Educating Allied Drive kids is like trying to hit moving targets
6:14 PM 4/23/04
Andy Hall and Dean Mosiman Wisconsin State Journal

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Like the children of Allied Drive, social worker Dan Wood is on the move. <

Wood, a Detroit native who's worked 28 years for the Madison School District, co-founded a soccer club to build ties with Allied Drive families and give boys a chance to excel and build self-esteem. <

But it now takes him an hour to pick up his team, driving his Isuzu Trooper west to Middleton and east to Stoughton Road. <

"These are all kids who used to live in Allied in the past eight months," he said. "The mobility kills us." <

The constant migration of Allied Drive residents is fueled by unstable family relationships, failure to pay rent, legal problems and the desire to find better housing elsewhere. <

One of the least-understood school problems, Wood said, is how the apartment hopping of Allied Drive's families interferes with the education of the 600 children from the neighborhood attending Madison schools and the 500 attending Verona schools. <

On average, every Allied Drive student in Madison moves once a year to a new school. <

Although the mobility rate has dropped sharply since the late 1990s, it remains 38 percent higher than the district average. <

Just as it disrupts the education of the migrating students, and slows the pace of learning for entire classrooms, the high mobility rate hampers efforts to build the Allied Drive community, Wood said. <

Wood, well-recognized throughout Allied Drive with his white hair and beard, said he spends half his time helping newcomers from places such as Chicago, Milwaukee, the Twin Cities, Beloit and Janesville. He helps students get into Madison schools and maintain transportation so they can stay in a school even after their families move across town. <

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The children of Allied Drive are scattered among at least 30 schools in the Madison and Verona districts. Children in the Fitchburg portions of Allied Drive attend Verona schools. Those in the city of Madison section of the neighborhood attend Madison schools. Madison disperses them to put them among middle-class children. Verona's attendance boundaries divide its part of the neighborhood. <

Although state reading test scores and other indicators show many Allied Drive students in both school districts have been failing for years, the districts are just beginning to talk about joint efforts. <

Allied Drive children in Madison are concentrated in Thoreau, Stephens and Crestwood elementary schools; Jefferson and Cherokee middle schools; and Memorial and West high schools. <

The concept of an Allied Drive school died years ago. <

"I feel sorry for Allied Drive in a way because it has been bounced around," said Paul Bishop, principal of Madison's Jefferson Middle School, which has about 60 Allied Drive students. "It would be nice to have a home for Allied - one school that works with the neighborhood at each level." <

The district disperses Allied Drive students, Madison schools Superintendent Art Rainwater said, because research by national urban expert David Rusk and others shows that test scores of low-income students improve when they are surrounded by middle-class classmates. <

To boost learning and strengthen connections within the neighborhood, the district offers computers and after-school programs - open to Madison students only - at its Allied Learning Center on Allied Drive. <

Rainwater called the district's strategy "relatively successful" but acknowledged shortcomings in its handling of poverty and race, despite more than 15 years of effort. <

"There is no school district that has the solution," said Rainwater, whose district has teamed with 15 others nationwide to combat the racial achievement gap. <

"The truth is this is a national problem that we really and truly need to come to grips with. ... We just can't ever have an excuse." <

The district is already addressing key problems such as third-grade reading and attendance, he said. <

A Wisconsin State Journal comparison of Allied Drive students to the overall Madison district population and residents of three other low-income neighborhoods from 1998 to 2003 reveals a few reasons for optimism - and some disturbing patterns: <

The percentage of Allied Drive students who "passed" the state third-grade reading test increased sharply. Yet it remained worse than those in other troubled Madison neighborhoods. <

The rising scores among third-graders reflect changes, such as smaller class sizes, the district has made as it designated reading a top priority, Rainwater said. <

The reading skills of 10th-graders in Allied Drive declined. With just a third passing the state test, the students fell below other poor neighborhoods. <

"That's a huge problem, yes, absolutely," Rainwater said. <

The district has made changes at lower grades that should produce results at 10th grade, he said. But to help older students catch up, "we're going to have to do some remedial things as a school district and a community," he said. <

The suspension rate of Allied Drive students rose slightly and was highest last year, when it was more than double the district rate. <

Rainwater said a task force of district and community leaders expects to report in late spring on how behavior problems are handled, what could be done to prevent confrontations and how to help children feel more welcome at school. <

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The graduation rate of Allied Drive students improved, but it remained the district's worst. <

The district, Rainwater said, is sending social workers to roust students to improve attendance in middle and high schools, and trying to strengthen connections between students and teachers. <

More work is needed on graduation rates, Rainwater said, because "without it, you close almost all the doors to your adulthood." He praised the work of community groups such as 100 Black Men and Links, African-American service organizations, to provide role models to students. <

The Verona schools, at the request of the State Journal, compiled a first-ever comparison of achievement and socioeconomic patterns in Allied Drive, other neighborhoods and the overall district. The stark conclusion: Allied Drive students attending Verona schools fare little, if any, better than those in Madison schools. <

The data are so troubling that the Verona School Board will have a retreat to develop strategies for improvements, Superintendent Bill Conzemius said. <

The data and additional research by the newspaper show that: <

The Verona district's poor students are concentrated in a tiny Allied Drive area. Students from Chalet Gardens, in the western portion of the Allied Drive area, and Belmar Hills, in the east, account for a third of district students qualifying for free lunches. <

More than half of students living in Chalet Gardens, and a third of the students living in Belmar Hills, were not in the district the previous full academic year. <

Students in Chalet Gardens and Belmar Hills had the lowest reading scores in the district on state tests. Only a third of Chalet Gardens students in grades 5 through 11 passed the most recent reading test. <

A third of the district's African-American students, and 41 percent of its Hispanic students, live in Chalet Gardens and Belmar Hills. <

The district has a racial achievement gap. Poor black and Latino students fare worst. And even low-income white students score higher on reading and math tests than black and Latino students who live in higher-income families. <

At Stoner Prairie Elementary, where nearly all the black students come from the Allied Drive area, just 38 percent of black students passed the fourth-grade reading test while 94 percent of whites got scores of proficient or advanced. <

"We need to do better. We know that," said Conzemius, who has begun meeting with Madison's Rainwater and other officials on the problems. <

Jenny Braunginn, a social worker at Verona Area High School who has worked with Allied Drive students for more than a decade, said the district faces the same challenges as Madison - plus a bigger transportation problem. <

Unlike students living in Madison, those living in the Fitchburg portions of Allied Drive can't use city buses to travel to and from school. <

Many parents lack cars, or time to serve as shuttles, and the one-way cab fare is at least $20. Students with a midday medical appointment may miss a whole day of school because no transportation is available. <

The district has regular morning and afternoon bus routes and makes late runs from the high school to Allied Drive at 4:30 and 5:30 p.m., but that's still too early for some students staying for sports or drama practices. <

Too few residents of Fitchburg and Verona realize that hundreds of children in their communities come to school with worries about homelessness, teen-age pregnancy, fights at home and sexual assaults, Braunginn said. <

Wood, the Madison school social worker who knows the children of Allied Drive as well as anyone, estimated that 30 percent to 45 percent live in solid families, 15 percent are from deeply troubled homes and the rest are pulled in both directions. <

"The need is so huge," Wood said, "it's not going to be possible unless we do things very differently." <

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Wisconsin State Journal reporter Dee J. Hall contributed to this report. <

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Contact Dean Mosiman at dmosiman@madison.com or 252-6141, and Andy Hall at ahall@madison.com or 252-6136. <

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