“Many of our students came to us and said, ‘We really want to go to Madison College, but we need this skill first, and mostly it’s English language skills,” Burkhart said. “It’s feeling more confident, it’s feeling better about your ability to succeed at the college.”
On Thursday, the Literacy Network announced that the Oscar Rennebohm Foundation has granted $300,000 over three years to expand classes and support services for adults looking to study at Madison College. That will help more non-native speakers earn degrees, Burkhart said.
“We’re trying to build a pipeline,” said Jennifer Peterson, senior director of tutoring.
Madison College will open a South Campus at 801 W. Badger Road in 2019, further strengthening the Literacy Network-Madison College connection.
The Literacy Network, founded in 1974, hosts programs for native English speakers as well as English as a Second Language courses for non-native speakers like immigrant and refugee students
Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most.
Here’s my data from this year and this is why I’m here:
Of the 65 students plus or minus it kind of changes this year 24 of them are regular ed students.
Another way to say they don’t have an IEP so there is no excuse for that reading intervention in (that group).
12 of those 24 have been enrolled in Madison School since Pre-K kindergarten or kindergarden. 12 students have been in Madison Schools.
They have High attendance. They have been in the same (you know) feeder school they have not had high mobility. There is no excuse for 12 of my students to be reading at the first second or third grade level and that’s where they’re at and I’m angry and I’m not the only one that’s angry.
The teachers are angry because we are being held accountable for things that we didn’t do at the high school level. Of those 24 students, 21 of them have been enrolled in Madison for four or more years.
Of those 24 students one is Caucasian the rest of them identify as some other ethnic group.
I am tired of the district playing what I called whack-a-mole, (in) another words a problem happens at Cherokee boom we bop it down and we we fix it temporarily and then something at Sherman or something at Toki or something at Faulk and we bop it down and its quiet for awhile but it has not been fixed on a system-wide level and that’s what has to change.