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Are Wisconsin students really doing better? Or does it just look that way?
“Instead of focusing on declining academic achievement in Wisconsin, the Department of Public Instruction is working to hide the problem,” wrote Will Flanders, research director at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a conservative law firm and think tank. “Unfortunately, changing standards for political correctness and to avoid accountability will hurt students today, tomorrow and long into the future.”
Has the actual achievement of students improved much, if at all? That’s a different question that can’t be answered yet.
But Wisconsin’s measuring stick for student performance has been changed. And the categories for student performance have been renamed in, shall we say, kinder, gentler ways.
Results from the state’s round of standardized tests — administered in the spring and known as the Forward tests for third- through eighth-graders and the ACT and PreACT Secure tests for high school students — have been distributed to school districts and schools and, in some places, to families. The overall results will not be made public until sometime this fall. But Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction leaders have released enough information to make clear that significant changes have been made in the accountability system.
The changes — especially in where the bars are set for categorizing students’ performance — will make it difficult, at best, to compare this year’s results to prior years for the large majority of students in Wisconsin, including large numbers of private school students who take part in one of the state’s four school voucher programs.
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“Instead of focusing on declining academic achievement in Wisconsin, the Department of Public Instruction is working to hide the problem,” wrote Will Flanders, research director at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a conservative law firm and think tank. “Unfortunately, changing standards for political correctness and to avoid accountability will hurt students today, tomorrow and long into the future.”
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More.
Madison taxpayers of long supported far above average K – 12 spending.
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?
K-12 Tax & $pending climate: Madison’s 2 no votes on the November referendum
Ike Knox and Barbara H-McK were the only two votes against putting the City of Madison’s $22 million property tax hike on the November 5 ballot. Here is Ald. Harrington-McKinney:
I am absolutely AGAINST, and will vote NO to any referendum that seeks to increase the levy or burden residents with additional property taxes. [To Mayor Satya] The primary reason for a NO vote on the referendum is that you have lost all credibility in being fiscally responsible in managing our money.
Echoing former mayor Paul Soglin (who always seems the equivalent of the UK’s shadow government), Ald. H-McK wonders why the City hasn’t lobbied Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, for some kind of assistance “years ago in preparation for this day.” The alder also indicts “lack of clarity” around funding the mayor’s pet project, bus rapid transit (BRT).
Portraying grant moniesfrom any governmental agency does not make it ‘free’ money. Capital assets require maintenance and repair (operating expenses) whether it’s a building, elevator, fire alarm/suppression system, bridge, road, bus, bus stop, bike path, etc. Any ‘net new’ asset drives maintenance as well as requiring funding (reserves) for future replacement.
A $200 million grant will eventually require funding sufficient capital reserves, which will be a net new obligation for City and taxpayers. When ridership is falling this is a huge risk, and obligation, to citizens. What is the ridership model for the next 5 years, what happens if ridership declines, what are mitigation plans if BRT is under water?
Madison’s well funded k-12 system and city government are seeking substantial 607M+ tax and spending increases via referendum this fall.
K-12 Governance and accountability: Virginia Edition
On Wednesday August 28, the Virginia Board of Education will hold a Special Session to consider the Statewide Comprehensive Support Plan. The Plan proposes the requirements that will be imposed on schools and districts when they do not meet the Board’s new rules for accreditation and accountability.
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Context missing here is in VA, today, about 60% of Black 8th-graders are below basic on math on NAEP. Some NAEP levels contested, there is NO debate that below basic is not catastrophic for life outcomes. Those aren’t @GovernorVA’s #s, that’s federal. 1/x
Meanwhile, Madison:
Madison taxpayers of long supported far above average K – 12 spending.
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?
As many kids fall behind, schools try a new approach to teach how to read
Only about one-third of elementary school students in the U.S. are reading at grade level, according to the recent National Assessment of Educational Progress. In response, many schools are rethinking how they teach kids to read.
In one New York City first grade classroom, Melissa Jones-Diaz goes letter by letter, teaching the specific rules that form the English language. For decades, most schools felt it was unnecessary to explicitly teach kids these rules, preferring to give students time with books on the belief they would most likely figure it out for themselves.
Now, specific, detailed instruction is taking over.
“It was a big shift in my teaching, in my understanding of how students learn to read,” Jones-Diaz said.
The Science of Reading isn’t so much a curriculum as a grassroots movement best known for arguing that phonics, or the relationship between letters and their sounds, is key to learning to read.
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Madison taxpayers of long supported far above average K – 12 spending.
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?
“midwits” in US government, politics, and policy
In my view we’re in late stage imperial decline. This is the “looting and grifting” stage, and it’s very rare for really talented people to want to go into government – they’re much more likely to be found in tech startups or maybe in academic labs or at hedge funds. There is no Kissinger or even Hermann Kahn or George Kennan in public service.
It’s not the structure of the US system, it has more to do with the vibes of this era. PRC is in a totally different phase – lots of kids there want to work hard to build their Nation and still believe in heroic ideals.
This follows the general pattern of imperial growth and decline:
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Madison taxpayers of long supported far above average K – 12 spending.
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?
Sausage making and reduced rigor at the taxpayer funded Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
breezy @WisconsinEye @emrichards chat with DPI, CESA
- names like Basic, Proficient “blame and shame”
- not hiding data
- screeners help parents, too
- “no easy way” for parents to pick schools (point of report card)
- parents know if kids are on pace (wrong, says research)
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More.
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Yet:
Madison taxpayers of long supported far above average K – 12 spending.
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?
“The city needs a hard stop on the current ways they are spending our money.”
Still, Couture said she plans to vote “no” on the property tax referendum.
“Am I surprised that these are the threatened services? Not a bit,” she said. “The city needs a hard stop on the current ways they are spending our money.”
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Madison taxpayers of long supported far above average K – 12 spending.
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?
More on Wisconsin’s reduced rigor
AFTER DECADE OF AIMING HIGH, WISCONSIN LOWERS STANDARDS FOR STUDENTS
@alanjborsuk devastates Wisconsin DPI for lowering state test standards.
- me: Minimal, Proficient ~10%-20% shift
- categories don’t match grade level, so useless
- IRG records request unfilled since April
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MTEL and the Foundations of Reading
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Madison taxpayers of long supported far above average K – 12 spending.
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?
More on the Wisconsin DPI and reduced rigor
Before the 2012 changes in cut scores, Wisconsin was regarded by some national education experts as having some of the lowest bars in the country for defining students as proficient or advanced. For example, the percentages of Wisconsin students who were categorized as proficient in reading and math, using the state’s definitions, were much higher than the percentages who were considered proficient using the definitions by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a widely followed program used in all 50 states.
NAEP is acknowledged by all sides to be a tough grader. To be labeled as “proficient” on NAEP tests requires a student to do much better than is true on the tests in many states. NAEP leaders say that labeling a student proficient on a NAEP test is not the same as labeling a student as being at grade level. NAEP is, in fact, considerably more stringent.
In Wisconsin in the early 2010s, there was advocacy to raise the bar on student success, with the goal of leading more students to graduate from high school ready for college or careers. The state superintendent of public instruction at the time, Tony Evers (who, of course, is governor now), “NAEPified” Wisconsin’s cut scores. This was in line with education trends across the country at the time.
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MTEL and the Foundations of Reading
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Madison taxpayers of long supported far above average K – 12 spending.
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?
With 2 property tax hikes on Madison ballots, city leaders add another
The mayor said the referendum is “the only budgetary path in 2025 that protects our values as a community, while we work to address the chronic underfunding of local governments at the state level.”
“I’m glad the council agreed that putting that issue to the voters is the right thing to do,” Rhodes-Conway said.
The November election will be historic, marking the first time Madison voters will be asked to consider property tax referendums from both the Madison school district and the city. Madison school district leaders will ask voters to approve over $600 million through two referendums, estimating the measures would bump the average homeowners’ property taxes by over $1,000 in a few years.
If voters reject the city’s referendum in November, Rhodes-Conway forecasted the city would need to slash $6 million in services next year and the following year, and bigger cuts would follow later on. By 2030, she said the city would face a $63 million budget deficit, requiring more than $20 million in cuts to services on top of other measures, such as dipping into rainy day funds and hiking fees for certain government services.
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Notes on Madison’s tax and $pending increases amidst declining enrollment.
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Madison taxpayers of long supported far above average K – 12 spending.
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?
Notes on reduced rigor: Wisconsin & Oklahoma Edition
officials took a closer look at the data.
“Nobody makes jumps of that size,” said an assessment director from a school system near Oklahoma City. The official asked not to be named because she does not want to “put a target” on her district.
To put the outsized gains in perspective, The 74 asked Andrew Ho, a leading testing expert at Harvard University, to review the results.
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“Last year, you needed to know more to get proficient,” said a source familiar with the work of a Technical Advisory Committee the state convened this summer to examine proficiency targets. But the source, who asked not to be named because of ongoing work with the state, said “this year, using the same items, you didn’t need to know as much and you’re still considered proficient.”
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(Taxpayer funded) Wisconsin DPI: what standards?
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?
Notes on Madison’s tax and $pending increases amidst declining enrollment
The Madison School District has big plans to update 10 of its aging schools using taxpayer dollars if voters approve a $507 million referendum in November.
But those plans don’t take into account the current decline in student enrollment, and there is no plan, for now at least, to close or consolidate any schools.
For one thing, district officials expect enrollment to bounce back as Dane County grows. For another, they say, the improvements can’t wait.
“That isn’t the motivation for this referenda and these facility changes right now,” School Board President Nichelle Nichols said of student enrollment trends. “It is literally based on just the age and condition of our buildings and wanting them to get updated.”
Student enrollment in the district dropped off during the COVID-19 pandemic from a high of around 27,000 to 25,547 in 2022. It’s now at 25,565 students.
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More on the fall tax & $pending increases referendum amidst declining enrollment.
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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?
Civics: The government needs a warrant to spy on you. So agencies are paying tech companies to do it instead.
But governments are increasingly circumventing these protections by using taxpayer dollars to pay private companies to spy on citizens. Government agencies have found many creative and enterprising ways to skirt the Fourth Amendment.
Cellphones generate reams of information about us even when they’re just in our pockets, including revealing our geographical locations—information that is then sold by third-party brokers. In 2017 and 2018, the IRS Criminal Investigation unit (IRS CI) purchased access to a commercial database containing geolocation data from millions of Americans’ cellphones. A spokesman said IRS CI only used the data for “significant money-laundering, cyber, drug and organized-crime cases” and
terminated the contract when it failed to yield any useful leads.
Statistics and politics
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has long been used as a tool of propaganda by the executive branch. Here’s how: they distort definitions, manipulate data, exclude discouraged workers, and revise past reports to create narratives that fit the agenda of whichever administration is in power. This skews the actual economic picture and misleads citizens about the true state of our economy. It’s like a game of musical chairs, and neither side wants to be caught standing when the music stops. The Constitution doesn’t grant the government the authority to track unemployment statistics, so why do we even have this agency? Perhaps it’s time to get rid of it. Their $750M budget could surely be put to better use, and private companies already track U.S. unemployment for free. Win-win.
“She had no experience teaching, but felt passionately that she had to do something about it”
In 1961, Ms. Colvin, a middle-aged, college-educated Syracuse homemaker and mother of two, was appalled to discover that the recent census had counted 11,055 residents of Onondaga County, N.Y., who could not read or write. She had no experience teaching, but felt passionately that she had to do something about it.
It was slow going at first. In 1967, the group, Literacy Volunteers, was chartered by New York State as a nonprofit with 77 tutors, 100 students and Ms. Colvin as its first president. In succeeding decades under her guidance, the organization won federal and private grants, created programs in many states, won national recognition and changed its name to Literacy Volunteers of America.
A year later, after consulting reading specialists and service agencies, she opened an office in her basement, began recruiting volunteers from churches to be tutors, wrote training manuals, and set up a small group to reach out to residents, many of them immigrants, to teach them basic English, offering pathways to jobs, education and rising standards of living.
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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?
“declined to comment on the process used to hire Terrell”
Rebecca Greco, a librarian who worked at the school when Terrell was hired, said she does not recall any engagement with staff prior to the hiring of Terrell as principal. Greco also served on the site-based leadership team but now works as a librarian in a different school district.
She said the district did not make an effort to seek community feedback through virtual meetings or other formats, either.
“You could have gone to a community in good faith and said, ‘Look, we need a principal in place for the start of the school year. This is how we’re going to proceed. This is our reasoning. These are the ways you can provide input,’” Greco said. “But that’s not the way it happened.”
Greco is among the 24 current and former staff members from Southside Elementary School who filed a complaint against Terrell and the school’s assistant principal, Annabel Torres, this spring.
Parents of students filed a separate complaint in June, saying the current state of affairs at the school is at an “epic level of untenability.”
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Madison’s taxpayer funded k-12 system has a huge fall referendum on the November ballot….
Madison’s taxpayer (well) funded k-12 school district has not addressed boundaries in decades…
Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
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?
Chicago Teachers Union seeks to reduce property tax bill for West Loop headquarters
The Chicago Teachers Union Foundation is seeking to significantly reduce the property tax bill for its West Loop headquarters, according to documents from the Cook County Assessor’s Office obtained by FOX 32 Chicago.
The Assessor recently reappraised the value of the CTU’s building, estimating its fair market value at $19 million. However, the CTU is appealing this assessment and has hired a private appraiser who argues that the building’s value should be reduced by more than half, to $9.2 million.
Based on the county’s appraisal, the CTU would owe approximately $1 million in property taxes. According to the Cook County Clerk’s office, 55% of Chicago’s property tax revenue is allocated to the Chicago Board of Education. This means about $550,000 of the CTU’s tax bill would fund Chicago Public Schools. If the CTU’s appeal is successful, it would cut that contribution by more than half, depriving the school district of approximately $275,000.
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Rethinking city governance and cost:
A massive part of Trump’s 2nd-term agenda is to charter TEN new mega-futuristic cities in various states on federally-owned lands
“Almost one-third of the landmass of the United States is owned by the federal government, with just a very, very small portion of that land… we should hold a contest to charter up to ten new cities and award them to the best proposals for development. In other words, we’ll actually build new cities in our country again.”
Madison’s taxpayer funded k-12 system has a huge fall referendum on the November ballot….
Madison’s taxpayer (well) funded k-12 school district has not addressed boundaries in decades…
Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
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?
only “31% of elementary school students in Chicago Public Schools were proficient in reading,”
The Chicago Teachers Union president has a convenient excuse for low test scores in the public school system: The exams are “rooted in white supremacy.”
“The way in which, you know, we think about learning and think about achievement is really and truly based on testing, which at best is junk science rooted in white supremacy,” Stacy Davis Gates said last week in a radio interview.
She also said teachers’ low pay is due to sexism: “This society has never wanted to pay women [their] worth, and as you know, our union is 80% female.”
Gates made the comments when asked by the black radio station WVON 1690 to respond to criticism about asking for pay raises despite low student achievement. The union wants a 9% annual raise and money for solar panels, abortions, and transgender drugs and surgeries as part of its contract negotiation.
Playing the race card makes sense from Gates’s point of view, since only “31% of elementary school students in Chicago Public Schools were proficient in reading,” according to Chalkbeat Chicago.
