Wisconsin has a great education system--we have the highest graduation rate in the country, very high SAT/ACT scores, and are successful by a number of other measures. However, with the recent historic slashing of education funding, maintaining quality education becomes more challenging. The increased class sizes, decreased programs, fewer specialists, etc., all make for a more difficult enviroment to succeed on AP exams and other measures.

Fear -- I would agree that spending needs to be properly directed. There have been studies completed -- that show that just spending more, doesnt solve the problems. I moved back from a state that taxes property values at a rate 1/3rd that of WI and provides an excellent education to students. So when I here people in WI or IL defend spending more, I lose hair. Its not more spending, its not small class sizes, its better teachers and letting teachers have the freedom to be creative. Its similar to my stance for small business in the country, if we put it in the hands of those doing the work, the great teachers will flourish, their students will flourish. Having a budget, controlling spending, directing and proving that spending in a given area is affective (verification and measurement) is what we need. Just throwing money at it is a waste, and thats what I see most districts do in WI and IL.

Ask a teacher to provide you withtheir cirrculum and the tools that work in their class with measurements to prove it? You wont get much in allot of cases. Ask a teacher to tell you the rules on how students are supposed to behave, the rules, when parents are to be contacted? You will get a hour long discussion. The government has gotten too involved in education for it to be effective and it has increased the cost will little or no benefit.

All anyone should need to know about where this movement comes from and how exactly talking points are bought and paid for.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/l...

""that spending more translates into better education is simply false and has been proven to be false. ""

I still have a person prove a situation where spending less improves anything. Yet I can show you DOZENS of programs that are in place to help kids/teachers/families succeed that , hold your breath, COST MONEY!!
I challenge vato, ezoner or anyone to point to an education system that has suffered funding cuts and excelled or improved.
Ezoner I can PROVE it to be true. Yet you claim you can prove it to be false. What I will say is that there should be more focused spending on education, less political nonsense, and the system would benefit. Your contention that spending money on education heeds no reward is just wrong, sorry.

If you call minimum wage jobs with no bennies "booming".

Nina

But where are the jobs? And Texas is booming economically.....the Midwest is struggling with welfare programs....layoffs....greedy unions that cause mass layoffs....

So wavjmpr, now that Act 10 has removed CB from the schools, where are all the school districts rushing to formulate merit pay and pay those best teachers more? They sure replaced those contracts with handbooks fast enough. Tell me some districts that will be enacting merit pay this year or next? Or could it be there aren't any because it's all a bunch of BS and scooter has slashed the heart out of funding for schools?

I wouldn't be advocating the Texas Method for WI! Their standardized test scores are in the bottom of the whole country! Overall, AP scores for the state of WI are among the highest in the nation, so while we might be a bit behind the state average, that state average is well above the national one.

The test tests the teacher too. In Texas teachers have to routinely take tests to keep their licenses. But of course the WEA would never stand for that. Merit pay. Reward excellence in the class room instead of promoting mediocrity. You can't blame these results on Walker if you need to blame a governor blame the free spending policies of Jimmy Doyle.

vato - great world comparison......can we now use that same logic for other social programs such as medical care/costs/coverage? You don't cherry pick your comparables, right? Or isn't it that simple?

Stubby -- your arguement -- that spending more translates into better education is simply false and has been proven to be false. The reality is that governmental outside influence, unions and in general external forces have been the largest impediment. A one size fits all attitude is not the solution and more money isnt the problem either.

Madcity

It isn't just Asians or Hispanics, it's the African Merican students also.....

Plus,

"Canada’s visible minority population is growing at a much faster rate than its total population: 27% growth from 2001 and 2006 versus 5% in the general population. This is largely due to more immigration from Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Central and South America and the Middle East. In 2006, about 70% of the visible minority population was born outside Canada.

In 2008, Canada accepted 247,200 immigrants, representing a rate of 8 newcomers per 1,000 people. This rate has been relatively constant since the 1990s.

From 2001 to 2006, almost 60% of newcomers to Canada came from Asia (including the Middle East). This contrasts with 35 years earlier, when Asians accounted for 12% of newcomers. Following the Second World War, most immigrants came from European countries."

http://www41.statcan.ca/2009/30000/cybac...

