AFE Annual Meeting
Wednesday, May 28 - 8 p.m.
Gallery 505
505 E. Silver Spring
AFE Forum Follow-up
The Pitfalls of Raising Children in an Affluent Community
featured speaker Philip Chard
You can view his presentation here [PDF]
Schools in Risky Business?
Five Wisconsin public school districts have made an investment gamble that could force taxpayers to finance multimillion-dollar bailouts.
The districts - Kenosha, Kimberly Area, Waukesha, West Allis-West Milwaukee and Whitefish Bay - have piled up debt in deals to help fund health insurance and other non-pension benefits for retirees. But as global financial markets have seized up, the districts have been told the value of their investments has fallen so much that they might need to come up with a combined $53 million to avoid default.
Read WFB School District's response to this article here. [PDF]
Open Enrollment: Weighing Costs & Benefits
The state's open enrollment program has helped many Milwaukee-area school districts shore up their budgets, add diversity and keep neighborhood schools open amid declining residential enrollment. Ten years after the program's creation, the number of students using it to attend the public school district of their choice – if that district has space – has surged from 2,464 to more than 23,000.
But at least two area districts are asking if there is a tipping point at which districts can accept too many nonresident students.
World Language Forum
Advocates for Education (AFE) presented World Language in Whitefish Bay: Is It World Class? on November 8th. Speakers Dr. Helena Curtain, renowned foreign language curriculum specialist and Tony Frontier, Director of Curriculum and Instruction for the Whitefish Bay School district presented an insightful look at the district’s current foreign language requirements and whether they conform to the recommendations of language specialists. The district is currently conducting a review of its world language curriculum.
Dr. Curtain emphasized how learning a foreign language (any foreign language!) can lead to higher scores on verbal intelligence tests, greater mental flexibility, and a deeper understanding and appreciation of cultural differences around the globe. Tony Frontier said key questions the curriculum review committee will contemplate include: Should an additional language, such as Chinese, be offered? Are the programs in place appropriately rigorous? Should fifth-graders be allowed to select which language they learn in order to facilitate a smoother transition to their language study at the Middle School?
A panel of language teachers from the district, as well as a current high school student who studied abroad, was also available for questions from the audience. Participating on the panel were Sandy Jacques, Richards School French teacher, Heidi Ludorf, WFB Middle School German teacher, Belinda Bjerkvold, WFB High School Spanish teacher and Lauren Arena, a senior at WFB High School who spent time in Panama last summer through an American Field Service (AFS) exchange program.
See Helena's presentation here [PDF].
See Tony's presentation here [PDF].
New Resources
Click here for our newly-expanded list of links to Whitefish Bay curricula, teachers' recommended web sites and other sites of interest to parents.
Room to Improve
It was expected to be one of the most contentious debates of the political year. President Bush’s landmark No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is due for reauthorization by the end of 2007. But as the calendar ticks into November, little has been heard since early summer, when U.S. House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller began circulating his proposed changes to the education law designed to combat the “soft bigotry of low expectations.”
How to Fix No Child Left Behind
It’s countdown time in Philadelphia’s public schools. Just 21 days remain before the state reading and math tests in March, and the kids and faculty at James G. Blaine Elementary, an all-black, inner-city school that spans pre-K to eighth grade, have been drilling for much of the day...
Last year, after a history of failure, the school, under new leadership, managed to meet the federal goal for adequate yearly progress (AYP) on the state tests for the first time. If it does so again, Blaine moves off the dreaded list of failing schools, no longer a target for intensive oversight and sanctions that could include replacing the staff.
State Sets Low Test Standards
The bar for labeling a student proficient in reading and math is set lower in Wisconsin than in almost any other state among 26 in a study released Wednesday.
The study found that “cut scores” - the line between proficient and not proficient - vary widely among the 26 states, casting doubt on the question of what it means when a state says a certain percentage of its students are doing well. Those percentages are central to the way the federal No Child Left Behind education law works.