Grading preschools based on Kindergartners' performance

Texas is now the first state in the nation to evaluate the quality of classrooms in its preschools, Head Start programs, and child care centers based on how well their children do once they've gone on to Kindergarten.

Under the Texas School Ready! program, children will take two tests as Kindergartners--one will measure their reading and pre-reading skills, the other their social skills. Preschool classrooms for which 80% or more of their children perform well on the tests will receive a new state certification. The program was piloted last year as an evaluation of 1,000 preschool classrooms across the state; 450 passed muster, 300 were disqualified for technical reasons, and the others were found to be of poor quality.

Classrooms that do not earn the certification will not be penalized, but their preschool may qualify for monies to improve teacher training.

Participation in the program is voluntary for the early childhood programs that desire the new certification. The program is state funded, at an estimated $1 million per year, and was designed by the Texas State Center for Early Childhood Development (a division of the University of Texas' Children's Learning Institute) at a cost of $4 million.

This program is a bit of a hybrid between state regulation and parental accountability. Participation is voluntary, but the state expects that enough parents will demand preschool classrooms with the new seal of approval that most preschools will participate. Of course, this assumes that parents will know and understand enough about the certification to seek it out when choosing a child care center or preschool. If the state doesn't adequately promote the new certification or explain the standards, parents won't know they've been empowered to hold preschools accountable.

If parents do, in fact, begin to demand only certified preschool classrooms, there is the risk that Kindergartners will start to feel the pressure that only high-stakes standardized tests can bring. Some of that risk is alleviated by the fact that the tests will be administered in the elementary schools and not the child care centers or preschools themselves (although many public elementary schools in Texas also provide preschool). However, Texas' three-year-olds may very well see many more worksheets and much less free play in the future if market forces act as anticipated.

As a researcher, this program is intriguing...a similar analysis of Wisconsin's early childhood programs may be beneficial. But the practical questions are great: How do you keep track of a state-wide Kindergarten cohort's previous schooling experiences? How are the tests administered...by the state or school district? Are Kindergartners in private schools included?

If this program seems to work in Texas, it will likely be adopted elsewhere. It's the kind of thing a school district could do on its own. What if MPS could provide a list of the K4 and preschool programs that produced the most successful Kindergartners in the city? My guess is that policymakers and private foundations would be just as interested in that list as parents.

The road replacement blues

Today's story in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on Milwaukee's inability to properly budget for city street resurfacing brings up one major issue: In the Mayor's quest to rectify the situation (i.e. reduce the replacement cycle for side-streets from 163 years to 60 years), where is the money going to come from?

You can bet that it won't come from the city's general fund. Crime is the issue of the day and I can guess where any spare property tax dollars will flow.

A more likely scenario is for the city to try to persuade the state to grant more aid for street repair. Currently, over half of the city's budget for street, alley and sidewalk reconstruction and maintenance comes from state and federal aid (see page 129 of the city budget, here). The problem with the city trying to hit up the state for more street repair dollars is that the state may have problems of its own in raising revenue in the near future. There are a few trends that need to be highlighted.

First, we are driving less. The theory is that since gas costs more these days, folks have cut back on driving (see below chart).

While that's good for the environment, that's bad for the state budget since the state gets revenue from a tax on gasoline. Also, we are not buying as many SUVs. Again, this is good for the environment, but bad for gas tax revenue. There is nothing like a gas-guzzling vehicle to produce a revenue windfall for government. That windfall will likely abate as we enter the hybrid car era. See the below chart to note the recent tapering in fuel tax collections.


Lastly, the legislature recently repealed the automatic indexing of the gas tax - a policy that increased the gas tax on an annual basis without any vote or debate. Some would call this taxation without representation, others would call this an effective revenue enhancer. The non-partisan Legislative Audit Bureau has said the following about the repeal of the gas tax:

"In the fiscal estimates for the bill, the Department of Revenue and the Department of Transportation estimated a loss to the Transportation Fund of $5.1 million for the portion of Fiscal Year 2007 affected by the bill, with reductions of $26.0 million for FY 2008 and $41.9 million for FY 2009."

In other words, Wisconsinites can count on less and less money from the gas tax in the coming years. Sure, the city may still try to hit up the state for funds to repair it's crumbling infrastructure, but the data suggest that this strategy won't pay unless the state raises taxes or everyone buys an SUV as their next car. Pick your poison.

