Capital Times Summary

Sandy Flores Ruiz, a senior and student editor at Simpson Street Free Press, won first place in the Wisconsin Newspaper Association Foundation’s annual Civics Games contest.

Flores Ruiz said she chose to focus on former Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his “Red Scare” tactics because it reminded her of how stifled students often feel when they want to talk openly about controversial topics. Her essay notes that a famous television journalist showed courage in exposing McCarthy while many others stayed silent.

Scott Girard:

Seven years later, Bah had improved her writing and journalism skills enough to receive the Wisconsin Journalism Education Association’s “2023 Wisconsin Journalist of the Year” recognition and is now competing for the title of National High School Journalist of the Year through the national Journalism Education Association.

Bah recently spoke with the Cap Times about the award and her budding journalism career, as she hopes to pursue English, journalism or “something in that realm” at a to-be-determined college next year.

Kelly Lecker:

Daniel Garduno pushed his slight frame into the circle of young adults standing around the newsroom in a Monona storefront and offered me a firm handshake, a business card and a preview of the article he was writing on volcanic activity on Mars.

By his own admission and according to his coaches at the Simpson Street Free Press, the sixth grader wasn’t so confident when he walked into the newsroom for the first time a couple years ago. But now, he quickly ticked off three ways he’s grown, thanks to this after-school news job.

Dave Zweifel:

I’ve found the perfect tonic to lift my spirits when I become depressed over this nonsensical and often dysfunctional world. I arrange a visit with the young people who are the brains and brawn behind the Simpson Street Free Press, and then my hope for the future is restored.

Ben Reddersen, one of the youth paper’s veteran staff members, arranged a meeting with several of the nonprofit’s senior staffers to relay some exciting news. The Free Press, which serves as an afterschool academic program for scores of middle- and high-schoolers, and even some elementary kids, is about to celebrate its 30th anniversary.

The highly acclaimed youth program was founded in 1992 in the old Simpson Street neighborhood by local volunteer Jim Kramer and a group of parents to improve opportunities for children. They organized a group of mostly kids of color to spend several hours after school reading and researching, writing and rewriting stories about what they learned and then publishing them in a quarterly newspaper.

Cris Cruz, 17 & Josepha Da Costa:

Negassi Tesfamichael is a former education reporter at The Capital Times. Simpson Street Free Press reporters recently had a chance to catch up with Negassi, who is finishing his first year at the Pritzker School of Law at Northwestern University. In his tenure at the Cap Times, Negassi covered important topics like the School Resource Officer debate, a changing school board, and the challenges of keeping teachers in the classroom. As Simpson Street Free Press students interested in media, Cris Cruz and Josepha Da Costa asked Negassi about his interest in the field of journalism. They were also eager to learn about his experiences in law school so far.

When did you become interested in the field of journalism? Did you major in journalism when you were in college?

I became interested in following the news a lot in middle school, partly because it was my way of getting to talk about current events. I think the 2008 election of Barack Obama got me interested in politics and current events more generally, and journalism felt like a way to participate in that. My high school had a student newspaper that I got involved in, which furthered my interest in the field as I got ready to go to college.

I majored in Political Science and English in college. Even though I did not major in journalism, I got a lot of journalism experience while working for one of UW-Madison’s college newspapers, The Daily Cardinal. I’ve met people in journalism who did major in journalism and those who didn’t — there really isn’t a right answer, as long as you find ways to get some sort of experience.

LOUISE S. ROBBINS, via a kind reader:

As the Madison School District decides which organizations and partners to fund, it should embrace — and support — the Simpson Street Free Press.

The Simpson Street student newspaper, unlike some of the district’s attempts to bridge the achievement gap between students of color and white students, has a long record of success.

I was a Schools of Hope volunteer for a short time and have been a Simpson Street volunteer for about six years. The intentions of Schools of Hope tutors are admirable, and it is important that citizens who may not have school-age children connect with the schools.

Much more on the Simpson Street free press, here.

Wisconsin Watch:

Wisconsin’s largest newspaper and a small Madison paper produced mostly by teens are among the honorees of the 2019 Openness Awards, or Opees, bestowed annually by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, along with awards to a Wausau-based citizens environmental group and a state senator who is seeking to end his colleagues’ ability to destroy records at will.

Meanwhile, the Opees recognized both Racine Alderwoman Sandra Weidner and the city of Racine, for being on opposite sides of the same issue. Weidner was honored for blowing the whistle on her city’s extraordinary effort to suppress public records, for which it received negative recognition from the Council in the form of another award.

The awards, announced today in advance of national Sunshine Week (sunshineweek.org), March 10-16, are meant to recognize outstanding efforts to protect the state’s tradition of open government, and highlight some of the threats. This is the 13th consecutive year that Opees have been given.

Much more on the excellent Simpson Street free press, here.

Simpson Street Free Press:

Madison School District Responds to Civil Rights Investigation

Are Rising MMSD Grad Rates Something to Celebrate?

Madison’s ACT College Readiness Gap

City of Madison Initiative Demonstrates Lack of Transparency

Impressive. I hope that they continue their work.

Lauren Hill:

This summer, Simpson Street Free Press is celebrating 25 years of efforts tackling Madison’s educational achievement gaps through its out-of-school literacy programs. Three assistant editors represented the organization at a Rotary Club of Madison South luncheon Monday, sharing SSFP’s plans for its 25th year.

SSFP is a literacy program based in South Madison dedicated to addressing the city’s educational disparities. Almost 300 students ages eight through 18 write and publish their own articles for six different newspapers, including two bilingual publications. Students also participate in book clubs, internships, writing workshops and even receive math and physics tutoring through the program.

The idea behind SSFP is based on the research-supported notion that what young students do during their out-of-school time is just as important to their education as in-school learning, explained SSFP assistant editor and UW-Madison senior Taylor Kilgore.

Teddy Nykiel, via a kind reader’s email:

About a dozen children are spread out at tables in the Simpson Street Free Press newsroom. They chat while poring over reference books and old issues of National Geographic to research stories. They jot down notes on large yellow pads.
Nancy GarduAo, a bright teenager whose immigrant parents have an elementary school education, is reading a book. She says she dreams of attending UCLA or Duke after she graduates from high school. She has already applied for more than 20 college scholarships and received a few of them. GarduÃo, 17, has been working at Simpson Street since she was 8 years old and says she struggled in school — especially with writing — before that.
“It really stinks when you’re stuck on a math problem and your friends can just go to their parents and ask for help, whereas I would have to wake up early and ride my bike to school to go talk to my teacher or something,” GarduÃo says.
Simpson Street became the place where GarduÃo could work on her writing, get help with homework and learn how to search for scholarships.
“I know my parents can’t afford it, which is why I didn’t even think I was going to go to college,” GarduÃo says. “But after getting some of those scholarships, it’s looking more realistic now.”
Simpson Street Free Press has been teaching kids to write and report for more than 20 years. The award-winning program started in a room at the Broadway-Simpson Street neighborhood center before moving across the street in 1996 to South Towne Mall. Over the years it has added more newsrooms and diversified its programming. Later this month it will launch Falk Free Press, its fourth newspaper, along with its first bilingual edition, La Prenza Libre de Simpson Street.

Simpson Street Free Press.
David Maraniss mentioned his four pillars:
1 Go there
2 Get the docs
3 Interviews
4 Organization thinking figure it out
He urged the students to focus on telling stories and to be perpetually curious.

Amber Walker:

Before she started teaching at Madison’s Black Hawk Middle School this year, Deidre Green developed an attribute all teachers need: eyes in the back of her head. She got them working as managing editor of the Simpson Street Free Press.

“From my desk in the back of the room, I could watch the entire newsroom and pay attention to everything,” she said. “I could notice if a kid was up and walking around, not on task. Now, as a classroom teacher …having that keen sense of what is happening with all of my kids is something that I’m used to.”

For 25 years, staff at the Simpson Street Free Press have refined what works to help kids become successful students, maintaining an innovative spirit in both education and journalism. They ground their work in academic outcomes, cultivating a pipeline where students write, learn to edit and sometimes return to work or volunteer as adults. In addition, they have adapted to changing demographics in Dane County and shrinking resources for print journalists.