“In math, 19% of Chicago third through eighth graders were proficient,” based on the Illinois Assessment of Readiness test.
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A majority of the taxpayer financed Madison school board aborted the proposed Madison Preparatory Academy Charter School.
Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
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?
“that’s a lengthy process and the (Madison) school district has rejected charter school proposals in the past”
The school also would focus on building literacy and math skills through “boot camps” in the first year of enrollment. Beyond this bootcamp, students would get grade-level English instruction through the Odell High School Literacy Program, according to the proposal.
——-
A majority of the taxpayer financed Madison school board aborted the proposed Madison Preparatory Academy Charter School.
Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
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?
Notes on the upcoming $607,000,000 (!) Madison k-12 tax & $pending increase referendum – achievement?
The district administered a survey and held a series of input meetings earlier this year, which indicated mixed opinions from the public on referendums for this fall. That was before the School Board voted to place the questions on the ballot, and before the district shared the exact dollar amounts of the proposals and the list of schools selected for updates.
The School Board and district have already begun requesting contract proposals from vendors, should the facilities referendum pass.
Those contracts are for architects and engineers, project managers and construction firms.
All contracts must be approved by the School Board.
—-
Commentary on Madison’s tax & $pending increase referendums
Madison’s taxpayer (well) funded k-12 school district has not addressed boundaries in decades…
Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
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?
the national reckoning around how we teach kids to read in schools—and where we’re still getting it wrong.
In schools, the podcast was a shot across the bow in a longstanding battle over the best way to teach young children to read. “A lot of teachers didn’t know about this research. It was very clear to them, when they started to learn about it, that it has huge implications,” says Hanford. “Teachers don’t actually need someone to connect the dots, many just needed someone to explain to them some basic things about how people learn to read, and then they said, ‘Oh, my God, why have I been doing it this other way?’”
Forty-five states and the District of Columbia have passed laws pertaining to teaching children to read according to the “science of reading” since 2019—and about 15, according to Hanford’s count, are directly in response to her reporting. In 2022, Lucy Calkins, creator of the Units of Study reading curriculum investigated in Sold a Story and used by nearly a quarter of all U.S. elementary schools, revised her curricula to include more phonics. Meanwhile, sales at Heinemann, one of the biggest publishers of reading curricula, including Fountas & Pinnell, declined 75 percent in 2023, according to APM Reports, as schools opt to invest in more evidence-aligned approaches.
We spoke with Hanford about the tectonic shifts created by Sold a Story, her take on the criticism of her work, and what she thinks lies ahead after the dust settles.
Holly Korbey: Your thesis that students are being taught to read using disproven methods hit a nerve—Sold a Story has been downloaded millions of times. What are some of the measurable, concrete outcomes in response to the podcast that you’ve been able to track?
Emily Hanford: The outcomes that mean the most to me are the thousands of emails and social media posts I got from teachers—overwhelmingly, these have been positive. Not positive like: ‘we’re so happy about this.’ It’s more like: ‘Oh, wow, this is really important stuff that I needed to know. Thank you for putting this out there.’ Those notes are often full of emotion, but many are also characterized with, ‘We can do this, I’m psyched. I want to learn more about this.’
At our last count, about 15 pieces of legislation had actually passed. I have mixed feelings about the legislation; obviously, it’s a way to show the impact of journalism, and I hear from teachers that legislative changes are needed, so there’s a role for policy here.
But one of the problems with policies is they have lots of different impacts. For example, they make it possible to galvanize a certain kind of resistance, they give critics something to shoot at. I don’t disagree with some of the points being made, like the criticism of bans on three-cueing. I think policies like the three-cueing bans give detractors an opening to say, ‘all of this science of reading stuff, we just need to move on.’ And I think that’s disingenuous at best.
———
Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
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?
Censorship: EU edition
A timely and useful thread.
This is an unprecedented attempt to stretch a law intended to apply in Europe to political activities in the US. It also patronizes European citizens, suggesting they are incapable of listening to a conversation and drawing their own conclusions.
Don’t take our word for it. Listen to what Nadhim Zahawi—who fled Saddam’s death squads as a boy only to become Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer—wrote last week in our pages.
Europe needs American military support, I’m told.
Does threatening Americans’ exercise of our most important and cherished right support or undermine that?
and Garcia-Martinez
The elites who want to decide what is permissible to read and watch justify their censorship by labeling dissenting opinions as “misinformation,” “hate speech,” “far right,” or “extremist.” During the lockdowns, MI-6 designated me and other health freedom activists as potential “terrorists.” But the label applies more closely to themselves, as they try to scare us into submission again with bird flu hoaxes, debt-fueled financial collapse, and ever more dangerous imperial wars of choice.
Bezos Washington Post Reporter:
What role does the White House or the President have any sort of stopping that or stopping the spread of that or sort of inter — intervening in that. Some of that was about campaign misinformation, but you know it’s a wider thing, right?” More.
In America, we value free speech, including conversations like the one @elonmusk is having tonight with ideas and opinions people may dislike or even find offensive. We don’t censor. Ironic, this used to be a European idea advocated by someone named John Stuart Mill.
“Milwaukee ranks relatively high in total revenue per student compared to other large districts nationally” – Madison is higher, yet
Sara R. Shaw, Robert Rauh, Jeff Schmidt, Jason Stein and Rob Henken:
We can show that by looking at the overall operating funds available to the district from local, state, and federal sources. Using a metric developed for the Forum’s School DataTool, we found that MPS had operating spending in the 2022 school year of $17,843 per pupil, which was 13.4% above the statewide average of $15,734 and ranked 120th among the 421 districts in Wisconsin.
Declining enrollment and the latest referendum will send those amounts higher for MPS starting in 2025. MPS also ranks relatively high in total revenue per student compared to other large districts nationally. The NCES data show MPS with 2020 revenues of $17,520 per student, 3.7% more than the average funding of $16,894 per student and 25th-highest among the 120 largest districts in the country. As noted earlier, however, there are reasons for higher funding levels given that the poverty rate for school-age children in Milwaukee is among the highest for these districts and is relatively high for districts in Wisconsin as well
Madison taxpayers have long spent far more than most other Districts in the US and around the globe, with a massive tax & $pending increase referendum planned for this fall.
Madison’s K-12 tax & spending summary over the years:
Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
Additional background on the Milwaukee Report (Madison’s business community has been dormant for decades on our challenged and well funded K-12 system).
In the 1990s, Milwaukee was widely seen as the epicenter of “education reform” in the country,earning both praise from proponents and scorn from detractors. In the face of poor studentoutcomes and societal trends such as increasing segregation and poverty, multiple interests hadconverged to establish the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP), the country’s first initiativeto offer publicly funded tuition vouchers for students to attend private schools. Independently operated public charter schools opened a few years later, further expanding the options available tofamilies.
Democratic State Representative Annette “Polly” Williams advocated for the choice programs as ameans of empowerment for low-income city residents, particularly aiming to increase Black families’control over their children’s education. Republican Governor Tommy Thompson publicly expressedhope of encouraging better quality by increasing competition between schools in Milwaukee,following the arguments of free market economists like Milton Friedman. The views of these andother elected officials – supported by a coalition of parent and community organizers, businessinterests, and private philanthropy – rested on the belief that students were not sufficiently orequitably served by the current education system, and that families would take more school optionsif given them.
Opponents, however, characterized the shift of students and funds away from Milwaukee PublicSchools (MPS) as privatization efforts that undermined the traditional public school system and itsobligations under the state constitution. They feared that the resulting dispersion of students wouldexacerbate inequality, fail to offer public accountability and transparency, and divert resources fromMPS, threatening its ability to provide an adequately and equitably resourced system of publicschools to its residents. The stakes were high for Milwaukee students, whose levels of poverty standout on both a statewide and national scale, as well as for the city’s wellbeing and for the state’sworkforce and economy.
The Forum took stock of the resulting educational landscape 20 years later in a 2014 series of reports: “What is the Milwaukee K-12 School System?” and “The K-12 School System in Milwaukee:How has it changed and how does it measure up to peers?” Our research provided a broad overviewof the types of schools operating in Milwaukee, admissions processes, academic quality, student demographics, and education funding. It further analyzed recent changes in the landscape andcompared them to the experiences of national peers.
In the fall of 2023, we took up these questions again, equipped with nearly a decade of additionaldata. We did so in the context of recovery from a global pandemic and a recently passed statebudget and related legislation that, among other provisions, provided K-12 funds and – separately –helped stabilize the finances of both the city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County. With localgovernment now on firmer ground, the time appeared ripe to return civic attention to the quality ofeducation in the city. Our specific research questions included the following:
● What does the educational ecosystem look like in Milwaukee right now?
● What trends were found in regard to enrollment, demographics, and finances across thedifferent sectors of schools in Milwaukee?
● What trends are identifiable in regard to outcomes for students on the whole in Milwaukee, using both local and national benchmarks?
Milwaukee Public Schools operated 143 schools in 2023 with a total of 59,899 students. That represented about half of the students served in the city. From 2006 to 2024, enrollment in MPS plummeted by one third.
Meanwhile, charter school enrollments more than doubled during that same time period from 7,323 in 2006 to 15,695 in 2024.
Enrollment in Milwaukee’s private choice schools increased nearly 90 percent since 2006 from 15,864 to 30,103 last school year, according to the report.
Besides parents moving their children from public to private schools, there are fewer children being born (abortion data).
I hate to see quotations printed uncritically when the report directly contradicts them.
Here is hoping the city focuses on solutions and not the same dull, unhelpful conversations…and soon. School starts for some students next week, everybody in 3 weeks!
A new @policyforum report paints a relatively fair picture of the education landscape in MKE. But articles like this zeroing in on the role of school choice are unfair (1/3)
After 30 years of reforms, report examines state of Milwaukee schools (jsonline.com)
Related: Where have all the students gone?
Madison’s taxpayer (well) funded k-12 school district has not addressed boundaries in decades…
Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
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?
Commentary on Madison’s tax & $pending increase referendums
The two referendums total $607 million, making them the second-largest request of voters by a school district in state history. It comes in behind Racine’s $1 billion school referendum, which passed in 2020 by only five votes
Lucas Robinson and Gayle Worland
“Residents in Madison are likely looking at a higher cost of living across the board, whether you’re a renter or an owner,” said Adam Nelson, who noted two other Madison School District referendums that voters will decide in November. “If you’re in the middle or lower-income bracket, if you’re cost-burdened in housing, this could be a harder pill to swallow.”
The School District’s two referendums would add $1,370 to the property tax bill of the average home by 2028.
More.
——
Meanwhile:
Madison’s taxpayer (well) funded k-12 school district has not addressed boundaries in decades…
Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
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?
K-12 Tax & $pending climate: “the cost of city employee wages and benefits has increased by 25.2% and 37.7%, respectively, since 2019”
The first half of Rhodes-Conway’s signature initiative, a Bus Rapid Transit system, is also expected to launch this fall, and while the federal government is picking up from 75% to 80% of the costs to build it, that still leaves the city on the hook for at least $70 million. City officials say the borrowing needed to cover that amount will not be significant, and the system will not cost more to operate than the traditional bus system it replaces.
Madison’s population has grown by 13.3% over the last five years, the city’s Finance Department reports, and the consumer price index, also known as inflation, is up 23% in that time.
Voters are already sure to see two referendums from the Madison School District on the Nov. 5 ballot. They would raise annual property taxes $1,370 by 2028.
———
Madison’s taxpayer (well) funded k-12 school district has not addressed boundaries in decades…
Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
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?
“These norms have led to the toleration of state corruption and inefficiency “how dare you criticise the teachers”, “how dare you criticise the NHS”
“how are you criticise the EU/Federal government” and the promotion of cancellation against those who go against the established narrative on issues such as the speed/scope/direction of Net Zero, stand up for women’s rights against the trans ideology or who critique the current model of immigration/integration.
The cosmopolitan liberals are on a hiding to nothing with all of these issues. And why? Because they as a political wing represent the status quo, and what we are seeing now is the beginning of the end for the dominant post 1945 social democratic settlement. 2020-21 I would argue, with the twin pillars of massive state control through the excuse of COVID and the cultural dominance of the BLM/Woke movement, was Western social democracy at its apex and the longer that model to hold the more it will corrode and wither into either a Robespierre-esque focus on equity, or else a degeneration into deep green anti growth nihilism, either of which will kill it as a force anyway. This is why Emmanuel Macron now seems out of his depth, why Trudeau keeps failing, and why the European Union continues to stagnate – they are the status quo establishment and they’ve run out of ideas.
So what then do I think will take its place. Well inevitably one wing of politics seeks to preserve the status quo and one wing seeks to overturn it and looking at the ideas floating around the populist/rightist/nationalist camp we can already see trends emerging. Now I will caveat that it will take a while for these to develop as intellectually there is no fertile “home” for this wing (being excluded from academia and more generally all sympathetic intellectual figures being shunned/condemned/cancelled but substack seems to be developing into a way “rightist” intellectuals can work and be paid to be intellectuals. And those intellectuals will not be drinking from a barren pool and when we look at the expected intellectual influencers it gets hard for classical liberals/libertarians to pretend they have no sympathy with this movement.
——
Improving state capacity through slewing the deadwood of the bureaucratic state with a burn it down/drain the swamp mentality.
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Madison’s taxpayer (well) funded k-12 school district has not addressed boundaries in decades…
Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
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?
“the upgrades would “provide a modern educational experience.”
The district is asking voters for the money as funding from federal pandemic aid and a 2020 referendum are set to expire. If voters also approve of the district’s other referendum on the November ballot — a $100 million request to help fund day-to-day expenses — district officials estimate the owner of an average-value home in Madison would see a $1,376 increase on property tax bills by 2028.
For the larger referendum to rebuild or fix 10 schools, Soldner said the district selected schools partially based on a promise from the 2020 referendum. The School Board pledged future upgrades would target the district’s remaining alternative high school and focus on middle schools. The 2020 referendum had funded fixes at four comprehensive high schools and a new building for Southside Elementary School.
——
The School Board has yet to finalize plans for which buildings should be entirely replaced, if any. District leaders are recommending five new buildings and the cost of each would be:
- $70.6 million for Cherokee Heights Middle School
- $89 million for Sennett Middle School
- $84.2 million for Black Hawk Middle School and Gompers Elementary School
- $90.8 million for Toki Middle School and Orchard Ridge Elementary School
- $108.3 million for Sherman Middle School and Shabazz City High School
Soldner said some of the original buildings would remain open during construction to avoid displacing students. The buildings could also be used for other students whose schools must be renovated or entirely rebuilt. New schools could be built on existing green space adjacent to old schools, he told the School Board in June.
—-
As school district leaders ask voters to raise property taxes, demographers are anticipating future declines in enrollment. While district-wide enrollment is expected to remain flat this fall, the student population is likely to trend downward for at least the next five years, according to projections by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers.
Four of the five middle schools on the referendum are also being used at 60% capacity, according to a June analysis by the Wisconsin Policy Forum. The school district typically targets a 90% use rate.
——-
Madison’s taxpayer (well) funded k-12 school district has not addressed boundaries in decades…
Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
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?
teachers to embrace ‘step by step’ explicit instruction method amid major syllabus shake-up
The New South Wales curriculum has had its biggest shakeup in five decades with better connections between subjects, more detailed concepts and skills, and a move away from the student-led approach to learning towards “explicit instruction”.
