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Will Flanders Yesterday, this article was published that talks extensively about Wisconsin’s private school choice programs. It is full of many misconceptions and half-truths about the programs I will address here 🧵. a The article claims that private schools deny admission to students with disabilities. I’ve yet to see a single credible claim that VOUCHER […]
Kayla Huynh When Becca Schwei volunteered to help organize a volleyball tournament for East High School last fall, she was surprised to learn the school lacked a booster club. The club had disbanded after the COVID-19 pandemic put organized sports on pause, leaving East High as the only Madison high school without an active booster. […]
Sarah Schwartz As recently as 2019, three-quarters of K-2 teachers said that they used the three-cueing system to teach students to read, according to an EdWeek Research Center survey. But in the years since, as the science of reading movement has gained ground, the approach has faced mounting criticism. Some popular curriculum publishers have announced that […]
Will Flanders That Mississippi–a state with far more challenging demographics–has surpassed Wisconsin on the NAEP in 4th grade reading ought to be a five alarm fire for the education establishment. The answer instead from DPI was to lower student expectations–accepting failure. —— The taxpayer funded Madison School District long used Reading Recovery… The data clearly indicate that being […]
Karen Vaites: Stellar essay by @cafeteria_duty, published by @HKorbey, on the emergence of “test-free” schools as a quality marker in progressive communities – paired with incurious attitudes about school performance. I had a similar conversation with a pair of Brooklyn friends. They were asking me for advice on finding a school for their Kinder-age son. […]
Summary The report highlights sobering 2024 statistics: only 5.8% of Black 11th-graders in Madison—22 out of 310 students—were prepared for college-level reading and writing, compared to 27% of Black students nationally and 10.3% statewide. In math, just 7.1% of Madison’s Black 11th-graders were college-ready, lagging behind 8% nationally and 6.4% across Wisconsin. Wisconsin ranks last […]
Michael Zwaagstra Imagine you were to ask a random group of Canadian parents to describe the primary mission of schools. Most parents would say something along the lines of ensuring that all students learn basic academic skills such as reading, writing and mathematics. Fewer parents are likely to say that schools should focus on reducing […]
Kayla Huynh: Most of Wisconsin’s teacher preparation programs fail to spend enough time training prospective educators how to teach elementary school math, according to a recent report. The assessment contains findings similar to an earlier report that showed teachers who graduate from Wisconsin colleges are ill-prepared to teach reading. Of the 22 Wisconsin elementary prep programs […]
Chris Rickert: The U.S. Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Both DPI and the Madison School District offer various programs and resources in the DEI field, although whether any of them would violate the Trump administration’s interpretation of federal nondiscrimination law is unclear. Among the resources offered by DPI […]
Jessica Grose: Florida would join Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Alaska in lowering their testing standards or graduation requirements of late. After the absolutely dismal National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores from 2024, which showed that a higher percentage of eighth graders scored “below basic” in reading than at any point in the test’s 30-year history, you would […]
Ray Carter The results of nationwide testing show that students in Oklahoma lag behind students in nearly all of the 50 states when it comes to reading proficiency. Those results represent more than hardship for individual students or a loss of bragging rights for state officials. According to experts, Oklahoma’s low reading outcomes also translate […]
“Hilarius Bookbinder”: I’m Gen X. I was pretty young when I earned my PhD, so I’ve been a professor for a long time—over 30 years. If you’re not in academia, or it’s been a while since you were in college, you might not know this: the students are not what they used to be. The […]
Dave Cieslewicz: Some of my liberal friends have expressed their unhappiness over my endorsement of Brittany Kinser for State Superintendent of Public Instruction. So, let me expand on my reasons. When I was at the city of Madison and there was a managerial opening I always first thought about how that department was functioning. If […]
Simpson Street Free Press SSFP student reporters and local journalists interview candidates for this year’s school board race. If you missed our forum, now’s your chance to catch up! Stay informed and get to know who’s on the ballot. —— The taxpayer funded Madison School District long used Reading Recovery… The data clearly indicate that being able to […]
