Paul Soglin: Waxing America

Follow Up: No Child Left Behind

Yesterday's post Madison Schools and No Child Left Behind Nonsense provoked a number of comments including two which need greater exposure.

Regarding my reference to the inadequacy of Town of Madison services, Dianthus asked, "Would you please name some of the resources available to city residents that are not available to town residents?"

For starters we have police services. The city of Madison continues to provide a higher level of service on the South side than does the town police department, which continues a decades long practice of relying on the city of Madison for backup -far more than the city relies on the town.

Then look at the city's supportive services through its community services budget -- the town has nothing comparable.

The second more important comment came from Stephen. It is succinct and needs no elaboration:

What is not captured in the NCLB numbers is that Lincoln is a terrific school with a caring and motivated staff. My wife works as a Bilingual Resource Specialist there, and so is very familiar with the kinds of challenges (most of them caused or compounded by poverty) her students have to face every day. Kids who live on the edge of homelessness have a lot more on their minds than readin', writin', and 'rithmetic.

NCLB is more concerned with the collection of bogus metrics unmoored from reality than with the actual education of real children. It is bureaucratic make work designed to undermine support for quality public education.

Madison Schools and No Child Left Behind Nonsense

This morning's Wisconsin State Journal informs us that Two Madison elementary schools fail No Child Left Behind standards.

Leopold and Lincoln fell short of the federal law’s criteria for “adequate yearly progress” for the second year in a row, marking them as “schools identified for improvement,” or SIFI. again ...Under the sanctions, the schools will have to review their school improvement plans, offer more academic services outside of the regular school day and allow parents to transfer their child to any public school within the School District where space allows

All of which demonstrates massive failures at so many levels, but not by the schools in question.

First of all, for years the Madison District inched towards a student body with over 40% below the poverty line and now is approaching 50%. That creates challenges of educating students.

It is a national and a state-wide problem, mostly the fault of states and communities that inadequately fund education and supportive services. Madison has to now take responsibilty for the poor planning and performance of others.

Secondly the schools can only be expected to do so much. The learning environment is influenceed by major external factor. A significant number of Franklin students come from the Town of Madison not the City of Madison. The town provides far fewer resources than the city to combat poverty. 

Both schools cited are heavily impacted by households that do not have stable housing - too many of these kids are homeless.

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is a lousy program. The failures are well documented as well as the cheating in Bush's home state of Texas where high school students are pushed out the door so they are not counted as failures. More importantly, NCLB is based on flawed testing that does not adequately take into account poverty, the early education of the children from outside the particular school or the district, or the resources of the district.

At the local level we are caught in a horrendous dilemma. We know that inadequate shelter is a major part of the problem. In our rush to house the homeless we do not always provide the other necessary services. The expansion of poor people migrating into Madison places demands on services for transportation, childcare, health, and job training.

The principal at Lincoln, Deborah Hamilton noted:

This was not a shock. I don’t know why anyone with any sense would think that students who are in a bilingual program, and required to learn to read and write in Spanish, would be able to accomplish the same thing in English and do it in both languages in the same amount of time.

Leopold principal John Burkholder said:

Most of our parents understand our students are doing well... ( being on the  list) concerns me. For some people, that’s all they know of our school. When you sit and look at the data, it may tell a somewhat different story. But we’re working on it. We’re trying to address this and trying to bring learning up for all kids.

Meantime, Madison Memorial High School came off the list. Good for them. But it is only important because some people erroneously believe that NCLB is meaningful.

Closing the Tenney Park Locks: A Sign of Things to Come

During the Great Depression, Madison and much of Dane County suffered, but not like the rest of the state or the nation. As the home of the University of Wisconsin, state government, and numerous hospitals, unemployment in Madison never hit the devastating levels of more industrial or agricultural based communities.

Even as recently as the 1970's, only one of the ten largest Madison employers was from the private sector - Oscar Mayer. The rest were government (the State of Wisconsin, Dane County, the City of Madison), educational institutions (the UW and the Madison Public Schools), and health care (Madison General, St. Mary's, Methodist and the UW hospitals).

Now we get word that to save $5,000 a year that three days each week the county will close the Tenney Park Locks that connect Lakes Mendota and Monona.

It may not sound like much in terms of service reductions and savings, but it is the beginning of a series of significant changes Madison and Dane County residents can expect in the next eighteen months.

There will be additional service reductions before the end of this year and there will be greater reductions once the 2010 budgets are adopted.

