Scott Girard:

NEA President Becky Pringle and AFT President Randi Weingarten both spoke at the event as well, thanking the educators for their work and building excitement as the school year approaches. Baldwin thanked both of those leaders for their efforts on behalf of teachers.

“In the face of repeated attacks on organized labor in states like Wisconsin, AFT and NEA keep showing up to do the work on behalf of their membership,” she said.

Verona Area School District Superintendent Tremayne Clardy, a former Madison Metropolitan School District administrator, said he believed Biden chose Verona as her destination Thursday because the district has started to become a model “for true collaboration between teachers unions and administration.”

“We work collaboratively because we want the same thing, we want our kids to thrive, we want our students to have the best experience possible,” Clardy said. “When we come to the table and we work collaboratively to do that, that’s when the partnership works best and it’s absolutely fabulous.”

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

April Rubin:

Americans en masse are dissatisfied with the country’s schools. But parents feel pretty good about their own kids’ education.

Why it matters: A divide between parents with first-hand experience of U.S. schools and the rest of the country has gotten worse since the onset of the pandemic and a rise in political polarization.

• Schooling has been pushed to the center of Supreme Court decisions, state politics and the 2024 GOP presidential primary.
• At the same time, students are performing worse on standardized tests and facing social-emotional challenges.

What’s happening: 76% of parents believe their K-12 students are receiving a quality education, according to new data from an annual Gallup survey.

• But just 36% of adults overall said they were satisfied with K-12 education in the country

Nicholas Kelly:

Education was a big winner of a bipartisan agreement in the recently enacted state budget. Public schools will receive an increase of more than $1 billion. Per pupil spending for Wisconsin’s private school choice programs will grow by $2,000 to $3,000 per student. 

Even after these historic funding increases, state payments to schools in the parental choice programs will still be less than 70 percent of the funding per student that public schools receive.

With the substantial new education spending, what’s the bang for the buck? What’s the return to Wisconsin taxpayers from their investments in public schools and the parental choice programs? At School Choice Wisconsin, we wanted to find out.

Our approach relied on publicly available data at the Department of Public Instruction’s website. To measure results, we used DPI Report Cards, which provide a comprehensive assessment of how the agency ranks public schools and schools in the choice programs. To measure funds invested, we used DPI data on per pupil public school revenue and state payments for pupils in the choice programs.

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Douglas Belkin:

During the 2021-2022 school year, male professors earned an average salary of $153,238 while female professors earned $139,322—or 10% less, according to the suit. The pay gap has ranged between 7.6% and 14.6% since 2003.

Eugene Volokh:

From Griffin v. University of Maine System, decided Aug. 16 by Chief Judge Jon Levy (D. Me.):

Plaintiff Patricia Griffin’s employment as a [tenured] Professor of Marketing at the University of Southern Maine was terminated by the University of Maine System … in September 2021…. Griffin asserts that her termination was unlawful retaliation for her having spoken out against the University’s facemask and vaccination policies adopted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic….

On August 18, 2021, in preparation for the University’s fall semester, the Chancellor of the University of Maine System announced a mandatory mask policy (the “Policy”). On August 24, Griffin participated in a luncheon meeting via Zoom at which Cummings was a speaker. She alleges that during the event, [University President Glenn Cummings] did not wear a mask. On the same day, Griffin sent an email to the Dean of the College of Management and Human Service pertaining to the University’s recently implemented mask and vaccine policies. The email reads in pertinent part:

I first want to say how much I love teaching at [the University of Southern Maine] as well as working with such a great faculty. It really has been the highlight of my career and I owe a lot to you for sticking with me. The reason for this email is because I have been following the science, data, and evidence regarding SARS-CoV-2 and searching for anything that will support wearing a mask while indoors as well as vaccinating an entire school population as the optimal method for stopping the transmission of the virus. The reality is that my research has found no evidence to support these measures. I wanted to share the information I gathered and relied upon when making my decision regarding these mandates before the start of classes next Monday to see that my decisions are science, evidence, and data based. However, I do not want to cause any issues, especially for you, if I come to campus on Monday morning to teach my one face to face class so I wanted to give you enough time.

Griffin attached a separate letter to her email, also addressed to the Dean, summarizing the results of her research on the effectiveness of mask mandates and vaccines. She concluded the letter as follows:

Vanessa McCray:

Georgia’s public universities can no longer require job applicants to submit a diversity statement, prompting schools to revise faculty hiring practices.According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the University System of Georgia in July issued a new employee recruitment policy barring such statements, typically one-to-two-page documents in which applicants describe their understanding of diversity and detail experiences and goals related to advancing it. Another revised human resources policy states that mandatory employee training cannot include diversity statements.The University System pointed to language approved in the spring by the Georgia Board of Regents as the trigger for the prohibition.“The Board of Regents in April released a statement of principles regarding academic freedom and freedom of expression that, among other things, affirmed that the University System of Georgia values the diversity of intellectual thought and expression among students and faculty as well as the need for faculty to be unburdened by ideological tests, affirmations and oaths,” the system said in a statement in response to questions from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.Georgia’s new language around hiring comes amid broader questioning of campus diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts.The Georgia Professional Standards Commission earlier this year removed references to “diversity” and “equity” from its rules that guide colleges that train prospective teachers, saying such terms are “ambiguous.”This summer, Chancellor Sonny Perdue produced a report detailing millions of dollars of spending on DEI salaries and programs after Lt. Gov. Burt Jones asked how much such efforts cost Georgia’s 26 public colleges and universities. Jones has voiced concern about using taxpayer dollars to promote “divisive concepts like DEI.”Two-thirds of University System instructional faculty members are white, compared to 45% of all students, according to fall 2022 data.

