fit the problem

Director Bruce Thompson: "We identify a problem and we identify a solution, but often there is no attempt to compare the scope of the two so we'll have a solution that is much smaller or just nibbles at the edge because we'd like to do something about it.I'd like to really try to grapple with that issue of whether the things we're doing of sufficient scale."

More video from the December Strategic Planning and Budget meeting discussion of the "Working Together, Achieving More" functional plans.

Doyle to schools: you'll hurt, too

Gov. Doyle repeatedly has said he wants to protect education as much as possible from budget cuts, but may not be able to do so.

From the Wispolitics.com budget blog:

Doyle said that even areas he wants to protect, such as K-12 and higher education, medical expenses programs, corrections, and funding for local fire and police, can expect flat or reduced budgets.

"All of those are going to see, if nothing else, held even, or some cuts; everybody's going to have to tighten their belts," Doyle said. "Even those areas where we have to protect priorities are not going to come out unscathed."

A way to drive change and to stay the course

The plans, metrics and goals associated with the "Working Together, Achieving More" strategic plan can help MPS staffers determine when a strategy isn't working, and can help guide discussion when a program seems to be working, but there is pressure to shift funding away from it, Superintendent William Andrekopoulos told the Strategic Planning and Budget Committee. Director Danny Goldberg expressed concern that the Board, simply because it changes, could intervene in unhelpful ways.

Milwaukee Business High School closing on agenda

Closing Milwaukee Business High School will be considered tomorrow night by the School Board's Innovation / School Reform Committee.

The meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the central services building, 5225 W. Vliet St.

It will be the second school closing issue of the evening, as the committee also will consider closing Milwaukee Academy of Aviation, Science and Technology.

The business school opened this year as a charter school at 1017 N. 12th St.

"Unanticipated challenges — such as the inability to find permanent certified teachers in all areas and the transfer of two of the planning team members, including the school leader, out of Milwaukee Business High School — have made viability of the charter school questionable," the administration said in a report to the committee.

The school's governance council wrote to Superintendent William Andrekopoulos last month to request that the school's charter contract be terminated at the end of the school year "due to the hardships being faced," according to the report.

Options are currently being explored to include the business program within other high-school options, with discussions including Vincent High School, where one of the small learning communities for next year will include business and finance.

On the agenda: closing Milwaukee Aviation high school

The leadership at Milwaukee Academy of Aviation, Science and Technology is recommending that the school be closed at the end of the 2008-09 school year, a recommendation that will be considered tomorrow night by the School Board's Innovation / School Reform Committee.

The meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the central services building, 5225 W. Vliet St. The committee also will consider closing Milwaukee Business High School.

MAAST, 4141 N. 64th St., opened in 2005-06 as a charter school that was to offer an aerospace and aviation academic program, according to a report prepared for the committee by the administration. The school lost its charter last year, though, because of low student achievement and because a charter school contract review team found that the academic program offered by the school differed from what was in the school's contract.

The school since has been an MPS traditional school.

From the administration report:

The school leader and staff of MAAST High School has continued to analyze the opportunity and challenges of offering the aviation program within the small high school. This analysis has led the school leadership and staff to the conclusion that MAAST can no longer offer its students a full high-school experience and offer the unique courses and opportunities required for implementation of an aviation program, due to low and declining enrollment.

Because of MAAST's unique academic offering, the administration will work with other schools to identify a high school where the aviation program can continue to fly.

It's three choice time at MPS!

Today marks the start of the annual "three-choice" season, when parents interested in enrolling their children in MPS for the 2009-10 school year can do so. The enrollment period runs through Jan. 30.

Enrollments can be done at schools or at central services. MPS Parent and Student Services will be open on three evenings during the school selection period to assist parents and guardians with the enrollment process. Parent and Student Services, housed in the central services building at 5225 West Vliet Street, will be open until 7 p.m. on three Wednesdays – Jan. 14, 21 and 28 – to enroll students for fall 2009.

As an added bonus, the Milwaukee Health Department will provide free flu shots at central services. The shots will be provided at MPS Central Services, on Jan. 14, 21 and 28 (Wednesdays) from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Parents should bring their children's vaccination records.

More information about specific schools and programs is available in the district's Directions publication.

Literacy instruction changes recommended

An external literacy review team has issued its report on MPS literacy instruction.

