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The Success Story of St. Anthony's in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Policy-makers from all public schools listen up: poor families in Milwaukee are getting a great education, and it's due to the full implementation of the Core Knowledge program, direct instruction, Saxon Math, a rejection of education fads, and a program based on faith and values attended by children of all beliefs/religious backgrounds. Administrators are learners too, aren't they? Betsy Combier
          
From Betsy Combier, Editor of Parentadvocates.org:

Illinoisloop.org, sent us the articles below about a school in Milwaukee that is giving all theorists and planners of education policy something to think about.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has just carried three articles about
St. Anthony's in inner-city Milwaukee.
Despite a litany of obstacles -- poor families, many English
learners, dicey neighborhood -- this school has been getting
spectacular results both in academics and in family participation.
Among its keys to success:

-- a program based on faith and values
-- a full implementation of the Core Knowledge
program

-- Direct Instruction
-- Saxon Math
-- Rejection of education fads

There isn't a finer demonstration anywhere of the value of a voucher
program! Here's a win-win-win-win-win summary:

-- Poor kids are getting a wonderful education
-- Parents are very involved
-- The infamous "gap" is closing: St. Anthony's kids score almost
as well as non-poor kids in Milwaukee schools
-- This is an inner city Catholic school that has doubled its enrollment
-- Taxpayers are getting a tremendous bargain, educating kids for
thousands less than public schools would cost

-- Kevin

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
November 1, 2007
Opting for rigor
by Patrick McIlheran
LINK

Mary Budiac, a teacher, tells how one of her third-graders did unusually poorly on a quiz - a little low-stakes math quiz.

The child's dad called Budiac's cell phone, asking what he needed to do. As it turns out, nothing: The girl filled out the wrong circles. Simple error. But the reaction was typical, says Budiac, of the "huge
engagement" of parents at her school.

The school is in Milwaukee's inner city. Ninety-nine percent of its students are poor. Almost none speaks English at home. Practically all are there because of school choice.

Last week, a report said parents aren't good at choosing schools - though the report didn't apply to private-school choice at all and didn't use any data from Milwaukee.

Budiac's school, St. Anthony's, the largest in Milwaukee's private school choice program, offers many lessons. One is a contradiction of the notion that parents won't choose a better education.

St. Anthony's, now grown to two sites along Mitchell St., was a traditional parochial school that decided four years ago it needed to do better, says its president, Terry Brown. So it extended its day to eight hours for more math and reading. It rebuilt its curriculum around direct instruction, a rigorous teaching method. It hired Ramon Cruz, a former Milwaukee Public Schools principal with direct instruction experience.

The method, also used in some MPS schools, prescribes specific lessons teachers will use, even phrases and techniques. Critics say this script stifles teachers. Backers say it locks in best practices while leaving teachers free to teach.

When you see it unfolding at St. Anthony's, it ends up looking like a game, with constant interaction between teacher and students. There's no room for students to drift. They all stay engaged.

"Kids love it because they're learning," says Cruz.

The method isn't for everybody: Brown says the school must be up front with potential hires. But as Budiac points out, it dramatically cuts down on the time spent managing a classroom. Kids stay on task.

Because the method is centered on monitoring results, she knows immediately which students need help. For instance, there's a library grade. Children earn it by reading books. Short online quizzes ensure
the books really are read and are appropriately challenging. The result, says Budiac: "instant feedback."

"We're checking that they've learned what we've been teaching," says Mary Schmidt, the curriculum expert overseeing the school's results. It's as if each child were getting a personalized education.

The results are good: Among eighth-graders, scores on state standardized tests approach those of Milwaukee students who aren't poor. Schmidt says that each year, children typically make well over
a year's progress. The elementary school's gone from having one child in high school-level algebra to having 18 of them.

There are MPS schools that have good results, too. Choice isn't the only way to success.

But the logic of reform can't be that choice is allowed only if absolutely necessary. If school choice makes a rigorous education available to Milwaukee children, it's $6,500 well spent.

