State Superintendent State Superintendent Tony Evers’ warning that he would withhold federal funds from Milwaukee Public Schoolsor maybe just threaten to withhold funds from MPSis a real head-scratcher.
I can only understand it within the political context of the failed MPS takeover.
Remember that Evers was a high-ranking member of DPI before he became state superintendent last spring. He defeated his challenger in a landslide. Evers favored working with MPS on its No Child Left Behind-mandated corrective action plan, while his opponent wanted to temporarily take over MPS. Remember: Evers defeated the takeover candidate in a landslide.
Then came the attempted takeover.
Now that’s failed, so Evers, who’s never struck me as being thrilled about the takeover, is threatening to withhold federal funds (an estimated $175 million) slated for helping the district’s poorest students improve their academic performance.
But wait a second. Isn’t he doing this under the powers granted to him under Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act? That law allows him to help a district develop a corrective action plan when it has not made Adequate Yearly Progress for a number of years. That’s MPS.
And didn’t President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan just announce that they were working on a complete overhaul of No Child Left Behind?
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Specifically, they want to change the way Adequate Yearly Progress is measured to more accurately identify what schools and districts are doing well, and what they need to improve. Currently, AYP is a terribly broad measure that penalizes good schools as well as really irresponsible, dysfunctional ones.
MPS typically misses its targets because about 18% of its student population is labeled “special education.” Yet under No Child Left Behind, these kidswho are the hardest to teachare required to perform as well as other students. All students must be proficient in math and reading by 2014. Duncan has called that a “utopian goal.”
Here’s what I wrote back in 2008:
Also working against MPS’s performance on the NCLB benchmarks are the ever-rising academic standards. All students are being held to the same academic standards, including students who are learning English or those who are classified as special education students. One or two percent of the students are allowed to take an alternative to the WKCE specifically designed for students with disabilities, but those scores are included in their school’s overall scores.
But MPS has 18%-19% of its student population classified as special ed students higher than surrounding school districts and all of those students are expected to meet the same state standards. Many of the schools that didn’t meet state standards this year did so because of the performance of the students with learning disabilities.
“The standards are the same for all students,” Thome said. “Some students have farther to go to reach those standards.” She said that many students with learning disabilities are improving academically, but still not meeting the state standards. “I might, as a teacher, have a student who makes continuous improvement through out the year, but it’s not enough to be proficient on the WKCE,” Thome said.
So Evers, who has been working with MPS on its corrective action plan mandated by No Child Left Behind, is now trying to withhold funds from MPS based on No Child Left Behind rules that the Obama administration deems unfair and unrealistic and is trying to change?
Looks like the takeover folks are desperate. Unfortunately, MPS’s most vulnerable students are being used as pawns.