On Wednesday, new K-6 syllabuses for health, creative arts, human society and its environment, and science were released to teachers, with updated maths and English syllabuses in classrooms from this year.
The NSW education minister, Prue Car, said the curriculum reform would “reshape education” for decades to come.
“For the first time, primary school teachers have a set of syllabuses that make sense together and will ensure students have a strong foundation upon which to build their knowledge,” she said.
Human society and its environment will replace the separate subjects of history and geography, including compulsory content on democracy and citizenship and ancient civilisations, while new health content will include the healthy use of digital devices and age-appropriate consent from kindergarten.
In science, students will study the human body for the first time, as well as the earth and solar systems, climate, energy, food chains and electricity.
Teacher license error means these Madison kids must redo classes
But the school failed to ensure the teacher had the proper licensing to teach a portion of the students’ instruction.
The error meant Steffen’s son, Theodore, and his son’s six classmates would need to redo thousands of minutes of instruction to stay on track with other students.
“I don’t think the problem was on the employee,” Steffen said. “(The school district) hired her, they put her in the position for the job she was going to do, so it seems like a district issue to me.”
The Madison Metropolitan School District realized the problem when another parent filed a complaint with the state Department of Public Instruction, which credentials teachers, according to a district employee. The staff member requested anonymity because they were not authorized by the district to speak on the matter.
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?
Civics: “Our two-party system isn’t always great, but it’s far preferable to one in which a single party gains total control”
The Biden situation is a good example of why single-party states are dangerous — the incentives always favor party loyalty over truth. If it weren’t for the disastrous debate and upcoming elections, experts and insiders would still be insisting that Biden is “sharp as a tack”, and that all evidence to the contrary are “cheapfakes” and dangerous misinformation.
Our two-party system isn’t always great, but it’s far preferable to one in which a single party gains total control. I believe this is also a significant factor in the California/SF dysfunction. Without a viable opposition party, party leaders can get away with just about anything, and corruption and incompetence grows unchecked.
—-
Madison has had many uncontested elections in recent years….
Yet:
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?
There’s nothing especially scary in the Heritage Foundation’s education agenda
As for the specifics of Project 2025? There’s a good chance that it doesn’t say what you think it does. For instance, one graphic that’s been widely circulated (which The Dispatch reportshas racked up millions of views across Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Reddit, and X) lists 31 policies supposedly found in Project 2025. These falsehoods include raising the retirement age, teaching Christian religious beliefs in public schools, banning books and curriculum about slavery, ending birthright citizenship, and eliminating the FDA and EPA. Project 2025 mentions none of these.
In fact, as Libby Stanford has capably reportedfor Education Week, most of what Project 2025 actually proposes for education is neither surprising nor all that new. The 44 pages devoted to the Department of Education call for shuttering the Department, block-granting Title I funding and then phasing it out, turning IDEA into a block grant, adopting a federal Parents’ Bill of Rights, spotlighting the extent of DEI efforts and then working to curtail them, requiring the office of civil rights to work through the courts rather than rely on “Dear Colleague” letters, and so forth. Anyone surprised by this kind of conservative wish list needs to get out more.
For what it’s worth, I mostly like what Project 2025 has to say on education. Block-granting is reasonable given the morass of regulation that’s made these programs intrusive and counterproductive. Curtailing the office of civil rights’ use of extrajudicial pressure tactics is overdue. Miguel Cardona’s politicized, legally dubious, inept tenure as secretary of education has powerfully made the case for dismantling the department. People of goodwill can disagree about all of this, but there’s nothing especially scary, theocratic, or fascist about it.
How To Stop Critical Race Theory In Your Local Schools: Advice From A School Board Member
Since I began covering the spread of critical race theory into public school curriculum, I’ve received one question more than any other: what concrete actions should we be taking to get this stuff out of kids’ classrooms?
This morning, I spoke to Vicki Manning, school board member with the Virginia Beach City Public Schools (VBCPS). Vickie has been on the frontlines of the battle against CRT in her district for the past 7 months. Here’s her advice:
Show Up
First and foremost, Vickie urges parents (and concerned citizens) to attend local school board meetings. “Show up, speak up, and write to the board”, Vickie suggests. Showing up in person is best (or via zoom when necessary), but letters and emails go a long way. In terms of swaying the school board, there is power in numbers.
According to Vickie there is reason to be hopeful. In her experience, many parents in her purple district are concerned and willing to get involved. She believes the wave of parent resistance to critical race theory is poised to grow in other districts as well.
An easy first step is contacting your local school board to ask their stance on critical race theory and what policies, if any, are in place to ensure students are protected from ideological indoctrination at school.
Notes on the University of Arizona and DIE
The DEI mandate is part of a general education curriculum update at the University of Arizona and takes effect in fall 2026. In the meantime, it has prompted criticisms from a high-profile conservative think tank in the state.
Students “will be forced to take courses with academically unserious content that adds nothing to their education,” Timothy Minella, a researcher with the Goldwater Institute, told The College Fix.
Minella authored the institute’s report criticizing the DEI mandate. Published this month, it argues “general education programs were originally intended to help students gain knowledge and skills essential for thoughtful citizenship and successful careers.”
But the new DEI requirements “instead promote politically activist ideologies to a captive audience of students, who must complete the programs in order to receive a degree,” it adds.
Wisconsin Watch Commentary on School library choices
An increasing part of library specialists’ and district administrators’ jobs has become dealing with requests. Records showed hundreds of internal emails related to scheduling reconsideration meetings and addressing parent concerns. Administrators oversee books across numerous buildings and are struggling with the balancing act of appeasing parent concerns while maintaining appropriate grade interest levels for thousands of other students.
Districts’ criteria took into account a book’s alignment with curriculum and state standards, the readability and appeal of texts to diverse students, the grade-level appropriateness, the significance and reputation of a book’s author, popular appeal and reviews from sites such as Scholastic and Common Sense Media.
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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?
Notes on redistributed state taxpayer funds and the madison School District’s budget
State aid payments are influenced by factors like enrollment, district spending and local property values. Assistant Superintendent of Financial Services Bob Soldern told the Wisconsin State Journal via email the district had been planning to receive about $50 million in state support.
Nichols said she doesn’t think the additional money from the state dramatically changes the district’s financial situation.
“I don’t think for the long haul in terms of the future forecasting of our budget … there will be a huge shift,” she said.
Statewide, the general aid paid to school districts for 2024-25 totals $5.6 billion, according to DPI. Nearly 70% of districts are estimated to receive more general aid from the state, while about 30% are estimated to receive less. Eight districts are estimated to have no change in aid.
DPI is anticipating “greater than usual volatility” in the estimates due to inaccuracies and delays in financial reporting from Milwaukee Public Schools.
The state aid amounts will be finalized in October.
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Dear Milwaukee media. Stop saying MPS is going to “lose” $81 million this year. Or that aid will be cut. It makes it seem like the district is a victim. Instead try: MPS received $81 million more than it should have because of incompetence and is now being held accountable.
Quinton Klabon, research director with the conservative Institute for Reforming Government, said solving the budget gap will be painful.
“No cut will be invisible, so every curriculum purchase, every contract, and every staffing decision must justify itself going forward,” Klabon said. “How MPS handles these summer months will determine whether students get the education and services they deserve. Rebuilding trust with parents begins now.”
State aid is the largest form of state support for Wisconsin public schools
DPI calculates general school aids through a formula that uses property values in the district, enrollment and district spending.
The current estimates are based on the 2023-25 biennial budget and pupil count and budget data reported by school districts to the DPI.
Due to previously reported delays in financial data reporting by Milwaukee Public Schools, the DPI anticipates greater than usual volatility in these estimates.
“Figures used in this estimate may change by a greater than usual amount for the certification of general school aids,” according to a DPI press release. “The department therefore encourages caution when utilizing this estimate.”
Statewide, estimated general school aids for 2024-25 total $5.58 billion, a 4.2 percent increase from 2023-24.
Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average K – 12 spending. Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
Enrollment notes.
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?
Notes on Madison’s planned $607M tax & spending increase, outcomes?
At $607 million, the Madison School District’s pair of referendums set for November will be the second-largest ask of voters by a school district in Wisconsin history.
It comes in behind Racine’s $1 billion referendum, which passed in 2020 by only five votes. The dollar amount Madison is requesting has been described as “unprecedented” in district history by the Wisconsin Policy Forum — not to mention the tax impacts homeowners would see if both questions were approved.
Madison property owners are being asked to fork over a lot of money.
The Madison School District, however, is not alone in its increasing reliance on referendums to fill operating budget holes and to pay for new construction. Other Wisconsin school districts, including Madison suburbs, also have put a number of big referendums on ballots in recent years.
While the dollar amounts are significantly less than what Madison schools are requesting this fall, Madison’s population — estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau at about 280,000 — is significantly greater as well.
It’s hard to make direct comparisons of the tax implications of various referendums, including those Madison is proposing, over the years. Inflation, property values, population changes, and the fact that operating referendums frequently ramp up over a period of time all have an impact.
But for context, here’s a look at the large school referendums Madison and other Dane County voters have approved in recent years.
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Madison, meanwhile excels in unopposed school board elections.
Yet:
Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average K – 12 spending. Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
Enrollment notes.
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?
47 candidates (!) file for Chicago school board elections
The window for hopefuls to submit their minimum 1,000 signatures to get on the ballot closed Monday afternoon with more than two dozen final-day submissions wrapping up the week-long process that kicked off the elections.
Chicago’s first-ever school board elections will feature 47 candidates vying for 10 seats, a number surpassing most expectations and including parents, former teachers and principals, nonprofit workers and a rapper.
The window for hopefuls to submit their minimum 1,000 signatures to get on the ballot closed Monday afternoon with more than two dozen final-day submissions wrapping up the week-long process that kicked off the elections.
Carmen Gioiosa beat the clock to file her paperwork in District 4 along the north lakefront, where six people are battling it out. The former high school Italian teacher and Chicago Public Schools central office administrator said she was still collecting signatures Monday morning.
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Madison, meanwhile excels in unopposed school board elections.
Yet:
Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average K – 12 spending. Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
Enrollment notes.
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?
Delong Middle School student makes history winning the first Wisconsin Civics Bee: “focused on the flaws of the education system”
When Rya Mousavi saw a poster for Wisconsin’s first civics bee, she had an idea.
“My teacher just had a poster on the board and I talked to her about it. She kind of introduced me to the civics bee and I thought it was a good opportunity,” said Mousavi
An opportunity to improve her community. The civics bee is a competition hosted by the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce Foundation in which middle schoolers from across the state share ideas to improve their communities and answer civics questions.
Contestants are asked to pick a topic to write about. Mousavi focused on the flaws of the education system. She says school systems nationwide, including the Eau Claire Area School District, don’t meet the diverse needs of all students
“We’re really not able to make the most out of all the time, we have to learn and a lot of that is because of issues to the system. There’s a lot we can do to improve the system. I believe we have the resources,” Mousavi said.
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Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average K – 12 spending. Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
Enrollment notes.
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?
Notes on Madison’s planned K-12 tax & $pending increase referendum (enrollment data?)
Administrators are recommending Sennett Middle School and Cherokee Heights Middle School be replaced with new buildings. The same goes for several combined schools that share the same location: Shabazz City High and Sherman Middle; Black Hawk Middle and Gompers Elementary; Toki Middle and Orchard Ridge Elementary.
The district would also renovate Anana and Crestwood elementary schools, bringing the total cost of construction to $507 million.
It’s not clear exactly where the new schools would be located. New schools could be built on empty fields next door to some of the existing buildings, according to board materials.
Meanwhile, money from the operating referendum could be spent on things like staff salaries and educational programming. The district has not provided details on exactly what the $100 million will buy.
….
In the preliminary budget, spending would total $581 million, about $10 million less than last school year. With COVID-19 pandemic relief aid winding down, the district is getting significantly less money from federal sources.
The district plans to add more than 100 full-time equivalent positions in 2025. Most of the additions will be at the classroom level, with more teachers and education assistant positions added back to schools.
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If voters approve of the school district’s two measures, MMSD officials estimate an owner of an average-value home in Madison would see a $1,376 increase on their property tax bills by 2028. That could be on top of hundreds of dollars annually for a city property tax increase.
If the operating budget referendum fails, the district’s starting budget would still include 107 new full-time positions. It would also retain 111 positions previously funded by federal pandemic relief aid, the Policy Forum said.
The number of administrators would stay nearly the same, but the district would add more teachers, educational assistants and mental health support staff. Many of the teacher resources would go toward the 4-year-old kindergarten and kindergarten through first grade programs.
Total staff for the school district would be the equivalent of 4,192 full-time employees — the largest number of district staff since at least 2013, the Policy Forum said.
Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average K – 12 spending. Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
Enrollment notes.
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?
“The best news reporter in town is up with a story today that ought to get heads rolling in our public school district”
but probably won’t because — Forget it, Jake, it’s Madison WI!
School employees harassed police as they arrested an 18-year-old student criminal for carrying a loaded weapon inside La Follette high school, according to the most excellent report from Chris Rickert of the WI State Journal, made after an open records request.
One Kyshawn M. Bankston had a Glock 9 mm handgun, two magazines with rounds in them, a scale and an empty plastic bag that had contained marijuana, police say. The young scholar lunged for that gun as police moved to arrest him. (Their police report)
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Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average K – 12 spending. Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
Enrollment notes.
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?
Civics: Governance and elections
Most Americans believe it is unhinged to deliberately destroy the border and allow 10 million illegal aliens to enter the country without background audits, means of support, any claims to legal residency, and definable skills. And worse still, why would federal authorities be ordered to release repeat violent felons who have gone on to commit horrendous crimes against American citizens?
Equally perplexing to most Americans is borrowing $1 trillion every 90 days and paying 5-5.5% interest on the near $36 trillion in ballooning national debt. Serving that debt at current interest exceeds the size of the annual defense budget and may soon top $1 trillion in interest costs, or more than 13% of the budget.
Why would the United States suspend military aid to Israel as it tries to destroy the Hamas architects of the October 7 massacres? Why would it lift sanctions on a terrorist Iran? Why would it suppress Israel’s response to Iran’s missile attack on the Jewish homeland? Why would it prevent Israel from stockpiling key munitions as it prepares to deal with the existential threats posed by Hezbollah?
Why would the Biden administration cancel key pipeline projects and put vast swaths of federal lands rich in oil and gas off limits to production, even as it further drains the strategic petroleum reserve? Why not pump rather than drain our own oil from strategic stockpiles?
Why would the Biden White House’s counsel’s office meet with Nathan Wade, the former paramour chief prosecutor in the Fani Willis Fulton County prosecution of Donald Trump? Why would the third-ranking prosecutor in the Biden Justice Department step down to lead Alvin Bragg’s Manhattan prosecution of Donald Trump? Why would the Biden Justice Department under Attorney General Merrick Garland select Jack Smith as a special prosecutor of Donald Trump—given his past failures as a special counsel and known political biases?
Nihilism only explains so much. A better explanation is that the Biden administration and its handlers knew that there was a good chance that most of their policies would prove unpopular and might even jeopardize Biden’s reelection.