www: WisPolitics summary: Co-author Sen. John Jagler, R-Watertown, said the standards give parents a false impression of how their kids are doing in school. He also said it’s a problem that data can’t be compared year-to-year, which is problematic considering learning loss during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said the state should go back to the […]
Chris Rickert: It’s also laid bare what could be an inequity in the new guaranteed-admission regime because most Dane County public high schools also don’t weigh their grades for difficulty — meaning that, in theory, students who get straight A’s in all regular-level classes could have a better chance at getting in to UW than […]
Raul Emanuel “Democrats need to be honest with parents, too: We shuttered schools for too long in response to the pandemic, and we need to stop looking at our shoes and hoping no one highlights our role in the devastating consequences.” —— Covid era Dane County Madison Public Health Mandate and Lockdown policies. Waiting for an analysis of […]
Lucas Robinson: That’s a massive infrastructure undertaking ahead, and aligning those buildings with the district’s climate change and sustainability goals will be a big part of their development. To coordinate the sustainability component of those projects, the district has hired Bryanna Krekeler to be its first-ever sustainability manager. Krekeler is a Madison native whose work […]
Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner But those results are now old news. Wirepoints has just run the new Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) 2023 Report Card data and the outcomes are worse even though the impacts of covid are another year behind us. In 2023, there were 67 Illinois schools where not a single student tested […]
WILL: Additional Background: Beginning in the 2020-21 school year, DPI made several changes to Wisconsin’s academic accountability system that have made it less rigorous. These changes were made unilaterally by the Department without any input from the legislature or Governor. These changes included: Earlier this year, WILL endorsed Assembly Bill 1, introduced by Senator John Jagler […]
Jonaki Mehta: There was one exception: Louisiana. In 2019, Louisiana’s fourth graders ranked 50th in the country for reading. Now, they’ve risen to 16th. According to an even more granular analysis, Louisiana is the only state that has not only made a “full recovery” from the pandemic in both math and reading, but has improved upon […]
Anna Stokke: Wanted to share a video of a presentation to a public school board in Northern California about ‘Math Fact Fluency’ given by a friend and colleague: The main presenter — David Margulies — is a parent and former IBM Ph.D research staff member who worked in materials science his entire career and has […]
Lucas Robinson: At last Monday’s School Board meeting, Madison Teachers Inc. President Michael Jones called the referendums a “bait and switch.” “I should have known better than to trust a district that spent the equivalent of multiple educators’ annual salary on school logos and rebranding that no one asked for,” Jones told the board, referring […]
more. 2007 math forum audio video Connected Math Discovery Math Singapore Math Remedial math Madison’s most recent Math Task Force When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?
Dissident Teacher Ask yourself: when was the last time you saw your kid reading to prepare for the next day’s lessons at school? Yeah, that’s what I thought. I’m sorry. California schools are required by law to make all required texts available to all students in class and at home. Textbooks are pre-loaded onto iPads […]
Angie Schmitt: In fact, this data flies in the face of key Democratic/Progressive talking points on education, which appear to be bordering on flat-earth-level wrong. For example: Claim #1: More money will fix everything!!! Normie Democrats have been insisting that more money would fix everything in education since forever. If ONLY the MEAN Republicans would […]
Capital Times Editorial:a In contrast, Underly is backed by the state’s most ardent advocates for public-school students and teachers. Many of her backers are Democratic legislators, and she’s supported by the party. But, more importantly, she’s supported by educators who work in the state’s urban and rural schools, technical colleges and universities. American Federation of […]
John Nichols summary The contest pits two people with very different views against one another. Underly — who taught in rural schools before becoming an elementary school principal, school district superintendent, university academic advisor and administrator, and assistant director at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction — was elected to serve as superintendent in 2021. […]
Joshua Dunn For several decades, the high priestess of the balanced literacy movement has been Lucy Calkins of Columbia University, who directed the now-defunct Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. Calkins once estimated that her Units of Study reading curriculum had been adopted by as many as one in four U.S. elementary schools. Irene Fountas […]