Milwaukee gains and Wisconsin slows

I've only lived in the city of Milwaukee for six years. But ever since I landed here, the city has bled jobs. In fact, Milwaukee lost over 11,000 jobs since my first day of graduate school at UWM in 2001. Maybe this is why I've been particularly struck with recent employment data which shows the creation of 2,191 net new jobs in the city since July of last year (see table below).

What's more, Milwaukee is outperforming the rest of the region and rest of the state in employment gains. In a previous post I detailed this historical trend which now continues in July and even shows signs of strengthening. Indeed, the city now posts a half-percentage point advantage over the statewide employment growth rate, .9% for Milwaukee versus .4% for Wisconsin.

One reason for Milwaukee's "outperformance" is Wisconsin's underperformance. Some places in Wisconsin just aren't adding jobs like they used to. The city of Madison, surprisingly, is one of those places. In fact, while Milwaukee was the state's top net gainer of jobs, the city of Madison was the state's top loser. You don't have to look too far back in the data to find a time when just the opposite was true.

What follows is a rank of Wisconsin municipalities with a population larger then 25,000.

Change in Employment, July 2006 - July 2007

Milwaukee City	2,191
Kenosha City	442
Waukesha City	330
Appleton City	320
West Allis City	270
La Crosse City	255
Wauwatosa City	206
New Berlin City	187
Eau Claire City	172
Brookfield City	171
Greenfield City	169
Oak Creek City	164
Menomonee Falls Village	161
Franklin City	157
West Bend City	136
Manitowoc City	101
Green Bay City	70
Racine City	62
Superior City	30
Fond Du Lac City	-7
Wausau City	-41
Sun Prairie City	-53
Neenah City	-71
Stevens Point City	-76
Sheboygan City	-94
Oshkosh City	-111
Beloit City	-243
Janesville City	-489
Madison City	-493

Are there policy implications to Milwaukee's resurgence?

Sammis White of UW-Milwaukee's Workforce Development Center may have summed it up best in an article in today's Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

"You're seeing greater job growth here than elsewhere." Too often, White said, the Milwaukee area's contribution to the state's economy is overlooked.

Maybe a new recognition of Milwaukee's economic might will cause the rest of Wisconsin to see our city and region as an increasingly important weapon to use in our state's battle to gain traction in a new global economy. Arguably, this could change the nature of Milwaukee's relationship with the state - less "aid," more investment.

The end of the sound bite?

Have you ever read a story in the newspaper with quote after quote on one side of the issue and just a few on the other side? Have you wondered whether other things were said in support of that other side, but were left out of the story? I guess the smart people at Google have had that experience, too, because they are launching a new feature on Google news that allows the subjects of newspaper articles to comment on them. The comments will be posted next to the original article, but clearly labelled as comments, to prevent confusion.

I'm predicting that if this feature takes off, the practice of media relations will be changed dramatically. Who wouldn't take advantage of an opportunity to "set the story straight" to a global audience? Perhaps knowing that a rebuttal is inevitable, people will speak more persuasively--could it lead to the end of the sound bite? Could nuance and analysis make their way back into journalism? I would imagine very few reporters would want their stories to be susceptible to being overshadowed or made irrelevant by the pursuant comments.

This new feature is certainly an advance in media accountability, with the potential to be much more.

Warning: Wi-Fi woes wane not

According to today's Wall Street Journal, Milwaukee isn't the only city that's Wi-Fi experiences aren't living up to their expectations.

Minor issues range from cost overruns due to coverage problems to concerns about Wi-Fi equipment emitting too much radiation.

The main problem, says the WSJ story, is that the original business model no longer works:

"The Wi-Fi companies envisioned being able to offer subscription service to consumers at rates that were significantly cheaper than phone and cable broadband. But the unexpectedly high costs of building Wi-Fi networks -- the price tag can easily run into the tens of millions for a big city -- coupled with lower prices for broadband from some phone companies, has made it tougher for consumer Wi-Fi to be competitive."

An article in Business Week yesterday cites a different, but related factor: weak demand, which was noted as a problem here in Milwaukee.

"...[I]nitial forecasts for Wi-Fi subscriptions used to justify the investment in these networks have proven to be overly optimistic by a wide margin. In many cases, 15% to 30% of an area's population was expected to sign up for muni Wi-Fi. But only 1% to 2% have signed up so far figures Glenn Fleishman, editor of an industry blog called Wifinetnews.com."

In many cases, Wi-Fi companies are now seeking to renegotiate their contracts, wanting the municipal government to sign on as a customer in order to guarantee a revenue stream. The Business Week story quotes a Wi-Fi executive as saying, "There's no one that I am aware of right now who'd build a network without the city as a paying customer. The days of a service provider coming in without a city commitment are over."

