School Information System

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

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?

Testimony: The Crisis in American Education

Shaka Mitchell:

This is not just an education problem. It is a workforce problem, a civic problem, and an economic problem. The United States cannot hope to remain globally competitive if its education system is producing historically low levels of achievement among its high school graduates. Fortunately, school choice offers a proven model for beginning to turn things around.

II. School Choice as a Path Forward

Families deserve more than a one-size-fits-all education system. School choice allows parents to select the environment that best suits their children—whether that is a traditional public school, a public charter school, a private or parochial school, a micro-school, or a homeschool setting. Beginning as small pilot programs in the 1990s, school choice has gone mainstream, with 74 publicly funded private school choice programs in 32 states plus D.C. and Puerto Rico. Over 1.3 million students are enrolled in private choice programs today.

School choice is not about abandoning public education. It is about ensuring accountability and creating a broad menu of options that meet unique needs. Decades of research demonstrate that competition introduced by school choice improves outcomes not only for participating students but also for those who remain in traditional public schools. By expanding options, we foster innovation, responsiveness, and higher performance across the entire system.

III. Student Learning Outcomes

Evidence from across the nation confirms that school choice improves student achievement. In Milwaukee, the first city to establish a modern voucher program, rigorous evaluations found higher graduation rates among choice participants. In Washington, D.C., students receiving Opportunity Scholarships were more likely to graduate from high school than their peers.

Parents consistently report greater satisfaction with choice programs, citing safety, academic quality, and values alignment. These outcomes matter because education should not be measured only by dollars spent, but by the transformation of student lives and the outcomes those students go on to achieve. Of course, when evaluating education outcomes, it is natural to first examine student learning. Over 200 empirical studies have examined the impact of school choice on students, parents, schools, and state budgets – 84% found positive effects with most of the remainder finding neutral effects. Beyond those who participate in school choice programs, a now large body of research has examined the effect of choice programs on students who remain in public schools. 27 out of 30 studies show positive (27) or neutral (1) effects on the test scores of students who remain in public school. This debunks the myth that students “left behind” will falter. School choice brings with it the injection of innovation into public school systems that often lack financial and academic performance incentives.

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Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average (now > $25,000 per student) K-12 tax & spending practices. This, despite long term, disastrous reading results.

Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability

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 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.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

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?

26% say K-12 schools headed in right direction

Megan Brenan:

A record-low 35% of Americans are satisfied with the quality of education that K-12 students receive in the U.S. today, marking an eight-percentage-point decline since last year. This is one point below the previous historical low recorded in 2000 and 2023for this Gallup question that dates back to 1999.

Several other ratings of the U.S. K-12 education system provide a similarly bleak assessment. Only about one-quarter of Americans think K-12 schools are headed in the right direction, while just one in five rate them as “excellent” or “good” at preparing students for today’s jobs and one in three say the same for college.

Yet, parents of current K-12 students are nearly twice as satisfied with their own child’s education as they are with education in the U.S. K-12 parents are also slightly more likely than U.S. adults in general to rate different aspects of education positively, including the direction of education in the U.S. and schools’ preparation of students for the workforce and for college. Still, none of these ratings is near the majority level.

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Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average (now > $25,000 per student) K-12 tax & spending practices. This, despite long term, disastrous reading results.

Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability

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 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.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

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?

Low standards and ideological fights don’t help students, as math scores plummet.

Since 2013 NAEP math scores have dropped 11 points for eighth-graders and five points for fourth-graders—and the declines are steepest for the lowest-performing students. Twelfth-grade scores have dropped six points. Thirty-nine percent of eighth-graders and 45% of twelfth-graders scored below “basic” proficiency in 2024.

Scores were trending up before 2013, so what explains the slide? Researchers at the Center on Reinventing Public Education cite “lowered expectations, inflated grades, and obscured learning gaps.” In recent years, some states have abolished standardized tests or lowered proficiency standards that help keep schools accountable. Only six states still require high school exit exams, compared to 24 in 2013.