Greg Ashman: Thousands of primary school students will be tested on their mathematics knowledge as part of a landmark NSW numeracy screening trial to be rolled out from next term. NSW will run the maths screening check for year 1 students across 150 public schools, testing about 5000 pupils on basic skills including counting, ordering […]
Dan Shafer: In the upcoming Spring Election, the highest-profile race is the one for Wisconsin Supreme Court, the latest in Wisconsin’s seemingly endless number of everything-on-the-line elections. The undercard, then, is the race for State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Elections for this ostensibly nonpartisan office have not always attracted much attention, but this year’s race might buck […]
Christopher Harris Fewer students may be choosing to study higher-level maths for the HSC because they had been taught by primary school teachers who were “maths avoiders” and developed a negative attitude toward the subject, Sydney University vice-chancellor Professor Mark Scott has said. Scott made the comments at an Engineers Australia conference on Wednesday, an […]
Anna Hansen: Now that Southside Elementary has its long-awaited new name, the Madison School District is eyeing its next re-christenings. While district officials draft the necessary paperwork and place their orders for the new Lori Mann Carey Elementary signage, Conrad A. Elvehjem and Charles Lindbergh Elementary Schools are on deck for renaming during the 2025-2026 […]
Kayla Huynh But Wisconsin students remain behind years after the public health emergency disrupted learning, according to a national study on academic recovery this month. The average Wisconsin student is over a third of a grade level behind in math and half of a grade level behind in reading compared with pre-pandemic levels, according to results […]
Kayla Huynh: The McKenzie Foundation and the Boys & Girls Club will instead develop workforce programs for the school district “that combine academic rigor and workforce development,” McKenzie said in the statement. “By leveraging each organization’s unique strengths and resources, we can better serve students and provide them with the skills they need to succeed,” […]
Cathy Kozlowicz: The bill recognizes same-sex marriage by making references in the statutes to spouses gender-neutral. The terms “wife,” “mother,” “father” and “husband” were replaced with gender-neutral terms, such as spouse and person. In one section covering artificial insemination, “the husband of the mother” was changed to “the spouse of the inseminated person.” RGA Executive […]
Teo summary China deploys R1 to comprehensively automate their governance. This is probably a bit of a bigger deal than DOGE fights in salt mines. @layer07_yuxi explains that a lot of compute capacity was locked in 1K A100s-level datacenters, useless for training. All that comes online now. —— Where did the DeepSeek team attend university? […]
Patrick J. Bayer (Duke University – Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)) Peter Q.. Blair (Harvard University – Harvard Graduate School of Education), Kenneth Whaley (University of South Florida): Tyler Cowen: I remain happy to provoke my readers: The United States ranks low among peer countries on the ratio of teacher spending […]
Dave Cieslewicz: If you ever wonder what people mean when they use the phrase “word salad”, here’s what they mean: “There is a predatory dynamic of coming into a district like ours and saying that you are going to resolve something as deep-rooted as racialized inequity through a school that pairs young people with professional […]
Abbey Machtig: “I do think that there is a fundamental misalignment in terms of how the school would fit into our more broad district plans and misunderstanding of services that we already provide,” board member Savion Castro said Wednesday. It’s a familiar approach, given the district has fought other proposed charter schools in the past. Documents show […]
Kate Martin, Carmela Guaglianone and Emily Hanford Education journalist Karin Chenoweth visited one of Steubenville’s elementary schools back in 2008 and marveled at the results, which she wrote about in her book “How It’s Being Done: Urgent Lessons from Unexpected Schools.” “It was astonishing to me how amazing that elementary school was,” Chenoweth said in an interview. “They […]
Wispolitics: AB 1 would reverse changes to state testing standards made under Superintendent Jill Underly. Opponents have argued Underly lowered the standards, making it harder to gauge how students are doing. Up for reelection, she has rejected those claims. She says the changes actually provide a better picture of student achievement and were made through […]
Abbey Machtig: “If we have our own standards aligned to nobody else’s, guess what: We can fool ourselves into thinking that we are great, because we have no ability to compare ourselves to anybody else,” he said. The bill would require DPI to align scoring methods for the language arts and math sections of the […]
Andy Pierotti: – A pending lawsuit claims a publishing giant sold defective instructional material to school districts for decades, allegedly hurting children’s ability to read. An Atlanta News First investigation uncovered the same publisher sold its curriculum in metro Atlanta, including Gwinnett County, the state’s largest school district. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of two Massachusetts parents whose […]