Mad city

Those immigrants coming into Canada are not English speaking countries....The education system just wants to make excuses....we have a terrible record of educating the poor and culturally diffetent students...bottom line..

Fear, I think the term is reffering to why our education is different than other countries (i.e. the exception to the rule)

Just take out the Education part of the exceptionalism, America is NOT exceptional, we are just a country on the globe.

It looks like other communities such as Clinton do very well on the AP tests. Hopefully Janesville can get those scores up. I'm glad to see they are addressing the issue.

So, Janesville's excuse for below state average scores is there are more kids taking AP tests? Well, I guess if that's all you can come up with the district has some serious issues!

luvujvl makes an excellent point. More info is needed before judgement can be passed.

Vato - I've read the 10 myths many times before and find it overly broad and non specific. Where does the 30% dropout rate number come from? Certainly not from most communities in Wisconsin. And the example re: diversity in Canada doesn't work for me because I'm willing to bet that many of those in Canada not born there are from countries where English is spoken. The diversity we have in America is from a lot of Asian and Spanish speaking countries. Finland has almost zero diversity in their country and in Europe most people are at least biligual.

Is there a breakdown anywhere of these pass rates on a per-subject level? Are we doing really well on AP Psychology but sucking at AP Biology, for example? How are our AP Calculus scores? AP US History? AP English? I don't think anyone can make a blanket statement about our district based on AP scores, or even the AP program, with the information given.

Maybe it's time for John (A.P. teacher extra-ordinair) Eyster to return to the classroom.

We must continue to distinguish teachers from teacher's unions. While the majority of teachers do the best job they can, within the parameters of curriculum guidelines, and D.C. centralized laws like No Child Left Behind, teacher's unions have been working for more money and power, and trying to remove their accountability for results for decades.

Doesn't surprise me at all - a chronically underfunded school is failing to perform as well as schools that have adequate funding. Bottom line: you get what you pay for. Taxpayers who want to pay for used chevy products but expect new Cadillac performance are starting to see the fruits of their cheapness.

Ten Myths about American Education Exceptionalism

1.    The experience of the countries that outperform the United States is irrelevant because those nations only educate an elite while we educate everyone.

This was once true, but it has not been true for 20 years or more.  Roughly 30% of our students, on average, drop out of high school.  The number is much lower in most of the higher performing countries.  In some of the highest performing countries, fewer than 10% of students drop out of high school.  It is beginning to look as though the U.S. is the country that is only educating an elite, while it is our competitors who are educating everyone.

2.    The experience of these countries is irrelevant because they are homogeneous while we are uniquely diverse.

It is not always clear what people mean when they say we are “diverse.” But the fact is that more people in Canada were born outside that country than were born outside the U.S., and the ethnic diversity of Australia is a close match for the U.S., but both nations substantially outperform us.  It is certainly true that there is a wider distribution of income now in the U.S. than in any other industrialized country, and that is a real challenge for educators.  Yet, at the same time, there are only a few industrialized nations in which socio-economic background predicts student performance to the degree that it does in the U.S.  Put another way, educators in many other countries do a better job of helping students from low-income families perform at a higher level than in the U.S.

3.    The experience of these countries is irrelevant because their cultures are different from ours, and therefore little or nothing that works there will work here.

Research shows that the principles used by the top-performing countries are remarkably similar, even though the details of their strategies differ.  But they are not similar to the United States.  If countries as culturally dissimilar as Singapore and Finland, and Japan and Canada are doing much the same thing, their success has little to do with culture.  In fact, when researchers look closely at the strategies that these top-performing countries have used to produce top performance, they find that, as often as not, these nations have implemented strategies that run against the grain of their culture.  Most countries that have done well have taken advantage of their culture when that works for them, and have overcome aspects of their culture that were not working for them.

http://www.ncee.org/programs-affiliates/...