That makes Milwaukee's failed contract with Midwest Fiber Networks look less like an opportunity for a better deal down the road and more like a sure bet that the city will be hit up for big bucks by whichever "white knight" provider rides into town. Knowing that it's coming, Milwaukee would be smart to conduct its own market study of the potential for paid subscribers outside city government, in order to be on a level playing field during contract negotiations.

UPDATE: The Journal Sentinel covers the issue in a Sept. 2, 2007 article.

Press release: Public Policy Forum Wins GRA Research Award

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin – August 15, 2007 – At the 94th annual conference of the Governmental Research Association (GRA) in Denver last week, the Milwaukee-based Public Policy Forum won a first place award in the Outstanding Policy Achievement category for its research on economic development in the Milwaukee region.

The research included studies that were part of the Forum’s “One Region, One Future” campaign that ran for three years and emphasized the need for cooperation among the seven counties of southeastern Wisconsin. Two years after launching the campaign, the Milwaukee 7 (M7) was created by area businesses partnering with southeastern Wisconsin governments to present a unified economic development approach to businesses looking to expand in the region.

Included in the winning entry were the following studies: the use of tax increment financing (TIF) by the city of Milwaukee that subsequently resulted in Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett issuing a directive to double TIF authorizations, and a controversial evaluation of economic development expenditures, particularly for workforce development, by the city of Milwaukee that helped facilitate the creation of a citywide economic development plan – a major recommendation in the Forum’s report.

“Receiving this award was extremely gratifying because it comes from peer organizations around the country which are engaged in the same kinds of work as the Forum,” says Forum President Jeff Browne. “It was also exciting because the research that led to the award resulted in substantive change. Action was taken in the region because of the Forum’s work.”

The GRA was established in 1914 and is the national organization of individuals professionally engaged in governmental research.

The Public Policy Forum (www.publicpolicyforum.org) – which was established in 1913 as a local government watchdog – is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to enhancing the effectiveness of government and the development of southeastern Wisconsin through objective research of regional public policy issues.

Milwaukee's CSR advantage

Milwaukee's corporate culture is a bit less stuffy these days. Recent announcements by some of Milwaukee's largest corporations emphasize the principles behind corporate social responsibility (CSR). Examples which could be classified as "socially responsible" under the CSR definition include high-profile initiatives by Kohl's ("Kohl's to go Solar in California") and Johnson Controls ("Johnson Control's expansion blueprints are green"). In both cases, these home-grown corporations are advancing policies which will reduce carbon emission through support for renewable energy.

Milwaukee's brand of CSR, however, is not limited to the environment - it's also about improving neighborhoods and investing in a diverse workforce. Manpower's impending move to it's new downtown location is cheered in a recent Business Journal article for the company's commitment to improving the surrounding neighborhood ("We didn't want to just be a shiny new building"). And, lastly, S.C. Johnson was recently recognized "as one of the 100 companies that offer the greatest opportunities for Hispanic Americans in the United States."

Validating this anecdotal evidence is a recent public opinion survey from GolinHarris (a Chicago PR agency) which has produced "corporate citizenship" rankings for 152 of the largest US consumer brands. The 2006 rankings include four Milwaukee area corporations: SC Johnson (4th), Harley-Davidson (15th), Kohl's (62nd), and Miller Brewing (124th). Having two corporations in the top 20 for a relatively small region like Milwaukee is unique. The fact that Milwaukee hosts a relatively high concentration of "socially responsible" corporations could be exploited by our region's marketing machine (M7) to differentiate us from other areas of the country.

Other opinions from the GolinHarris survey? Those surveyed thought that the single most important behavior for a corporation to demonstrate was that it "values, treats employees well, fairly." Milwaukee is also a relative stand-out in this category. According to the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, "On a per capita basis, the Milwaukee Region is home to the more 'best companies to work for' than any other region in the nation." In fact, a strategy to recruit talent to our region based on Milwaukee's "worker-friendly advantage" is now underway by local talent attraction and retention group, Fuel Milwaukee.

Of course, this is not to say that Milwaukee corporations can't improve their CSR credentials. A 2004 report by the Public Policy Forum found that the 50 largest Wisconsin companies lagged behind corporations nationwide and in the Midwest with regard to the gender diversity of their corporate leaders. In other words, we have work to do on the gender equity front in Wisconsin and Milwaukee.

Inclusion, environmentalism and social equity are terms that are typically not associated with Milwaukee's corporate climate. Maybe it's time to change how we think and talk about our region's corporate entities.