Democratic Underground Latest Greatest Lobby Journals Search Options Help Login
Google

Project Milwaukee: How MPS Compares with Peers

Printer-friendly format Printer-friendly format
Printer-friendly format Email this thread to a friend
Printer-friendly format Bookmark this thread
Home » Discuss » Topic Forums » Education Donate to DU
 
Starry Messenger Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-21-10 04:24 AM
Original message
Project Milwaukee: How MPS Compares with Peers
Edited on Mon Jun-21-10 05:02 AM by Starry Messenger
http://www.wuwm.com/programs/news/view_news.php?articleid=6246



Diane Ravitch blames a different culprit for Milwaukee’s dismal test scores – school choice. Ravitch is an education historian at New York University. She says, in 1990, reformers bet that the answer for improving student achievement here was the Parental School Choice Program. It continues to pay the tuition of thousands of low-income Milwaukee students who choose to attend private schools, subtracting that money from MPS.

“Milwaukee has been used as a laboratory by a lot of, particularly by conservative foundations, that wanted to show that the government cannot do as good a job as the private sector. But now, after 20 years, there was no improvement in the public schools because of the competition and the competitive institutions aren’t doing any better,” Ravitch says.

There is another option in Milwaukee: charter schools. Those are public schools run by organizations such as UWM. However, a study released in March indicates charter students, also, are not doing better than their MPS counterparts.



Link to study found here:

http://www.iff.org/choosing_performance



Refresh | +2 Recommendations Printer Friendly | Permalink | Reply | Top
Scuba Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-21-10 05:27 AM
Response to Original message
1. Dont forget that the charter schools...
...cherry pick the best students while leaving all the special needs kids for the Public Schools.

That said, the state of Milwaukee's school system is deplorable. Much of this is directly caused by the conditions in Milwaukee - astronomical unemployment, drug use, crime, single mothers with no job, no skills, no hope. Incarceration rates for Milwaukee black males is off the charts. It's slavery without the 2/3 clause.
Printer Friendly | Permalink | Reply | Top
 
HereSince1628 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-21-10 06:05 AM
Response to Original message
2. It is a very sorry state of affairs
within a couple of miles of those underserved, underperforming schools the kids of Brookfield, Elmgrove and Wauwatosa get first rate educations.

The teachers all have the same certification, the curriculum is similar, but there is a very unsettling difference in the sense of hope and expectation in the families and the children.
Printer Friendly | Permalink | Reply | Top
 
Hannah Bell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-21-10 12:31 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. money & jobs?
Printer Friendly | Permalink | Reply | Top
 
HereSince1628 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-21-10 01:01 PM
Response to Reply #3
4. Money and jobs are part of it, but so is a deeply engrained 'attitude'
and I use the word attitude because at the moment I can't think of another. It's a discouragement something that permeates their view of life and depresses the desire to perform.

And no it isn't universal, but it's very widespread.
Printer Friendly | Permalink | Reply | Top
 
Hannah Bell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-21-10 01:49 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. when you & yours have no money & jobs, you'll develop an attitude. of one kind or another.
guaranteed.

Printer Friendly | Permalink | Reply | Top
 
HereSince1628 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-21-10 01:58 PM
Response to Reply #5
6. Yes, but its when we don't have jobs for generation_s_
that despair becomes part of the community. And that is a serious part of the problem.

Things are really awful for the kids who acquire and perpetuate the hopelessness. This isn't about schools, it's about community.

Printer Friendly | Permalink | Reply | Top
 
Hannah Bell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-21-10 02:11 PM
Response to Reply #6
7. my point precisely. exclusion from normal economic life creates the "attitude," & affects
everything, school performance included.

no "reform" which doesn't fix the exclusion from economic life will fix the rest of its side-effects.
Printer Friendly | Permalink | Reply | Top
 
Hannah Bell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-23-10 10:38 PM
Response to Original message
8. This part is interesting: 20 years of conservative foundation experimentation = no improvement.
Diane Ravitch blames a different culprit for Milwaukee’s dismal test scores – school choice. Ravitch is an education historian at New York University. She says, in 1990, reformers bet that the answer for improving student achievement here was the Parental School Choice Program. It continues to pay the tuition of thousands of low-income Milwaukee students who choose to attend private schools, subtracting that money from MPS.

“Milwaukee has been used as a laboratory by a lot of, particularly by conservative foundations, that wanted to show that the government cannot do as good a job as the private sector. But now, after 20 years, there was no improvement in the public schools because of the competition and the competitive institutions aren’t doing any better,” Ravitch says.

