92 Wisconsin Schools Make 'No Child Left Behind' Failing List

JSOnline via AP ^ | June 13, 2006 | Scott Bauer

[Diana in Wisconsin]

MADISON, WI (AP) -- The number of Wisconsin schools at risk of sanctions for not meeting standards of the federal No Child Left Behind Act nearly doubled this year, with the state's largest district making the failing list for the first time.

Ninety-two schools from 20 districts, up from 49 schools last year, were on the list released Tuesday by the state Department of Public Instruction. Milwaukee was the only entire district named. It failed to make annual progress at the elementary, middle and high school levels for student achievement in both reading and mathematics.

Of the 92 schools on the list, 58 were in the Milwaukee district.

"We know that we have a lot of work to do and we have our improvement plan in place to make a difference," said Milwaukee Superintendent William Andrekopoulos. "This doesn't change our course of action whatsoever."

Schools face sanctions if they fail to make progress for two straight years in the same area and if they receive federal Title I funding to supplement students who live in poverty.

Thirty-eight schools made the list for failing to make adequate progress for the second year, but four aren't eligible to face sanctions because they don't receive Title I money, according to DPI. That applied to schools in the Beloit, Kenosha, Madison and Milwaukee districts.

Thirty-three of the other 34 schools are in Milwaukee. The other one is Central City Cyberschool, which is a charter school.

Last year 45 schools were identified as needing improvement and 37 were from Milwaukee.

Four of the Milwaukee schools on the list this year won't be open next year, Andrekopoulos said. He also noted that the number of Milwaukee schools on the list has dropped from 67 in 2001-2002.

State Superintendent Elizabeth Burmaster said in a statement she will propose, as part of her budget request in September, initiatives aimed at increasing academic achievement in Milwaukee Public Schools.

Hopefully, schools on the list will feel a sense of urgency to improve, Andrekopoulos said.

Even though all four of its high schools were on the list for not meeting adequate yearly progress, Madison Superintendent Art Rainwater said his district will not do anything differently.

Rainwater predicted that because of the stringent requirements of the law, every school at one time or another will find itself singled out. But that doesn't mean the law will necessarily have the intended results, he said.

"When you try to create positive change in a punitive environment, it just doesn't work," Rainwater said. "You don't create lasting, positive change by threatening people and providing sanctions and punishments."

Parents who see their child's school on the list should not panic, said John Ashley, executive director of the Wisconsin Association of School Boards.

"They are a set of numbers and they are sort of snapshots in time and schools are always working to improve," Ashley said. "Good school districts are not immune."

What this year's list does show is that schools facing sanctions are not isolated to one part of Wisconsin, Ashley said. That shows the need for more resources to help schools statewide, he said.

In addition to test results, schools are measured on graduation rates, participation rates and attendance. Missing the mark in any category can put a school on the failing list. Students take the academic tests in grades four, eight and 10.

The list comes out less than two weeks after a Washington-based think tank issued a report criticizing Wisconsin's implementation of the federal law. Education Sector said Wisconsin leads the nation in frustrating the purposes of No Child Left Behind and works to minimize the number of schools and districts facing consequences.

The 2002 law, heralded by President Bush as a way to hold schools accountable, requires that all students be proficient in math and reading by 2014.

Schools that receive the federal Title I money must make yearly progress toward reaching that goal or face punishments that include letting parents transfer their children to better-performing schools in the same district, offering tutoring for students from low-income families and restructuring the way the schools operate.

Last year the Menominee Indian School District was the only entire district listed as needing improvement. It was removed from the list this year.

Schools on this year's list have until June 30 to appeal their status.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I'm not up on "No Child Left Behind." Is this the first time that the government has really cracked down on schools as far as their government funding being on the line for not being up to standards?

Anyone? Thanks.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"Wisconsin Conservative Politics Ping List" Ping!

[martin_fierro]

I can just imagine how Kalifornia is doing.

[Lizavetta]

It's Bush's fault for not giving them $100 K per child, don'tcha know.

[cinives]

Yep - it's always about money. More, more, more. Failing ? Need more. Thriving ? Need more.

Gimme gimme gimme all the time.

[bpjam]

Somehow the socialists in Madison aren't making the cut? Shocking!!!!

[AwesomePossum]

State Superintendent Elizabeth Burmaster said in a statement she will propose, as part of her budget request in September, initiatives aimed at increasing academic achievement in Milwaukee Public Schools.

Translation: throw more money at the problems................. instead of making real, honest, effective academic changes...............