There are a multitude of reasons for the cuts.  Like the state of Wisconsin, Dane County is experiencing sharply reduced sales tax revenues as a result of the recession. Income related to construction and development is reduced for all levels of government. While gasoline prices are down from record levels of last summer, governments have not recovered from their impact as fleet costs and building energy costs continue to make excessive demands on police departments, transit and snow removal agencies, as well as building heating and cooling systems.

The next six months will be most challenging. It will be a real test to see who can contribute to solving problems and who can exploit the situation.

I would have preferred to see the state and local units of government correct inequitable taxation systems, but that is a solution that comes too late to solve the present crisis. It is a solution that can prevent the next crisis.

Other solutions include the commitment to long term quality management programs (no meat-axe alternatives), modest but necessary cuts in many basic services, greater investment in infrastructure and greater investment in human capacity.

Wisconsin Club For Growth Talks Trash

Never content to discuss the issues, the Wisconsin Club for Growth came up with this gem on Wednesday. (If anyone can figure out a direct link, I would appreciate it.).

PROFESSOR PIMPS FOR HIGHER TAXES

In a brief appearance on Wisconsin Public Television, U.W. Applied Economics Professor Andrew Reschovsky advocated for 5 new tax increases to fix Wisconsin’s perpetually growing budget deficit.

For starters, Reschovsky wants to increase the capital gains tax which he predicts would not cause further harm to Wisconsin’s bleak employment picture....

Reschovsky would also like to increase the state income tax, because, and we're not joking, “it's a tax that's only paid by people that have jobs.” ...Yet he doesn't explain how state and local governments spending $1.3 billion a year for employee pension plans helps to educate children, or how wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on failed computer projects has helped Medicaid recipients.

Obviously these folks, taking a page out of Rush Limbaugh's play book, have no intention is contributing to the quality of public discourse.

Perhaps they would like to disclose the nature of the pension plans of their fattest wallets. It is interesting that they do not believe that public employees are entitled to a pension, especially when they took reduced pay checks to get the pension contributions.

Paul Ryan Is Right of Republican Right

Two years ago, on January 17, 2007 when George Bush was still President, the House of Representatives of the United States Congress took up HR 5, the College Student Relief Act .

HR 5 lowered the interest rate on student loans over a period of five years. Interest rates would decrease to 6.12 percent in 2007, 5.44 percent in 2006 and continue to drop until they reach 3.4 percent in 2011. The first reduced interest rate would apply on loans disbursed on or after July 1, 2007.

According to the Washington Post the bill's projected cost of $6 billion was to be offset by trimming federal interest rate subsidies and raising the fees on loan providers.

Every Democrat in the House of Representatives voted for the legislation. So did a majority of the Republicans.

In fact 64% of the House Republicans voted for the bill, which brought much needed relief to students already burdened with loan payments that rivaled their parents' mortgages.

When the dust settled only 17% of the House Republicans voted against this critical legislation.

Paul Ryan, the new inspired voice of the the Republican Party, voted against the bill.

All Ryan could say in defense of his position was, "This is a cynical way to make good on campaign promises...we'll see another $20 (billion) to $30 billion blow out the door."

This is the same Paul Ryan from Janesville who voted on April 1,2009, two weeks ago, to oppose legislation that prevented billions of federal bailout dollars going for executive bonuses.

So much for Ryan's Neo-Populism.

Grothman Beaned In Spring Training: Dazed and Confused, Nothing New.

Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend), who represents Wisconsin's 20th Senate District, appears back to his usual self after issuing another in a series of press releases which fail to articulate a rational analysis of a critical issue facing the state of Wisconsin.

The latest paper attack is on the University of Wisconsin- Madison for contemplated tuition increases.

Grothman Tells UW: Stop Punishing the Middle Class           

The "Madison Initiative for Undergraduates" plan would level a $250 supplemental tuition charge for in-state undergraduates this fall, and a $750 fee for nonresidents. If one goes to school for five years this means an added $5,000 for a UW-Madison degree for in-state students and $15,000 for out-of state students.

You do the math. Grothman's numbers are actually significantly more than the actual impact.  The in-state supplemental tuition charge grows cumulatively by $250 per year. 

According to the UW:

... for the 2009-10 academic year, the supplemental (in-state) tuition charge will be $250; for 2010-11, it will be $500; for 2011-12, it will be $750, and for 2012-13, it will be $1,000.