"Much work needs to be done, but it was our impression that MPS has the ambition and commitment to address these matters," the review team wrote. "Indeed, MPS personnel reading this report will not find the observations in this report startling nor our comments disparaging. Many sharethe same concerns. A number of the report’s suggestions are derived from suggestionsthat were offered by MPS."

From the overall recommendations of the report (the entire thing is here).

The review team is suggesting that Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) initiate some major shifts if they are to address the pressing needs of their students who currently are struggling in reading. Without a major investment in these improvements, we would expect MPS students to continue to fall further behind and an increased number of schools to be identified as “failing.”

First and foremost, MPS needs to focus their attention on meeting the differential needs of all students. They need to ensure that all students are receiving the expert support, resources and the time needed to develop as readers and writers. At a minimum, this requires that:

• students have access to a range of reading materials and other resources on different topics and difficulty levels tied to their interests, backgrounds and literacy learning needs;

• students are afforded ample opportunities, especially significantly more time, for learning within the regular classroom, in small groups and one-on-one;

• students are engaged in coordinated, comprehensive, consistent, culturally relevant and contemporary learning opportunities rather than disconnected, inconsistent or piecemeal approaches to reading and writing;

• students receive high quality learning experiences involving integrated reading writing-learning opportunities informed by complex and current understandings of literacy and literacy development, taught by qualified teachers;

• students be assessed in ways that inform their own literacy learning and their ongoing development concretely and richly;

• students of all ages (including secondary students) be given the support that they need to develop as literacy learners with the reading and writing tools that will allow them to advance in school, the workplace and society.

MPS needs to proceed with major systemic and local adjustments and planning if they are to address this challenge and in turn monitor their progress toward achieving these goals. Various sources (district-wide, school, classroom and student-level) should be used to assess the progress as these goals are advanced.

There are a number of essential developments that need to occur as first steps. MPS needs to ensure that teachers have the background and resources to meet the needs of the range of students for which they are responsible. This entails that teachers and the personnel that support them pursue the following:

• develop a fuller understanding of literacy and literacy development;

• collaborate and coordinate their efforts to meet the needs of students;

• ensure that all students receive the time, resources and instruction needed to develop as readers;

• use student data (student/classroom-based and district-wide) on a recurring fashion to plan, monitor and guide their instructional initiatives for different students;

• develop a coherent literacy program based upon students’ needs, building upon their backgrounds, interests and abilities with a range of materials and educational insights from their observations of students and growing knowledge in collaboration with other professionals;

• pursue a comprehensive, contemporary and coordinated literacy development program that involves an integrated, meaning-oriented and strategic approach to reading and writing and includes opportunities to develop digital literacies.

Again, MPS needs to examine the current status of teachers in the district as well as initiate hirings, placements, support services, program development, professional engagements and ways to monitor progress in these activities.

MPS needs to proceed with major systemic changes to ensure that these and other developments occur within the district to achieve the aforementioned goals. To do so, the status quo will need to be changed—sometimes dramatically. In particular, we are recommending changes in the following directions:

• develop a revised budget model for the district that allows for resources to be distributed to meet the needs of students who need more support;

• revamp structural elements to support a team approach that addresses the needs of students and teachers at a local level across MPS;

• make adjustments to student support services (including curriculum coordinators, special education educators, school psychologists, literacy coaches and others) to meet the needs of teachers and students in a manner that is coordinated, collaborative and consistent rather than silo-ed, diffused and sometimes detached or distant;

• develop a single informed, comprehensive, coordinated and contemporary literacy framework to be used district-wide, and in so doing, reduce and/or displace the number of programs directed at better meeting the integrated, strategic and developmental literacy needs of all students;

• develop, hire and invest in highly qualified literacy professionals as well as in professional support for all teachers in order to meet the needs of different students;

• support learning teams presently in schools, including the school leaders, to endeavor to meet the needs of students and teachers and to ensure that the proposed literacy agenda moves forward honestly and proactively at the building level;

• develop classroom-based assessment systems to ensure that teachers are using ongoing systems (e.g. running records, observations of students’ strategies and improvement, learner-centered reflections across a range of materials of all aspects of reading) as a basis for meeting ongoing student needs and advancing their literacies in a manner that is less reductionist;

• develop approaches to assess and monitor the classroom, school and district that give a richer, ongoing and fuller sense of the value-added in a fashion that is more constructive and informative than the current model of determining school success or failure;

• support approaches to educational engagement with students, their families and communities where schools become hubs for a range of support services for these groups.