Much more on the Simpson Street Free Press here.

Much more on Henry Tyson, here.

I invited a number of Madison people to this event, including Zach Brandon, Satya Rhodes-Conway, Joe Gothard along with The Simpson Street Free Press, Capital Times and Wisconsin State Journal.

Simpson Street Free Press:

Local Journalists Interview School Board Candidates

Simpson Street Free Press hosts Q&A session for Madison school board candidates. Questions are posed by local education reporters. You can watch the video here:

Our panel of journalists — Abbey Machtig (Wisconsin State Journal), Kayla Huynh (Cap Times), Abigail Leavins (Isthmus), Sandy Flores Ruiz (Simpson Street Free Press), and Scott Girard (former Cap Times ed-beat reporter).

The candidates are Savion Castro (seat 2 incumbent, unopposed), and Maia Pearson (seat 1 incumbent, unopposed).

The moderators are Taylor Kilgore and Leila Fletcher from Simpson Street Free Press.

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

“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?

Video

Asking questions are four local education reporters. Olivia Herken of the Wisconsin State Journal, Dylan Brogan of Isthmus and Madison City Cast, Scott Girard of The Capital Times, and Kadjata Bah of Simpson Street Free Press.

Candidates in attendance are Nicki Vander Meulen (Seat 7, Running Unopposed), Badri Lankella (Seat 6) and Blair Feltham (Seat 6).

The moderator is Taylor Kilgore, managing editor at Simpson Street Free Press.

Wyatt Bandt:

A Madison high school student was named Journalist of the Year by the Wisconsin Journalism Education Association.

Kadjtata Bah, a senior from Madison East High School, was given the title for her “outstanding background in journalistic work.” 

She began writing about topics she was interested in for the Simpson Street Free Press at the age of 11. Now, she’s one of the publication’s Senior Teen Editors, and she helps writers as old as seven grow their skills. Bah’s written on historical, cultural, political and community-focused topics.

She’s also been an intern for the Dane County Land and Water Resources Department, The Cap Times and Madison Magazine. She also works as a volunteer reporter for the Eastside news, is a staff writer for her school’s yearbook and is a staff member for her school’s broadcast program.

Simpson Street Free Press, via Dylan Brogan:

Ali Muldrow largely defended the Madison school district’s current policies while David Blaska levied broad criticism at the district’s focus on “creating anti-racist school culture and curriculum.”

“If we stopped telling people that Madison is racist, if we stopped teaching that some kids succeed all because of privilege, I think everyone would be better off,” Blaska said at the forum. “Because that’s such a disempowering message to kids.”

‘It’s a good kind of invective’

Blaska supports bringing back school resource police officers to the district’s high schools and laced his argument with jabs like calling East High School, “Fight Club East.” …

Nichols did tend to agree with Muldrow, at least in spirit, on the issues. But she also seemed to recognize that Blaska is raising the same concerns as many parents, minus the conservative blogger’s flare for invective.

More, from David Blaska:

Mandates, closed schools and Dane County Madison Public Health.

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”

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.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our 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?

David Blaska:

Thanks to the Simpson Street Free Press for hosting a Madison school board debate Thursday 03-17-22. We’ll include the link when it is posted.

Must admit, was taken aback by the Wisconsin State Journal’s question. Reporter Elizabeth Beyer asked Blaska which classrooms are teaching critical race theory?Suppose she wanted your write-in candidate for Seat #4 to rat out “Mr. Burns’ 3rd-period ancient and medieval history class at Memorial; Mrs. Hying’s 4th-period geometry class, Mr. Sorensen’s study hall at Shabazz, the lunch lady at East …

Portraying Blaska as a reincarnation of Tailgunner Joe may be payback for our scolding Ms. Beyer for writing, without a trace of attribution:

“Critical Race Theory, an academic framework that focuses on racism embedded in the nation’s laws and institutions … isn’t taught in any of Wisconsin’s K-12 schools.”

None of them! A flat-out statement of incontrovertible fact! Ms. Beyer’s story that Sunday was in service to the establishment myth that conservatives are politicizing local school board races to build a farm team for higher office. (Blaska is coming for you, Tammy!)

Mandates, closed schools and Dane County Madison Public Health.

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”

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.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our 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?

Amber Walker and Negassi Tesfamichael:

“We were glad to see you attempt to rebuild trust with parents on your very first day on the job. MMSD cannot afford to lose any more trust from its parents, students or teachers.”

For the past decade, Wisconsin schools have consistently placed first or second in the nation for the broadest achievement gaps between Black and white students. MMSD’s Black students perform below the state average. For years, both state and national standardized test scores indicate that, despite sitting in the same classrooms, Black students do not perform as well as their white peers in reading and math, across grade levels.

Black students persistently face higher suspension and expulsion rates. Some Black students and parents have expressed frustration over the years that there seem to be different standards for them versus their white peers.

The more time students spend out of school, the more likely they are to fall even further behind, increasing their likelihood of court involvement and falling victim to the school-to-prison pipeline.

Virtual learning during COVID-19 further complicates your charge to tackle all of these issues. Know that you have allies during this stressful time. Organizations like Simpson Street Free Press have managed to successfully transition to an engaging online learning model.

For over 20 years, SSFP has worked with Madison students in some of the city’s lowest-income neighborhoods who attend schools in vulnerable feeder patterns. Despite the odds, according to SSFP’s most recent annual report, over 80% of students increased reading comprehension based on MAP test results. Over 90% improved their overall GPA after two semesters in the program.

via Simpson Street Free Press

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.

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

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

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

Scott Girard:

While campaign season looks slightly different in a social distancing world, the Madison School Board races have continued this spring.

The ballot for the April 7 election includes two contested races and one uncontested seat. The five candidates participated in a virtual forum hosted by Simpson Street Free Press earlier this week.

Much more on the 2020 Madison School Board Elections, here.

Scott Girard:

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

On November 7, Superintendent Art Rainwater made his annual report to the Board of Education on progress toward meeting the district’s student achievement goal in reading. As he did last fall, the superintendent made some interesting claims about the district’s success in closing the academic achievement gap “based on race”. 

According to Mr. Rainwater, the place to look for evidence of a closing achievement gap is the comparison of the percentage of African American third graders who score at the lowest level of performance on statewide tests and the percentage of other racial groups scoring at that level. He says that, after accounting for income differences, there is no gap associated with race at the lowest level of achievement in reading. He made the same claim last year, telling the Wisconsin State Journal on September 24, 2004, “for those kids for whom an ability to read would prevent them from being successful, we’ve reduced that percentage very substantially, and basically, for all practical purposes, closed the gap”. Last Monday, he stated that the gap between percentages scoring at the lowest level “is the original gap” that the board set out to close.

Unfortunately, that is not the achievement gap that the board aimed to close. 

2006: “They’re all Rich White Kids, and they’ll do just fine, NOT!”

2009: An emphasis on adult employment.

2013: What will be different, this time?

Madison Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham, 2015:

Shortly after the office was proposed, Cheatham said non-district-authorized charter schools have “no consistent record of improving education for children, but they do drain resources from public schools, without any control in our local community or school board.”

“Rather than invest in what we know works in education, this proposal puts resources in strategies with mixed results at the expense of our public school students,” she said in May 2015

2011: A majority of the taxpayer supported Madison School Board aborted the proposed Madison Preparatory Academy IB Charter school.

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, lead by Governor Elect, Tony Evers, has waived Massachusetts’ style elementary teacher content knowledge requirements for thousands of teachers. 

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

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

In addition, Madison recently expanded its least diverse schools.

Leila Fletcher (Madison West High School Senior):

Simpson Street Free Press is invested in and applies the science of reading with our students. We have for decades.

It is true, however, that debates about reading instruction continue. Teachers and reading specialists continually discuss—and dispute—what methods of reading instruction are truly most effective, and ultimately, what method should be used in our schools.

Today, in our country, reading levels continue to decrease; only two-thirds of fourth graders can read at grade level, which leads to high school seniors still unable to meet proficiency. The numbers in Wisconsin are among the worst in the country. And reading results in Madison are at crisis level.