St. Anthony's demonstrates exactly that. While the school costs taxpayers thousands less per pupil than MPS, it has three times the budget per child as a typical parochial school. It let the school afford its intensive curriculum. It let the school scale up its library from 2,000 books to 30,000 - with 20,000 circulating at any one moment.

Being independent, says Cruz, "we can make a decision and live with it." Changing tactics was more difficult in MPS, he says. "We have local control," says Schmidt, "so we can put in place what we feel is
best for the students. We can follow it and can modify it as the data informs us."

And because every child came to the school by choice, parents are more engaged, says Cruz. "We can say, 'This is what it is; this is what we demand.' " The school has doubled its enrollment since 2003,
suggesting that parents will opt for rigor.

Budiac, who used to teach in a suburban school, notices a difference: "I see 50% of my kids' parents every day," she says, because they just stop by. "They feel we're on their team."

Or they are the team. The school works for anyone, says Brown. His children attend. His first-grader, tired by a full day, naps on the way home. "Can you tell I'm proud of the place?" Brown asks.

Patrick McIlheran is a Journal Sentinel editorial columnist.

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
November 2, 2007
Challenges welcome at school
Patrick McIlheran

About a dozen middle-school children sit in a newly painted room at St. Anthony's School on the south side. Their teacher points to a drawing.

"A bus," the children say.

"Now say the whole thing," the teacher says, glancing around to see that all are speaking.

"This is an orange bus," the children say. As the teacher has each child repeat the phrase, a boy holding a microphone maneuvers it their way. Then the cycle starts over with another picture. For the 10 minutes I watched, the kids' eyes were locked onto the teacher. I suppose someone eventually stared out the window. I didn't see it.

None of the children spoke English at the beginning of September. Now some can hold simple conversations, say other teachers.

I wrote on Friday that St. Anthony's, largest elementary school in Milwaukee's choice program, shows that parents will opt for rigor. It shows, as well, that choice schools can handle difficult cases.

Virtually all of St. Anthony's students are from low-income families. About 98% come from homes where Spanish is the language, says Principal Ramon Cruz. Many come, he says, because of St. Anthony's
approach to language.

You wouldn't think that. Classes are not bilingual. The school is an immersion in English from the first day. Parents want this, says Cruz. They can get the alternative, having their children taught for at least a while in Spanish, at the nearby public school.

"The parents come to me and say, 'We want the kids to learn the English language,' " says Cruz, an ex-MPS principal for whom English is a second language.

So tots in 4-year-old kindergarten are working on their English vocabulary. Nearby, another group works with a Spanish-fluent aide, in English, on letter names. They'll start to read by January, says school president Terry Brown.

Then there are the older children with no English. The school, which uses the method called direct instruction, is serving as a field test of that approach to teaching English. That's what the microphone's
about: The children's responses are recorded and emailed to experts in Oregon at midday, and the experts help the teacher adjust the next day's lessons. The point, says curriculum developer Daniel Johnston, is that no one gets out without succeeding.

That's the school's atmosphere. St. Anthony's groups children by ability rather than age. Natalie, for instance, a third-grader, is learning fifth-grade reading. This, she says, annoys her older sister, who wasn't so advanced. Direct instruction's constant evaluation of whether children are learning means Natalie takes lots of quizzes. She says she likes them, "when I get all the questions right."

That personalization - that children are kept at a level where they're getting about 85% of the answers right - and the constant interaction of direct instruction work well, too, says Cruz, for those said to have learning problems.

Cruz welcomes such children. He and Brown contend, as do other direct instruction advocates, that the problem isn't the children. "They just weren't taught properly," says Brown.

That's a great way to start a brawl. Direct instruction, also used in some MPS schools, is controversial because it's at odds with decades of "progressive" thought in education. So, too, is the idea of immersion in English.

If you think bettering education is mainly about enforcing consensus, then you may see the flourishing of St. Anthony's as dangerous. If you're inclined to let educators - and parents - see what works, then
choice is worthwhile.