Schools also increasingly make it easier for students to get good grades no matter their performance. Especially after Covid, “schools confronted students’ academic struggles and demotivation by making math easier—exactly the opposite reaction to what students needed,” says the report. The truth comes out on standardized tests, and in college and the workplace where those skills are needed.

Students who struggle with math aren’t served well by being relegated to less rigorous “tracks” in early grades with no option to catch up. The report urges states to prepare all students for Algebra I by eighth grade. Some districts have dropped eighth-grade algebra in the name of equity, another example of low expectations harming students.

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State Board Approves Lower Passing Score for High School Graduation Test

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2014: 21% of University of Wisconsin System Freshman Require Remedial Math

How One Woman Rewrote Math in Corvallis

Singapore Math

Discovery Math

Connected Math (2006!)

Notes on Campus Free Speech

Hollis Robbins:

The reporting on the new Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression College Free Speech Rankings focuses on how things haven’t changed. The headline of Johanna Alonso’s excellent piece is “Students Report Less Tolerance for Controversial Speakers.”

To be clear, the issue of tolerance for campus speakers—and the physical safety of speakers and attendees—remains paramount, as last week’s violence made clear. But for me, FIRE’s study misses the single most profound change on college campuses: AI, and the reality that students are increasingly doing their intellectual exploration privately, not publicly. FIRE’s survey doesn’t ask what questions students are asking their AI models in the privacy of their dorm room or quietly on their laptops during lectures. Yet Inside Higher Ed’s recent surveymakes this clear: “Most students are using generative AI for coursework, but many are doing so in ways that can support, not outsource, their learning.” As one student put it, faculty members and leaders “need to understand how accessible and potent it is.”

FIRE’s approach conflating intellectual freedom (the right to speak) with intellectual obligation (the expectation that one should speak) belongs to an older era. The study’s methodology treats public expression of controversial political views as an expected norm rather than a choice complicated by AI and social media. Students who report discomfort expressing their views in classroom discussions, campus common areas or on social media are counted as evidence of a “chilling climate,” regardless of whether these students have any desire to engage in public discourse.

Civics: Voters file suit against Madison over uncounted ballots

A liberal law firm has filed a class action lawsuit against the city of Madison on behalf of 193 absentee voters whose votes in last year’s November election went uncounted.

Plaintiffs in the 24-page suit, filed Wednesday in Dane County Circuit Court, are eight of those voters. They allege a series of mistakes — since acknowledged by the city — disenfranchised them and other voters from the Downtown and Near West Side, and that in the weeks after the election, officials failed to take any action that would have seen their votes tallied as part of a final, state-mandated canvas.

”The city had multiple opportunities to make this right, and it clearly had the duty to do so,” Kacy Gurewitz, staff counsel at Law Forward, said in a news release. “These voters invested substantial time in participating in this election, and they did everything right, but the city of Madison failed them.”

civics: Investigation into Soros NGO $pending

Ryan Mauro:

Since 2016, George Soros’s Open Society Foundations (OSF), now run with his son Alexander, has poured over $80 million into groups tied to terrorism or extremist violence. The evidence is stark: Open Society has sent millions of dollars into U.S.-based organizations that engage in “direct actions” that the FBI defines as domestic terrorism. These groups include the Center for Third World Organizing and its militant partner Ruckus Society, which trained activists in property destruction and sabotage during the 2020 riots, and the Sunrise Movement, which endorsed the Antifa-linked Stop Cop City campaign, in which activists currently face over 40 domestic terrorism charges and 60 racketeering indictments. At the same time, Open Society awarded $18 million to the Movement for Black Lives, a group that co-authored a radical guide that glorifies Hamas’s October 7 massacre and instructs activists in the use of false IDs, blockades, and economic disruption.