Many experts believe this is a result of the instructional methods that teachers nationwide are instructed in and taught to use. These instructional methods, called the “three-cueing” system, teach students compensation strategies that struggling readers come to depend on after falling behind without having learned to read. All students in three-cueing classrooms are being taught this way, and as reading researcher David Kilpatrick has noted, “[t]he three-cueing system is the way poor readers read.”

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

In addition, Madison recently expanded its least diverse schools.

Simpson Street Free Press:

Several of the most dynamic and accomplished young journalists working in the Madison media market answer questions from student reporters.

Emily Hamer is a general assignment reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal. She recently took on the criminal justice beat for the paper.

Jenny Peek is a digital news editor for Wisconsin Public Radio and an education reporter for Isthmus.

Amanda Quintana is a general assignment reporter and news anchor at WISC-TV, News 3 Now.

Taylor Kilgore is a graduate of the UW-Madison School of Journalism and the managing editor at Simpson Street Free Press.

Simpson Street Free Press:

On the wall at Simpson Street is a feature editorial from the Wisconsin State Journal. The headline reads “Support State Reading Initiatives” and announces the launch of a bipartisan effort co-chaired by Tony Evers and Scott Walker. The editorial is dated September 12, 2012.

Local News and Numbers

Recent reports by Wisconsin State Journal, The Capital Times, Channel 3 News, Isthmus, and other news outlets paint a new, more tragic picture. Nothing has changed. Achievement gaps are worse.

Reporting on the latest round of Forward Exams, Logan Wroge of the Wisconsin State Journal points out that fewer than half of Wisconsin students are proficient or advanced in English/language arts or math, and that those numbers are going down. About 543,000 Wisconsin students in grades 3-8 took part in Forward Exams last school year.

Forward Exam results, as in previous years, show Madison students trailing state-wide averages.

“In grades 3-8, 34.8% of Madison students are proficient or advanced in English on the Forward Exam and 38.2% in Math,” according to the Wisconsin State Journal .

In the Madison school district, the percentage of students scoring proficient or advanced was stagnant or slightly down from 2017-18. Language arts dropped from “36.6% in 2017-18 to 34.9% last year. In math, the percentage went from 38.2% to 38.4%, and in social studies from 46.7% to 45.5%” according to The Capital Times.

Wisconsin DPI reports almost 60% of African-American students in Madison scored “below basic” in language arts on recent Forward exams. About 47% of Hispanic students scored below basic in English-Language Arts. Only 10.1% of black students and 16% of Hispanic students scored in one of the two highest categories (proficient or advanced) The Capital Times reported.

What’s more, students in the state of Mississippi continue to outperform kids living in Madison, Wisconsin.

Despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 school districts, Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Much more on the 2019 Madison School Board elections, here.

The Simpson Street Free Press.

“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”.

Simpson Street Free Press:

Simpson Street Free Press hosted an MMSD School Board Forum for Seat #5 on Feb. 16, 2019. Candidates fielded questions from MMSD students and parents. Voting for the primary races is on Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2019. You can find out where your voting poll is by visiting https://myvote.wi.gov/en-US/FindMyPol…. Thank you to all that attended!

Much more on the 2019 Madison School Board election, here.

Simpson Street Free Press:

Today, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction released high school graduation data for the 2017-2018 academic year. Madison Metropolitan School District’s 4-year grad rates declined for both black and white students — to 65.6% and 87.8%, respectively. According to the Wisconsin State Journal, district officials “are pleased with the trajectory of minority and low-income students graduating in four years, despite a drop in the graduation rate for black students last year.”

But is this positive trajectory really something to celebrate? Wisconsin students don’t have to pass a state assessment to graduate. And national research has, for some time, questioned the truth behind the numbers.

In 2017, only 9% of MMSD’s black students met college-readiness benchmarks on the ACT in reading and math. How do we reconcile this with the 65.6% grad rate for black students the following year?

SSFP first voiced concerns about the focus on grad rates in a special report this summer. Today’s news leaves us more troubled. Of course we want our students to graduate on time. But we want our graduates to be prepared for the rigors of college and career.

Like Dr. Cheatham, we are “unsatisfied.” We stand behind the district’s commitment to “prepare students not just to graduate but for what comes after high school.” We hope this includes squaring positive grad rate trajectories with a less positive reality: too many of our students–and way too many of our students of color– aren’t graduating with the skills they need to succeed in the 21st century.

Charts via Laurie Frost and Jeff Henriques.

Notes and links on the 2019 Madison School Board election, here.

“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”.

Laurie Frost and Jeff Henriques 2MB PDF full presentation to the Simpson Street Free Press:

Individual slides (tap for larger versions):

More here.

Related: The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2006: “They’re all Rich White Kids, and they’ll do just fine, NOT!”

2013: Madison’s long term, disastrous reading results.

Madison spends far more than most taxpayer funded school districts. Details, here.

Cathleen Draper:

“It was a lot of talk,” Johnson said. “[There’s] a lot of good people doing a lot of good things, but systemically, when you look at the data, things are not getting better. Systemically, we’re still operating in silos.”

Before leaving Madison, Johnson called for greater funding and committed community leadership. He cited divisions throughout the city – between politicians and the public, between nonprofit leaders, and between black and white community leaders – and a lack of people of color in leadership positions as reasons for Madison’s poor track record on racial equity.

Addressing the audience at the Cap Times Idea Fest, Johnson didn’t paint a positive picture of Madison’s equity issues almost four months after leaving the city.

Madison, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

2005:

On November 7, Superintendent Art Rainwater made his annual report to the Board of Education on progress toward meeting the district’s student achievement goal in reading. As he did last fall, the superintendent made some interesting claims about the district’s success in closing the academic achievement gap “based on race”.

According to Mr. Rainwater, the place to look for evidence of a closing achievement gap is the comparison of the percentage of African American third graders who score at the lowest level of performance on statewide tests and the percentage of other racial groups scoring at that level. He says that, after accounting for income differences, there is no gap associated with race at the lowest level of achievement in reading. He made the same claim last year, telling the Wisconsin State Journal on September 24, 2004, “for those kids for whom an ability to read would prevent them from being successful, we’ve reduced that percentage very substantially, and basically, for all practical purposes, closed the gap”. Last Monday, he stated that the gap between percentages scoring at the lowest level “is the original gap” that the board set out to close.

Unfortunately, that is not the achievement gap that the board aimed to close.

In 1998, the Madison School Board adopted an important academic goal: “that all students complete the 3rd grade able to read at or beyond grade level”. We adopted this goal in response to recommendations from a citizen study group that believed that minority students who are not competent as readers by the end of the third grade fall behind in all academic areas after third grade. 

2006: “They’re all Rich White Kids, and they’ll do just fine, NOT!”

2011: On the 5-2 Madison School Board No (Cole, Hughes, Moss, Passman, Silveira) Madison Preparatory Academy IB Charter School Vote (Howard, Mathiak voted Yes)

2013: Madison’s long term, disastrous reading results.

The Simpson Street Free Press (!) digs: Are Rising MMSD Grad Rates Something to Celebrate?, and digs deeper: Madison’s ACT College Readiness Gap.

CBS News:

Our series, School Matters, features extended stories and investigations on education. In this installment, we’re looking at a lawsuit winding its way through the federal appeals process that questions whether access to literacy is a constitutional right. A federal judge in Michigan recently ruled it wasn’t when he dismissed a 2016 case. That case claimed students in some of Detroit’s lowest-performing schools were denied “access” to literacy due to poor management, discrimination and underfunding.

For years, Detroit public schools were under control of emergency managers, who were trying to lift the district out of debt. But, this case has drawn national attention because of its wide-ranging implications, possibly leading to federal changes to the education system.

March 10, 2018: The Wisconsin State Journal published “Madison high school graduation rate for black students soars”.

September 1, 2018: “how are we to understand such high minority student graduation rates in combination with such low minority student achievement?”

2005:

On November 7, Superintendent Art Rainwater made his annual report to the Board of Education on progress toward meeting the district’s student achievement goal in reading. As he did last fall, the superintendent made some interesting claims about the district’s success in closing the academic achievement gap “based on race”.

