Tonight is the regularly scheduled business meeting of the RUSD School board. Among the items on the agenda are the results from the latest Edulog study (the one used for redistricting) and a presentation on a 5-year balanced budget.
If you have never attended a board meeting, I suggest you start tonight. Here's a couple of things you should look for in tonight's meeting:
1. Does the Edulog study support increased busing for socio-economic status?
2. Does the 5 year "balanced" budget include money for security, maintenance, or technology? Or will these programs rely on the district passing another referendum?
3. Is the budget really balanced? How can the district state the budget is balanced when we do not know what the State of Wisconsin will be giving the school district in its next biennial budget? Governor Doyle has shortchanged the schools and not lived up to the promise of 2/3 funding in the past, and the state is currently facing huge deficits.
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Hi Brenda-
Stumbled onto your blog posts regarding Edulog (I worked for that company for nearly 5 years, ending in 2002).
While I'm not keen on the specifics of the Edulog study, I may be able to shed some light on the rationale behind some of the common practices used when doing a demographic study such as the one done at RUSD.
First, regarding the 2,400 students that were dropped from the study: again, I don't know anything about the specs in the study's contract, but common practice is to assume that magnet/charter school students will maintain that school assignment after redistricting. While it's true that assignment to a new school may tip the scales toward a parent/student opting for a public school (due to location, bus ride time, quality of school, etc.), it's more common that the magnet/charter was originally chosen because of something specific to that student's educational needs, and re-districting won't change that decision except in a very small (5% or less) portion of the time.
As for increased busing for socio-economic status, again, I don't know the specifics, but every study I worked on included several different iterations, including building in "buffers" (varying the fill percentage of bus capacity) and taking into account any distric-specific political issues. If increased busing for socio-economic factors has been a hot button in Racine, chances are the scenario was included in the study.
Hope this helps.
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