Jim Bender & Patrick Mchileran: More than a bureaucrat, the superintendent is defined in Wisconsin’s constitution. Wisconsin is the only state in the country that elects its superintendent but has no state board of education. This results in a constitutional officer who reports to nobody except the voters every four years. The superintendent heads the […]
David Blaska: Those are the everyday accounts that don’t make headlines like the case of six high school students who beat and robbed another student at Madison East high school 02-04-25. The victim was hospitalized for his injuries —— Parents overestimate student achievement, underestimate spending Related: Act 10 Did taxpayer funded Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Underly Juice Test Scores for Reelection? […]
via Quinton Klabon This Senator Jagler address connects setting high standards for kids with recent Milwaukee Public Schools troubles. —— Parents overestimate student achievement, underestimate spending Related: Act 10 Did taxpayer funded Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Underly Juice Test Scores for Reelection? The taxpayer funded Madison School District long used Reading Recovery… The data clearly indicate that being able to read is […]
Frannie Block: William, whose last name is listed only as A. in the suit, first enrolled in the Clarksville-Montgomery County school district in 2016 when he was in the fifth grade. For the next seven years, he scored mostly in the bottom first, second, or third percentiles of his reading fluency assessment tests compared to national standards. […]
Dave Cieslewicz But the scores are even worse in Madison where students are 84% behind on math and 72% behind on reading. We did, in fact, keep schools closed for too long, but that doesn’t explain the Madison results because hundreds of school districts kept their schools closed as long as Madison did and they’ve […]
Abbey Machtig Madison students are 72% behind comparable 2019 numbers in reading and 84% behind in math, according to the report. “education recovery scorecard” —— Madison per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the number used (!) —— Parents overestimate student achievement, underestimate spending Related: Act 10 Did taxpayer funded Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Underly Juice […]
Michael Petrilli: Eli Hager and his colleagues at ProPublica have published some eyebrow-raising articles lately about Arizona’s universal education savings account (ESA) program. Most recently, Hager dug into its testing and accountability requirements—or lack thereof. When it comes to the public’s ability—and that of policymakers—to know whether Arizona’s program, or the schools and other vendors that it’s funding, are effective, there’s […]
Kayla Huynh on Jill Underly: Underly’s top priorities include securing more state funding for schools and increasing the amount of money schools are reimbursed for special education services. She wants the state to reimburse 90% of schools’ special education costs. on Jeff Wright: Wright’s top priorities are to restore confidence in the Department of Public […]
Laura McKenna: Parent backlash against the national education test results is happening in NJ. Steve snapped pictures of these signs at the train station. Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004 —— Parents overestimate student achievement, underestimate spending Related: Act 10 Did taxpayer funded Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Underly Juice Test Scores for Reelection? taxpayer funded Madison School District […]
Will Flanders: Tom McCarthy from DPI: “we haven’t lowered standards one iota.” This is a lie. Did taxpayer funded Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Underly Juice Test Scores for Reelection? The taxpayer funded Madison School District long used Reading Recovery… The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if […]
Kaleem Caire: Mississippi is now #1 in reading among Black children while Wisconsin is #41 among all 41 states reporting scores for Black children. We have a lot more money in our state than they do in Mississippi. In Madison, we have even more. What is up with this? Our public school advocates need to […]
Kayla Huynh: Kennedy was one of two schools in the school district that failed to meet expectations on last year’s state report card. Results from the latest state tests show nearly three-quarters of third through fifth graders at Kennedy are not meeting grade-level standards in reading and math. —- Parents overestimate student achievement, underestimate spending Related: Act 10 […]
Dave Cieslewicz: Today’s blog is in the category of You Just Can’t Make This Stuff Up. The Madison Metropolitan School District has some of the worst test scores in the state. It has a horrible truancy problem. Its racial achievement gap is comparable to the Grand Canyon. For the most recent year when statistics were […]