According to Mr. Rainwater, the place to look for evidence of a closing achievement gap is the comparison of the percentage of African American third graders who score at the lowest level of performance on statewide tests and the percentage of other racial groups scoring at that level. He says that, after accounting for income differences, there is no gap associated with race at the lowest level of achievement in reading. He made the same claim last year, telling the Wisconsin State Journal on September 24, 2004, “for those kids for whom an ability to read would prevent them from being successful, we’ve reduced that percentage very substantially, and basically, for all practical purposes, closed the gap”. Last Monday, he stated that the gap between percentages scoring at the lowest level “is the original gap” that the board set out to close.

Unfortunately, that is not the achievement gap that the board aimed to close.

In 1998, the Madison School Board adopted an important academic goal: “that all students complete the 3rd grade able to read at or beyond grade level”. We adopted this goal in response to recommendations from a citizen study group that believed that minority students who are not competent as readers by the end of the third grade fall behind in all academic areas after third grade.

2006: “They’re all Rich White Kids, and they’ll do just fine, NOT!”

2011: On the 5-2 Madison School Board No (Cole, Hughes, Moss, Passman, Silveira) Madison Preparatory Academy IB Charter School Vote (Howard, Mathiak voted Yes)

2013: Madison’s long term, disastrous reading results.

The Simpson Street Free Press (!) digs: Are Rising MMSD Grad Rates Something to Celebrate?, and digs deeper: Madison’s ACT College Readiness Gap.

In closing, Madison spends far more than most K-12 taxpayer funded organizations.

Federal taxpayers have recently contributed to our property tax base.

David Dahmer:

How can this be, in a “unversity town”?

It’s true, some more affluent people reside in this city due to the existence of a large, world-class university. People with more money do create disparities.

Does that explain the exodus of brown and black professionals when they complete their four years at the university because they feel so uncomfortable and unwelcome in this town?

Does that mean that Madison has to be so severely segregated by race?

Does that mean that we have almost zero affordable housing in Madison for people of color forcing Blacks and Latinos to live in separated areas on the fringes of the city where they are disenfranchised economically, socially, and politically?

Does having an elite institution mean huge disparities in prosecutions and arrests and incarceration?

March 10, 2018: The Wisconsin State Journal published “Madison high school graduation rate for black students soars”.

September 1, 2018: “how are we to understand such high minority student graduation rates in combination with such low minority student achievement?”

2005:

On November 7, Superintendent Art Rainwater made his annual report to the Board of Education on progress toward meeting the district’s student achievement goal in reading. As he did last fall, the superintendent made some interesting claims about the district’s success in closing the academic achievement gap “based on race”.

According to Mr. Rainwater, the place to look for evidence of a closing achievement gap is the comparison of the percentage of African American third graders who score at the lowest level of performance on statewide tests and the percentage of other racial groups scoring at that level. He says that, after accounting for income differences, there is no gap associated with race at the lowest level of achievement in reading. He made the same claim last year, telling the Wisconsin State Journal on September 24, 2004, “for those kids for whom an ability to read would prevent them from being successful, we’ve reduced that percentage very substantially, and basically, for all practical purposes, closed the gap”. Last Monday, he stated that the gap between percentages scoring at the lowest level “is the original gap” that the board set out to close.

Unfortunately, that is not the achievement gap that the board aimed to close.

In 1998, the Madison School Board adopted an important academic goal: “that all students complete the 3rd grade able to read at or beyond grade level”. We adopted this goal in response to recommendations from a citizen study group that believed that minority students who are not competent as readers by the end of the third grade fall behind in all academic areas after third grade.

2006: “They’re all Rich White Kids, and they’ll do just fine, NOT!”

2011: On the 5-2 Madison School Board No (Cole, Hughes, Moss, Passman, Silveira) Madison Preparatory Academy IB Charter School Vote (Howard, Mathiak voted Yes)

2013: Madison’s long term, disastrous reading results.

The Simpson Street Free Press (!) digs: Are Rising MMSD Grad Rates Something to Celebrate?, and digs deeper: Madison’s ACT College Readiness Gap.

In closing, Madison spends far more than most K-12 taxpayer funded organizations.

Federal taxpayers have recently contributed to our property tax base.

Emily Hanford:

Balanced literacy was a way to defuse the wars over reading,” said Mark Seidenberg, a cognitive neuroscientist and author of the book “Language at the Speed of Sight.” “It succeeded in keeping the science at bay, and it allowed things to continue as before.”

He says the reading wars are over, and science lost.

Seidenberg knows of a child who was struggling so much with reading that her mother paid for a private tutor. “The tutor taught her some of the basic skills that the child wasn’t getting in her whole language classroom,” he said. “At the end of the school year the teacher was proud that the child had made so much progress, and the parent said, ‘Well, why didn’t you teach phonics and other basic skills related to print in class?’ And the teacher said ‘Oh, I did. Your child was absent that day.'”

For scientists like Seidenberg, the problem with teaching just a little bit of phonics is that according to all the research, phonics is crucial when it comes to learning how to read. Surrounding kids with good books is a great idea, but it’s not the same as teaching children to read.

Experts say that in a whole-language classroom, some kids will learn to read despite the lack of effective instruction. But without explicit and systematic phonics instruction, many children won’t ever learn to read very well.

In 2016, the National Council on Teacher Quality, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, reviewed the syllabi of teacher preparation programs across the country and found that only 39 percent of them appeared to be teaching the components of effective reading instruction.

Seidenberg says the scientific research has had relatively little impact on what happens in classrooms because the science isn’t very highly valued in schools of education. “Prospective teachers aren’t exposed to it or they’re led to believe that it’s only one of several perspectives,” he said. “In a class on reading, prospective teachers will be exposed to a menu in which they have 10 or 12 different approaches to reading, and they’re encouraged to pick the one that will fit their personal teaching style best.”

Education as a practice has placed a much higher value on observation and hands-on experience than on scientific evidence, Seidenberg said. “We have to change the culture of education from one based on beliefs to one based on facts.”

Kelly Butler has been trying to do just that for nearly two decades in Mississippi.

The Wisconsin DPI, lead by Mr. Evers, has largely killed our one (!) teacher content knowledge requirement: Foundations of Reading.

Related: MTEL

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before

2006: “They’re all Rich White Kids, and they’ll do just fine, NOT!”

2011: A Capitol conversation.

On the 5-2 Madison School Board No (Cole, Hughes, Moss, Passman, Silveira) Madison Preparatory Academy IB Charter School Vote (Howard, Mathiak voted Yes)

2013: Madison’s long term, disastrous reading results.

2018: The Simpson Street Free Press (!) digs: Are Rising MMSD Grad Rates Something to Celebrate?, and digs deeper: Madison’s ACT College Readiness Gap.

The state of journalism, 2018.

Molly Beck:

But Walker and his campaign accused Evers of flip-flopping on the issue of school funding because Evers once said in an interview with WisconsinEye that improving academic outcomes for students struggling the most could still be achieved even if the state didn’t provide a significant funding increase.

Evers in the interview did say schools needed more funding overall, however.

Four years ago, Walker leveled similar criticism when he was running against another education official: Madison School Board member Mary Burke.

He blasted Burke for the Madison School District’s massive gap in academic performance between black and white students.

The Wisconsin DPI, lead by Mr. Evers, has largely killed our one (!) teacher content knowledge requirement: Foundations of Reading.

Related: MTEL

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before

2006: “They’re all Rich White Kids, and they’ll do just fine, NOT!”

2011: A Capitol conversation.

On the 5-2 Madison School Board No (Cole, Hughes, Moss, Passman, Silveira) Madison Preparatory Academy IB Charter School Vote (Howard, Mathiak voted Yes)

2013: Madison’s long term, disastrous reading results.

2014: Wisconsin DPI Superintendent’s Task force on the Achievement Gap.

2018: The Simpson Street Free Press (!) digs: Are Rising MMSD Grad Rates Something to Celebrate?, and digs deeper: Madison’s ACT College Readiness Gap.

Wisconsin Legislative Council Committee on Dyslexia.

The state of journalism, 2018.

Jessie Opoien, has more.

