The Wisconsin State Journal’s Editorial Page writes:

Instead of recognizing the Florence County cash squeeze for what it is – a symptom of a statewide school financing problem begging for legislative attention – lawmakers instead will:
Roll over for whiners hollering “crisis!” Many large rural school districts are in trouble, squeezed by declining enrollment, inadequate tax base and high transportation costs. Florence County’s substantial loss of state aid in recent years matches a corresponding decline in student enrollment. Lawmakers wrote this formula, which applies to all public schools, not just one in the hinterlands.
Reward bad management. The Florence County School Board recently bought out the contracts of three administrators for a whopping $439,000, plus extended health coverage for the former superintendent. With that kind of money at stake, school officials could have served taxpayers better by jetting in Donald Trump to bark out his catch phrase: “You’re fired!”

It’s certainly time to revisit how we fund public education. I sincerely hope that Governor Doyle thinks about this while winging his way to China (on a Tommy Thompson style trade mission) [WI Dept of Commerce 6 page PDF document on the trip fees & schedule]

Cypress Semiconductor CEO TJ Rodgers is running for Dartmouth’s Board of Trustees, with the stated goal that the college stop adding ethnic studies classes and refocus its resources on the fundamentals, such as civics, science and history.

UPDATE: Lee Sensenbrenner writes about last night’s “tense” board meeting.
Doug Erickson writes:

Carol Carstensen suggested Monday that the board seek an independent analysis of the school district’s administrative costs as it mulls $10 million in proposed cuts (on a 300+m budget).
Specifically, Carstensen said she’s heard concern from the public about the cost of the district’s administrators.
School Board President Bill Keys said he’s not sure the board can cut much more from the administration.
“You still need to buy supplies and cut checks,” Keys said. “There are things that have to be done.”

Keys is correct that some of these things must be done. Perhaps there are better ways, including further automation, outsourcing to local businesses or simply eliminating some processes.

Christopher Hamady, technology coordinator for the Regina Coeli School, is looking for help with an interesting project:

Our Spanish teacher would like to find a school in a native Spanish-speaking country that would like to do web-based video correspondence with our students. The format would entail that each school would make QuickTime videos of their students asking simple questions about the culture of the other, and the other school would reply using the same medium. The videos would be uploaded to the Web so that each school could easily access them.
Each group of students would have the opportunity to ask and answer questions in both English and Spanish, thus aiding development skills in speaking and translating of both languages. The participating school would have to have access to a web server to post their videos. The rest of the details could be discussed via email.

This is a great idea, and is quite doable with very inexpensive tools today.
Email reginacoeli_spanish@nwoca.org [from macintouch]

John Gartner writes in Wired that Cyber Schools are not measuring up…

Cyber schools — where students complete all coursework online using home computers — are a big hit with parents, who are signing up their children as quickly as the virtual doors open. However, test results for 2003 show students at many cyber schools are not measuring up to state standards or to their peers who attend brick-and-mortar schools.
According to the non-profit Center for Education Reform, or CER, the number of online public schools has grown from 30 to 82 during the past two years, offering instruction in 19 states. That number could more than double in 2004, as school districts in Ohio have granted charters to 63 cyber schools, up from seven in 2003.

I don’t know much about these initiatives, but one year’s worth of data does not mean a whole lot….