Comparing MPS and Voucher Per-Pupil Support
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I find discussions of the per-pupil funding level of different types of Milwaukee schools usually turns into a debate on how to make a true apples-to-apples comparison of per-pupil support for the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) and the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP). While basic differences in MPS and MPCP schools and their cost-drivers make [...]
Khan Academy ponders what it can teach the higher education establishment
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An interesting look at how the Khan Academy is trying to use their platform to predict how well someone actually knows a concept, instead of just knowing how well that person did on one test or drill.
A Big Life (Don’t Fear the Student Loans)
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“Sugar” addresses a young adult who’s worried and angry about having to start paying for her own student loans. Sugar’s response was a great way to say what absolutely needed to be said.
Your parents helped you pay for your undergraduate education while you were a student and, presuming you didn’t graduate at 25 …
Union curbs rescue a Wisconsin school district
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Here’s some more information about the changes that Kaukauna School District is making, thanks to Governor Walker’s much attacked public sector union reforms.
Then there are work rules. “In the collective bargaining agreement, high school teachers only had to teach five periods a day, out of seven,” says Arnoldussen. “Now, they’re going to teach …
District swings from deficit to surplus
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As changes to collective bargaining powers for public workers take effect today, the Kaukauna Area School District is poised to swing from a projected $400,000 budget shortfall next year to a $1.5 million surplus due to health care and retirement savings.
“These impacts will allow the district to hire additional …
Explaining Walker’s K-12 Cuts to the Kids
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Jeremy Shown does his part to “explain to the kids” what Governor Walker’s education cuts are and how students will be affected by them.
The student/teacher ratio here in Wisconsin is about 15 students for every teacher. I suspect your class may have more than 15 students because this ratio probably includes teachers who …
Cut Head Start!
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This is a terrific program to cut.
Because, despite all the good intentions behind Head Start, the program is not working. It is failing to make any significant difference in the educational advancement of low-income children.
And that’s not based on a study from a partisan group …
Badgering the Witless
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Iowahawk returns to the subject of whether or not Wisconsin’s unionized school system trumps the non-unionized nightmare that is the Texas public school system.
Spoiler: it doesn’t. Further spoiler: Wisconsin is not doing well, at all, in educating minority students.
Is a Texas Education That Bad?
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Iowahawk steps out of character for a moment to set Paul Krugman straight. Krugman has been claiming that Texas, without collective bargaining, has an education system that ranks far, far below the education system of Wisconsin, which does have collective bargaining.
It turns out that, once you control for the ethnicity of the overall population, Texas …
On Teachers and Others
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In judging teachers’ claims, we might compare their lives with the lives of, say, farmers or welders or interstate truckers.
Victor Davis Hanson compares his experiences as a farmer and as a teacher.