Barbara Biasi & Wayne Sandholtz‡ We study the electoral consequences of Wisconsin’s Act 10, a controversial law that weakened teachers’ unions and enabled flexible teacher pay. Exploiting variation in the timing of implementation of the reform across districts, we first show that it raised student test scores, reduced union revenues, and created winners and losers […]
Quinton Klabon: This broke my heart last night. original plan: start LETRS reading retraining Sep. 2024, finish Jul. 2026 attempted plan: get paid over summer, evenings, or weekends, finish Aug. 2025 —— If you look at Milwaukee especially, you’ll see an entire school district crumbling. —— Parents overestimate student achievement, underestimate spending Related: Act 10 Did taxpayer funded […]
Mitchell Schmidt: Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Brian Hagedorn, who served as former Gov. Scott Walker’s chief legal counsel and helped draft the state’s landmark Act 10 law, said Thursday he will not participate in pending litigation seeking to overturn several components in the law. Hagedorn’s decision to recuse himself marks a major blow to Republicans’ […]
Abbey Machtig Gothard’s starting salary is $299,000, according to his contract with the district. He also gets at least a 2% pay increase each year of the contract, along with $25,000 each year in retirement contributions to a 403(b) account. As superintendent, Gothard will lead the district through the design and construction of 10 new school buildings […]
Dwight Longenecker: It would seem that a new generation of students is in danger of not being illiterate, but un-literate. In other words, they can read, but they don’t read. Being un-literate means they are unable to develop a decent vocabulary, develop crucial creative and critical thinking skills, broaden the mind, and experience wider cultural […]
WILL: The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a nationally representative sample of schools throughout the country that allows for an apples-to-apples comparison of students in each state, and some cities. Early this morning, the 2024 NAEP results were released. Not surprisingly, they paint a dim picture of student performance since the pandemic, both […]
Will Flanders summary: Last night, the 2024 NAEP was released for Wisconsin and nationwide. The picture it pains of the state of education in America is bleak, and Wisconsin was no exception. Here is a 🧵of some key results. —— Parents overestimate student achievement, underestimate spending Related: Act 10 Did taxpayer funded Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Underly Juice Test […]
Abbey Machtig: In April 2024, staff members filed a complaint with the district about working conditions at the school. The complaint named Principal Candace Terrell and Assistant Principal Annabel Torres, saying regular bullying and poor safety practices led to an exodus of teachers from Southside that has negatively affected students. Parents overestimate student achievement, underestimate spending Related: Act […]
Kayla Huynh: “There’s not a whole lot of research on it. But when I taught traditionally, it just wasn’t working. The kids were zoning out during the lesson part, and then I’d have to keep explaining it all over.” —- 2007 math forum audio video Connected Math Discovery Math Singapore Math Remedial math Madison’s most recent Math Task Force When A […]
WILL: Since at least 2020, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction has made changes that obscure the true performance of schools, making it harder for Wisconsin families to make informed decisions about their children’s education. Today, Senator John Jagler (R-Watertown) and Representative Bob Wittke (R-Caledonia) introduced new legislation (LRB-0976) aimed at restoring transparency and accountability […]
Quinton Klabon: Wisconsin students per teacher2011: 15.12020: 14.32023: 13.72024: 13.7Non-teaching staff follows that trend. Pandemic funds supported more staff, so that is normal! 2025 numbers will show if ratios remain low due to more special-needs diagnoses and retaining pandemic staff. ——- Parents overestimate student achievement, underestimate spending Related: Act 10 Did taxpayer funded Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Underly Juice […]
AJ Bayatpour We’re doing profiles on all 3 candidates for state superintendent. We start with Brittany Kinser’s first interview since her campaign launch. Would she accept Republicans raising funds for her? “Anyone who aligns…I will work with anyone and attend a fundraiser from anyone” ——- 2 of 3 Madison School Board 2025 April election seats […]
Corrinne Hess: Act 20 was a bipartisan bill, proposed by Republicans who worked with DPI on the details. When it was approved, the Legislature created a separate, nearly $50 million appropriations bill for implementation. Then disagreements began over how that money would be used, and who would decide how to use it. Wisconsin allows its […]
Laura Shkylnik: If you don’t know what Project Follow Through, this episode gives a great overview. — Parents overestimate student achievement, underestimate spending Related: Act 10 Did taxpayer funded Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Underly Juice Test Scores for Reelection? taxpayer funded Madison School District long used Reading Recovery… The data clearly indicate that being able to read is […]