Francis Turner:

The argument for public education is that it is good for society as a whole to have its children educated so that they can successfully take their place in it, contribute to it and so on. This has historically been understood to mean that we expect our children to learn the 3Rs, get some sort of idea of history/culture and then study something that helps them get a decent job and thence a house, spouse and 2.2 children. The logic behind public provision of it is that this levels the playing field and that it helps most the poorest children whose families otherwise could not afford it. Given that in the modern world there isn’t a single job that doesn’t require some literacy/numeracy the logic that says that education is a public good is quite plausible because uneducated people won’t be able to get a job and thus can’t pay taxes etc. (not to mention that in a democracy where everyone has the franchise, everyone should be able to make an informed choice).

You can now compare that theory with the actual result.

The majority of students do in fact learn to read at some minimal level. Some learn to read more, some learn to do sums in their head, but neither is guaranteed. That seems to be about it for useful results and even that minimal level is pretty poor, particularly for minorities:

Madison, 2005:

On November 7, Superintendent Art Rainwater made his annual report to the Board of Education on progress toward meeting the district’s student achievement goal in reading. As he did last fall, the superintendent made some interesting claims about the district’s success in closing the academic achievement gap “based on race”.

According to Mr. Rainwater, the place to look for evidence of a closing achievement gap is the comparison of the percentage of African American third graders who score at the lowest level of performance on statewide tests and the percentage of other racial groups scoring at that level. He says that, after accounting for income differences, there is no gap associated with race at the lowest level of achievement in reading. He made the same claim last year, telling the Wisconsin State Journal on September 24, 2004, “for those kids for whom an ability to read would prevent them from being successful, we’ve reduced that percentage very substantially, and basically, for all practical purposes, closed the gap”. Last Monday, he stated that the gap between percentages scoring at the lowest level “is the original gap” that the board set out to close.

Unfortunately, that is not the achievement gap that the board aimed to close.

2006:

They’re all Rich White Kids, and they’ll do just fine, NOT!”

2011:

On the 5-2 Madison School Board No (Cole, Hughes, Moss, Passman, Silveira) Madison Preparatory Academy IB Charter School Vote (Howard, Mathiak voted Yes)

2013:

Madison’s long term, disastrous reading results.

2018:

The Simpson Street Free Press (!) digs: Are Rising MMSD Grad Rates Something to Celebrate?, and digs deeper: Madison’s ACT College Readiness Gap.

Laurie Frost and Jeff Henriques [PDF]:

Dear Simpson Street Free Press:

Thank you for leading the way in looking more closely at recent reports of an increase in MMSD minority student graduation rates and related issues:

http://simpsonstreetfreepress.org/special-report/local-education/rising-grad-rates

http://simpsonstreetfreepress.org/special-report/local-education/act-college-readiness-gap

Inspired by your excellent work, we decided to dig deeper.
We call the result of our efforts Seeing the Forest: Unpacking the Relationship Between MMSD Graduation Rates and Student Achievement.

We hope Simpson Street Free Press readers will take the time to read our brief report and reflect on its findings.

Sincerely,
Laurie Frost, Ph.D. Jeff Henriques, Ph.D.
August 20, 2018

Much has been made about the recent (Class of 2017) increase in MMSD high school graduation rates, especially for Black students.
https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/education/local_schools/madison-high-school- graduation-rate-for-black-students-soars/article_daf1dc5a-d8c8-5bcc-bf2b-6687ccfbdaf6.html

https://www.madison.k12.wi.us/files/www/uploads/2018arenglish.pdf

The graph below displays MMSD graduation data (as reported by the DPI) for the past eight years for White, Black, and Hispanic students. As you can see, in 2016-17, Hispanic students showed a 3.3% increase in graduation rate over the previous year and Black students showed an astounding 14.1% increase. Compared to their peers in the Class of 2013 (the year prior to the implementation of the MMSD’s Strategic Framework), the Hispanic and Black students in the Class of 2017 showed an 8.2% and 19.8% increase in graduation rates, respectively.

We will leave it to others to determine what accounts for the increase in minority student graduation rates – whether it is due, for example, to procedural changes in the way high school graduates are tallied; other (possibly questionable) data reporting practices; interventions that have produced bona fide improvements in student achievement; or a lower bar for success(including graduation) due to grade inflation, non-rigorous alternative educational options, and/or watered-down credit recovery programs (practices that have been the focus of investigative reports in other parts of the country).

For us, the important question is: Has the increase in minority student graduation rates been accompanied by an increase in minority student learning and achievement? Put another way, as we graduate an increasing number of our minority students, are we graduating more minority students who are college ready? who can read and do math at grade level?

We believe the best way to determine college readiness is with the ACT, which all MMSD juniors have been required to take since 2013-14*. Though far from perfect, the ACT is a widely used standardized test with well-established and well-documented reliability and validity. It yields objective performance data in the core academic areas, data that allow for meaningful comparisons across time, geography, and demographics. Grades (and GPA), in contrast, are somewhat subjective and “squishy”. They are locally determined and, in practice, easily influenced – whether consciously or unconsciously – by the adults’ desire for success, both their own and their students’, especially during times of strong administrative and societal pressure for that success.

The ACT defines college readiness benchmark scores as the level of achievement (in terms of ACT test performance) required for a student to have at least a 75% chance of earning a C or better in an introductory college course in the same content area. Since 2013, the ACT-based college readiness benchmark score for both Reading and Math has been 22. (Before 2013, the benchmark score was 21 for Reading and 22 for Math.)

Here are the ACT-based college readiness data in Reading and Math for the MMSD Classes of 2008 through 2017.

As you can see, in the Class of 2017, 12.7% of the Black students met the college readiness benchmark in Reading (vs. 12.8% the year before and 10.4% in 2014, the first year of universal test participation in the MMSD) and 8.1% met it in Math (vs. 15.3% the year before and 8.1% in 2014). Those are the same Black students who showed the dramatic single-year increase in graduation rate of 14.1%. Clearly the increase in graduation rate for the Black students in the Class of 2017 was not accompanied by an increase in their college readiness. The same is true for their Hispanic classmates. The disconnect between minority student graduation rates and minority student achievement is, at best, puzzling (and at worst, alarming).

Question: How are we to understand increasing minority student graduation rates in the absence of an increase in minority student achievement (defined as college readiness)?

These are questions we should all want to know the answers to.

In keeping with recent trends in education research, we wanted to know more about how the MMSD Class of 2017 fared over time, how their cohort learning profile evolved over their years as MMSD students. To that end, we looked at the percentage of students in the Class/cohort who were deemed proficient or advanced in Reading and Math from third grade on.

We undertook this effort with full awareness that a) the District uses different tests to assess grade level proficiency at different grade levels and, b) there is some variability in the students tested at each grade level (due to student movement in and out of the District, who shows up on test day each year, etc.). We moved forward with the analyses despite these obstacles because a) we believed that since all the tests are used to determine the same thing – grade level proficiency – there was enough meaningful equivalence across them to warrant the effort, and b) the changing membership of a cohort over time is a natural limitation of longitudinal data.

Perfection should not be the enemy of the good, as they say, nor should arguments about an absence of perfect data be used as an excuse to not look. We need to do the best we can with the data we have, keeping the problems in mind, but also in perspective.

Here is what we found.

This is what we accomplished with the minority students in the MMSD Class of 2017 over the course of nine years: little to nothing. No limitation in the data set can explain away these painful results.

And yet 77% of the Hispanic students and 72.6% of the Black students in the Class of 2017 earned MMSD high school diplomas. Clearly most of them did so without having grade level skills in reading and math.

We looked at the Classes of 2016 and 2018 and obtained essentially the same results.

Unfortunately, a high school diploma without high school level reading and math skills is of limited value when it comes to finding success and making a good life post-high school. Thus, despite our best efforts and multiple Doyle Building and community-based initiatives over the years, we continue to fail at preparing our minority students for life beyond the MMSD.

This is the proverbial forest. We need to look at it, long and hard. We need to take a break from looking at individual trees – or worse, single aspects of individual trees. It is critical that we take in the full landscape. No more hiding or explaining away the heartbreakingly tragic results. As a community and as a school district, we need to be honest with ourselves about how dismally we have failed and continue to fail our minority students.