Nor is the danger confined to America’s streets. Open Society has funneled more than $2.3 million into Al-Haq, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) based in the West Bank and long accused of ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which the European Union and the United States designate as a foreign terrorist organization. Grants to Al-Haq between 2016 and 2023 ranged from $400,000 in general support to an $800,000 institutional award. In September 2025, the U.S. State Department sanctioned Al-Haq, citing its role in advancing campaigns that “directly engaged in the [International Criminal Court’s] illegitimate targeting of Israel.” That means Soros’s foundation has not only financed extremist groups within the United States but also funneled millions abroad to entities now formally sanctioned by Washington.

Northwestern’s leader, who made a deal with the campus mob, is out.

The latest university leader to resign under pressure by the Trump Administration is Northwestern University President Michael Schill, who made his announcement Thursday amid a freeze in federal research funding for the school. Some of President Trump’s demands of colleges are over the top, but Mr. Schill was one of the biggest appeasers of last year’s anti-Israel campus mobs.

Northwestern’s campus was occupied by an encampment in the spring of 2024, and in exchange for partially removing it, Mr. Schill gave in to the protesters. The school agreed to new scholarships for Palestinian students, new Palestinian faculty, and a new “safe space” on campus for Middle Eastern and Muslim students. That was a big win for the campus agitators, who got real results from their flagrant breach of university norms.

Mr. Schill’s agreement stands as a monument to the lunacy that governed college campuses across the nation during that moment, which included coddling protesters and failing to protect students from blatant antisemitism. After decades of focus on microaggressions and decolonization narratives, many of these universities found themselves lacking coherent moral leadership to address the massacre of Israeli civilians by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. The heads of America’s liberal institutions lost their nerve to stand down the mob.

Wisconsin k-12 tax & $pending at all time high + declining student population

Quinton Klabon:

Fun Wisconsin #StateOfEducation facts:

state funding has nearly been at all-time highs since 2018
private school market share is lower now than when vouchers began
public schools employed more people than ever in history with the fewest students since 1992

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Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average (now > $25,000 per student) K-12 tax & spending practices. This, despite long term, disastrous reading results.

Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability

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 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.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

By Erika Edwards, Jason Kane, Stephanie Gosk, Mustafa Fattah and Joe Murphy:

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?

Lessons from England’s school reforms

DAISY CHRISTODOULOU

Why the picky, picky detail matters

Last month, Nick Gibb, the former UK Schools Minister, published a memoir about his 10+ years in office. He was central to the big educational reforms England introduced since 2010: phonics teaching, a knowledge-rich curriculum, school autonomy, and assessment reform.

I wrote the foreword to the book, and I’ve written before on here about the success of these reforms. So I’m hardly a neutral observer, but for what it is worth I think the book is fantastic, and it has been getting rave reviews from others too (see here, hereand here.)

In my foreword, I emphasised the importance of content knowledge not just for education, but for politicians and policymakers. Nick Gibb really understood education. He’d done his research and visited hundreds of schools. He was given the time to develop his understanding too, because unlike most junior ministers, he wasn’t reshuffled to a completely different department after 15 months.

The educationalist Siegfried Engelmann liked to talk about the importance of the “picky, picky detail”. If you’re trying to teach a student what a verb is, it matters if all the examples you give have the verb as the second word. Picky detail really matters for policy reform too. In this post, I will focus on two aspects of England’s assessment and accountability reforms where attention to detail made a huge difference, and where policymakers in other areas could learn a lot.

AI firm DeepSeek writes less-secure code for groups China disfavors

Joseph Menn

Research by a U.S. security firm points to the country’s leading player in AI providing higher-quality results for some purposes than others.

America urgently needs a revolution in math education. Here’s how

Ryan Craig,

Because I’m an investor, I receive an inordinate number of pitches from companies seeking funding. Like CORPUS, the Netherlands-based 9-story, 135-foot human-shaped structure that offers an interactive “journey through the human body,” now seeking funding to build additional giants in China. Or less likely but potentially lucrative opportunities like a “poultry hotel” combining a 5-star hotel with an industrial-scale poultry farm (side benefit: guests get fresh eggs and chicken). Or a new fast-casual Asian brand that promises to revolutionize the U.S. dining scene. “Our strategy is simple,” says the pitch. “We aim to replicate the success of the other ‘John’ brands. Think Papa John’s, Jimmy John’s, and Taco John’s.” The investor presentation also mentions Johnny Rockets and Long John Silver’s. What’s missing? Asian John’s! The other Johns “have already helped build [the] Asian John’s [brand].” According to the founder (John), the key to success is locating “next to one of the other Johns. We put it next to a Jimmy John’s.” The marketing campaign writes itself: “There’s a new John in town.” Watch out Panda Express!