Anna Stocke: US students’ poor performance on TIMSS has received much media attention. Canadian students scored worse than US students. Why is this not receiving the same degree of attention? —— 2007 math forum audio video Connected Math Discovery Math Singapore Math Remedial math Madison’s most recent Math Task Force When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of […]
Corrinne Hess: She wants to make it easier for failing schools to somehow seem like they’re succeeding,” Vos said during a press conference. “I hope that’s one of the areas that we’ll get some speedy discussion on, hopefully bipartisan support. Because I would hope that no one, the most liberal person or the most conservative […]
Corrinne Hess: More than 40 percent of Wisconsin parents believe their child is “above grade level” in math, and 45 percent said the same about reading, according to Wisconsin survey results. Only 9.5 percent of students were ranked “advanced” in math and just over 8 percent rated “advanced” in reading on the 2022-23 Forward Exam, […]
Emilee Fannon: Are standards lower? DPI officials have defended the new benchmarks, saying they align more directly with the state’s Forward Exam and teaching standards. Underly noted other states, such as Oklahoma and New York, have recently lowered their testing benchmarks. However, the Institute for Reforming Government, a conservative think tank, points to changes for […]
Kayla Huynh: Over 10% of the Madison school district’s teachers are relying on one-year emergency licenses to work in classrooms, according to figures obtained by the Cap Times under state open records laws. A majority of the Madison Metropolitan School District’s nearly 300 emergency licensed educators were teaching classes in bilingual education, English as a […]
Morgan Polikoff and William Hughes It’s been over four years since schools closed to stop the spread of COVID-19 and by now there is no question that the pandemic has a long shadow over Wisconsin education. Results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress exam show Wisconsin students’ performance lags far behind historical peaks in the early to mid-2010s, […]
Representative Barbara Dittrich Evers’ statement is completely out of touch with voters. In my district, people complained to me about all of their wasted tax dollars producing MKE kids who can’t read, write, or do simple math. We need to restore standards that demand excellence, not throw more cash at it. —— Related: Act 10 Did […]
Abbey Machtig: During an initial conversation, some Madison School Board members said they wanted to avoid creating competition with the district’s technical education and youth apprenticeship opportunities. McKenzie told the Wisconsin State Journal via email he is still pursuing a charter agreement with the UW Office of Educational Opportunity. The final application to UW is […]
Sonya Gugliara Chicago‘s projected budget deficit is a whopping $982.4 million, according to The Civic Federation. Despite several tactics to save the city from bankruptcy, politicians have failed to get to the root of the issue – increasing pension payments to Chicago’s more than 40,000 public employees. ‘Retirement benefits are like free junk food to politicians […]
Jessica McBride: Embattled incumbent Jill Underly is under growing fire from multiple corners within her own party, as infighting fractures the Democrat party in the state school Superintendent’s race. Underly has drawn not one, but two, likely opponents in the Feb. 18 spring primary to continue heading the state Department of Public Instruction. The top […]
Corrinne Hess: A group of Wisconsin parents say the Department of Public Instruction is dragging its feet on implementing new curriculum that aims to improve children’s reading skills. In 2023, lawmakers passed legislation known as Act 20. It required schools to shift away from “balanced literacy” curriculum to a phonics-based model known as “the science […]
Colleston Morgan, Jr. As we @cfc_mke predicted, the election-time, partisan spin from @DrJillUnderly @WisconsinDPI on lowering standards is here. 🧵 The issue isn’t right vs left – it’s right vs wrong. Dems like @ppi & @DaveCieslewicz have spoken out. Some polls show 85% oppose lowering the bar! —— Did taxpayer funded Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Underly […]
Sarah O’Connor: “Thirty per cent of Americans read at a level that you would expect from a 10-year-old child,” Andreas Schleicher, director for education and skills at the OECD, told me — referring to the proportion of people in the US who scored level 1 or below in literacy. “It is actually hard to imagine […]
Ben Smee A 14-year-old north Queensland boy with a severe intellectual disability was wrongly convicted and sentenced to nine months’ detention by a magistrate who recorded guilty pleas to a series of charges, despite the child being incapable of instructing his lawyers and not verbalising a plea in court. The boy – who has an IQ of […]
Jill Barshay: You may have seen the headlines about the horrid math skills of U.S. children, but a few of the details in the 2023 TIMSS international test score report are fascinating. Let’s dig in with pictures.. —- 2007 math forum audio video Connected Math Discovery Math Singapore Math Remedial math Madison’s most recent Math Task Force When A Stands for […]