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More.
Madison’s K-12 Governance: recent calendar activity
With the arrival of our latest K-12 Superintendent, I thought readers might have interest in recent calendar activity. On 4 June, 2024, I made a public records request of the taxpayer funded Madison School District:
“digital copy of Superintendent Joe Gothard’s calendar from his first meetings (April?) through 4 June, 2024.
In addition, I write to request the same for Nichelle Nichols, Board President from 1 January 2024 to 4 June, 2024.
Digital screenshots of these requests in png or jpg format are fine.”
I received the response today. Nichelle Nichols and Joe Gothard.
Superintendent Gothard’s May to June weekly calendar screens:
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2013: What will be different, this time? 2019: Jennifer Cheatham and the Madison Experience
Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average K – 12 spending. Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
Enrollment notes.
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?
“Security staff are in the wrong job if they object to arresting armed students.”
The so-called “security staff” at La Follette high school put up a hissy fit when police carted off an 18-year-old student found with weapons of mass destruction in his backpack. (“We’re supposed to protect kids here” — from police!) The newspaper quotes the school principal, who caught hell from the “security staff,” to say:
“We have amazing employees of color who were watching a student of color going into the system. They were, and are, heartbroken” and “raw emotions and feelings surfaced. …. Their hearts were in the right place.” — Principal Mat (one T) Thompson, quoted here.
That kind of Woke blibber blabber surfaces raw emotions and feelings in this correspondent but he does not want to go all Proud Boy on the schools. Instead, we offer defeated school board candidate David Blaska’s response to rightly concerned Madison parents and taxpayers:
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Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average K – 12 spending. Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
Enrollment notes.
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?
Commentary on Madison’s Latest K-12 Superintendent
He certainly has his work cut out for him. Gothard is being thrust into a likely $600 million referendum campaign this fall that won’t be easy to pass. Inflation and soaring housing costs have soured many voters on tax hikes. Advocates will need to show taxpayers in a clear and specific way what they are getting for their money. How will outcomes for children improve?
The district must retrain elementary teachers in reading instruction that emphasizes phonics. State officials have mandated the strategy, based on research showing better results. But they aren’t giving Gothard’s district additional resources for the considerable effort (?).
Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average K – 12 spending. Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
Enrollment notes.
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?
Tiny and terrifying: Why some feel threatened by Wisconsin’s parental choice programs
In Madison, where the possibility of school choice arrived 23 years after Milwaukee, there are six private schools in the choice program that Smith calls “vouchers,” and those six schools enrolled 655 choice students in the school year just ended. The Madison Metropolitan School District, in comparison, has about 25,000 students.
Big ask
Perhaps Madison families will see some of the growth common elsewhere. Independent private schools in the city of Milwaukee educated about 29,000 children using choice grants last year, and those in Racine educated about 4,000. Nearly 19,000 kids throughout the rest of Wisconsin used choice grants.
Several more Madison schools have been cleared by state regulators to join the choice program in fall, including a second one to offer high school grades. This likely will be a blessing to Madison families looking for an alternative to a school district where, by the state’s most recent figures, only 41% of the students had been taught to read at grade level or better. By contrast, Madison’s largest private school in the choice program, Abundant Life Christian School, got 73% of its students to grade level or better in reading.
Why Senator Smith regards this as “failing” is baffling.
When families take their children to Abundant Life or other independent options, $10,237 of state aid will follow each one, or $12,731 if they’re high schoolers — the entirety of taxpayers’ outlay.
By contrast, in the most recent state figures, Madison Metropolitan School District spent a total of $17,944 per child in taxpayer money.
What’s more, the district may ask voters in November for another $600 million in spending, overriding the taxpayer-protecting limits set in law. The proposal would add $1,378 to the property taxes of a typical Madison home. The district says its budget is in dire straits because it used temporary pandemic aid for permanent expenses. It could have to cut its $589 million budget by about $2 million, or 0.4%.
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Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average K – 12 spending. Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
Enrollment notes.
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?
Notes on Madison K-12 Governance and outcomes
Contrast that with a public school system here in Madison in which so-called safety monitors try to prevent police from removing pistol-packing pupils from the hallways of La Follette high school in the name of diversity, equity, and inclusion. (Read & Weep!)
In the spirit of transparency, our new superintendent of schools gave an interview to our favorite local morning newspaper in which he manages to talk much and say little. Asked about Jennifer Cheatham’s Behavior Education Plan, however, Joe Gothard acknowledges:
“People would like to support a complete upheaval and change… but I haven’t been directed by the board and I certainly haven’t heard it as a priority.”
Blaska’s Bottom Line #1: And you won’t hear it as a priority if you’re a new hire who reports to the likes of school board members Ali Muldrow, Savion Castro, and their allies at Progressive Dane and Freedom Inc.!
Blaska’s Bonus Bottom Line: As we told Dave Zweifel of The Capital Times in the last thrilling episode, not exposing students to Woke ideology is a feature, not a bug.
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More:
My old boss at The Capital TimesDave Zweifel kvetches that “the school choice program is no longer limited to that altruistic approach championed by Thompson in 1990,” that being limiting participation to the poorest of the poor. Dave, you were opposed to Tommy’s altruistic approach even in 1990! BTW: The program is still income-limited.
Another supposed fly in the ointment, Dave sez, is that voucher schools can prevent students from being exposed (Dave’s word) or subjected (Blaska’s word) to Woke ideology. That’s a feature, not a bug, Dave. He writes:
Since the days of Thomas Jefferson, America provided public education to its citizens.
Still does, thanks to the voucher program! No mention of Milwaukee’s scandalous public schools, which do NOT provide public education to its citizens.
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Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average K – 12 spending. Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
Enrollment notes.
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?
Substantial Madison K-12 tax and $pending increase plans
One question on the ballot would ask voters for $100 million over the next four school years to increase spending on staff salaries and education programs. The second would ask for $507 million to renovate or replace seven aging elementary and middle schools.
The two referendums would be “unprecedented in size and scope in district history,” according to an analysis from the nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum released today.
As school district leaders consider the referendums, Madison city leaders also are weighing a property tax referendum of their own on the same ballot.
That would mark the first time Madison voters are asked to consider property tax referendums from both the school district and the city.
If voters approve of the school district’s two measures, MMSD officials estimate an owner of an average-value home in Madison would see a $1,376 increase on their property tax bills by 2028. That could be on top of hundreds of dollars annually for a city property tax increase.
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Wisconsin Policy Forum (achievement?)
Another set of points for referendum voters to consider is how MMSD funding compares to other districts in Dane County and around Wisconsin. In short, the district’s revenue limit and related aid of $15,435 per student is already relatively high compared to other districts, and the referendum would accentuate that.
….
However, the middle schools in particular have low rates of utilization because of declining enrollment, with Sennett, Sherman, Toki, and Black Hawk middle schools all operating at or between 45% and 56% of their capacity. With enrollment currently projected to fall further in the next several years, MMSD officials and voters may wish to consider whether all of these schools will be used for many years to come or whether it makes sense to explore consolidating two middle school buildings to avoid at least one of the construction projects.
They may wish to engage in a similar discussion about elementary schools as well, though those facilities generally have at least somewhat higher utilization rates.
That would be the largest number of MMSD staff since at least 2013 despite the fact that enrollment is essentially at its lowest point over that period.
But Stein said the latest proposals are historic in size.
“This would be both from the capital and the operating side, the largest referendum questions that have ever been put to (MMSD) voters,” he said. “So certainly, this is a bigger ask than voters have ever had from the district in the past.”
Stein says Madison is contending with financial headwinds, including state-imposed limits on fundraising and waning pandemic aid.
He also noted that money from a tax referendum approved by MMSD voters in 2020 is drying up.
Last year, Madison’s school board approved employee raises between 5.5 and 10 percent, which cost an extra $12 million in the current fiscal year. MMSD’s proposed budget for 2025 would add more than 100 full-time equivalent staff positions, and could also include additional raises.
It remains to be seen how many of those positions will be filled in a hot labor market, and Stein noted that vacancies could help patch up the budget shortfall.
“All school districts have been facing challenges from employee turnover (and) from rising inflation costs that have put pressure on their labor costs,” he said.
Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average K – 12 spending. Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
Enrollment notes.
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?
Notes on “voucher” schools; accountability?
Many educators complained at the time that the entire voucher program would serve as a foot in the door to eventually undermine the public school system — a system that had served the country since colonial days and was credited with representing the true melting pot among children from different cultures, races and incomes. Besides, experiments comparing public and private schools in other places hadn’t resulted in any significant improvements in student outcomes.
The ACLU filed suit against the religious school expansion and in 1998, the State Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional. But, three years later the U.S. Supreme Court okayed the concept, agreeing with voucher proponents that taxpayer money actually went to parents who then could use the money as they saw fit for their children’s education. Therefore, states weren’t directly sending funds to religious schools, the court found.
From those beginnings here in Wisconsin, that seemingly modest little program has blossomed into a colossus that is rapidly creating a complete second school system funded by the American taxpayer.
“Billions in taxpayer dollars are being used to pay tuition at religious schools throughout the country, as state voucher programs expand dramatically and the line separating public education and religion fades,” a report in the Washington Post read earlier this month.
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Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average K – 12 spending. Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
Enrollment notes.
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?
“Second, the latest revelation underscores the incompetence of the board”
The recent news that Milwaukee Public Schools failed to file a required financial report to the state Department of Public Instruction, that its past reports were missing data or inaccurate, and that it might have to payback millions in funds to the state is just another proof point underscoring the need for substantial governance reform. This lays open two serious deficiencies with the MPS board.
First, is the lack of transparency and outright deceit on the part of the board. Do we really believe all this was “discovered” after the district led a push for $252 million in new property taxes? Do we really believe that no one on the board was aware of what was going on? For an elected body to misrepresent and hide the true situation at MPS immediately preceding the spring ballot initiative is outrageous and unacceptable. The board operates in star-chamber proceedings with absolutely no oversight. It no longer holds the public’s trust.
Second, the latest revelation underscores the incompetence of the board. Why weren’t they asking the tough questions? Why weren’t they seeking information as to the delay? Were they so oblivious to good governance that they didn’t even think to ask for this kind of data? No well-governed organization should ever find itself in the situation the MPS board is in right now. Moreover, this incompetence extends to the performance of the school system itself.
Milwaukee schools near bottom in national academic performance
As a city, our K-12 educational performance is near dead last, well below the national averages (based on the National Assessment of Educational Progress) in both reading and math. Think about it, we are below virtually every other major city in America. Worse, only 15.9%, and 9.9% of MPS students are on grade level on the state assessment in reading and math, respectively.
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Meanwhile, Madison!
Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average K – 12 spending. Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
Enrollment notes.
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?
Why Government Unions—Unlike Trade Unions—Corrupt Democracy
Today, in a runoff election for mayor, Chicago voters will choose either former teacher Brandon Johnson or former schools CEO Paul Vallas. What’s raising eyebrows is the funding of Johnson’s campaign: Over 90 percent has come from teachers unions and other public employee unions. Vallas has the endorsement of the police union, but his funding is more diverse, including business leaders and industrial unions. Just looking at the money, the race comes down to this: Public employees vs everyone else plus cops.
What is wrong with this picture? The new mayor is supposed to manage Chicago for all the citizens, not to benefit public employees. Chicago is not in good shape. In 37 of its schools, not one student is proficient in reading or math. Its transit system is stuck with schedules that serve no one at great expense. The crime rate in Chicago is among the highest in the country. But no recent Chicago mayor has been able to fix these and other endemic problems because the public unions have collective bargaining powers that give them a veto on how the city is run. Frustrated by the inability to get teachers back to the classroom during Covid, Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot observedthat the teachers union wanted “to take over not only Chicago Public Schools, but take over running the city government.”
This is not just a Chicago problem. Los Angeles teachers walked out of class rooms last month supposedly to support striking service personnel, but Los Angeles lacks the resources to help the service employees because of the indebted inefficiencies in the teachers union contract.
American government has a fatal flaw hiding in plain sight. Public employee unions in most states have a stranglehold on public operations. Voters elect governors and mayors who have been disempowered from fixing lousy schools, firing rogue cops, or eliminating notorious inefficiencies.
——
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators (2010)
“I just wanted to point out that the idea of substituting tariffs for taxes does have much historical support”
For most of American history, tariffs dominated taxes as a source of federal government revenue:
This was also the time when the US rose to become a manufacturing powerhouse. And as you can see from the graph, the income tax (and the Federal Reserve and much of the federal government as we know it) really only dates back to the 1910-1930s period. For most of US history the economy was set up in a completely different way.
MERCANTILISM VS FREE TRADE
The term for what the US used to be is “mercantilist”. The founders thought of the US as like a giant merchant that needed to make more money than it spent.
As such, their rationale for tariffs was simple. A tariff is an incentive to build rather than buy. In theory, it encourages domestic manufacturing and is a tax on foreigners rather than citizens. We don’t need to buy foreign goods; we have goods at home!
This is distinct from the last few decades of free trade. The idea was: you’re good at making apples and I’m good at making oranges, so why not just specialize and trade? Comparative advantage proves it’s a win/win!
This is a good argument until you make military robots and I make pieces of paper, which is the relationship between China and the US now. At that point it’s no longer a win/win. With your military robots you can perhaps take my paper — and my oranges. And there is no need to trade.
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“America’s assassination attempt on Huawei is backfiring”
Merrick Garland on Speech and Institutions
Writing in the Bezos Washington Post:
Unfounded attacks on the Justice Department must end
Last week, a California man was convicted of threatening to bomb an FBI field office where hundreds of agents and other employees work. In one of his threats to the FBI, the man wrote: “I can go on a mass murder spree. In fact, it would be very explainable by your actions.”
DOJ officials “do not investigate people because of their last name, their political affiliation, the size of their bank account, where they come from or what they look like. We investigate and prosecute violations of federal law — nothing more, nothing less,” Garland wrote.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP
“We will not be intimidated by these attacks,” he said. “But it is absurd and dangerous that public servants, many of whom risk their lives every day, are being threatened for simply doing their jobs and adhering to the principles that have long guided the Justice Department’s work.”
The op-ed comes as House Republicans are moving toward holding Garland in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena to hand over recordings from special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents.
On the same day Garland similarly defended the DOJ before a House panel last week, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) announced a “three-pronged” response to what Republicans have described as a “weaponized” justice system using investigations, legislation, and power of the purse.
Garland insisted in his op-ed the DOJ does not make political decisions in criminal investigations, a charge GOP critics have made in regard to the Trump cases and others, and warned “democracy cannot survive” without a justice system that guarantees equal treatment of all its citizens.
“Disagreements about politics are good for our democracy. They are normal,” Garland wrote. “But using conspiracy theories, falsehoods, violence and threats of violence to affect political outcomes is not normal.”
“The short-term political benefits of those tactics will never make up for the long-term cost to our country,” he added. “Continued unfounded attacks against the Justice Department’s employees are dangerous for people’s safety. They are dangerous for our democracy. This must stop.”
Garland ignores the differences in the prosecution of Trump and Biden for similar behavior with classified documents.
For instance, Trump’s case involved an armed raid on Mar-a-Lago, while in Biden’s case his personal lawyers searched his papers.