Emilia David:

The US Copyright Office is opening a public comment period around AI and copyright issues beginning August 30th as the agency figures out how to approach the subject. 

As announced in the Federal Register, the agency wants to answer three main questions: how AI models should use copyrighted data in training; whether AI-generated material can be copyrighted even without a human involved; and how copyright liability would work with AI. It also wants comments around AI possibly violating publicity rights but noted these are not technically copyright issues. The Copyright Office said if AI does mimic voices, likenesses, or art styles, it may impact state-mandated rules around publicity and unfair competition laws. 

Written comments are due on October 18th, and replies must be submitted to the Copyright Office by November 15th. 

The copyright status of AI training data and the output of generative AI tools has become a hot topic for politicians, artists, authors, and even civil rights groups, making it a potential testing ground for coming AI regulation. The Copyright Office says that “over the past several years, the Office has begun to receive applications to register works containing AI-generated material.” It may use the comments to inform how it decides to grant copyright in the future.

David Blaska:

Not even cows are sacred in Wisconsin, anymore. They’re being blamed for global climate change and funky ground water. But at least three sacred cows remain: The Packers, deer hunting season, and — among progressives — the University of Wisconsin. 

Dare question UW system spending and you are labeled a poor man south of Richmond. Who can’t sing. And fodder for progressive enemies lists. 

“GOP leaders saw fit to cut yet another $32 million from the system because it supports diversity and equity programs. At least we now know who the real con artists are,” Dave Zweifel condemns at The Capital Times.  Um, teaching that “downplaying white advantage” is racist, as DEI guru Robin DiAngelo instructs, is NOT teaching history, black or white.

Others might credit Wisconsin Republicans for making college more affordable. After all, they did freeze tuition the past 10 years — not that Dane County’s progressive voice would ever divulge.

Don Surber:

When the public votes down a school tax levy, the protocol is for the school superintendent to threaten to eliminate sports and shutter schools. Then the school boards hold levy elections until the public finally passes one. Then the school board and its superintendent go on their merry way and back to ignoring the public.

Where do you think Mel Brooks came up with the idea of Sheriff Bart holding himself hostage in Blazing Saddles?

The Sheriff Bart model applies to higher education, which faces cutbacks as fewer young Americans are enrolling in college because people with degrees have flooded the job market. 

E. Gordon Gee, president of West Virginia University, is following the Sheriff Bart playbook by stripping away $45 million worth of programs — including the entire world languages program — as he overspent the budget and must trim just under 4% of the school’s $1.2 billion budget.

John Miller:

The lyrics of the 1981 song “Red Barchetta” by the Canadian rock band Rush describe the thrill of racing a vintage roadster in a future when driving is illegal. “I commit my weekly crime,” sings vocalist Geddy Lee, in an era governed by “the motor law” and policed by “a gleaming alloy air car.” That dystopian vision seems a faraway fantasy, but motorists in Michigan may think of it when they learn about a state plan to use Global Positioning System devices to track mileage and tax drivers based on road usage.

Michigan’s new state budget, which Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed on July 31, authorizes spending $5 million on a survey to gauge consumer attitudes about the concept. The answer officials receive probably will depend on the wording of the question. If they want to avoid a libertarian freak-out, they should try something other than “Do you want Big Brother in your passenger seat?” Debate over the proposal will test the public’s tolerance of surveillance technology—and foreshadow an even more contentious dispute over the freedom to drive.

Budget officials around the country have worried for years that the rise of electric vehicles will lead to fewer drivers paying traditional gasoline taxes, which are often devoted to road construction and repair. In Michigan, a report sponsored by county governments found that the state already has lost $50 million in taxes that electric-car owners didn’t pay at the pump between 2019 and 2021. That’s only a fraction of the roughly $1.5 billion that Michigan collects annually from fuel taxes, but the losses could climb to $470 million by 2030, when perhaps a quarter of all vehicles plug in for their power.

If electric vehicles render gasoline taxes obsolete, states will have to figure out new ways to fill potholes and resurface roads. Funds could come from general revenue, though people with short commutes will end up subsidizing the travel of those who spend long hours behind the wheel.

AnnMarie Hilton:

Districts across Wisconsin saw students struggle with regular attendance in the years after transitioning back from virtual learning during the pandemic.

There’s a plethora of reasons why a student may miss school, but mental health has increasingly become a barrier to students showing up each day.

Almost half of high schoolers in the Appleton Area School District were chronically absent meaning they missed at least 10% of school — about 18 days — in the 2021-22 school year. That number improved significantly last year, but the district said attendance is still a priority.

For the 2021-22 school year, almost 23% — roughly a quarter — of all students statewide were chronically absent, according to the most current data from the state Department of Public Instruction.