Laurie A. Frost, Ph.D. Jeffrey B. Henriques, Ph.D.
August 20, 2018

A Note About the Data and Data Sources

Grades 3 – 8 proficiency data are based on WKCE test scores.

Grades 9 and 10 proficiency data are based on ACT Aspire test scores.

Grade 11 proficiency data and college readiness scores are based on ACT test scores. Source for all data (except the 2013-14 ACT Aspire data):

http://wisedash.dpi.wi.gov/

Source for the 2013-14 ACT Aspire data:
https://accountability.madison.k12.wi.us/files/accountability/2015-8- 7%20ACT%20%26%20Aspire%20Scores%20Report%202014-15.pdf

* The MMSD implemented universal ACT test participation for high school juniors in 2013-14. Since then, the percentage of students taking the test has increased in all demographic groups. In the Class of 2017, 87.9% of White students, 64.1% of Black students, and 80.3% of Hispanic students took the ACT (vs. 67.0%, 27.1% and 47.8% for the Class of 2013, the year before universal participation was implemented).

Before universal participation was implemented, the group of students who took the ACT likely included a disproportionately high number of college-bound students (vis-a-vis the entire junior class). As a result, the percentage of students identified as college ready by the test in the years before 2013-14 was likely inflated. Had all students been taking the exam in the earlier years, it is likely that the percentage of students identified as college ready would have been lower, comparable to the percentage observed in more recent years.

Related: The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2006: “They’re all Rich White Kids, and they’ll do just fine, NOT!”

2013: Madison’s long term, disastrous reading results.

Madison spends far more than most taxpayer funded school districts. Details, here.

Anna Welch and Mckenna Kohlenberg:

In the five years since the group’s inception, MOST has not given the public notice of its meetings times, dates, locations, and agendas, allowing little to no oversight.

According to an internal document from a 2014 meeting, MOST formalized an “Action Team” that began meeting twice a month starting July 2013. But, the group did not make meeting notices publicly available. The same handout said the City’s Education Committee adopted MOST as one of its “key initiatives” in November 2013.

According to MOST meeting notes sent only to MOST participants by the former coordinator, Jennifer Lord, on Nov. 3, 2013, concerns about the committee’s need to comply with open records laws were discussed. In response, city employees cited a desire to want to remain an “independent coalition.”

But, a desire to remain an “independent coalition” is not sufficient to grant MOST immunity from open meetings laws. Nor does this desire grant MOST immunity from open records laws.

Tom Kamenick is a deputy counsel and litigation manager at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), a non-profit organization that advocates for open government and civil liberties. WILL successfully litigated the 2017 Supreme Court case.

Kamenick said in an email to Simpson Street Free Press that after briefly reviewing MOST, he was unable to definitively determine if the group qualifies as a public body. But, he also said the Attorney General has stipulated open records and meetings laws should be “applied expansively.”

According to Kamenick, there is a five-factor test for determining if groups must comply with open records and open meetings laws; whether the group is funded government money, whether the group serves a government function, whether the group appears to be a government entity, whether the group is subject to some level of government control, and whether a governmental body can access to group’s records.

MOST is a publically funded city initiative staffed by government officials on the city payroll.

Taxpayer funded MOST’s website.

Anna Welch:

According to district data, the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) saw significant jumps in four-year graduation rates in spring 2017. Madison’s overall graduation rate rose five points, and the rate for African American students jumped an eyebrow-raising 15 points in one year. Those rates, however, were not accompanied by corresponding increases in student achievement as measured by ACT college readiness benchmarks in core subjects like math and reading.

“Completion rates are obviously important, but they are the tip of the iceberg,” says longtime education activist Laurie Frost. “And they can be manipulated, whether consciously or unconsciously, in ways that performance on objective measures — measures that are used across the country — cannot be. Standardized test results cannot be fudged.”

Close examinations by Simpson Street Free Press reporters identify large gaps in ACT college readiness between and among MMSD students.

College Readiness

More African American students are graduating from local schools, but actual achievement gaps in Madison have widened or shown no improvement, according to key benchmarks reported by Wisconsin Department of Public of Instruction.

During the 2014-15 school year, the state began to mandate and pay for all high school students to take the ACT college entrance exam. The Madison School District, however, mandated and paid for the test beginning in 2013-14, a year earlier than required.

Rachel Strauch-Nelson, media relations director for MMSD, said the district mandated the test a year early because they thought it was “one important piece” of measuring student success, along with GPA rates, advanced coursework and other measures.

“Increasing participation is the right thing to do because then we get the data so that we can have this conversation about college readiness,” Strauch-Nelson said.

According to a 2017 district report, participation rates for African American students increased from 52 percent in 2012-13 to 73 percent in 2017—a 21 percent change. In contrast, 93 percent of white students took the ACT in 2017, while 85 percent of students took the test overall.

College readiness benchmark scores represent the minimum level of academic preparedness necessary for students to have “a 75% chance of obtaining a C or higher in corresponding credit-bearing first-year college courses,” according to the ACT.

From the 2012-13 school year to the 2016-17 school year, ACT benchmark scores for African American students in Madison across core subject areas (English, math, reading and science) decreased slightly or showed no improvements, according to district data. In contrast, for white students, scores increased slightly in all core subject areas except for math, which decreased by 1 percentage point.

Kelly Meyerhofer:

The Madison School District’s new long-term plan looks vaguely similar to its predecessor, a strategic framework produced in 2013. Two of three overarching goals share similar language.

The third goal, however, stands out from its 2013 counterpart by explicitly vowing to do better for African-American students.

Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham said she attended nearly 100 meetings over the past year, receiving input from more than 2,000 students, staff, parents and community members.

“Meeting after meeting, it was crystal clear to me that this is what our community wants,” she said. “We believe at this state we need to hold ourselves accountable to more ambitious goals” for African-American youth.

The district released a 20-page report Tuesday, outlining three goals officials hope to meet by adopting a variety of strategies and meeting a host of benchmarks in the coming years.

Locally, the Simpson Street Free Press has covered the office of civil rights investigation into the Madison school District.

I’ve not seen substantive mention of this in the traditional media.

Madison, despite spending more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

2006: they’re all rich white kids and they will do just fine, not!

Small Learning communities.

English 10

Talented and gifted lawsuit

Annie Waldeman:

Under federal law, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Office for Civil Rights is responsible for ensuring equal access to education and investigating allegations of discrimination in the country’s schools and colleges. Families and students can file complaints with the office, which then investigates and determines whether a college or school district may have violated federal law. If violations are substantiated, the office typically negotiates a settlement or prescribes corrective changes, which it sometimes oversees. For some complaints, the office may mediate a resolution. It receives more than 10,000 complaints annually, and has a target of resolving 80 percent of them within six months.

As the Obama administration tackled more complicated investigations, the cases took longer to resolve. From 2010 to 2015, time spent on the average sexual violence investigation increased from 289 to 963 days; on a school discipline case, from 198 to 451 days; and on a harassment probe, from 200 to 287 days. At the department’s request, Congress boosted the office’s budget.

Locally, the Simpson Street Free Press has covered the office of civil rights investigation into the Madison school District.

I’ve not seen substantive mention of this in the traditional media.

Madison, despite spending more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

2006: they’re all rich white kids and they will do just fine, not!

Small Learning communities.

English 10

Talented and gifted lawsuit

Simpson Street Free Press:

Open records watchdogs and clean government advocates call responses by Madison school officials to open records inquires “ugly.”

A recent report distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council and published in the Wisconsin State Journal says the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) would not fulfill a request for information about public records without payment. Responding to a specific request, filed by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), the Madison district required a payment of more than $1,000 to provide the requested information.

WILL attorneys Tom Kamenick and Libby Sobic say large school districts like Madison and Milwaukee “need to devote more resources to complying with open records law.”

According to an attorney representing MMSD, the Madison district does not have a system in place for tracking open records requests, hence its extremely high price in this case.

Writing in the Wisconsin State Journal, Kamenick says that while records custodians are allowed to charge fees for locating records, schools districts that need so much time to locate records are apparently not doing a good job of tracking requests.

“It should not be so hard to find out how well any government entity complies with the law,” Kamenick said.