The DOJ has spent over $23 million on the two investigations into former President Donald Trump, while spending only around $6.4 million on the probe into Biden’s handling of classified documents, according to numbers released in January.
The Biden DOJ also opposed efforts to limit its “settlement slush fund,” which enables it to direct funds toward left-wing nonprofits.
This week, Attorney General Merrick Garland took to the pages of the Washington Post to lash out at critics who are spreading what he considers “conspiracy theories crafted and spread for the purpose of undermining public trust in the judicial process itself.” His column, titled “Unfounded attacks on the Justice Department must end,” missed the point.
“By using available federal databases, the [Selective Service] agency will be able to register all of the individuals required and thus help ensure that any future military draft is fair and equitable.”
The House passed a measure automatically registering men aged 18 to 26 for selective service as part of the FY25 National Defense Authorization Act.
Previously, male U.S. citizens aged 18 to 25 had to manually register for Selective Service.
The new proposal does not alter the existing requirements for immigrants, who must register within 30 days of arrival unless they are on valid visas.
This new measure uses federal databases for automatic registration, streamlining the process and reducing legal issues for non-compliance.
“You shouldn’t expect to know how to read, do math, or make a life for yourself”
once you’re auto-graduated from one of the area’s failed schools. But if you’re a Marquette-educated city planner who grew up in Whitefish Bay and now has a place, a goldendoodle, and a job in the Third Ward, Milwaukee is everything a man could ever want. Ride the white-collar novelty streetcar that cost tens of millions to build and bask in how good it is to be anywhere that isn’t steeped in crime-and-grift-maintained poverty.
It just so happens that those moaning about Trump’s assessment of Milwaukee are the latter. Everyone else is fighting for their lives.
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If @MilwaukeeMPS accounting is this bad, can the initial figures it presented when it first pushed for the $252M referendum even be trusted? @WISN12News
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——
Meanwhile:
Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average K – 12 spending. Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
Enrollment notes.
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?
Notes on planned Madison tax & $pending increase 2024 Referendum(s)
Past spending decisions combined with current revenue estimates leave the district with an estimated $40 million shortfall, Assistant Superintendent of Financial Services Bob Soldner told the Wisconsin State Journal.
District could renovate, build new schools
The district appears to be leaning toward building several new schools with potential referendum dollars rather than renovating existing buildings.
Leadership says many aging school buildings require substantial aesthetic, electrical and mechanical changes the district can’t afford without a referendum. The money would also go toward making schools more energy efficient and accessible.
“Under revenue limits, you just don’t have any other options on the facilities,” Soldner said Monday. “If you have a need, you have to seek voter approval.”
District administration is recommending that Sennett Middle School and Cherokee Heights Middle School be replaced with new buildings. The same goes for several combined schools that share the same location: Shabazz City High and Sherman Middle; Black Hawk Middle and Gompers Elementary; Toki Middle and Orchard Ridge Elementary.
That new construction would cost an estimated $443 million.
——
“city would spend about $431.4 million but raise only about $409.4 million in revenue”:
Of the $26 million in new spending expected for next year, most of it — $14.5 million — will go toward staff salaries and benefits. Last year, the city raised pay by 3% for unionized employees like police and fire department staff. General city employees got a 6% raise.
Of the $14.5 million for staff, $2.97 million will cover rising health insurance costs alone.
On the revenue side, the $4 million in new cash the city will bring in next year comes from increasing the property tax levy to the extent allowed without a referendum, which would generate about $12.6 million. Another $6 million will come from interest earnings and $1 million from increased ambulance fees.
Those increases are offset by one-time funding the city used to balance its 2024 budget, which came from the city’s rainy day fund, federal stimulus support and tax incremental financing money.
As the city’s budget options come into sharper focus, it remains unclear how, if at all, the city will use $16 million added to the rainy day fund thanks to higher-than-expected income from the city’s investments.
—-
Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average K – 12 spending. Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
Enrollment notes.
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?
“If both measures pass, that means the average tax bill for Madison residents could increase by $2,030 by 2028”
The estimated tax impact for residents is as follows:
Operational referendum: 2024-25 — $316.72 increase; 2025-26 — $315.49 increase; 2026-27 — $209.1 increase; 2027-28 — $208.28 increase; total: $1,049.58 increase in property tax bill over the next four years.
Facilities referendum: 2025-26 — $327.47 increase; 2026-27 — $328.83 increase; 2027-28 — $326.20 increase; total — $980.50 increase in property tax bills by 2028.
Since 2000, the district has put 10 referendum questions on the ballot. Eight have passed, giving the district extra money to balance its operating budget and for renovations and construction. In 2020, voters passed a $33 million operating referendum, which pays the bills to keep the district running, and a $317 million capital referendum to fund renovations to five of the district’s high schools and to build the new Southside Elementary School.
——
Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average K – 12 spending. Per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the spending number used (!)
Enrollment notes.
—-
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?
Civics: Notes on California one party rule
Democrats ruthlessly censor internet speech, just like Communists. Democrats use the state as a battering ram against tech companies, just like Communists. Democrats tax citizens and hand the resulting funds to Party affiliates, just like Communists. Democrats encourage loyalists to move to contested territories to strengthen political control, just like Communists. Democrats funded gain-of function research, just like Communists. And most ominously, Democrats are now persecuting their political opponents on trumped up charges — just like Communists[5-16].
“to audit the effectiveness of teaching and instruction of our kids in classrooms across the district.” (!)
Molly Beck, Rory Linnane And Kelly Meyerhofer
The review proposed by Evers would be funded through federal dollars allocated for MPS but yet used or funding leftover from previously awarded contracts, according to the governor.
The audits would produce “a comprehensive review and evaluation of the district’s systems, processes, and procedures to identify areas for improvement,” and “a comprehensive review and analysis of instructional practices, methodologies, and policies, which may include, for example, reviews of school and classroom learning environments, professional development policies and practices, curriculum implementation, and leadership, among other areas.”
“Parents and families, taxpayers, and the greater community rightfully have questions, and each and everyone of those questions deserves honest and transparent answers,” Evers said. “For any meaningful conversation about possible solutions to happen, the first step is to fully identify the extent of the problems. The audits I’m proposing today must be done to drive those future conversations.”
——
DPI Superintendent Underly: “I support Eliminating the Foundations of Reading (FORT)” Teacher Test
Wisconsin’s low bar WKCE expedition. (DPI)
Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-
The New England Primer.
——
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?
“teachers at Burruss used to use a method called balanced literacy”
The easiest way to describe it is you kind of just let a kid figure things out by giving them context clues for the words they see, like pictures. But…
JOHNSON: Our reading data was terrible. We didn’t have the data to back up what we were doing.
SEI: So today, the teachers at Burruss use a method called structured literacy or the science of reading.
JOHNSON: Structured literacy is explicit instruction. Like, no, let’s teach them the code, teach them what the letters mean and how the letters represent sounds. And how the sounds come together to make words and, like, explicit instruction.
SEI: With national K-12 reading scores lower than they’ve been in decades, schools across the country are making the same transition to structured literacy. And those changes are being enshrined in legislation. Last year, 17 states passed new laws or implemented new policies encouraging schools to adopt the science of reading. That’s according to an analysis by Education Week. Georgia was one of those states.
RAMONA BROWN: Words are stored in memory through blank and blank.
—-
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?
Wisconsin DPI and learning to read….
The person put in charge of implementing the Science of Reading in Wisconsin apparently wrote positively about Lucy Calkins.
More.
GENUINE QUESTION: She was the 2017 president of the Wisconsin State Reading Association, which lobbied against Act 20 in 2023!
Many know her, so can someone explain?
DPI Superintendent Underly: “I support Eliminating the Foundations of Reading (FORT)” Teacher Test
Wisconsin’s low bar WKCE expedition. (DPI)
Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-
———
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?
Madison police: School staff objected to arrests of students for gun possession in school
Staff at Madison’s La Follette High School have on at least two occasions objected to police arresting at least one La Follette student who brought a gun to school, including one case in which two staffers lied about being two students’ legal guardians, according to police reports.
Kyshawn M. Bankston, 18, was charged May 9 with possession of a firearm on school grounds and carrying a concealed weapon after being arrested at the school two days earlier. Police had been called to the school about an unrelated robbery, but while there they were informed by staff that Bankston might have a gun and were asked for help searching his backpack.
Police found a handgun, two magazines with rounds in them, a scale and an empty plastic bag that had contained marijuana, and as they moved to arrest Bankston, he lunged for the gun and had to be restrained, according to police.
Madison police denied a State Journal request under the state’s public records law for the full report of the May 7 incident, saying the investigation into the incident was still open, but did release two other reports regarding Bankston in response to the records request.
More in this PDF
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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?
Madison parents file complaint to remove taxpayer funded Southside Elementary principal and assistant principal
Both groups have similar demands and say the school’s principal, Candace Terrell, and assistant principal, Annabel Torres, are “unfit” to lead Southside or any school.
“With Candace Terrell and Annabel Torres at the helm, Southside will continue to run afoul and eventually sink into the abyss,” the complaint from parents reads. “For this reason, we will no longer allow or tolerate our opinions and voices to be suppressed.”
The parent complaint also alleges there are high levels of unsafe and disruptive behaviors at the school, both physical and psychological. They say physical fights and bullying among students are common, with no adult intervention.
“Ms. Terrell and Ms. Torres are not following up with parents after bullying or physical violence happens. There is concern that the administration is not following up with families, and is not officially reporting serious incidents,” the complaint says.
The Complaint (PDF).—-
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?
K-12 Tax & $pending climate: City of Madison plans to increase residential density and the tax base….
West Side residents who have been most opposed to the plan worry about elements that call for up to 16-story apartment buildings along Mineral Point Road and near the Hilldale Shopping Center. They also complain that the plan now doesn’t have enough medium-density housing, some of which was removed in response to previous resident feedback. That medium-density housing still exists in other parts of the plan, such as on Gammon Road.
West Side resident Janet Hirsch said she thinks the West Side already has taken on its fair share of housing density, evidenced by Hilldale and the ongoing Madison Yards redevelopment, but doesn’t get in return the cultural amenities and entertainment seen Downtown or on the East Side.
“If you want to have more housing over here then fine, give us some of the other services,” Hirsch said. “But with some of the big apartment buildings we’re going to lose that sense of community.”
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Forced-rezoning fans keep their self-righteousness greased up with crass stereotypes. They sneer at us decadent West Siders in Madison, lounging around in our opulent mansions.
I walk through the rooms of my very small home, unimproved for 35 years, because we have to watch our money carefully — and I wonder who they’re scolding. Many seniors are in our situation.
The main pants-on-fire lie is that Madison will, inevitably, have 40,000 new citizens in a few years, and we have to greet them with open arms and a ton of new housing units. No, we don’t.
The more arrogant people in favor of rezoning command us whiny chumps to shut up and let them get on with their holy task of stacking 40,000 people up really high. They say this is our moral duty. False. Many of these new units would not be affordable. And Madison doesn’t have to be boomtown.
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Looming substantial Madison tax and $pending increases.
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Yet:
Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average k-12 $pending. Dive in, here.
Yet:
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?
Looming substantial Madison tax and $pending increases
If the property tax increase covered the projected $27 million deficit, it would cost the average household an additional $284 annually, or roughly $24 a month.
If approved by voters, the increase would add to a revenue stream Madison already relies heavily upon to fund its services, with over 70% of the city’s money coming from property taxes. The city’s rapidly growing population has added to the demand for services, and while a property tax hike is one of only a few options available for the 2025 budget, the City Council is also considering what steps can be taken to address future deficits down the line.
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Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average k-12 $pending. Dive in, here.
Yet:
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?
K-12 Tax & $pending Climate: how debt ate Chicago
An ever-mounting debt burden is the greatest threat to the city’s survival. As that problem worsens, more residents will question whether they want to stay in a windswept city paying down someone else’s pension—or decamp for places that don’t place such a millstone around their citizens’ necks.
According to the group Truth in Accounting, Chicago continues to live up to its moniker “Second City” in at least one respect: it has the second-worst debt load of any big city in America—about $43,000 per taxpayer, or almost $40 billion in total. The first is New York City, but Chicago residents also have to deal with Illinois’ debts, which total $42,000 per taxpayer, third worst in the nation. Thus, a family moving to Chicago suddenly becomes the inheritor of almost $85,000 in liabilities. By this metric, Chicago is no longer second but has by far the worst debt burden of any major city.
Chicago’s accumulating debt might be bearable if the city had low taxes and therefore room to raise them and pay down some of the liabilities. But taxes in the Windy City already rank among the nation’s harshest. According to a national study, Chicago’s combined city and state taxes would eat up over 12 percent of a U.S. median family income. The only large cities with higher proportionate taxes are Rust Belt towns with much smaller populations, such as Detroit and Newark. Chicago imposes the highest sales tax of any major city (10.25 percent) and punishing property taxes, too.
Chicago’s taxation is also brutal on businesses. A recent study of 53 cities found that Chicago’s tax on industrial properties was nearly double the average of other cities. Chicago’s commercial property-tax rate, at more than 4 percent per year, was by far the worst of any major city and more than twice the average.
High debt and taxes might be manageable if the city’s economic fundamentals were strong. They’re not. Chicago relied for years on commercial properties, especially downtown offices in the Loop, to power its economy and fund the city’s excesses. But those jobs are fleeing. Downtown Chicago’s office vacancy rate recently approached 24 percent, a record high. Boeing has moved its headquarters from the Loop to Northern Virginia. These white-collar firms will not pay the city’s higher taxes in the future; they won’t even pay their existing leases.
Mississippi students and educators have closed the gap and reached the national average on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
This growth can be attributed to several factors, but chief among them is a 2013 state law that created a more robust infrastructure around helping children learn to read and holding them back at the end of third grade if they didn’t hit a certain benchmark.
But this national test also measures students again in eighth grade. The gap between the national average and Mississippi’s eighth-grade reading score has gotten smaller over the last decade, but it hasn’t closed at the rate of fourth-grade reading.
State leaders are paying attention.
“Some of our challenge points are eighth-grade reading,” Interim State Superintendent Ray Morgigno said when presenting an annual report at the Jan. 18 State Board of Education meeting.
Morgigno then pointed to the pilot programs underway around the state to expand Mississippi’s fourth-grade reading strategies up to the middle school level. One is being operated by the Mississippi Department of Education in conjunction with a regional arm of the U.S. Department of Education.
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Literacy momentum stalls in Wisconsin (DPI): Why would Wisconsin’s state leaders promote the use of curriculum that meets “minimal level” criteria, instead of elevating the highest-quality
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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?
Civics: The Tragedy of Portland: ‘It’s a Ghost Town, Except for Zombies’
A once great American city has become something short of a dystopia, where shop owners sleep with shotguns and citizens must act as police.
For seven months, Dylan Carrico Rogers slept in his bike shop with a shotgun. TriTech Bikes, located in the Montavilla neighborhood of northeast Portland, Ore., where Rogers grew up, had been battered by three break-ins, two nearby shootings, and countless instances of vandalism. Portland’s serially understaffed police force was nowhere to be found. And in the face of $25,000 of stolen bike parts, TriTech’s insurance company was ready to jump ship. “They said, ‘if you claim another one, we’re just gonna drop you,’” Rogers told National Review. “So I’m paying $1,200 every three months to be told that I have …
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“All will now be released into Oregon’s communities”.
