– UW-Madison Math & Computer Science Professor Jin-Yi Cai in Lee Sensenbrenner’s article on the Madison School District’s Connected Math controversy.

Board of Education candidate Melania Alvarez has made curriculum (esp math) a centerpiece of her campaign. Melania’s interview transcript has quite a few useful links on this subject.
Connected Math Links: Teoma | Alltheweb | Yahoo | Google

Two interesting items related to the April 6, 2004 Madison School Board Election:

• Doug Erickson writes that Madison Teachers, Inc. filed a request with the UW Madison for all records pertaining to Ruth Robarts salary & compensation. (Robarts is an assistant law school dean)
• This Week’s Isthmus has a fascinating set of letters regarding their recent article on the School District’s math curriculum. Unfortunately, not online.

Alex Tabarrok writes:

African-Americans make up a larger proportion of students than teachers. Many educators say that as a result African-Americans students suffer because they lack role models and white students suffer because they lack diversity. In a newly published paper (working paper version), Thomas Dee (Swarthmore College) supports some but not all of this story. Using data from Tennessee’s Project Star, a very important experiment in which K-3 students were randomly assigned to small and regular sized classes, Dee finds that black students improve when they have black teachers. So far so good. Dee also finds, however, that white students improve when they have white teachers. Uh, oh. There goes the diversity is good for everyone story.
Dee is quick to point out that we don’t understand why students perform better with a teacher of their own race. If it is a role-model effect then why would white students perform poorly with black teachers – surely there are enough white role models to choose from that one more or less isn’t going to have an effect on the self-esteem of white students. Another theory, with some support from other studies, is that teachers spend more time helping students of their own race. Note that if it is the latter then better teacher training, to overcome natural biases, could improve the effectiveness of both white and black teachers.
The cite for the paper is Dee, Thomas S. 2004. Teachers, Race, and Student Achievement in a Randomized Experiment. The Review of Economics and Statistics 86(1): 195-210.

Martha Shad writes:

When the Random Lake School District cut high school course offerings last fall to save money, teachers and parents stepped in to help fill the gaps.
The district was faced with getting about $350,000 less in state aid, so it eliminated three high school teaching positions, one middle school teaching position and seven extracurricular activities, according to Joe Gassert, who?s been the district administrator for 10 years.
?The reduction in aid was a combination of declining enrollment and the smaller amount of money the state gave all school districts,? Gassert said.

Nahal Toosi writes:

Madison – The day he moved into his residence hall as a freshman, Christopher Loving heard the whispers of his hall-mates.
“There’s a black guy on the floor. Somebody go talk to him.”
Finally, three fellow University of Wisconsin-Madison students appeared.
After noting he was from Chicago, one asked Loving if he was from a rough neighborhood.
No, Loving said.
“My dad told me that all the black people in Chicago live in the projects. . . . Are you sure you didn’t grow up in the Robert Taylor Homes?”
Nope.
“Well, does your dad play for the Chicago Bears or something?”
No, Loving said. He wasn’t rich.
“Well, how do you go to school here then? I thought you had to be either really rich or really poor to go here if you’re black.”
Loving, now a junior and president of the campus Black Student Union, recalls the encounter with humor and sadness.

Virginia Postrel writes that smart women who were shut out of the professions used to become teachers. That was bad for the women but good for their students. New York Times:

The best female students – those whose test scores put them in the top 10 percent of their high school classes – are much less likely to become teachers today.
“Whereas close to 20 percent of females in the top decile in 1964 chose teaching as a profession,” making it their top choice, the economists write, “only 3.7 percent of top decile females were teaching in 1992,” making teachers about as common as lawyers in this group.
So the chances of getting a really smart teacher have gone down substantially. In 1964, more than one out of five young female teachers came from the top 10 percent of their high school classes. By 2000, that number had dropped to just over one in 10.

(more…)

Washington, DC has selected a non-profit organization to administer the first federally funded school voucher program in the nation, according to Justin Blum:

“The group selected, the Washington Scholarship Fund, will be administering the first federally funded voucher program in the country. The program received final approval from Congress in January after contentious debate.
The voucher program will allow at least 1,700 District children to attend private and religious schools this fall with grants of up to $7,500 per student.
At a news conference this morning, officials released new details of how the program will operate. Families first will apply to private schools and go through the schools’ normal admissions procedures. Parents meeting the program’s income guidelines then will apply for voucher funds, indicating their order of preference among the schools where their children have been accepted.”

Meanwhile, the local morning paper suggested that Governor Doyle sign Senate Bill 253, which would let Wisconsin public universities run specialized schools for younger students. The article also references a recent statement by UW Chancellor John Wiley:

The measure could help address specific shortcomings in public schooling as well. For example, UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley this week cited “phenomenal shortages” in the country’s supply of scientists and engineers. Charter schooling would let the UW System address the problem by getting in on the ground floor of public schooling, where educators could run a school geared to students with interest and aptitude in these areas. The students then get the preparation they need to pursue science and engineering degrees and careers.

Wiley’s comments follow a report from the American Electronics Association critical of American schools efforts teaching students science and math.