It could be that the students are wasting too much time on school sports and spend more time studying in the class room.

post 3000!! I am now officially a loser!!! Even though vato and others have thought that of me since post 1.
Man I should be getting paid!!

post 2999

Vato doesnt. The real problem I have with vato is when he gets into party politics in education as if a party is the answer. He has some decent ideas, unfortunately when we dive into the political part and terms like "Plantation Politics" comes out of his pie hole, you really need not say anymore.
I say this as I have volunteer experience in SEVERAL different classrooms, consisting of all sorts of socio-economic challenges. Unfortunately Vato wants to tout statistics when they may somehow support his politics, and ignore him when he actually talks nuts and bolts.
I have said it before Vato, if you want a snapshot of the education system and what teachers deal with go volunteer 2 full days in a 4th grade classroom in the poorest district in Wisconsin. Then you can take your "plantation politics" term and well...

Vatoloco figured it out. The giant conspiracy of liberal teachers working with the DNC to purposefully suck at their jobs to win votes for democratic candidates who promise greater welfare benefits. Holy smokes!
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Question for vatoloco - Which countries teachers teach a greater diversity of students than teachers in the US? I am not sure you understand the word diversity.

" gap is caused by the income gap and poverty, largely cause by CONSERvATIVE politics"

It's caused by plantation politics......Democrats hold them down to get elected on saving them with welfare....

"Funny how you have no answers, just touting other nations education over ours , and yet people are coming from all over the world to come here for higher education."

College education not public education.....

Are AP test scores your barometer for fail or sucess in a district? Because on several other threads vato you have said that test scores arent the fail/pass standard. Now again you lower to the liberal blame game and point to AP test scores? What a bunch of garbage. You keep leaning on the smae crap, and its really old. I wonder the last time you were even in a classroom to observe the teaching methods that you so readily bash?

What about Beloit? Happy to see them succeeding, hard to believe that they could do so with so many hard core liberals teaching!! Especially since for so many years they have been some of the worst schools in trhe state!!
I know that vato wants to just put every kid in front of a computer for 8 hours a day, but unfortunately for you and your liberal bashing comments, that isnt the answer, and niether is blaming political parties for anything. If Republicans had their way we would have class in churchand those who cant afford school wouldnt go.
Funny how you have no answers, just touting other nations education over ours , and yet people are coming from all over the world to come here for higher education. Achievment gap is caused by the income gap and poverty, largely cause by CONSERvATIVE politics. So lets play the partisan blame game, I can do it all night long.

I gotta say this is very disappionting for our schools. Maybe the higher student per teacher ratio really does mean something. But I am also not supprised with all the cuts made here.

Comparison for similar size high school requested, so here goes: Beloit Memorial - 258 exams taken, a 43% increase over the 2009-10 school year. Compare that to 547 taken between 2 Janesville high schools. Beloit had a 75.3% success rate, so Janesville's spokesperson's excuse that more students taking the test has led to lower scores looks pretty silly. Beloit has just as many (probably more) socio-economic problems as Janesville yet they somehow have done very well. That excuse doesn't hold water either. What gives Janesburg?

Gotta love those scheduled step salary increases fear.....gotta love them......

How about Beloit huh fear? You bash them all the time.......

High AP scores don't matter if you can't problem solve or build communities of inquiry.....

Other countries do a better job of educating diverse students....excuse after excuse from the teachers in this country....and since most of the die hard liberals teach......why is there an achievement gap....I thought they fought for the oppressed and low income folks?

OCould it be that you and the rest of the armchair QBs don't have a clue either? Poverty is higher than ever too. I would also like a link to the 12 k a year number, I believe that is exaggeration on your part. More like 10,500 per, but what's 1500 per kid times ten thousand?(janesville only)
Unfortunately so many of you repubs think the answer is to just cut em off and expect less pay and more work. I would love to hear a viable, reality based solution from someone who actually knows what they are saying, I'll wait............

It doesn't surprise me either, ChelleandLou. And just think, our school system spends $12,000 a year per student to achieve these miserable results.

Maybe if they were to focus on the basics while winnowing out the inferior employees, and thereby improve their end product, they wouldn't need a Chinese language course and whatever other gimmick they can think of to attract and retain their students. Unfortunately, they and their supporters will no doubt complain that $12,000 a pupil just isn't enough. However, until we see some improvement, they shouldn't get any more increases in funding as that would just be throwing more good money after bad. We've done enough of that already. Remember how they said that all those new bricks and mortar would improve our schools? Could it be that they don't really know how to improve the schools?

Doesn't surprise me one bit Janesville schools FAILED.