Advocates of discredited way to teach reading the most dangerous cult of all
Given how many kids struggle with reading proficiency, it’s stunning that the ‘whole language’ approach is still used in so many elementary schools
Who are the most dangerous cultists — adherents of a belief system regarded as unorthodox or spurious, to use a common definition — in the United States? Some will point to religions perceived as out of the mainstream, others will cite extreme political movements and still others might take a potshot at devotees of Red Sox Nation.
But in a country built on the idea that free, competent public education is the bedrock to the success of individuals and society in general, the most dangerous cult is the one that promotes unscientific methods of teaching reading. Despite massive evidence that the “phonics” approach is far more effective, the “whole language” approach is still a part of the reading instruction curricula used by 72 percent of elementary school teachers, according to a 2019 Education Week Research Center survey. Education researchers routinely note that lesson plans with no history of working well are ubiquitous in U.S. schools.
Language education experts say this is a big reason why nearly two-thirds of fourth- and eighth-graders in the U.S. in 2019 — before the pandemic disruption hurt scores even more — were not proficient readers. The stats were similar but slightly worse in California. The implications are grim. Poor reading skills correlate with dropping out of school, a lack of career success and even a much shorter life expectancy.
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Reed is deputy editor of the editorial and opinion section….
Meanwhile, Madison’s legacy newspaper opinion folks supported a successful candidate – Jill Underly – for the Wisconsin department of public instruction who sought (and continues) to get rid of our only early literacy teacher knowledge exam. More.
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More, here.
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Literacy momentum stalls in Wisconsin (DPI): Why would Wisconsin’s state leaders promote the use of curriculum that meets “minimal level” criteria, instead of elevating the highest-quality
——-
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?
“The conflict between the bureaucratic, managerial priorities of school administrators and the moral ideals of teachers has characterized my seventeen-year teaching career”
It is also a major reason why teachers are fleeing public schools. The public school accountability system, by relying solely on quantitative metrics like graduation rates to gauge educational quality and to evaluate administrators, frustrates teachers’ ability to truly teach and care for their students and look out for their long-term well-being.
The first shock to me was the “make-up work” policy. My school let students skip assignments and miss deadlines until the end of the semester, then let them do the work at the last minute to avoid a failing grade. When I objected, stressing the importance of personal responsibility, the assistant principal replied, “Is it your job to teach chemistry or to teach responsibility?” She didn’t care to hear my answer: “Both.”
Next came the “curving” practice, which dictated that I convert a raw score on a test by multiplying the square root of it by ten. Hence, a score of forty-nine, an F, would be “curved” to seventy, a C minus. When I refused to curve grades, the principal had my department chair make the changes covertly. When I found out, I objected once again, and the principal rebuked me for “denying these children the opportunities all of us had.”
These were both cases of what Michael Polanyi calls “moral inversion”: a presumed moral duty to do immoral actions. This tacit duty to the immoral means that teachers who exercise integrity by refusing to go along with these policies are perceived as the bad guys. Never would an administrator acknowledge the bureaucratic purpose of these policies, which was to keep the wheels turning and money flowing. A failing student is a wrench in the system. He lowers the graduation rate, and the school looks bad. The bureaucracy rationalizes that the students will be better off with a diploma. But if they aren’t learning, their futures are being compromised.
My next moral conflict with administrators put me in a position to blow the whistle on a practice called “online credit recovery” (OCR). I was teaching the two-year Theory of Knowledge course in the International Baccalaureate program, a kind of honors school-within-a-school. Top students in the school could enroll, and so could students from nearby schools who wanted vigorous college prep.
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Literacy momentum stalls in Wisconsin (DPI): Why would Wisconsin’s state leaders promote the use of curriculum that meets “minimal level” criteria, instead of elevating the highest-quality
——-
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?
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being sued for defamation for criticizing her school district on social media for employing a “social justice coordinator.”
WILL filed this appeal because Ms. Johnson’s posts are protected by the First Amendment. She should not have to endure a costly, pointless, and incoherent jury trial.
The Quotes: WILL Deputy Counsel, Luke Berg, stated, “The case against Ms. Johnson should have been promptly dismissed. She was expressing her opinion, and the First Amendment gives her the right to do so. We hope the Court of Appeals allows her to appeal to avoid a misguided trial.”
Scarlet Johnson, stated, “We have a right to free speech in this country and no one should be treated differently under the law because of their political beliefs. I am hopeful that we can establish what is a clear protection of the 1stAmendment.”
Additional Background: The lawsuit involves a defamation claim for run-of-the-mill social media posts on X and Facebook. The posts in question criticized a school district for having a “social justice coordinator,” and described people who hold such positions as “woke,” “white savior[s]” with a “god complex,” “woke lunatics,” and “bullies.” Statements like these are pervasive on social media; indeed, they were more restrained than a lot of online speech. Nevertheless, the Plaintiff, who previously held the position, chose to respond with a defamation lawsuit.
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Legislation and Reading: the Wisconsin Experience 2004-
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Literacy momentum stalls in Wisconsin (DPI): Why would Wisconsin’s state leaders promote the use of curriculum that meets “minimal level” criteria, instead of elevating the highest-quality
——-
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?
“where we were and why nothing ever changes. Both are worth reading.”
Wisconsin’s kids need help learning to read, so let’s see more cooperation and an end to power maneuvers and partisanship.
Enough. Enough.
I’m fed up with partisanship, polarization and power maneuvers in the state Capitol that put adults and politics first and kids last.
There have been many episodes of this unfortunate soap opera over the years. And now we have one of the most aggravating because it involves something that has both urgency and broad agreement, yet is at a standstill.
Wisconsin has a reading crisis. Milwaukee and some other areas where poverty is high especially have a reading crisis, but the problem goes beyond income, race and where a child lives. There are just too few children who are becoming capable readers by the end of third grade, which a wide range of educators would tell you is an important point in determining whether a kid is on the road to doing well in school and, in many cases, in life beyond school.
In state standardized tests a year ago (the most recent results available), 37% of all third-graders in Wisconsin were rated as proficient or better in English language arts, which generally means they’re reading well. Another 36% were rated as “basic,” which I interpret as “kind of OK.” And 25% were rated as “below basic,” which I rephrase as “not really on the playing field.” Overall, that means about 60% of the kids are rated below proficient — or, to put it more gently, a quarter are not doing well at all. That is a lot of kids.
Education and the Administrative State
The “why can’t we all get along?” narrative doesn’t apply here.
➡️DPI worked WITH legislators to craft literacy legislation copying the best states.
➡️Now, as my team has shown, DPI has tried to override the law every step of the way.
In 1964, 10 years after Brown v. Board of Education, a coalition set up a one-day boycott of Milwaukee Public Schools to protest school segregation.
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Legislation and Reading: the Wisconsin Experience 2004-
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Literacy momentum stalls in Wisconsin (DPI): Why would Wisconsin’s state leaders promote the use of curriculum that meets “minimal level” criteria, instead of elevating the highest-quality
——-
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?
Mind the Governance Mulligans + low expectations on Wisconsin Reading Curricula
While the DPI supports a broader list of programs, joint finance Republicans want to limit the money to a shorter list of four programs recommended by the state’s early literacy council.
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Literacy momentum stalls in Wisconsin (DPI): Why would Wisconsin’s state leaders promote the use of curriculum that meets “minimal level” criteria, instead of elevating the highest-quality
——-
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?
“newest “community school”” literacy?
Madison developed the community schools program in 2015 and Kennedy will be the eighth school with that designation.
Starting next school year, Kennedy will be granted a community school resource coordinator and a family liaison who will work full-time from the school.
Kennedy also is adding several other new staff members, including another school social worker, a behavior specialist and a handful of new classroom teachers to help decrease class sizes.
“The idea is that all children and families benefit from the community school model by being able to access resources, opportunities and support to advance their learning and healthy development,” Community School Manager Sarita Foster said. “So, community schools address barriers that limit opportunities for students and families.”
But parents and teachers who have been advocating for more help and have witnessed Kennedy’s struggles for years, say the district’s support hasn’t come fast enough.
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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?
Students are coming to college less able and less willing to read. Professors are stymied.
Theresa MacPhail is a pragmatist. In her 15 years of teaching, as the number of students who complete their reading assignments has steadily declined, she has adapted. She began assigning fewer readings, then fewer still. Less is more, she reasoned. She would focus on the readings that mattered most and were interesting to them.
For a while, that seemed to work. But then things started to take a turn for the worse. Most students still weren’t doing the reading. And when they were, more and more struggled to understand it. Some simply gave up. Their distraction levels went “through the roof,” MacPhail said. They had trouble following her instructions. And sometimes, students said her expectations — such as writing a final research paper with at least 25 sources — were unreasonable.
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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?
Older Madison residents are being taxed out of their homes
I have lived in my Madison house since 1987 and paid off the mortgage in 2021. Last year I made several changes in my 2,000-square-foot ranch house to accommodate aging in place, which included electrical and plumbing upgrades to meet code changes since 1987.
These “adaptive living” accommodations cost about $35,000, but were seen by the city assessor’s office as “improvements,” adding $65,000 to my property assessment. My property taxes have been going up by the hundreds for the past several years.
I write to make the Madison area aware of what the recent hikes in property assessments, and subsequent increases in homeowner’s insurance, will do to many of its older residents who live on a modest or fixed income. We are being taxed out of our homes.
Perhaps assessments could include the age or income of the occupant? I remind you what our senior citizens add to the quality of life of our families and communities.
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Madison K-12 Tax & Spending increase data over the decades.
Notes on School Books and Censorship (Literacy?; Canada Dystopia)
Jacki Lyden, Barry Wightman and John Norcross:
Wisconsin Writers for Democratic Action (www) is keeping track of each book ban. We’re doing it because we know that these book banning efforts are about sowing distrust in the very idea of public education and all of our public institutions. These organized MAGA campaigns promote a white nationalism view of the country that sees the LGBTQ community as a scapegoat, and sees a misunderstood, seldom taught critical race theory as a bogus plot against America. Parents who do not want children to read specific books have always been able to control what their children read, in school, or at the library. As it should be. That’s not what this is about.
Justin Trudeau Creates Blueprint for Dystopia in Horrific Speech Bill
Life sentences for speech? Pre-crime detention? Ex post facto law? Anonymous accusers? It’s all in Justin Trudeau’s “Online Harms Bill,” a true “threat to democracy”Then people read the bill.
“If you look at the purpose of this law, it’s actually quite noble and most lawyers would agree with it,” says Canadian attorney Dan Freiheit. “Online safety, protecting children’s physical and mental health.” But the actual text?
“It’s wild,” Freheit says.Trudeau was lying when he said C-63 was “very, very specifically focused on correcting kids.” The purview of the Online Harms Act extends far beyond speech, reimagining society as a mandated social engineering project, creating transformational new procedures that would:
enlist Canada’s citizens in an ambitious social monitoring system, with rewards of up to $20,000 for anonymous “informants” of hateful behavior, with the guilty paying penalties up to $50,000, creating a self-funded national spying system;
introduce extraordinary criminal penalties, including life in prison not just for existing crimes like “advocating genocide,” but for any “offence motivated by hatred,” in theory any non-criminal offense, as tiny as littering, committed with hateful intent;
punish Minority Report pre-crime, where if an informant convinces a judge you “will commit” a hate offense, you can be jailed up to a year, put under house arrest, have firearms seized, or be forced into drug/alcohol testing, all for things you haven’t done;
penalize past statements. The law gets around prohibitions against “retroactive” punishment by calling the offense “continuous communication” of hate, i.e. the crime is your failure to take down bad speech;
force corporate Internet platforms to remove “harmful content” virtually on demand (within 24 hours in some cases), the hammer being fines of “up to 6% of… gross global revenue.”
Would these folks that a school must keep Mein Kampf, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or The Turner Diaries in K-12 libraries? Can a school curate its collection? Is removing – or restricting access to – a book from a library for children “banning” it?
Civics: Taxpayer Funded “Course Correct” Documents
A group of professors is using taxpayer dollars doled out by the federal government to develop a new misinformation fact-checking tool called “Course Correct.”
National Science Foundation funding, awarded through a pair of grants from 2021 and 2022, has amounted to more than $5.7 million for the development of this tool, which, according to the grant abstracts, is intended to aid reporters, public health organizations, election administration officials, and others to address so-called misinformation on topics such as U.S. elections and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.
This $5.7 million in grant money is on top of nearly another $200,000 awarded in 2020 through a Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act-funded NSF grant for a project focused in part on mental health that Course Correct is said to have grown out of.
According to the abstract of the 2021 grant, Course Correct’s developers, a group of five professors from various institutions nationwide, are using techniques related to machine learning and natural language processing to identify social media posts pertaining to electoral skepticism and vaccine hesitancy, identify people likely to be exposed to misinformation in the future, and flag at-risk online communities for intervention
Phase II proposal; more.
Overview: Democracy and public health in the United States are in crisis. These twin crises are exemplified by two major public problems: 1) vaccine hesitancy related to the COVID-19 pandemic, hindering vaccination and spilling over to other domains (e.g., flu vaccines) and 2) skepticism regarding American election integrity. These crises have resulted in 200,000 excess deaths after COVID-19 vaccines became available due to low uptake rates, especially among Black, Hispanic and Native American people, and concerted attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, culminating in an attack on the US Capitol. Networks of misinformation production and diffusion on social media platforms are ground zero for the creation, sharing, and uptake of content that spurs election skepticism and vaccine hesitancy. Journalists reported to us in Phase I that while they are trying to tame the misinformation tide, they are overwhelmed by what to check, how to effectively correct misinformation and target misinformation networks, and how to evaluate their interventions. To address these twin crises, we propose Course Correct, our innovative, four-step method to detect, test, verify, and field test a system to counter real- world misinformation flows. We propose to (1) extend our computational work to detect misinformation, using multimodal signal detection of linguistic and visual features surrounding vaccine hesitancy and electoral skepticism, coupled with network analytic methods to pinpoint key misinformation diffusers and consumers; (2) further develop A/B-tested correction strategies against misinformation, such as observational correction, using ad promotion infrastructure and randomized message delivery to optimize efficacy for countering misinformation; (3) disseminate and evaluate the effectiveness of evidence-based corrections using various scalable intervention techniques available through social media platforms by conducting a series of randomized control trials within affected networks, focusing on diffusers, not producers of misinformation and whether our intervention system can reduce misinformation uptake and sharing; and (4) scale Course Correct into local, national, and international newsrooms, guided by our interviews and ongoing collaborations with journalists, as well as tech developers and software engineers.
Intellectual Merit: The Intellectual Merit of our project springs from the insight that the problems of both vaccine hesitancy and electoral skepticism emerge from a common set of sources: a) declines in the trust that many citizens have in political processes, public institutions, and the news media; b) accumulation of misperceptions where the acceptance of one piece of misinformation often reliably predicts the endorsement of other misinformation; c) an active online group of merchants of doubt, often driven by ideological extremism and empowered by social media recommendation algorithms, and d) growing cadres of micro-influencers within online communities who, often unintentionally, play an outsized role in fueling the spread of misinformation. Despite the rapid development, testing, approval, and delivery of safe, reliable, and effective COVID-19 vaccines, 34.5 percent of Americans are not vaccinated. Despite a clear and transparent result, several recounts, audits, and lawsuits concerning the 2020 presidential election, 40 percent of Americans do not believe the result. Good science and good electoral administration alone are not enough to foster trust in health and political institutions, outcomes, and behaviors. Converging approaches across communication, social platforms, computer science, politics, and journalism are necessary to show which networks and actors spread falsehoods, and which strategies work best for reducing sharing and endorsement behaviors on social media that amplify misinformation.
