The past and present foretell the future – at least that’s the case when it comes to the forecast by Milwaukee Public Schools officials for enrollment for next year.
Look for another down year for the main roster of MPS schools and for more city kids to attend school in the suburbs and charter schools not staffed by MPS teachers, Superintendent William Andrekopoulos says in a new report to the School Board.
A third of all Milwaukee children receiving publicly funded education are doing so outside of the main roster of Milwaukee Public Schools, a fact that sheds important light on the educational landscape of the city. I looked at the current figures for this year in my weekly column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Sunday.
That figure is likely to go up a notch – maybe from 33 to 34 percent, maybe a bit higher — next year.
The forecast from Andrekopoulos’ team says the traditional MPS system — all those primary, middle and high schools you see around the city – will enroll 75,154 students next year, down 3.4 percent from 77,767 this ... Read more..
Archive for November, 2009
A number of my ERISA friends have sent me the case of Braden v. Wal-Mart Stores, No. 08-3798 (8th Cir. Nov. 25, 2009). The case involves a class action dispute, alleging breach of fiduciary issues in the way that Wal-Mart managed its profit sharing and 401(k) retirement plans:
The gravamen of the complaint is that appellees failed adequately to evaluate the investment options included in the Plan. It alleges that the process by which the mutual funds were selected was tainted by appellees’ failure to consider trustee Merrill Lynch’s interest in including funds that shared their fees with the trustee. The result of these failures, according to Braden, is that some or all of the investment options included in the Plan charge excessive fees. He estimates that these fees have unnecessarily cost the Plan some $60 million over the past six years and will continue to waste approximately $20 million per year . . . .
Braden alleges extensive facts in support of these claims. He claims that Wal-
Mart’s retirement plan is relatively large and that plans of such size have ... Read more..
We are only a week away from the beginning of the highly anticipated global climate summit in Copenhagen. I recently took part in a mock negotiation session (I represented Mexico), and I can attest to just how difficult it will be to reach any agreement at the summit – even, as has been suggested lately, an agreement in principle without a formally binding treaty. World leaders recognized as much at the recent Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, and admitted that it was unrealistic to expect that a legally binding international treaty could be negotiated at Copenhagen. From the basics of climate science to poverty abatement, the issues that divide the parties are vast. Those issues have been discussed extensively, so I will instead point out three recent events that may affect the likelihood of a deal:
November 20, 2009: An electronic break-in at the University of East Anglia reveals documents and e-mails that appear to show intent to withhold or manipulate certain data; quickly dubbed “Climategate” by climate skeptics, the leaks are at best embarrassing for prominent climate scientists.
November 25, ... Read more..
I was interested in Lisa LaPlante’s post on torture. It came hard upon my attendance at a conference on Christian Realism in which the matter of hard choices got quite the attention. My comment got so long that I’ve decided to make it a post. I offer it here in the interest of stirring up some controversy to wake us from the haze of our tryptophan coma.
Lisa, commenting on the recent film Men Who Stare At Goats, asks if we are Cassidy or Hooper? I haven’t seen the movie, but the question strikes me as too simple. We are both and perhaps we should be.
What I have found frustrating in the debate over torture and interrogation is the failure of both “sides” to draw potentially relevant distinctions and to speak clearly. For example, what does it mean to say that the Bush administration “regularly” engaged in torture? There is certainly no evidence that it “regularly” engaged in waterboarding. To make that claim seems to require the adoption of a highly controverted definition of torture. (In fact, there does not even seem to ... Read more..
According to a report released by the U.S. Census Bureau, child support is paid in less that half of all cases where it is owed.
In a difficult economy with more and more people having financial problems, the issue of child support comes to the forefront, as single parents work hard to stay afloat.
Some noncustodial parents in tough financial straits are seeking reductions in child support as a means of relief, and others simply don’t make payments, all while many single parents below the poverty line depend on child support for nearly half of their income.
Highlighting the crucial role that child support plays in the lives of separated parents, the U.S. Census Bureau recently released a report detailing the findings of a survey conducted in 2008 that focused on child support and child custody issues among parents.
According to the report, in 2008 there were 13.7 million parents in the United States who had custody of 21.8 million children under 21, while the other parent lived somewhere else. Of those 13.7 million parents, 7.4 million had a child support agreement or court ... Read more..