Capital Times Podcast:

From police in schools to racial disparities in the classroom, there’s no shortage of daunting issues that the Madison School Board is grappling with in 2018. At a forum on the city’s south side earlier this week, three candidates running for the board in this spring’s election weighed in.

The Cap Times collaborated with Delta Sigma Theta Alumnae and the Simpson Street Free Press on this event, hosted at the Mt. Zion Baptist Church.

Amber Walker:

Madison School Board Seat 1 candidates Anna Moffit and Gloria Reyes kicked off campaign season with a forum on arts education, the first of four discussions scheduled so far.

The forum, held at the Arts and Literature Lab in Madison’s Atwood neighborhood was moderated by Oscar Mireles, Madison’s poet laureate and director of Omega School.

Moffit seeks a second term on the board against challenger Reyes.

Moffit said the district as a whole needs to prioritize the arts across mediums, and called out a lack of spoken word and digital art programs available to students. Moffit said she would defer to educators to determine what mediums the district should focus on.

The next scheduled Madison School Board candidate forum — co-hosted by the Cap Times, Delta Sigma Theta Alumnae, Simpson Street Free Press and Mt. Zion Baptist Church — will take place on March 6 at Mt. Zion, 2019 Fisher St.

Cris Cruz and Leila Fletcher

He shared his concerns about trying to create a one-size-fits-all solution for access to advanced learning and literacy instruction across schools and districts.

“We know that if we do the same in all school districts, that we’re going to continue to have students who aren’t accessing it and being successful the way that others are,” said Dr. Gothard. “I’m very concerned that if not done well and done with an equity mindset, that we could just be perpetuating gaps, opportunity gaps, [and] access to learning.”

He also said there will be a focus on the structure for reading instruction. He wants to make sure every student has “time every day for a dose of a very individualized science-of-reading-based learning experience, where they can be monitored, day in, day out.”

Rather than prioritizing a district-wide routine, Gothard stressed the importance of flexibility to “truly meet the needs of students.” He explained the role of community engagement in raising awareness about reading and the traits that make a reader successful.

“I believe we can activate our community just by sharing with them, this is what it means to decode words. This is what phonemic awareness is. This is why fluency is important,” he said. This will allow the community to support the district’s efforts in improving reading instruction and will also help the community keep him accountable. “If I want to be accountable for something as a superintendent, reading, I’m in. Hold me accountable for reading. But we must do it together.”

When more Madison students are proficient in reading, access to advanced learning opportunities will be an even more pressing matter. In past years, MMSD has grappled with whether to abolish traditional honors classes in favor of embedded honors options. When, however, the district got pushback from parents and the community, the plan was temporarily scrapped.

—-

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?

by Jacob Dunn age, 14

Caitlin Clark is the face of the Iowa Hawkeyes women’s basketball team. She is known for breaking NCAA records in 2022 as a junior and 2023 as a senior. She has come a long way since she was a kid reaching for and achieving her basketball dreams.

From the young age of five, Caitlin Clark has always been gifted. Growing up in Des Moines, Iowa, she played against her older cousins. At first, it was challenging for her, but she quickly began to outplay her cousins. “It’s just marvelous to remember that she’s wired special. Sometimes, there are special athletes that God created, and Caitlin Clark is one of those,” said her grandpa who was also her coach when she was little. By the time she was a senior at West Des Moines Catholic, Caitlin had multiple offers, establishing her as one of the top seniors in her graduation class. During her senior year, Caitlin had offers from top schools such as Texas, Oregon, Florida, and the University of Iowa. She ended up committing to Iowa where she has been doing unbelievable things as their star player. The Iowa Hawkeyes made it to the championship in 2022 but were sadly defeated by the LSU Tigers 102-85.

Caitlin has already become a legend in NCAA basketball. She had the first-ever 40-point triple-double in NCAA history, including men’s basketball. The Iowa Hawkeyes’ season had not even started when Caitlin Clark and her team broke a record. In the summer of 2023 during their pre-season game against DePaul, Caitlin Clark’s Hawkeyes broke the attendance record for Women’s NCAA basketball. The Hawkeyes exhibition game almost doubled the attendance record with 55,646 people, with the old record being 29,619 people in 2002. She broke 3,000 career points against Iowa State on December 6th, making her the 15th female in Division 1 basketball to achieve this goal. She now holds the all-time scoring record for Iowa.

Kadjata Bah, age 18

new documentary film called The Right to Readadds to growing national debates about literacy and the science of reading. This timely and compelling film is streaming for free until March 9, 2023.

Directed by Jenny Mackenzie and produced by LeVar Burton, the film follows a long-time activist, a teacher, and two families as they navigate the future of education.

Kareem Weaver is an Oakland-based activist with the NAACP. He is an experienced educator, and his mission is to create a world where 95% of children can read. Working with Sabrina Causey, a rookie first grade teacher in Oakland, the two make a case for a new curriculum for their students based in the science of reading.

The film comes right as the “reading wars” of the 1990s have come to another head. The debate between the research-based science of reading and the whole language or balanced literacy approach now holds more dire consequences for the crisis American children face.

Currently, 37% of fourth graders in the U.S. read below grade level. While literacy is a concern for all children, gaps are especially pronounced among children of color. In fact, about 50% of all Black students graduate high school reading below grade level. Illiteracy is not only an academic burden as research shows that people who cannot read proficiently are more likely to end up in prison, homeless, and unemployed.

“Imagine being in the Stone Age and you ain’t got no stone. Imagine being in the Bronze Age and you ain’t got no bronze. We’re in the Information Age right now—and you can’t read the information,” said Weaver while explaining the current reading crisis.

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.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Sydney Steidl

Alabama policymakers, in a state traditionally known for poor education outcomes, are actively working to increase literacy skills—especially in early education.

With Alabama typically falling behind other states in literacy, the pandemic only made matters worse. Research shows students at all grade levels lost ground. For example, in 2021 only about 18% of kindergartners had reached the physical, social-emotional, and literacy standards for their grade, and only two out of every three were assessed as prepared to begin schooling.

The state is currently focused on implementing the Alabama Literacy Act, which was passed in 2019. The goal is to bolster literacy and basic reading skills. The law requires school districts to provide programs and other strategies to raise struggling students to higher levels of literacy. 

One key element in the Literacy Act requires school districts to deliver a major boost for students during the summer. The requirement means Alabama school districts will provide summer literacy programs for students who need it. 

Alabama now offers summer camps focused on literacy. These camps offer students who are falling behind about 70 hours of extra instruction time, preparing them for the following school year and beyond through improving their foundational literacy skills.

Sandy Flores-Ruiz:

Baylor University, based in central Texas, is one of the many institutions that uses a federal loan program called Parent Plus. Among private schools with a minimum of $1 billion endowment, Baylor also had the lowest repayment rate for this particular type of loan. 

The Parent Plus program offers federal loans to parents and allows them to help pay for their children’s tuition. Before the introduction of this program, undergraduate students were the largest demographic taking out college loans requiring payment. Now, in the Parent Plus era, parents and graduate students take out the most loans. 

The fast-growing Parent Plus program does not have income limits or a cap on the amount of money parents can borrow, unlike other undergraduate loan programs. This makes Parent Plus appealing and accessible to parents, especially to those who want to send their children to the best ranking schools. They often hastily agree to take out these loans without realizing the magnitude and future impact of their debt. 

At Baylor, the Parent Plus loan program has allowed the university to shift its reputation from being a locally appreciated Baptist college to a nationally accredited and endorsed institution. The university has funneled its resources into building a new sports complex and expanding its existing research facilities to match those of the top schools in the nation.

Josepha Da Costa, age 16

The rich history of La Follette Basketball began in 1977. They finished 4th in the Big Eight conference that year. While the team finished the regular season with an overall record of 17 wins and 8 losses, they managed only 10 wins against 8 losses during the conference season. 

Nonetheless, the Lancers made an electrifying for a run for a state title. Coached by Pete Olsen, they advanced to the finals by beating Milwaukee Tech 55-48 and Neenah 46-43. The state championship game was played against a team that had been to the finals 15 times since the last time a Madison high school made a trip to state. 