GreatSchools Milwaukee High School Fair is Saturday

Representatives of dozens of MPS high schools will be available to talk about their schools at the GreatSchools Milwaukee High School Fair at the Grand Avenue on Saturday.

The fair is an opportunity for young people and their families to “shop” for the Milwaukee high school that fits them best. Fair hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

MPS is a sponsor of the Fair, organized by GreatSchools Milwaukee, which, for the second year, has released a catalog of all Milwaukee schools – including MPS and non-MPS facilities.

The fair, which will feature more than 40 area high schools, also acts as a kickoff to MPS’ traditional Three Choice Enrollment, which starts Monday, Jan. 12 and runs through Friday, Jan. 30 at MPS Central Services, 5225 W. Vliet St. Parents can get a jump on the Three Choice process and register for an MPS school at the Fair at the Shops of Grand Avenue on Saturday.

Schools participating in the fair include:

Alliance High School

Atlas Preparatory Academy

Bay View High School

Bradley Tech High School

CEO Leadership Academy

Ceria M. Travis Academy

CITIES Project High School

Community High School

Custer High School

Destiny High School

Downtown Institute of Arts & Letters (DIAL)

Dr. Brenda Noach Choice School

Early View Academy of Excellence

Eastbrook Academy, Inc.

El Puente High School

Foster and Williams Visual Communications

Inland Seas School of Expeditionary Learning

Insight School of Wisconsin

James Madison Academic Campus

King High School

Marshall Montessori IB High School

Messmer High School

Milwaukee Aviation Academy

Milwaukee Business High School

Milwaukee High School of the Arts

Milwaukee Learning Laboratory and Institute

Milwaukee Renaissance Academy

Milwaukee School of Entrepreneurship

Northwest Secondary School

Outlook University High Schools

Professional Learning Institute

Pulaski High School

Reagan High School

Resurrection Christian Academy

School for Urban Planning and Architecture

South Division High School

St. Joan Antida High School

The Way and the Truth Christian Academy

Thomas More High School

Travis Technology High School

University School of Milwaukee

Vincent High School

W. E. B. DuBois High School

Washington HS of Expeditionary Learning

Washington HS of Law, Education and Public Service

Wisconsin Career Academy

WORK Institute

The tools they need

MPS School Board member Danny Goldberg poses a touchy question regarding functional plans that are guiding implementation of the "Working Together, Achieving More" strategic plan. The Board and the State Department of Public Instruction can make the plans useless simply by going in another direction, he said.

"What are the ways that we as a board and also our partners in Madison can understand the way we have decided to prioritize and the implications of the changes to priorities that might ensue when we change our minds?" he asked.

The discussion occurred at the December meeting of the Strategic Planning and Budget Committee.

MPS Superintendent William Andrekopoulos sets the stage for presenting three "transformational" functional plans: instructional improvement; professional development; and accountability.

The plans are grounded in the "Working Together, Achieving More" strategic plan.

Principals get their FY10 budget direction

MPS principals met yesterday to get their first looks at FY10 school budget parameters.

It won't be easy -- enrollment is projected to drop again, and debt service will increase by about $12 million.

Vacancy savings -- the money that is credited to a school when it has one or more unfilled positions -- will be reduced from 100% this year to 75% next year. That 75% is enough to fund substitutes, and by retaining the 25%, the administration can boost the overall per-pupil allocation a bit.

It's a balancing act, with fewer movable parts each year.

The governor is developing his budget and there likely will be some kind of federal stimulus bill. What those things ultimately will mean to MPS is unclear.

To see the FY10 slide show presented at the principals' meeting yesterday, click here. (Click on the slides to advance the show.)

More things you may have missed

Still catching up from the holidays with readings you may find of interest.

So is recess a bad thing?

Students who take virginity pledges engage in sex at the same rate as their peers, but are less likely to use birth control and, finally,

Riverside High School teacher Tom Wild featured on WUWM-FM.

Catching up on some reading

Readings and stories of interest --

A rundown on the candidates for state superintendent of public instruction.

The federal stimulus package could include money to upgrade school buildings.

The Journal Sentinel's Alan Borsuk muses on potential changes in education on both the local and national scenes.

2008 winners and losers in education identified.

District graduation rates rise, but test scores do not follow;

Cyber-bullying gaining attention around the nation; and

Districts counting on more and more cash from parents.

That's a start, anyway. We'll try to play more catch-up tomorrow.

Welcome back!

Welcome back, everybody.

Is it Friday yet?