Broader Impacts: The Broader Impacts of the project include delivering: 1) Course Correct: an interactive system that enables reporters to detect high-priority misinformation topics and the underlying networks where they flow, perform rapid-response randomized testing of fact-checks, and monitor their real-time performance, 2) the underlying code, survey instruments, and databases of labeled and curated messages to share publicly, 3) evidence-based corrective messages of immediate utility to public health and electoral professionals, 4) training of research personnel and journalists in interdisciplinary topics of global and practical significance, and 5) papers and presentations that will share our findings and conclusions with the academic and broader community.
and
Network Detection of Misinformation and its Spread: To address Aim 1, we will continue our work from Phase I, using multimodal signal detection to develop a curated dataset and machine learning classifiers to discern social media posts related to COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and adoption of misinformation about election integrity, along with the spreaders and consumers of misinformation.
We have begun creating a corpus of millions of public content on our two topics: posts, images, videos, and URLs shared on popular social media and information platforms, including, but not limited to, Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube. In Phase II, we will consult with our Advisory Board member, Dr Kate Blackburn at TikTok to explore adding TikTok data collection. The data collection, which has already started, will span from January 2019 to January 2023. We focus our data collection on content about (1) election administration in the U.S. 2020 generally and a secondary focus on the 2022 midterm elections and (2) COVID-19. specifically, vaccine hesitancy. In Phase I, using the respective platforms’ Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), we have collected data about COVID-19 vaccine misinformation, including false claims that vaccines cause infertility and COVID-19 was caused by 5G*.
The data collection will continue to be done via a snowball sampling technique where we begin the collection with seed relevant keywords (identified with expert consultation) and then expand it with their co-occurring terms. With this corpus, we will continue to develop machine learning techniques to accurately detect electoral administration and COVID-19 related content that is directly related to attitudes about the veracity of the elections we target and the effectiveness and safety of the COVID-19 vaccines. Since all posts that contain a certain keyword (e g., ‘COVID-19′) may not be related to the topic (many users add popular keywords so their posts get more views), we will develop a two-tier filtering process to identify the relevant posts that support or deny a specific claim. We will take inspiration from our previous works that adopts a similar strategy to create a clean and relevant data corpust’. We will build supervised machine leaming classifiers for this task. The first tier of the classifier will weed out irrelevant posts, while the second tier will categorize posts as pro versus anti posts according to the topic. Word embedding and multi-modal models: To enable this, our team members will label a set of 2000-3000 posts on each topic and mark their relevance to the topic and their stance (pro or anti). We will use the relevance labels to train a supervised classifier (e.g., SVM, Random Forest classifier or a neural network), which uses text features as inputs and generates relevance class as output. The text features will contain syntactic, semantic, lexical and psycholinguistic categories. We will also use word embedding models (such as BERT and its variants’ , which will be fine-tuned on the supervised data) to extract tweet features? – a direction that our Advisory Board member, Dr. Koustuv Saha, has extensively used in his research. Models trained with an ensemble of all these features will be used for both tiers (relevance in the first tier and pro- or anti in the second tier). We will evaluate the performance of the trained machine learning classifiers with precision, recall, area under the ROC curve, false positive rate, and false negative rate with respect to the hand-labeled dataset. The classifier that perforns the best will be used to classify the entire corpus. As a proof of concept, in Phase I, we followed this pipeline to conduct classification for one topic of COVID-19 misinformation, specifically on ‘vaccines cause infertility’ misinformation. The classifier achieved an F-1 score of 0.9848 This shows the effectiveness of the proposed pipeline. This pipeline, however, was focused on text-based misinformation detection only.In Phase II, we will extend the framework to detect misinformation to a multimodal setting, i.e. integrating images/videos along with the text. When both features are available (as is the case with many social media posts) the image can often disambiguate the text (for example, making it clear whether it is a post about basketball or about guns). In outline, we will develop deep multimodal fusion-based methods that leverage knowledge extraction from visual and linguistic features, as images can often complement aifically ont methad will encode the text usine_a_BERJibased fontire vector and.
Based on common forms and types of misinformation we detect, we will collaborate with our end-users at Snopes, the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, and the Capital Times in Year 1, adding International Fact-Checking Network signatories in Year 2, to co-design misinformation mitigation messages for use in evidence-based correction strategies. Interventions will be tested for effectiveness while also meeting organizational needs and journalistic norms— an aspect important for the purposes of cultural validity. Then, we will take advantage of existing sponsored content mechartisms available on platforms such as Twitter and deliver the co-designed interventions through randomized n-arm A/B testing to social media users on these platforms. Based on the pilot test we conducted in Phase I, we are confident that rapid-cycle A/B testing can help demonstrate the feasibility and efficacy of various corrective interventions, some content specific and some “evergreen” (i.e., non-content specific), and better understand which messages best reduce the endorsement and sharing of misinformation.
we will implement Course Correct into local, national, and international newsrooms, guided by dozens of interviews and ongoing collaborations with journalists, as well as tech developers and entrepreneurs. Rather than focusing on platform restriction and fact-checking partisan political elites, Course Correct will help journalists, and ultimately public health and election administration officials, to see what misinformation is circulating on social platforms and to quickly test correction strategies within the online communities most in need of seeing those corrections so that they are exposed to the verifiable truth. We will begin scaling up on a case study basis with our local (Capital Times), state (WCIJ, and national (Snopes) partners in Year 1. Phase II supports the hiring of a new journalist for
Civics: Illegal Aliens Skew Elections By Inflating Certain States’ Electoral Power.
The “Equal Representation Act” would modify the Census Bureau’s questionnaire for each decennial census beginning in 2030 by requiring individuals to attest to their citizenship status on the form and then using that data to exclude foreign nationals from the count used to determine congressional and electoral college apportionment. Apportionment is derived from the number of residents in a particular area but does not currently differentiate legal citizens from foreigners who, in many cases, are illegal immigrants. A state can gain or lose congressional seats and electoral college votes based on the size of its population.
This means that millions of illegal aliens who have invaded the country can dilute the representation of American citizens by inflating the populations of the left-leaning areas to which they flock — even as American citizens flee those same states.
When former President Donald Trump signed a memo in July 2020 barring illegal aliens from being counted in the census, it was promptly met with a flurry of challenges. A handful of judges blocked the memo, and President Joe Biden eventually reve
Commentary on proposed Madison k-12 tax & $pending increase referendums
So far, feedback on the referendums has been mixed, with some residents supporting funding operational costs and smaller building renovations. But district administrators said others were unsure about the feasibility and cost of a 20-year referendum.
About 60% of survey respondents said supporting the district to invest in a 20-year facilities referendum was either a high or moderate priority. Almost one-third of respondents said they were undecided.
A similar percentage of respondents said supporting a facilities referendum that prioritized updating middle schools over a shorter time was a high or moderate priority. Again, about one-third of respondents said they were undecided.
Poll results shared at Monday’s meetingindicated a lack of public support for a 20-year facilities referendum, too. The Madison Public Schools Foundation commissioned the poll.
The sample size was about 400 people, according to Luke Martin, vice president of Impact Research.
“Especially with the challenges of complexity that are potentially in store for the November ballot, I do think the 20-year would be a much more difficult measure to pass,” Martin said Monday.
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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?
“the same teacher could earn up to $68,000 in Appleton, and only between $39,000 and $43,000 in Oshkosh”
In my 2011 book, Launching the Innovation Renaissance, I wrote:
At times, teacher pay in the United States seems more like something from Soviet-era Russia than 21st-century America. Wages for teachers are
low, egalitarian and not based on performance. We pay physical education teachers about the same as math teachers despite the fact that math teachers
have greater opportunities elsewhere in the economy. As a result, we have lots of excellent physical education teachers but not nearly enough excellent
math teachers. The teachers unions oppose even the most modest proposals to add measures of teacher quality to selection and pay decisions.
As I wrote, however, Wisconsin passed Act 10, a bill that discontinued collective bargaining over teachers’ salary schedules. Act 10 took power away from the labor unions and gave districts full autonomy to negotiate salaries with individual teachers. In a paper that just won the Best Paper published in AEJ: Policy in the last three years, Barbara Biasi studies the effect of Act 10 on salaries, effort and student achievement.
Compensation of most US public school teachers is rigid and solely based on seniority. This paper studies the effects of a reform that gave school districts in Wisconsin full autonomy to redesign teacher pay schemes. Following the reform some districts switched to flexible compensation. Using the expiration of preexisting collective bargaining agreements as a source of exogenous variation in the timing of changes in pay, I show that the introduction of flexible pay raised salaries of high-quality teachers, increased teacher quality (due to the arrival of high-quality teachers from other districts and increased effort), and improved student achievement.
We still have a long way to go but COVID, homeschooling and open-access voucher programs have put a huge dent in the power of the teacher’s unions. There is now a chance to bring teacher pay into the American model. Moreover, such a model is pro-teacher! Not every district in Wisconsin grasped the opportunity to reform teacher pay but those districts that did raised pay considerably. Appleton district, for example, instituted pay for performance, Oshkosh did not. Prior to the Act salaries were about the same in the two districts:
After the expiration of the CBAs, the same teacher could earn up to $68,000 in Appleton, and only between $39,000 and $43,000 in Oshkosh.
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Wisconsin’s Act 10, Flexible Pay, and the Impact on Teacher Labor Markets: Student test scores rise in flexible-pay districts. So does a gender gap for teacher compensation.
If not to teacher salaries, where is this money going?
More on Act 10 and the related Milwaukee pension scandal.
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More. “Important insights into the impact of flexibility in teacher pay schemes on student outcomes.”
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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?
We’re Going to Get the Society We Incentivize
Why do so many kids in the West want to be influencers? Because we heavily reward successful influencers in our society and kids see that. However, is it GOOD for our society to have so many kids wanting to be influencers? Not at all, because many of the traits that tend to make someone a successful influencer don’t make them particularly good citizens or people. Think about it – what makes someone a good influencer? Things like being extremely emotional, being unstable, willing to do anything for attention, being willing to offend others, enjoying controversy, and lacking a sense of conscience or shame. Will our society be better or worse if it’s full of people like that?
Now, how about this?
“The lesson he drew was that no authority was beyond question”
Kirn would never describe himself as a Trump supporter, but he cares less about Trump’s rampage through American democracy, or even the lunacy and violence of January 6, than he does about the selfish and self-satisfied elites—all noblesse, no oblige—who sparked that anger and sustained it. Call him a counter-elite. As he said about Skull and Bones: “That’s our elite. Who wouldn’t want to be counter to it?”
Kirn described the dominant politics of his Minnesota youth as “rural progressivism.” He spoke reverently of his grandfather, also named Walter Kirn, a local politician in Akron, Ohio, who, in the 1950s, ruined his career by defending the right of the Black thespian and suspected communist Paul Robeson to come to town. Family legend has it that he opened up a high-school auditorium for Robeson’s performance “purely on the basis of his right to express himself. It wasn’t out of empathy for his views.” Kirn sees that “as the right kind of politics.”
Today he regards Trump’s supporters not as the proverbial basket of deplorables but as more or less reasonable citizens with valid concerns. The movement around Trump, Kirn told me, is “an expression of American frustration on the part of people who feel like they got a really raw deal.” He described himself as “anti-anti-Trump, in the sense that I don’t think that this is the unique challenge in American history for which we should throw away all sorts of liberties and prerogatives that we are going to want back.” One reason he doesn’t see the coming election as a state of emergency is he does not believe that previous American leaders, such as the Bushes, were particularly virtuous, even in comparison with Trump—a figure Kirn and his colleagues at that bastion of 1990s East Coast snobbism, Spymagazine, used to relentlessly mock. Here, Kirn’s personal evolution is telling: He is perhaps the most salient example of a mainstream writer rejecting his past to throw in with the populists.
“Our under-investment in engineering and their over-investment in engineering — that’s not a trade violation, it’s a strategic mistake”
They put themselves in a comparative advantage, and we haven’t come to terms with that.”
China’s success in electric vehicles is also evidence for Stiglitz that, in climate policy, regulations often work better than subsidies. More than a decade ago, “I was in a meeting with the premier [Wen Jiabao] where he told the car companies: you have to be electric within five years or you’re out of here. China has made it clear it will be an EV country; we haven’t.”
So does Stiglitz support bringing industrial jobs back home? “The pandemic made it very clear that we don’t have a resilient economy and that borders do matter and, no matter what our agreements are, when push comes to shove, we’re going to put our citizens number one.”
A fellow Nobel laureate, Angus Deaton, recently switched to arguing that the leaders of rich countries must prioritise their own citizens over the world’s poorest people. Stiglitz disagrees: if the west is seen to prioritise its own people, it will fail to encourage global co-operation, for example, on climate change. “We can implement industrial policies in which there is more sharing of green technologies.”
“The educational publisher raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue during the 2010s selling reading programs based on a disproven theory”
The educational publisher raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue during the 2010s selling reading programs based on a disproven theory. The company now faces financial fallout, as schools ditch its products.
A publisher that once held a commanding shareof the market for materials to teach and test reading has seen its sales drop significantly in recent years — a decline its attorney attributes to the 2022 APM Reports podcast Sold a Story.
Heinemann published some of the most widely used programs for teaching reading in U.S. elementary schools. Its roster of authors — including Lucy Calkins, Gay Su Pinnell, Irene Fountas, Jennifer Serravallo and the late Marie Clay — helped to define how literacy was taught to two generations of students. Their work also helped Heinemann rack up higher and higher sales on an unbroken growth streak from 2006 through 2019.
But recent data suggests school districts are turning away from Heinemann. The company’s 2023 sales were down about 75% compared to what they were in 2019, according to current numbers from GovSpend, a database of government spending.
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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?
Civics: 6 quotes from today’s oral argument in Trump v. United States.
1. Trump’s lawyer, D. John Sauer, encourages the Court to see far beyond Trump to the true horror of criminally prosecuting ex-Presidents:
The implications of the Court’s decision here extend far beyond the facts of this case. Could President George W. Bush have been sent to prison for… allegedly lying to Congress to induce war in Iraq? Could President Obama be charged with murder for killing U.S. citizens abroad by drone strike? Could President Biden someday be charged with unlawfully inducing immigrants to enter the country illegally for his border policies?
2. In a similar vein, from Justice Alito:
So what about President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s decision to intern Japanese Americans during World War II? Couldn’t that have been charged under 18 U.S.C. 241, conspiracy against civil rights?
3. Justice Gorsuch makes a brilliant suggestion. If Presidents didn’t have immunity from prosecution, they could give themselves the equivalent by pardoning themselves on the way out. And note the reminder that Obama could be on the hook for those drone strike murders:
Civics: Senator Tammy Baldwin on Warrantless Donestic Surveillance
From Tammy Baldwin’s office, via email. source
Thank you for contacting me about the reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It is good to hear from you.