This doesn't necessitate private school (my own children attend one). In MPS, parents can pick from a variety of approaches, thanks to reform-minded leaders. But even public-school choice, especially charter schools, faces attack, too.

Meanwhile, St. Anthony's enrollment has doubled since 2003 because it offers what parents want. Natalie volunteers that, some days, she doesn't take off her uniform when she gets home because she likes
being in school that much.

Patrick McIlheran is a Journal Sentinel editorial columnist. His
e-mail address is pmcilheran@journalsentinel.com For Friday's column about choice at St. Anthony's

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
November 6, 2007
How choice is a path to Americanization
Patrick McIlheran
LINK

You walk through St. Anthony's School on Milwaukee's south side, and you'll notice the framed art. Here's a row of Renaissance masterpieces. Islamic art is along another hallway.

None of it is decorative. The Chinese prints are near the fourth-grade classrooms because the fourth-graders study China. The school's tight control of its curriculum aims to give students the cultural literacy that a well-educated American needs. The urgency of the task - practically all its students are from low-income, immigrant families - means that even the walls are lessons.

Earlier, I wrote that St. Anthony's, by far the largest elementary school in Milwaukee's private school choice program, shows how parents can opt for rigor and that choice schools can take on tough tasks. The school has one more lesson: Choice can bypass arguments that wrack education.

A big one is what to teach about American culture. Do children, for instance, chiefly need to see George Washington as the model for subsequent American leaders - or as a racist slaveholder? Textbooks
reflect these fights. One popular text, used in Milwaukee's public high schools, says the significance of the Andrew Jackson era lies in the persecution of Indians. If we can't agree on the nation's narrative, how can we agree what children will learn of it?

This has consequences. Half or more of high schoolers can't place the Civil War in the right half-century, surveys aver. It fuels doubts about immigration. As immigration scholar John Fonte puts it, immigration once worked because we demanded that immigrants adopt the story of America as their own - "you start thinking of America as we, not they." But with the growing view among elites that we're a sort of collection of cultures more than a nation, there's been "a downgrading of the American message to the mmigrants," says Fonte. It's no surprise that more people question how much immigration we can take.

This idea of social cohesion is also one of the arguments used against school choice. Yet at St. Anthony's, the curriculum is, if anything, traditionally Americanizing. The Renaissance art is up because children need to understand the western culture that led to America. The school's history series, says president Terry Brown, emphasizes a classic approach - great people, great events. "We don't need to psychoanalyze each event," he says.

For the majority of St. Anthony's students who come from immigrant families, this doesn't discard their past. Like my children's school, the place is Catholic, decidedly so: There's weekly Mass. During Advent, children walk the posada; they celebrate the feast of the three kings, as in Mexico. The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Marian devotion central to Mexican Catholicism, hangs in each room. For children learning a new, American identity, their families' moral foundations remain intact.

The school can do this, says Brown, because it is a choice school. Obviously, a public school can't incorporate Catholicism. But St. Anthony's is freer to take a traditionalist approach to culture and history, too, because parents came voluntarily. If they wanted the more usual "progressive" approach, they'd have chosen that.

As with any choice school, no one has to take religion. The school has Sikh and Muslim students, Brown says. The teachers are respectful - the parents, after all, can leave at any time.

Yet they don't. Instead, enrollment's doubled since 2003. That a strong dose of Americanization and faith doesn't repel Latino families fits with what polls tell us. The Pew Hispanic Survey last month found that while Latino immigrants are ambivalent about whether moral values are better in the United States than in their native countries, they're 10 times as likely to say that U.S. political traditions are better. This suggests families want some Americanization for their children.

They should get it. After nativist laws in the 19th century tried discouraging Catholic education, it was Catholic schools that became most full-throated in instilling patriotism during the 20th century. Far from diminishing immigrants' Americanism, faith was an anchor as they took on a new national identity.

We can see this repeated at Milwaukee's largest choice school. And because it is chosen, even this traditional Americanization isn't forced on anyone.

How very American.

Patrick McIlheran is a Journal Sentinel editorial columnist.

The Math War Against "fuzzy math"

 
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