Pat Schneider writes that the Madison School Board last night delayed a study of administrative costs:

The district would need $318 million to continue current programming next school year, but a state formula caps district spending at $308 million.

(more…)

Alan Borsuk continues his recent series of education articles with a profile of five Milwaukee area teachers. One of them, Louise Guinn remarks:

“We push a lot for the kids to be successful.” And she is convinced all her students – all black, almost all from low-income homes – can learn “if given the right opportunities and the right environment.
She says she urges parents to limit television and to read more at home. Children are influenced by this.
But she also knows that many of her students lead challenging lives. During a class discussion of what fourth-graders can do that infants can’t, making your bed is mentioned by one student. Another says he doesn’t have to do that because he sleeps on the floor. Guinn understands that this means he doesn’t have a bed of his own.

Sam Dillon writes:

Over several months, a string of novice tutors from a private company offering federally financed after-school classes had tried and failed to control Room 207’s dozen rambunctious students. A supervisor from the company was dispatched to troubleshoot. Effie McHenry, Wentworth’s principal, was clucking her tongue in disapproval.
I just don’t think they’re prepared to deal with challenging inner city children,” Mrs. McHenry said of the company, talking past the supervisor to a visitor. “I think they expected to find children who’d just sit down and wait for them to expound. These kids aren’t like that. They need challenging instruction.”

Alan Borsuk writes:

The Chicago-based Joyce Foundation announced Wednesday that it would provide $15 million over the next three years to support efforts to improve the quality of teaching in low-performing schools in Milwaukee, Chicago and Cleveland.

Doug Erickson writes:

Dozens of Madison public school students are learning this month that their race can be the sole factor in whether they’re allowed to transfer to another district under the state’s open enrollment law.
The Madison School District said Tuesday it has denied 65 open enrollment requests for next fall because the shift of those students – all of them white – would upset the racial balance at specific schools.

Sarah Carr writes:

Milwaukee’s voucher program prompted sustainable achievement gains for the city’s public elementary schools, according to a new study by a Harvard economist.
Researcher Caroline Hoxby followed up on a study of three years ago, in which she concluded that the private school choice program pushed the public schools to improve.
In the new study, she adds test score data from two additional years – the 2000-’01 and 2001-’02 school years – and finds that the gains were sustained, although they did not accelerate. The study was published in the Swedish Economic Policy Review.

Ed Cone writes about a letter his great-great-grandfather carried with him to America in April 1846, and the still-relevant advice therein.