Milwaukee Public Schools – Page 19 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Bad Omens for Wisconsin in the Race to the Top

Post author:Alan J. Borsuk
Post published:March 2, 2010
Post category:Education & Law Milwaukee Public Schools

The U.S. Department of Education is expected to announce by the end of this week the finalists for the Race to the Top grants that have been dominating national talk about education lately. Forty states, plus the District of Columbia, put in proposals to get some of the huge pie of $4.35 billion to be awarded for the what federal officials conclude are the most potent proposals for raising achievement in schools and cities where results until now have been poor.

Don’t expect Wisconsin to be among those tapped to move into the next stage of the first round of grants.

At least two national bloggers who keep eyes on the process made predictions this week on who will stay in the running, and neither picked Wisconsin. Bloggers on the widely-read Education Week Web page picked Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Illinois, Tennessee, Rhode Island, Delaware, Indiana, Minnesota, and Colorado as finalists, and projected Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Illinois, and Tennessee, as the states that would get first round grants that could run to $100 million or more.

Thomas W. Carroll, who blogs for the City Journal Web site, picked seven states as the most likely to win shares of the Race to the Top money. They are Florida, Louisiana, Tennessee, Colorado, Georgia, Delaware and Michigan.

There will be a second round of grants later this year, but Wisconsin is not likely to be in the center of contention then either, unless something happens that makes the state’s proposal appear like it’s going to change the status quo in more dramatic ways than the current proposal suggests.

Train…

Post author:Ashanti Cook
Post published:February 16, 2010
Post category:Legal Education Milwaukee Public Schools

twins Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. Proverbs 22:6

Serena Williams, Justin Timberlake, Yo-Yo Ma, Shirley Temple, Tiger Woods, the Olsen Twins, Michael Jackson, and many others are all examples of people who have done noteworthy things in their lives. They were all well on their way to a sucessful career, if not already in one, before reaching the age of majority. Few were necessarily child prodigies — someone who at an early age masters one or more skills at an adult level. They were simply children who learned early what they were to do with their lives.

I wonder whether it is good for parents to steer their child toward a career at an early age.

One-Upping Beyonce

Post author:Alan J. Borsuk
Post published:January 20, 2010
Post category:Milwaukee Public Schools

Beyonce Here are a few moments of upbeat hopefulness for those (count me in) who find keeping an eye on Milwaukee’s education scene to be pretty somber going much of the time.

There are three Hope Lutheran schools in Milwaukee, each serving low-income north side students, each part of the private-school voucher program, and each with high aims when it comes to academics and character traits. The schools have a variety of contests across the year. In the fall, they had a “Hope Idol” contest.

The winning entry was a video made by sixth-grade students from the Hope Fortis school, 3601 N. Port Washington Rd. It’s a take-off on Beyonce’s hot song and video, “Single Ladies.” This is one is called “Scholar Ladies.” The students’ effort is picking up steam as a YouTube video — there have been more than 100,000 hits on it, it’s been featured on CNN, and the student are determined to find ways to promote it until they get at least 1,000,000 hits.

In the students’ version, the goal is not to “put a ring on it” but to get high grades by working hard, and to keep your eye on 2016 — the year their class will graduate high school.