So for five in-state years, the total would be an additional $3,750, not $5,000.

The out-of-state tuition supplements are:

...for the 2009-10 academic year, the supplemental tuition charge will be $750; for 2010-11, it will be $1,500; for 2011-12, it will be $2,250, and for 2012-13, it will be $3,000.

So for five out-of-state years, the total would be an additional $11,250, not $15,000.

In addition, more UW students graduate in four years than five. If they do take five years, one factor may be the unavailability of classes as a result of cutbacks in funding for the UW led by Grothman and his cronies.

Grothman fails to note that since he was first elected to the legislature, state funding support for the UW has dropped by 20%. as the UW picks up more revenue from alumni, foundations, and research grants. The rest was made up by tuition increases forced upon the school by Grothman and his colleagues.

Grothman gets worse:

“One must remember that single parent families are about four times as likely to meet the definition of poverty as married couples, so this is largely an assault on two parent families with traditional values. We are punishing married couples with children. We know the left dislikes traditional bourgeois values, but to punish people for getting married and making over $80,000 a year is absurd,” said Grothman.  “It should also be pointed out that many couples do not give financial support to their children that go to college, either because parents want to instill in their children the value of working for their education or because they have six or seven other children.” 

Huh? Six or seven other children? Is Grothman projecting his personal feelings about birth control on the UW tuition issue now? (Scratching head.)

While some observers at the state capitol believe that this latest bizarre pontification was the result of Grothman taking a hard inside fast one in spring training, more experienced lobbyists are of the opinion that the beaning had no bearing on Grothman's logic.

 

The Threat To Arts With Overture Failure - Return the $30 Million

Lost in the discussion about the Overture Center problems is the threat to community-based performing artists in Madison.

Between the old Civic Center and the transitioning Bartell Theater, the city of Madison provided a home to children and adults to participate in the production of the performing arts. They built sets, operated sound systems, performed, and directed. Some went on to professional careers, some continued to be involved into their 80's and 90's, and others simply became the backbone of a community audience that purchased tickets.

While the Bartell will continue to provide a strong home for a number of theatrical companies, it appears that the facilities that constituted the old Civic Center are lost, most likely forever. CTM is a shell of its former self, and the Madison Repertory Theater, staggering all winter, is on its back and listening to the count of ten quickly approaching.

This is about $30 million. This is about $30 million of public dollars given away and gone.

Madison Mayor Susan Baumann, fearful of the responsibility of operating the proposed Overture Center, did agree to give, as part of Madison's "contribution" to the project, the land and buildings that made up the Madison Civic Center.

We have already seen the flawed planning and design that damaged the community-based performing arts when the city was taken out of the planning process. Overture Center: Where It Went Wrong

Lost in all of the discussion about Overture's future is the central point that Madison lost its Civic Center and more important the State Street home for local performing arts groups, the programming that went on in the Crossroads, and the community based use of its rooms from the ground to the third floor.

Most observers are taking a hands off approach.

Whether it be bankruptcy or some new merged structure which uses state funds through the University of Wisconsin, every elected official in the city of Madison must commit to the return of the $30 million so that the city can go about the business of investing in community arts.

$30 million of city public property was given away, and it is about to be given away again. The city of Madison is in a position to stop any deal or bail out.

There is a mandatory bottom line. Return of the city's money - it belongs to the taxpayers of the city of Madison who built and operated the Civic Center for twenty years.

Abrahamson Watch: Will They or Won't They?

If reports from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and The Capital Times are accurate, there will be no concerted right-wing attack on incumbent Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson as she runs for re-election to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

The MJS reports Three groups that ran 'issue ads' sitting out this Supreme Court race that the Coalition for America's Families and Wisconsin Club for Growth will join Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce on the sidelines in this spring's challenge against Abrahamson from Jefferson County Circuit Judge Randy Koschnick.

...the Journal Sentinel has learned that two other groups that spent millions on pro-Gableman and pro-Ziegler ads -- the Coalition for America's Families and Wisconsin Club for Growth -- also do not plan to repeat those efforts before April 7.

The Capital Times notes, Influential conservative groups say they won't be running ads for Koschnick

The other two major conservative players, Club for Growth Wisconsin and Coalition for America's Families -- which together spent just under $1 million on behalf of Gableman last year -- will also be staying out of the race,

All of which leaves Waxing America looking pretty foolish, since we predicted that if WMC stayed out of the fray, some other organization acting as a surrogate or front, would rush into the issue ad business.