Joanne Jacobs: Mississippi has better schools than Massachusetts, and Texas schools outperform Wisconsin — controlling for race, poverty and non-English-speaking parents. Mississippi, New Mexico and Louisiana outperform expectations based on the challenges their students face. Texas, Georgia and Florida come next. Massachusetts, a relatively wealthy, educated and white state, drops to 26th. Wyoming ranks sixth […]
Duet Stroebel: Publicly, @DrJillUnderly touts Act 20 as “landmark literacy legislation” and uses it as a campaign talking point. Privately, she refers to literacy reform as “nonsense” and is actively trying to undermine the historic reading reforms behind the scenes. Which is it, Jill? Kyle Koenen: DPI says that the dumbing down of standards happened […]
Tressa Pankovits “ai” summary: Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction (DPI) lowered achievement standards for the Forward exam, resulting in a significant increase in proficiency scores. This move raises concerns about the accuracy of standardized test scores in measuring student achievement. ——- The taxpayer funded Madison School District long used Reading Recovery… The data clearly indicate that […]
Dr. Darja Barr, Dr. Jim Clark, Dr. James Currie, Dr. Payman Eskandari, Dr. Shakhawat Hossain, Dr. Narad Rampersad, Dr. Anna Stokke, Dr. Ross Stokke and Dr. Matthew Wiersma: “ai” summary: A review of references cited by Dr. Martha Koch found no credible support for her claims that recent amendments to Manitoba’s Teaching Certificates and Qualifications […]
Michael Zwaagstra: Remember when Manitoba teachers were once forbidden from giving zeroes to students who didn’t hand in assignments? At that time, even docking marks for late work was strongly discouraged. Unsurprisingly, this approach failed miserably. Anyone with an ounce of common sense could see that this policy resulted in students choosing not to hand […]
Charles Sykes: America is again facing an educational crisis. Last week, The New York Times reported that American students “turned in grim results on the latest international test of math skills.” That test, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), found that fourth graders have dropped 18 points in math since 2019, while eighth graders have dropped […]
IRG Senior Research Director Quinton Klabon: The Joint Committee on Finance was forced to dispute the actions of the Department of Public Instruction once again on critical Act 20 reading reforms. The Institute for Reforming Government calls for DPI to follow the law as written so Wisconsin can catch up to leading literacy states. What […]
Kayla Huynh: “What sets me apart is being able to analyze data and derive meaningful conclusions from it. That is what I do day in and day out in my profession,” Wagner said. “We need a better framework for reviewing policy and programming so that we can be confident that the things we will need […]
CATO all Americans must confront three uncomfortable truths: These three challenges were either worsened or created by the growth and metastasis of an unwieldy federal government and its associated administrative state. The government tries to do too much, so it overspends and overregulates the private sector. The federal government tries to be all things to […]
Andy Pierrotti For the past 30 years, Georgia State University has run a program for experienced teachers to learn a curriculum called, Reading Recovery, which is intended to help children learn how to read. Reading Recovery is one-on-one instruction in the classroom for the lowest performing students in first grade struggling to read. School districts in Georgia […]
Quinton Klabon: ACT 20 READING UPDATE@wispolitics had this letter from Superintendent Underly to the Legislature. Good news: DPI recommended what ELCC did (HMH: ugh), no additions. Bad news: DPI says rulings say they decide curriculum, not JFC. News: DPI criticizes Act 20 funding conflict. —— Much more on the Wisconsin DPI’s ongoing rigor reduction campaign. […]
Wisconsin public policy, forum: The rise in gross levies this year is driven primarily by increases to K-12 property taxes — the largest local property tax most residents will pay. The $325 increase to per pupil revenue limits in the current state budget is one factor, but so was the willingness of many referendum voters […]
Corrinne Hess Changes to UW-Madison’s School of Education math requirements Steffen Lempp, a math professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says over the last decade, the School of Education has changed how prospective K-8 teachers are taught math content to fully prepare them to teach children in the subject. The UW-Madison math department used to […]
David Blaska: You are not a Dane County judgei n good standing if you have not ruled against Act 10, the statutory limitations on government employee collective bargaining. Bonus points if you supported the recall of Act 10’s author, Gov. Scott Walker. The latest judge to make his progressive bones here in Madison WI is […]