When and How Children Learn Research

Universal Pre-Kindergarten

Child Development Timeline:

• Executive Function begins at 6 months (a set of skills that relies on three types of brain function: working memory, mental flexibility, and self-control).
• At sixteen months, a difference in vocabulary can be seen between children of low, modest, and high-income children.

• By age two, scientists can predict 3rd-grade reading scores.
• Chronic stress impedes development; poverty is the primary driver of this stress.
• Eighty percent of brain development happens by 3.

• By age 3, children with college-educated parents or primary caregivers had vocabularies 2 to 3 times larger than those whose parents had not completed high school.
• All parties (scientists, MDE, etc.) agree kindergarten readiness is a prime determinate at how children will do in schools.
• “U.S. Dept. of Education Finds 6 out of 10 Kids Unprepared for Kindergarten”

Common Sense Questions:

1- If researchers can predict third grade reading scores at age two, isn’t age four too late to make a significant impact?

2- If 80% of brain development happens by age 3, isn’t age 4 too late for intervention?

3- If a child has a vocabulary of 250 words and another has a vocabulary of 1,600 by age three can the child with the lower ever catch up? Age four intervention will have little impact.

A $600 Million in age four Universal Pre-Kindergarten is a waste of taxpayers monies.

Consequences of this policy are alarming!

• Daycares are required to staff by age, for example when providing services for babies, the daycare must have one adult per four babies. Four-year-old children have the highest number of children per adult. Taking the four-year-old out of daycare, even for 1/2 day makes the daycare industry less viable.
• Politicians supporting UPK are actually helping keep the impoverished children down. Spending the same amount of money on high-quality daycare for impoverished families would like the next generation out of poverty. Studies have shown that there is up to a $16 Return of Investment for monies invested in this area. For example, the return starts as early as kindergarten, with fewer dollars being invested in special ed.

Too Many School Districts

It is important to note that the number schools would continue. The addition or removal of a building would continue in the same manner it does today, based on supply and demand.

The 2015-16 data base from the DPI website shows 450 districts, servicing about 867,000 students

The bottom 100 districts have a total of 26,418 students, the top 100 districts serve a total of 591,905. Over half of the districts have less than 1,000 students. There are TWENTY-FOUR districts with two hundred or fewer students in the whole district.

Many districts face challenges that in private industry would affect their existence. Including:

• Attracting highly qualified school board members. Does the board show an understanding of finances, human resources, educational needs, social needs, and many more skills necessary to manage a multimillion-dollar organization? Do they understand state law? ­­­­­
• Expenses continue to rise
  • Technology, to both, run the district and used it in the classrooms.
  • Administrative staff
    • Average Superintendents’ salary in Wisconsin is $160,469, according to Salary.com.

School Superintendent in Wisconsin

• 

• Compliance with state law

• Results, are the children existing schools with the basic knowledge to compete in today’s global economy?

The average ACT composite in Wisconsin show results statewide of 19.4 out of 36. This equates to the 46 percentiles, (out of every 100 districts tested 54 districts tested higher) or below average.  

Decisions that taxpayers and voters should consider:

What is most important for our children, high quality of education, or having a local school board, because unfortunately, it appears those are the two choices.

District consolidation does not mean losing the school in town, assuming current facilities are economically viable. School names, sports teams and pride would continue. Even representation on the school board is divided by geographic boundaries, so representation would still be intact.

District consolidation means combining district administration to support the local schools, to reduce costs and improve educational outcomes for all students. Assuming a district of 1,500 students with three buildings were combined with a district of 6,500 with 10 buildings. Combined 8,000 students in 13 buildings. All buildings need onsite administration, so little would change in the buildings.

A district of 8,000 students needs only one superintendent, one finance officer, one human resource officer and one curriculum director, a facilities manager to name a few. These are all highly compensated jobs.

District Consolidation History

Between 1940 and 2006 there has been a consolidation of school districts from 117,000 to about 14,000.

From a cost savings to a product improvement there are many reasons for district consolidation.

‘For cost reasons, it may be economically difficult or impossible for small districts to offer courses such as advanced placement, vocational, or foreign languages. (Berliner, 1990).

From

Size Matters: A Look at School District Consolidation

Ulrich Boser, August 2013

Conclusion

“In the end, size matters and the continued existence of small, nonremote school districts may represent $1 billion dollars in lost costs every year—money that could and most certainly should—be put to better use. States, districts, and policymakers need to think of better ways to support these small districts and recognize that an education system designed 200 years ago may no longer be the right system today.

These are politically contentious and challenging issues, to be sure. And small districts are not the only problem; there are many districts that have grown too large and suffer under the problem of diseconomies of scale.

But with lagging student achievement, we need to make sure every school dollar is spent wisely, and that often means experimenting with different solutions, ideas, and strategies to improve educational outcomes. Most importantly, what our nation needs to do is a much better job at setting clear standards and giving local school leaders the flexibility and incentives they need to figure out the solutions that will work best in positively impacting student achievement.”

Western Wisconsin School District Consolidation (Proposed)

Reducing administrations from 11 to 3. In each case the three remaining districts are totally manageable. Removing administration costs from eight districts would allow the remaining districts to significantly improve their product offering or increase the quality of their products.

These changes would save the TAXPAYERS in Wisconsin over $1 billion. Enough to make a real change by supporting impoverished children.