Herb Kohl at 13. Bud Selig at 13. The solid base of the next generation of Milwaukeeans, not only future senators and baseball commissioners, but future tool-and-die makers and teachers, accountants and business owners, professionals and laborers of all kinds.
That was then at Steuben Middle School.
This is now:
“I have five assignments, I have 33 students. Why do I only have five assignments?” eighth-grade science teacher Yolanda Williams asks her class.
A few more comments from Steuben Middle School.
MPS Direct Reading Approach
Sarah Carr writes that a drill-oriented approach to teaching reading is gaining followers in Milwaukee public school classrooms. In 1998, 15 MPS schools used direct instruction. Today, about 47 schools do.
But some critics say drill-based reading method hurts students.
“There’s such tremendous pressure on teachers and administrators to advance reading scores that they are literally desperate to try new things they think will bring them success,” said Randall Ryder, a professor in the department of curriculum and instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Last month, Ryder completed a study concluding that students in direct instruction classrooms fared worse than students taught using other reading methods.
But Dolores Mishelow, a former principal and one of the leading backers of direct instruction within MPS, said: “I get really upset when people bash it, because I know that it works.”
Requiem for the Record Store
File sharing, online music sales and high cd prices are taking their toll on record stores. [Washington Post]
The market for legally downloadable music is tiny today, but the success of Apple’s iTunes online music store and the rush of rival services to the marketplace is expected to gobble up an ever-larger share of the pop music pie. A recent study by Forrester Research, which examines technology trends, predicts that in five years fully one-third of all music will be delivered through modems, and the CD itself will be passe, if not obsolete, in the years after. This isn’t necessarily bad news for the record labels, but it could be lethal for brick-and-mortar stores.
90,000 Cow Dairy Herd?
A pair of Californian entrepreneurs want to turn an empty lake bed just east of town into a non-polluting dairy farm for 90,000 cows, and to convert the cows’ prodigious produce of manure and flatulence into a renewable form of energy. This ?cowtown?, which will cover 1,900 acres, is the brainchild of William Buck Johns and Henry Orlosky.
See also the Harper Lake Energy Project.
The Fog of War
McNamara speaks at Berkeley.
Robert McNamara, the defense secretary in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, fielded questions from center stage in a packed auditorium at his alma mater, the University of California, Berkeley, for the first time since graduating in 1937.
Webcast
Since Errol Morris’s (a UW Grad) The Fog of War” was released last year, Mr. McNamara has appeared before several audiences, including those at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado, the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston and one last month in Washington.
Dean makes a Wisconsin Play
Howard Dean raised $600K online yesterday – for the Wisconsin Primary. However and unfortunately (for the internet), he’s raising money on the net and blowing it on TV ads. He (and other politicians) would be far better off investing in the internet, educating voters and growing their base via email, web pages, chats, “social networks” and other emerging tools.
Internet use is growing while TV/newspaper users are declining.
Unfortunately, Dean’s new campaign manager is a former telco lobbyist.
RIP Crazylegs
Mike Lucas looks back at a few of Elroy Hirsch’s “Crazyleg’s” memorable moments.
I seem to remember being in a Minneapolis bar years ago after a football game where Elroy bought a round – evidently, this was not unusual.
Organic Valley
LaFarge based Organic Valley is a $184 million company with dairy, meat and egg producers in 16 states and one Canadian province. It’s the third largest brand name in the entire organic foods industry, according to the latest Mike Ivey Column.
Virtual School Marketing
Anne Davis writes: “Wisconsin Connections Academy, Wisconsin Virtual Academy and, in particular, the just-approved iQ Academies at Wisconsin are using paid advertisements, billboards and direct mail to woo students during the state’s three-week annual open enrollment period that begins Monday and runs through Feb. 20.”
No matter what they spend, Northern Ozaukee school Superintendent Bill Harbron is asking K12 representatives to make some adjustments to their marketing approach this time around to avoid overselling the school.
After a short but intense campaign last year, the virtual academy received more than 1,000 applications. About 455 students actually enrolled, and the enrollment has continued to drop ever since as parents have discovered the program doesn’t fit their needs, Harbron said.
“There’s no sense recruiting a large number of students (and) then having them enter the program and drop out,” Harbron said. “We want parents to make a very realistic choice for their child.”
Fifth Avenue American Girl Store
Doris Hajewski updates us on Mattel’s American Girl Company (formerly the Pleasant Company), including their new Fifth Avenue store. American Girl, based in Middleton, was sold to Mattel by Pleasant Rowland for $700M in 1998.
$100M of the proceeds is funding Madison’s Overture Center for the Arts.