Which leaves us with these thoughts:

• The conservative organizations, content with the purchase of the Ziegler and Gableman seats on the Supreme Court, figure that they have a majority and going after Abrahamson is overkill.
• Recent negative publicity about WMC behavior in 2008 was a deterrent to them and, in part, to the others, to stay out of the campaign.
• While the three mentioned organizations will stay out, there is still room for Americans for Prosperity or a surrogate, freshly organized, to enter the campaign.
• The millions will pour into Wisconsin from national right wing corporations and 'clubs,' but the money will be directed at the Superintendent of Public Instruction race, not the Supreme Court.
• Club for Growth is too busy with its retro 1950's red-baiting Comrade of the Month campaign.
• The Coalition for America's Families is too busy linking to Wisconsin Right to Life.
• Americans for Prosperity is too busy denying the existence of global warming.

All of which takes us back to the central point that these organizations are conduits for million of dollars from out-of-state companies like Home Depot, General Electric, and Wal-mart, who are afraid to put their names on political efforts to shape a Wisconsin that is anti-union, anti-consumer, and anti-environmental, so that they can enter the marketplace unregulated.

The Wisconsin Budget Crisis: Whatdowedonow?

The Wisconsin State Journal began a series of articles Sunday on the budget crisis facing the state,

Prudent budgeting, fuller rainy day fund could have better prepared Wisconsin for crisis

Over the last 15 years, leaders from both political parties, often at voters' urging, have avoided the hard choices between taxing more and spending less on priorities such as education and health care.

Instead, they've pushed today's bills off until tomorrow, creating some of the shakiest budgets in the nation and jeopardizing future commitments to safe roads, good schools and aid to the poor, according to a Wisconsin State Journal review of past budget practices.

While only former governors were asked to comment on the situation, Doyle's predecessors offer budget advice (the State Journal asked his predecessors what advice they had for him.),   let me throw in a few cents.

The state needs to take the following actions:

• Clearly classify expenditures as operating and capital budget items. There can be no borrowing for the operating budget.
• Establish a funded undesignated reserve (rainy day fund) that will eventually equal at least 12% of the operating budget; a short term goal of 6% is reasonable. It should be noted that only after Governor Doyle was able to get a Democratic majority in one of the houses did the legislature take the necessary action to build the fund after 15 years of neglect and tax refunds.
• Set a cap on borrowing so that debt service is not more than a rational proportion of the total operating budget. It probably should be around 8%.
• Begin a quality improvement program designed to fix services and make them more efficient and effective.
• Since sales and income tax revenues are vulnerable to economic collapse, always have additional reserves to make up overly optimistic revenue projections and keep those projections conservative to begin with.

You can look at what former governors recommended to fix the problem. To be blunt about it, Doyle's most recent predecessors' suggestions are disappointing. You can go to the link above to see who said what, but here are some of the 'recommendations.'

• Force the (administration) secretary and the departments to come up with programs that are not working and get rid of them...
• If we had spent more wisely earlier and become more efficient earlier, we would've been in a much better position. (author's note: I wonder who the 'we' could be.)
• The structural problems can only be solved by cutting programs or raising revenues, and I know people don't like to hear that.
• He's making sure our people in Wisconsin have the skills and education to do the job.

 

Moving Local Elections from February and April to The Fall

Three Wisconsin legislators wish to move the local spring elections to the fall. The move will save money and it will increase the turnout for voters casting ballots for the school board, county board, town board, city council, and mayor.

There is a downside to scheduling local elections to coincide with the congressional, presidential and state wide races. The idea was to prevent the coattail effect from influencing local races. Wisconsin is not the only state that ensures that local elections are as far removed from the partisan state and national elections as possible. They stagger the elections from Maine to California.

There are other problems with a fall local election:

• Local candidates will be competing for the grassroots workers with congressional candidates.
• In major markets, mayoral and county board candidates will be squeezed out of the television buys. Maybe that is a good thing.
• Most important, the voters will be focused on the higher level races and ignore the candidates for mayor or school board and ignore everything from the candidates' forums to the literature.

The higher voter turnout in November is a good reason to shift the elections, saving money is not.

Too bad we do not have a better way of increasing voter participation in the spring elections.

I will be on Wisconsin Public Radio with Joy Cardin doing the Week in Review at 8:00 am this morning.