Leaving LA for Madison: One CEO's story

Attracting businesses to Wisconsin may be more simple than the conventional wisdom would lead us to believe. I came across this blog post by the CEO of Oompa Toys, a leading online toy store that specializes in European and other high-end, specialty toys.

Milanie Cleere explains her family's and her business' move to Madison from Los Angeles: "In short, we left in search of a better quality of life for our work-a-holic selves and our young children."

She lists several things she misses about California, but concludes:

But the things I miss in Los Angeles are offset by an exponential number of things in our new, adopted home town. Basic things, so basic that now that we have them, we wonder how we did without. Good public schools for the kids, clean air, safe neighborhoods, awesome, friendly people. A fantastic, modern and accessible medical system, very little traffic, kid-friendly everything. That almost mythical Mid-Western work ethic in the Oompa warehouse. Living (and this is going to sound earth-mamma-ish), but living in an area surrounded by lush, rolling green hills and farms. This place feels right, it feels healthy. This place is good for the soul. So, at least for now, goodbye Los Angeles. I’ll visit often, but Madison, WI is now home.

Seems pretty straightforward, doesn't it?

Oompa Toys is not a manufacturer and is not a member of the "knowledge economy," but it is a growing business that's relocation created new jobs in Wisconsin. Because of its focus on quality, its growth can be expected to continue with each mass toy recall.

This is a success story for our state and I'm glad Ms. Cleere is sharing the story on her company's website.

PPF Pearls: Improving school choice

Professor Paul Hill of the University of Washington has called for stronger governmental oversight of school choice programs in the latest issue of Education Week, noting that "...when one school neglects a student or doesn't pay its bills, government agencies crack down on everyone. Schools need oversight that is capable and fair, not negligent."

Prof. Hill also recommends that choice schools "prove themselves on the same tests as other schools," since "early hopes that charter and voucher schools would be so obviously great that no finely calibrated outcomes measured would be needed to prove it have been dashed."

The Forum would agree with those recommendations, as our research over the past 10 years has consistently revealed a need for more accountability in school choice.

Our first study, issued in 1997, interviewed parents in Milwaukee and Cleveland, the first two cities with publicly-funded private school choice, and found they felt they needed more information about their schooling choices. We then conducted two public opinion surveys in Wisconsin and Ohio and found consensus among the general public for having an agency, either independent or governmental, oversee and collect information about choice schools and for requiring schools to provide to the public information such as test scores.

For a comprehensive understanding of the need for greater accountability in publicly-funded school choice, as well as recommended policy options for improving choice programs, read School Choice and the Question of Accountability: The Milwaukee Experience, which resulted from the Forum's many years of research on the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program.

UPDATE: Mike Ford of School Choice Wisconsin sent the following in response to this post. Mike is right that schools participating in the voucher program must now take standardized tests; however, these test scores will be used to study how the choice program performs in the aggregate as compared to MPS. Scores will not be reported on a school-by-school basis.

Anneliese,
Your blog post today, "Improving school choice," fails to mention the additional accountability in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) since your book was published. Today, MPCP schools face a rigorous accreditation process, take nationally normed standardized tests as part of a longitudinal study (results of which will be reported to the state Legislative Audit Bureau and publicly released), and must meet a multitude of financial viability requirements. The barriers to enter and stay in the MPCP are significant, as evidenced by the number of schools removed from and prevented from entering the program.
Reasonable people can have differing opinion on whether this is enough accountability, but I think it would benefit your blog's readers to mention these new requirements.
Thanks for listening,
Mike

PPF Viewpoint luncheon: Infrastructure

Cracked

Infrastructure makes the world go round.
Are our roads, bridges, sewers, dams, transit systems, utilities, etc. being ignored, endangering our ability to compete? What needs to happen to make sure southeastern Wisconsin is ready for the 21st century?

Panel:
John Goetter, chairman, American Society of Civil Engineers-Wisconsin Section
committee on Wisconsin infrastructure report card
Marc Levine, director, UWM Center for Economic Development
W. Martin "Wally" Morics, comptroller, City of Milwaukee

Wednesday, September 26, 2007
11:45 – 1:30
Italian Community Center
Festa Hall
631 East Chicago Street
Milwaukee’s Historic Third Ward

Reserve your place now by clicking here

Changes or cancellations will be accepted until Monday, September 24.
No refunds will be given after that date.

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.