WIBA’s Vicki McKenna and Active Citizens for Education’s Don Severson discussed a variety of topics today, including Judy Newman’s series on Madison’s changing economic landscape, the Madison School District’s budget process and the planned November referendum for a new far west side school, Leopold Elementary school expansion and debt consolidation. 17MB MP3 audio.
e = get, head
Dive into said
So, do they always populate these shows with people who just agree with each other’s ridiculous statements all the time? Here’s what I heard before I’d had enough:
– We’ve set up our city to attract low-income families.
– People will leave and they have been leaving.
– They’d better not propose another referendum until they get the illegal immigrants out of the schools.
Is this the tone of discussion we should be having about our school system? Is this kind of polarizing rhetoric good for the schools? McKenna makes it seem like trying to build a better, more healthy community is ultimately a horrible thing because poor people will show up and wreck it.
This is not a public affairs program. It’s a series of rants, complete with name-calling, demonizing and unchallenged hysteria.
MMSD low income enrollment is ~42-43%; I wouldn’t be picky but when off by 4% that’s equivalent to ~1000 students.
Don/Vicki must have the information on the West Memorial Task Force enrollment figures for 2005-06 which calculate 38% which include only these two attendance area elementary schools. These also provide data for all Westside schools.
BTW: District projection data *is* available:
http://www.mmsd.org/boe/longrange/0506/Enrollment_Projections_for_2006-2011_Values.pdf
More factual information?
Go to http://www.mmsd.org