Notes on education School Reform

Daniel Buck:

To argue that schools of education have gone bonkers is akin to penning an op-ed that the Titanic sank. The fact is given. Does anyone dispute it?

The most-assigned books and essays for prospective teachers are a heady mixture of race essentialism, gender theory, and outright Marxist kookery. Trainees learn much of critical-consciousness raising, Marxist praxis, and gender as a performative act but little of classroom management, curricular sequencing, or instructional practice. Unsurprisingly, research into the impact of these programs finds that teachers who attend them are no more effectivethan alternatively trained or even untrained career transitioners.

Since at least the 1960s, schools of education have housed some of our most radical thinkers.Since at least the 1960s, schools of education have housed some of our most radical thinkers. Many leaders of the terroristic Weather Underground found refuge in them, for example. And, since then, along with a handful of law schools, education schools have introduced into public consciousness many of conservatives’ bugaboos, from critical race theory to microaggressions and white fragility.

The scholarship that such schools produce often reads like the sweaty rantings of a schizophrenic.The scholarship—a gracious thing to call it—that such schools produce often reads like the sweaty rantings of a schizophrenic. Skim any education-school publication list, and you’ll find a mess of auto-ethnographies, case studies, and glorified op-eds championing the latest progressive classroom intervention. Notably absent are randomized-controlled trials, quasi-experimental studies, or meta-analyses proving the theories actually work.

Education schools are indeed, as a former Harvard president once called them, a “kitten that ought to be drowned.” Such disdain is typically how conservatives discuss them: Schools of education delenda est. Or they follow Milton Friedman’s recommendation to abolish licensure policies and let the market sort it out.

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When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

“Professors abandon skepticism for certitude”

Matt Taibbi:

It’s too bad Bret Stephens never debated Charlie Kirk. He’d have had to defend the idea that students at places like the University of Chicago are not only “smarter” than ignorant red-staters (and students at schools like Cambridge), but more schooled in the “Western tradition” of “skepticism,” as opposed to “certitude.”

Does Stephens mean currently? If so, that’s rich. The cultural schism now widening under all of us in America has surely been caused at least in part by a shift in the attitudes of the very people Stephens calls “the greatest scholars.” Professors abandon skepticism for certitude in a range of hot-button issues, including a conspicuous one that may have had an impact on Kirk’s murder, transgender ideology.

And “smarter”? Stephens needs a fresh look at what passes for instruction and re-examine whether students are really being taught to think better. He should ask if it’s not instead true that institutional America is and has been systematically ripping off its young, a question Kirk threw at students everywhere, often with devastating results. It’s not surprising that scenes of kids who casually admit they “hate books” but were welcomed to pay tuition anyway haven’t made too many of the “Kirk’s greatest misdeeds” reels currently circulating:

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college embarrasses its customers…

Data investigation: Childhood vaccination rates are backsliding across the U.S.

A monthslong NBC News data investigation finds that much of the U.S. doesn’t have the protection needed to stop the spread of deadly diseases. St. Louis is a window into the problem communities face nationwide.

Sun Prairie West gets a new acting principal

Amid an ongoing investigation into a former Sun Prairie West High School staffer, the Sun Prairie School District has named the school’s second acting principal of the just-started academic year.

Recently retired Middleton High School Principal Peg Shoemaker will take over for West’s Associate Principal Ed Ford, according to a Tuesday news release from district leaders. Ford had just been named acting principal on Sept. 4 to replace Jennifer Ploeger.