On April 19, 2024, Congress voted to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Keeping our families safe should not come at the expense of Americans’ fundamental right to privacy. From the PATRIOT Act to the creation https://www.baldwin.senate.gov/of the FISA Section 702 program, I’ve consistently opposed measures that would give the government free reign to spy on innocent, law-abiding Americans. On April 19, 2024, I stood firm with colleagues from both parties and I voted against reauthorizing FISA to prevent the warrantless surveillance of American citizens.
I cosponsored bipartisan legislation that takes a better approach to reauthorize and reform important intelligence programs to ensure we have the tools we need to fight terrorism, while also protecting the constitutional rights guaranteed to every American. Protecting Americans against our adversaries and protecting the privacy of law-abiding citizens are not mutually exclusive goals, and I remain committed to protecting both.
Additionally, I am deeply troubled by previous revelations regarding the unacceptable domestic electronic surveillance by the National Security Agency and other U.S. intelligence agencies. As someone who voted against the original USA PATRIOT Act (P.L.107-56) because of its clear potential for government overreach, I believe Congress needs to take action to rein in activities that clearly violate Americans’ civil liberties. Indeed, laws like the USA PATRIOT Act and FISA Amendments Act (P.L.112-238), which I also opposed, permit the government to conduct mass, untargeted surveillance of communications entering and exiting the United States, without any individualized review, without any finding of wrongdoing and without serious court oversight.
In 2020, the Senate passed its reauthorization of the USA FREEDOM Act. I opposed the passage of this bill because it did not go far enough to reform government authorities and protect Americans’ privacy. I was particularly disappointed that the Senate rejected an amendment I cosponsored that would have prohibited the government from using Section 215 to obtain U.S. individuals’ internet search and browsing history.
I had hoped that the Senate would instead adopt more of the FISA reforms included in the Safeguarding Americans’ Private Records Act, of which I was a cosponsor. This bill would have put a permanent end to the NSA’s call data records program and removed all authority for the collection of phone records without a warrant. It also would have reformed the FISA court process and created new public reporting requirements for any information collected under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act and Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act.
I appreciate knowing your views on the reauthorization of Section 702 of FISA. Please be assured that I will continue to fight to protect the privacy and freedoms of law-abiding Americans.
Once again, thank you for contacting my office. It is important for me to hear from the people of Wisconsin on the issues, thoughts and concerns that matter most to you. If I can be of further assistance, please visit my website at www.baldwin.senate.gov for information on how to contact my office. Sincerely,
Tammy Baldwin
United States Senator
Civics: Special Counsel Jack Smith Lacks Standing to Defend the D.C. Circuit’s ruling on Presidential Immunity in the Supreme Court
On Thursday, April 25th the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Trump v. United States. I have signed an amicus brief in this case, along with former Attorneys General Ed Meese, Michael Mukasey, and Professor Gary Lawson, and with Citizens United, arguing that Special Counsel Jack Smith was unconstitutionally appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland. Gene Schaerr filed the amicus brief, which grows out of a law review article that Gary Lawson and I published: Why Robert Mueller’s Appointment as Special Counsel was Unlawful, 95 Notre Dame. Law Review 87 (2019). We claim that because Jack Smith was unconstitutionally appointed, he therefore lacks standing to defend the order of the D.C. Circuit denying Donald Trump’s claim of inherent presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for acts taken while serving as President. Smith can no more defend the lower court order than can any random person picked off the street.
Notes on uncontested school board elections
Those days dwindled in Dane County a good 30 years ago. In tandem with the teachers union and unionized labor, the Dane County Democrat(ic) Party has been muscling into office progressive candidates who, among other achievements, defunded school resource police officers and dumbed down honors classes.
In the last contested Madison school board election, the Democrat(ic) Party endorsed one Blair Mosner Feltham, who proclaimed “Our schools are products of white supremacy.” The Wisconsin State Journal also endorsed the Woke candidate, even after one of its education beat reporters proclaimed that critical race theory “isn’t taught in any of Wisconsin’s K-12 schools.” Yet, District officials acknowledgethat the NY Times’ 1619 Project is taught in Madison classrooms.
Endorsing Ms. MF over a working immigrant father, The State Journalquoted a UW-Oshkosh professorwho maintained that Issues like Covid lockdowns, critical race theory, and classroom chaos are “pretty disconnected from the reality of being a school board member.” Maybe that was the problem.
→ Inconvenient headline: “Democrats spend [$230,000] on Wisconsin school board races, overtaking Republicans” (Read & Weep!)
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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?
“the future gets reinvented daily, in terms of the way the world is working right now.” – Madison’s incoming Superintendent
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.
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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?
Why Can’t MPS Improve Student Reading Scores?
Beginning sometime after 2000, there was growing concern that many students had difficulty with reading. When comparing reading scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) among states, Massachusetts stood out. Suddenly, that state’s reading and math scores jumped.
Massachusetts’ scores (shown in yellow in the graph below) started the late 1990s looking similar to Wisconsin’s, but then enjoyed a substantial jump. By contrast, Wisconsin scores (shown in gray) were largely flat or decreasing and were eventually joined by the average national scores.
What accounted for the jump in Massachusetts’ scores? That state decided to replace whole language (currently called “balanced literacy”) with a program that was based on research into the science of learning to read. Children learning to read were taught to sound out the parts of unknown words (called phonemes) and then combine these parts to sound out the whole word.
To enforce this change, the state designed a test for aspiring teachers to assess their knowledge of the research on the process of learning to read.
As the next graph shows, Milwaukee Public Schools made little or no progress during the last two decades. Scores were also flat during this period, indicating that many of its students were struggling with reading. They also trailed the average scores for big cities in the nation.
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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?
“They viewed reading more as rules and memorization”
After years of stagnant reading scores, educators see renewed promise in Act 20. The law, signed in July with broad support from legislators and school districts, is set to make sweeping changes across the state in how schools teach kindergarten through third grade students how to read.
Under the act, districts next school year will need to shift to a teaching model based on the science of reading, a collection of research on how children best learn to read. It emphasizes the use of phonics and phonemic awareness, or an understanding of the individual sounds of letters and how those sounds together can form words.
Among many of its provisions, the law requires schools to assess students through reading tests. Teachers will need to complete additional instructional training, and some schools will need to change their curriculum to comply.
Third-graders who fail to reach their reading milestones are more likely to struggle in later grades because they cannot comprehend the written material that is key to the educational process. And those who cannot read at grade level by third grade are more likely to not finish high school, according to research from the nonprofit Annie E. Casey Foundation.
The study revealed that one in six children who are not proficient at reading in third grade do not graduate from high school on time — a rate four times greater than that of their proficient peers. The rate is even higher for third graders who score “below basic proficiency,” with around one in four dropping out or graduating late from high school, compared with 9% of those with basic reading skills and 4% of proficient readers.
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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?
“Every student group performs better in Mississippi than in Virginia”
The only reason Virginia might look better overall is because of the composition of our schools –>
The next time someone tells you not to worry, Virginia is not some state like Mississippi, this is all a made up crisis…we don’t need an accountability system…well…
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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?
“the student/teacher ratio in Wisconsin is lower than in 2000 due to declining enrollment”
If there are fewer teaching candidates, it’s not showing up here.
(Madison) Teachers also delivered a petition with 2,000 signatures to the board that calls for increased staff allocations and smaller class sizes. They presented the signatures on pieces of paper representing each school, receiving applause and cheers from the teachers filling the seats and aisles of the building’s auditorium.
In June, the School Board also will decide whether to add referendum questions to the November ballot to help remedy its budget hole. If the district moves forward with referendums and voters approve the measures, local property taxes will increase beyond the levy limits set by the state.
In 2023, MTI and employees agreed to an 8% wage increase. The district initially offered 3.5%. The district gave employees a 3% base wage increase in 2022. Actual raises vary depending on level of education and years of experience.
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Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average k-12 $pending.
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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?
“private schooling boosts any civic outcome by 0.055 standard deviations over public schooling.”
M. Danish Shakeel, Patrick J. Wolf, Alison Heape Johnson, Mattie A. Harris & Sarah R. Morris:
Since Plato and Aristotle, political theorists have discussed the important role of education in forming democratic citizens. They disagree, however, over whether public or private schools are more effective at nurturing citizenship. We conduct a statistical meta-analysis to identify the average association between private schooling and measures of four central civic outcomes: political tolerance, political participation, civic knowledge and skills, and voluntarism and social capital. Our search identifies 13,301 initial target studies, ultimately yielding 531 effects from 57 qualified studies drawing from 40 different databases. Using Robust Variance Estimation, we determine that, on average, private schooling boosts any civic outcome by 0.055 standard deviations over public schooling. Religious private schooling, particularly, is strongly associated with positive civic outcomes. The evidence is especially strong that private schooling is correlated with higher levels of political tolerance and political knowledge and skills. We discuss heterogeneities, robustness checks, and implications.
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Taxpayer Funded Wisconsin DPI Report on Teacher Shortage Misses the Mark
Wisconsin Institute for law of liberty:
Recently, Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction released a report on the teacher shortage in the state. The report claims that nearly 40% of teachers leave the profession within the first five years, and blames declines in teacher compensation over the past decade for the shift. While the problems identified in the report are legitimate, the causes and solutions offered are more representative of traditional liberal talking points than an honest effort to make improvements for the teaching workforce in the state. In this explainer, we identify a number of issues with DPI’s report.
Consistent with National Patterns
Despite attempts to blame Act 10 for the decline in teacher retention, in reality this is a problem around the county. Indeed, based on the numbers reported by DPI, Wisconsin may actually be better than average. A 2018 study estimated that 44% of teachers nationwide leave the profession within five years And this data was pre-COVID–there is extensive evidence that turnover has increased since then. To illustrate this, consider a recent Chalkbeat analysis looked at teachers leaving the profession across four states. Each of these states saw an annual turnover rate of more than 10% during the 2022 school year. A figure from that report is reproduced below.
Figure 1. Annual Teacher Turnover in Four States (Chalkbeat)
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I have supported getting more teachers in the classroom, but several of our efforts (including my bill with Sen. Knodl, SB 608) have been vetoed. Let’s hope we can work together in more constructive ways next session.
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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?
Commentary on Madison’s latest K-12 Superintendent
In his first news conference in Madison since being named the public schools’ new superintendent, Joe Gothard vowed to be an engaged leader and said he wasn’t afraid to make changes.
“I think that we’ve got to be very deliberate. I think we’ve got to be very open with our community around where our challenges are, report frequently about progress that we’re making and not be afraid at all to say, ‘You know what, we’re not making a mark here; we need to make a change here,'” he said.
Gothard shared his top priorities for the district with administrators and Madison School Board members during a news conference Thursday at Thoreau Elementary School on Madison’s Near West Side. Gothard, who is the outgoing superintendent of Saint Paul Public Schools in Minnesota, has been in Madison since Monday visiting schools and meeting staff.
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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?
Wisconsin’s Act 10, Flexible Pay, and the Impact on Teacher Labor Markets: Student test scores rise in flexible-pay districts. So does a gender gap for teacher compensation.
Using employment records on all public-school teachers in Wisconsin linked to individual student information on achievement and demographics from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, I first document how teacher salaries changed in flexible-pay and seniority-pay districts in the aftermath of the reform. After the expiration of districts’ collective bargaining agreements, salary differences among teachers with similar seniority and credentials emerged in flexible-pay districts, but not in seniority-pay districts. Before the passage of Act 10, such teachers would have been paid the same. These newly emerging differences are related to teachers’ effectiveness: Teachers with higher value-added (individual contributions to the growth in student achievement, as measured by standardized test scores) started earning more in flexible-pay districts. This finding is striking considering that school districts in Wisconsin neither calculate value-added nor use it to make any human-resources decisions. School and district administrators appear to be able to identify an effective teacher when they see one.
Does Flexible Pay Attract Better Teachers?
Changes in teachers’ pay arrangements after the expiration of the collective bargaining agreements changed teachers’ incentives to stay in their district or to move, depending on the teachers’ effectiveness and the pay plan in place in their district of origin. Because flexible-pay districts compensate teachers for their effectiveness and seniority-pay districts only reward them for seniority and academic credentials, teachers with higher effectiveness should want to move to flexible-pay districts, whereas teachers with lower effectiveness and higher seniority should want to move to seniority-pay districts.
The data confirm these hypotheses. The rate of cross-district movement more than doubled after Act 10, with most moves occurring across districts of different type (flexible-pay vs. seniority-pay). Teachers who moved to a flexible-pay district after a collective bargaining agreement expired were more than a standard deviation more effective, on average, than teachers who moved to the same districts before the expiration; these teachers also had lower seniority and academic credentials and enjoyed a significant pay increase upon moving. The effectiveness of teachers moving to seniority-pay districts, on the other hand, did not change. and these teachers did not experience any change in pay.
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WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
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The late 1990’s Milwaukee pension scandal is worth a deep dive as well.
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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?
Civics: Biden Admin Sets World Record For Illegals Entering The Country
This graph should be alarming to anyone who prioritizes the safety and security of The United States and its citizens.
- 🟧 Orange indicates single adults.
- 🟦 Blue indicates families.
- 🟥 Red indicates minors.
Illegals from over 160 countries have crossed into the US to date.
How many are unaccounted for?
The Biden admin and Democrat open-border policies are facilitating the largest invasion in the country’s history.
More.
Sold a Story: The Aftermath
Banks: We have not taught the kids the basic fundamental structures of how to read.
David Banks is the chancellor of the New York City public schools.
Banks: We have gotten this wrong in New York and all across the nation. And many of us follow the same prescript of balanced literacy. And…
Balanced literacy is the approach to teaching reading we focused on in Sold a Story.
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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?
“two universities stick with a discredited idea”
Christopher Peak and Emily Haavik
Pressure is mounting on two universities to change the way they train on-the-job educators to teach reading.
The Ohio State University in Columbus and Lesley University near Boston both run prominent literacy training programs that include a theorycontradicted by decades of cognitive science research. Amid a $660 million effort to retrain teachers that’s underway in 36 states, other academic institutions are updating their professional development. Yet Ohio State and Lesley are resisting criticism and standing by their training.
For decades, their Literacy Collaborative programs deemphasized teaching beginning readers how to sound out words. These programs do cover some phonics, but they also teach that students can use context clues to decipher unfamiliar words. Studies have repeatedly shown that guessing words from context is inefficient, unreliable and counterproductive. Twelve states have effectively banned school districts from using that flawed approach.
The approach, sometimes called “cueing,” originated in the 1960s in the United States and New Zealand, and was popularized in American reading instruction by Gay Su Pinnell and Irene Fountas, professors at the two universities. Pinnell, who is now retired, founded OSU’s Literacy Collaborative, and Fountas founded and still directs Lesley’s Center for Reading Recovery & Literacy Collaborative.
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Jenny Warner shares:
As if they took a cue from @FountasPinnell, @OhioState won’t speak publicly, lucky for us @lesley_u took their cue from Calkins and shared their adoration for @rrcna_org and how they haven’t altered how they teach future teachers how to read, but rather how teach them to be “politically savvy.”
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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?