There is another option in Milwaukee: charter schools. Those are public schools run by organizations such as UWM. However, a study released in March indicates charter students, also, are not doing better than their MPS counterparts.
Printer Friendly | Permalink | Reply | Top
 
Starry Messenger Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-23-10 10:54 PM
Response to Reply #8
9. Yes, I thought that was interesting too.
I believe more than one study in Milwaukee have led researchers to this conclusion. There was another study put out by the Brookings Institute on Milwaukee charter schools in 2009 with a similar conclusion:


The Impact of Milwaukee Charter Schools on Student Achievement
Stéphane Lavertu and John Witte


Our analysis also indicates that whether or not a student switches schools has
a strong, negative, and statistically significant correlation with student
performance on reading and mathematics achievements tests, and that the
magnitude of this factor’s impact exceeds that of the organizational factors on
which our study focuses. Put differently, our results are consistent with the
notion that stability in a student’s life is a better predictor of academic
performance than organizational factors. One of the policy implications of this
study is that it is important to better understand and deal with instability in
school attendance in urban school districts.

The impact of charter schools on student performance on reading and
mathematics achievement tests is not the only factor one should consider when
assessing the value of charter schools. One might be more concerned about the
relationship between charter school attendance and college enrollment rates, for
example. And choice options often are associated with higher levels of parental
engagement and satisfaction, regardless of student performance on achievement
tests. However, for the many policymakers who consider achievement test
results to be of primary importance, our study indicates that charter school
attendance in Milwaukee at best has a modest positive affect on such
achievement. In other words, charter schools may contribute positively to
improving the education of urban youth, but they should not be expected to be
the silver bullet that some reformers seek.



Printer Friendly | Permalink | Reply | Top
 
Hannah Bell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-23-10 11:00 PM
Response to Reply #9
10. The NYT says: Since Milwaukee charters haven't improved scores, it shows the scores don't matter!
lol.

Apparently they only matter for public schools.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/opinion/05murray.html


What a great example of the huge, corrupt fraud this takeover & privatize movement is.


Printer Friendly | Permalink | Reply | Top
 
Starry Messenger Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-23-10 11:21 PM
Response to Reply #10
11. Apparently people in the community have been speaking out for years.
http://leontodd.blogspot.com/2010/05/milwaukee-voucher-failure-of-choice-and.html

Here is a piece by Leon Todd

Sunday, May 9, 2010
The Milwaukee Voucher Failure of Choice and Charter Schools



The Milwaukee Voucher Failure
One of the very first magazine pieces I ever published was about how the Milwaukee school voucher program—the largest and most robust in the country—wasn’t leading to any gains in learning for Milwaukee schoolkids. The data was somewhat controversial at the time, but in the intervening years the case has become clearer and clearer as, for example, AEI’s Rick Hess is prepared to concede albeit in a somewhat odd manner.

Giving parents choices about where to send their kids to school has certain kinds of virtues. It turns out, however, that parents of low-income kids don’t seem to particularly use this freedom to select schools that are good at improving kids’ academic performance. At least they’re not sufficiently invested in doing that so as to put a lot of pressure on schools to figure out ways to improve academic performance. The choice program does seem to lead to a lot of consumer satisfaction, but not actual improvements in performance. It’s sort of like when people switch to a “low fat” version of a product, find it’s surprisingly delicious, and don’t pay attention to the fact that it actually has just as many calories as the old variety.



I had never heard of Leon Todd so I looked him up. He was on the Milwaukee School Board and is a community organizer. I would love to find that magazine piece he mentions. I'm sure his grassroots experiences in an urban community school system lent great insight into this trend. I've never seen him mentioned on DU before, how curious.

Printer Friendly | Permalink | Reply | Top
 
DU AdBot (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view 
this author's profile Click to add 
this author to your buddy list Click to add 
this author to your Ignore list Sun Dec 22nd 2024, 04:28 AM
Response to Original message
Advertisements [?]
 Top

Home » Discuss » Topic Forums » Education Donate to DU

Powered by DCForum+ Version 1.1 Copyright 1997-2002 DCScripts.com
Software has been extensively modified by the DU administrators


Important Notices: By participating on this discussion board, visitors agree to abide by the rules outlined on our Rules page. Messages posted on the Democratic Underground Discussion Forums are the opinions of the individuals who post them, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Democratic Underground, LLC.

Home  |  Discussion Forums  |  Journals |  Store  |  Donate

About DU  |  Contact Us  |  Privacy Policy

Got a message for Democratic Underground? Click here to send us a message.

© 2001 - 2011 Democratic Underground, LLC