Eau Claire Memorial came into the game with a record of 23 wins and 2 losses. A lot of pressure. But the Lancers stayed calm and collected, sinking 63.6% of their shots. In the end, La Follette took home the trophy, beating the tough competition 65-48.

In 1982, the Lancers took home another state championship trophy. With one of the best players in the state at the time, Rick Olsen, the team beat Stoughton in a close regional game, 64-62. Then, behind throughout most of the game, the Lancers suddenly rallied to beat Madison West, sending the Lancers to sectionals. There they beat conference foe Sun Prairie to advance to state.

Joseph Da Costa:

Madison school officials plan significant changes in reading and literacy instruction. District administrators presented the proposed changes to school board members at a recent Board of Education meeting and signaled a shift toward phonics and the science of reading.

MMSD’s Chief of Elementary Schools, Carletta Stanford, acknowledged, “We know that what we’ve done in the past has not exactly hit the mark for where we want to be in terms of closing gaps.” 

During the meeting Stanford explained recent research and discussed the expert advice that is helping school officials guide the pivot to a more science-based approach to literacy. Stanford referenced specific research findings stating that “early intervention is critical” and there needs to be “intentionality in explicit reading instruction.”

Lisa Kvistad, Assistant Superintendent for Teaching & Learning, told board members the district plans to “move forward now that we’ve gone through the data” and called the planned changes “an equity imperative.”

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.

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

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

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

Unions, political affiliation more predictive of virtual learning decision than COVID cases. The report.

Run for Office: Dane County Executive is on the Spring, 2021 ballot.

Leila Fletcher, Kadjata Bah, and Leilani McNeal:

Madison school officials will consider hiring an Ohio-based company known for policies that some say hinder the free speech rights of student journalists.

Two school board members and Interim Superintendent Jane Belmore met last month with representatives of Ohio-based NEOLA. NEOLA is a policy-writing firm often hired by school districts to write and implement policies for local boards and local administrators. 

NEOLA policies were scrutinized recently in Wisconsin during a controversial case in Oshkosh. In that case a student reporter was prevented from publishing a story about abrupt staff changes at Oshkosh North High School.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported that Brock Doemel, a senior at Oshkosh North, eventually filed open records requests to learn more about an absent school staff member and to learn more about why the student-written story was removed from the school’s newspaper.

But policies written by NEOLA refer to student newspapers as “nonpublic forums” and therefore controlled by school district administrators. In the Oshkosh case, policies written by NEOLA were cited as reasons for denying open records requests, requiring student journalists to pay for public records, and asking student journalists to share their reporter’s notes, according the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 

“The rule is that in what should be an open forum, the students have the right to publish unfettered and then they deal with the backlash that comes or the kudos that come,” said Vince Filak, a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin—Oshkosh who criticized NEOLA media policies.

Oshkosh students contacted the Student Press Law Center seeking advice in the case. Mike Hiestand, senior legal counsel at the center, called NEOLA a “policy mill.” He said NEOLA’s “student media policies, in particular, has been something we’ve been battling here at the Student Press Law Center for 15-20 years.”

MMSD spokesperson Tim LeMonds spoke to The Capital Times and confirmed the district is “strongly considering” a partnership with NEOLA. The company’s website shows NEOLA offers services on bylaws and policies, administrative guidelines and procedures, and a district policy website.

Anna Welch and Mckenna Kohlenberg:

Local watchdogs and litigators say a City of Madison initiative and its multiple committees should provide the public with greater transparency.

In a unanimous 2017 decision, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that committees created by local governmental bodies in Wisconsin are themselves governmental bodies subject to the state’s open meetings law.

Wisconsin open meetings law states: “All meetings of all state and local governmental bodies shall be publicly held in places reasonably accessible to members of the public and shall be open to all citizens at all times unless otherwise expressly provided by law.”

Public bodies are required to give notice of the time, date, location and general agenda of all meetings at least 24 hours in advance. Even when, “for good cause such notice is impossible or impractical…in no case may the notice be provided less than 2 hours in advance of [a] meeting.”

Abby Comerford:

Walker is a first-generation college student from the south side of Chicago. She attended Oberlin College in Ohio before becoming a K-12 English teacher in Florida. Even though Walker is no longer in the classroom, her ongoing passion for education is prevalent in her work.

Walker is joining the rigorous Studio 20 program at NYU to learn multimedia content creation and emerging media strategies. Eventually, she wants to become her own boss through creating her own publication or through freelance writing.

Keeping children and their families at the center of her journalism is very important to Walker. She enjoys hearing from members of the community who often don’t have a voice, so she’s willing to spend time in neighborhoods and uncover the truth.

NYU awarded Walker with a full-tuition scholarship; however, they did not provide financial assistance for any other expenses such as food, rent and course materials. A Go Fund Me page has been set up to help support her. Any donations are very appreciated.

We will be sad to see Walker go but we are very excited to see where her journey takes her.

Amber’s work, notes and links.

Anna Welch:

The Madison District has seen graduation rates improve. But, it remains unclear if those students are prepared for college and career. Students who are not adequately prepared before they graduate often pay the price in college.

In 2016, Act 28 took effect requiring the UW Board of Regents to submit an annual report to the Legislature. The reports identify Wisconsin high schools that graduate six or more students who require remedial courses in English or math upon admission to a UW system school.

Students enrolled in remedial coursework at UW schools pay full tuition prices but do not earn college credit for those classes. This extends their college graduation dates and increases their college costs. Tuition prices at UW system schools range from $5,186.00 per year to $10,534.00 per year for Wisconsin residents.

In 2015, 33 percent or one-third of Madison La Follette students attending UW colleges required remedial coursework in math. About 11 percent of East High students needed remedial coursework.

The following year, 26 percent of La Follette students required remedial coursework in math at their UW schools. At East High and West High nearly 14 percent of graduated students required remedial math coursework in college.

Retention of college students of color is a much talked-about issue at UW-Madison and other colleges across the country.

Lowering the Bar

Longtime Education Activist Laurie Frost and other local education watchers worry about the long-term ramifications of lowering academic standards, especially for students of color.

“Again, I’ll say, maybe not consciously, but lowering bars doesn’t do anyone any favors—especially the students, and especially students of color,” Frost said.

Education experts evaluating the significance of rising graduation rates cite a need to examine credit recovery programs. According to NPR, about nine out of 10 U.S. school districts provide some form of “credit recovery” to give students a second chance to earn credit for previously failed or uncompleted courses.

“We should all be very concerned that pressures to pass students, credit recovery programs, a lack of academic challenges and other things may be in play,” Mertz said. “African American students may be disproportionately impacted by a simplistic emphasis on graduation rates at the expense of learning and preparation.”

In a phone interview, an online program specialist for MMSD said Madison students who fail courses can take credit recovery courses on the recommendation of their school counselor. These courses are typically offered online through a program called Apex Learning. But students enrolled in online credit recovery courses are also paired with a teacher to build relationships and help them manage their work. There is no limit to how many times students can take the same credit recovery course until they pass.

“Some of these credit recovery programs frankly aren’t terribly rigorous and aren’t preparing students well for what’s next,” Daria Hall of The Education Trust, an education research and advocacy non-profit, told NPR reporters.

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Taylor Kilgore:

Jim Bradshaw of the Office for Civil Rights’ Washington D.C. office confirmed in an email that “the process is ongoing.”

Greg Jones, president of the NAACP says it is important to know “what the district has done to comply with their agreement with Office for Civil Rights.”

“Given the urgency of education outcomes in Dane County, the local NAACP branch will monitor the agreement as it relates to our mission. The NAACP thinks it is very important to keep the public informed,” Jones said.

Chris Gomez Schmidt a local education advocate with the Madison Partnership for Advanced Learning, agrees with Jones.

“The Office for Civil Rights resolution and the work being done to meet these requirements should be part of the community conversation and our work on closing achievement gaps. More can be done to make this a transparent process.”

“The importance of this Civil Rights resolution process cannot be emphasized enough,” Gomez-Schmidt says. “This work cannot continue to fly under the radar if Madison is truly interested in closing achievement gaps,”

An Advanced Learning Advisory Committee required to comply with the Resolution Agreement has met several times but questions remain about what is being accomplished. Only five parents attended the committee’s most recent meeting on May 23, 2018.