[Integrityrocks]

"or face punishments that include letting parents transfer their children to better-performing schools in the same district, offering tutoring for students from low-income families"

Only the public school system could interpret these consequences as PUNISHMENTS. Good grief. Let's not PUNISH the schools; nooooo; just let them keep cranking out illiterate kids.

[Joe Boucher]

Man, this can't be right. This is the area where,"all the children are good looking and slightly above average."
Liberal and democrat.

[Firefigher NC]

A lot of illiterate minority students amd kids with serious issues that don't belong in public school give schools a tough time keeping up to par with No Child Left Behind in systems where there's a lot of Mexicans. Don't know a whole lot about No Child Left Behind, but I haven't yet met a teacher who hasn't criticized the program.

[mission9]

If you invested the 5,000 dollars that we spend each year (first grade through 12th) for each child, in a growth mutual fund that tracked the S&P 500, the end product at age 18 is 100k. Now if fifty per cent of that amount was made available to the child (down payment on a house, college education, start a small business), and the rest allowed to accrue to age 65 for the behalf of the former student, the remaining 50k, if allowed to accrue at historical S&P growth rates, would grow to exceed two million dollars. But you say, that child would be illiterate and uneducated. Untrue, if society requires a passing of the GED and reading proficiency to qualify for a driver's license and let the rest of the education be pursued by the child or his parents. End of Social Security Problem, end of Education Problem. As to the unemployed government teachers, the true teachers will find employment from the true desirers of an education, the others can do jobs that Americans just won't do.

[T. P. Pole]

If you invested the 5,000 dollars that we spend each year (first grade through 12th) for each child

Sorry, but around here that amount is over 10K per kid per year. Sigh.

[jnaujok]

My wife is a teacher and regularly criticizes NCLB...

...because there's too much paperwork put on the back of the teacher. Basically she spends about 80 hours a year doing paperwork for NCLB. On the other hand, she agrees 100% with what it's doing.

She also teaches at a charter school receiving 55% of the funding of every other public school in the state. They have placed in the top three schools in the state for the last three years running. As a result, the newly elected Dumb-o-Rat state congress is trying to kill all the charter schools.

[Paperdoll]

I've heard from teachers that the program brings more detrimental than positive results. So why not go back to when children learned because of discipline, self and applied, and because children are naturally hungry to learn, and they did. No Child Left Behind is evidently a failure, so why perpetuate it?

[malia]

bumping

[mountn man]

Ditto to T.P.Pole. Nationally its over $10,000 per child.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"Sorry, but around here that amount is over 10K per kid per year. Sigh."

$13K per student in the Dane County School district, a 100% Blue County.

Madison scored waaaaaaaaaay below the norm, too, but you won't see much in the local media about that, of course.

I am so grateful I'm done raising and schooling kids. How conservative parents in large school districts can tolerate the leftist "touchy-feely, protect their self-esteeeeeme at all costs" cr@p is beyond me.

[freemama]

You know how they do it? Unless they move to the suburbs, they take their kids out of those schools and put them in private or religious schools. Part of the reason the scores are so low in Milw. and Madison is that good parents who can afford to do so have moved their kids out therefore lowering the testing averages.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"Part of the reason the scores are so low in Milw. and Madison is that good parents who can afford to do so have moved their kids out therefore lowering the testing averages."

I wouldn't doubt that one bit. Any parent earning 100K or more a year is doing this...and you can bet that ALL of our local politicians' kids are in private schools. *Rolleyes*

[mission9]

I heartily invite you to do the job that most Americans just won't do - take your per pupil average expenditure and plug that number into an interest rate investment calculator. Now is that not a big number? Wow, the power of compund interest. We must hold the public school system accountable for the lost "opportunity cost" of money squandered in the Government schools. All of your children could be trust fund babies if this money were withheld to their benefit.
These are some of the same arguments on the social security debate. The problem is that too many liberals (and people who don't think of themselves as liberal) will have to give up too much power, too many cherished delusions, and subject their lives to the insecurities of the market for their ideas, and products.
But it is fun to hit the same old suspects with "outside the box" thinking, and watch them squirm. Counter arguments will revolve around increases in juvenile labor law violations, juvenile crime and illiteracy rates, incomplete "socialization" of the child, etc. The problem for the liberal is that these worst case hypotheses about the result of redirecting education dollars, assumes that people are basically stupid and incompetent, which is contrary to the goodness in mankind that liberalism ostensibly posits.

I maintain the optimism that families will make the independent choice, as opposed to government mandate, to pursue education, at their own expense, for all the benefits that will ensue. Once freedom of choice is fully restored to education, then true academic freedom and intellectual honesty will prevail.