Ploeger, who had been principal since 2022, was placed on paid leave amid an investigation into former Dean of Students Robert Gilkey-Meisegeier.

Gilkey-Meisegeier, 30, has been charged in state court with two counts of sexual exploitation of a child and 13 counts of possession of child pornography, and indicted in federal court for attempting to produce and possessing child pornography. Victims in the cases include West students, according to authorities.

Civics: The Seizers

Walter Kirn:

Seizers are generally – maybe universally — structured as mysteries, detective stories, ever-tantalizing, ever-unsatisfying. Research is required, and rewarded, compelling you to do more research. But their real genius as dramas is that they have many, many streams or branches, and perhaps an unlimited number, or so it seems. In fact, they aren’t open-ended, they just feel that way, like a lot of good stories do when you’re in the middle of them and are stumped for solutions. “I’d thought I’d solved it but then the suspect died, and then it felt like anything could happen.” These forking paths and lanes of possibility are also quietly patrolled by traffic cops, and not just passively. You take a certain road at a certain time and at a certain speed (all factors matter), and you might hit a roadblock. One put there just for you. And perhaps not permanently. Tomorrow it’s gone.

This is the nuclear-level capability that makes seizers something truly new, even if the tropes and games they use are rooted in tradition. (Ancient tradition.) Dramatic productions of the older sort might strike different people in different ways, but, for the most part, they unite the audience. They provoke a common response in a shared space, or a metaphoric shared space. “The nation’s living rooms.”

Censorship Hurts Our Brains—Literally

Barbara Oakley:

The assassination of Charlie Kirk on the campus of Utah Valley University is a human tragedy first: Two young children lost their father; a wife lost her husband. But it is also a cultural tragedy, revealing corrosion at the heart of our civic life. Violence against speech is the final symptom of a disease that begins much earlier—in our failure to teach the value of hearing other voices early on, in schools.

Our brains are built to form habits. The basal ganglia—deep learning circuits that automate whatever we repeat—don’t absorb only tennis serves or piano scales. They also wire in patterns of thought. If the only messages we hear are one-sided, the brain’s habit circuits carve them into grooves of thought that resist change.

Rigidity at the neural level breeds rigidity at the civic level. Economists studying East Germany, including Harvard’s Alberto Alesina, found that decades of socialist rule left scars on behavior: Citizens became more cautious, less entrepreneurial, and slower to trust. A society that punished initiative and rewarded conformity trained its population to avoid novelty. Those scars of enforced consensus outlasted the Berlin Wall.

Neuroscience also shows that cognitive flexibility isn’t automatic. Like any skill, it must be trained. In a paper titled “One cannot simply ‘be flexible,’ ” Ghent University cognitive scientist Senne Braem and colleagues showed that when people are rewarded for switching tasks, they later switch more readily—even without realizing why. When switching is discouraged, they become more rigid. Flexibility is like a muscle: It grows with practice, feedback and time.

Illegal School Strikes in Washington

As a result, unions do it regardless of the legality. “Washington has seen 78 school districts strike since 1976,” the Columbian newspaper said in 2018. “Injunctions were filed in 25 of those,” but in 12 of them “teachers defied the injunctions.” Unions calculate that getting a hefty contract might outweigh any penalty imposed by a judge. After a 2018 strike, Evergreen teachers nabbed a salary increase of 11.5%.

The state Legislature could change the calculus by adding penalties for public union strikes, but Washington politics is union friendly. This spring lawmakers passed a bill, effective in January, to let striking workers collect unemployment benefits, though the money must be paid back if a court deems the walkout illegal.

The Public School Crisis: Higher Payrolls Associated with Worse Student Performance

Open The Books:

Debates about public school funding sometimes include an underlying assumption that more funding results in better student outcomes. Available data tells a more complex story. Our review of 12,531 school districts across the country shows a negative correlation between overhead and student performance. In other words, districts that spent more on teacher and administrative pay saw their students’ standardized test scores drop.

Using the Open the Books proprietary database of government salaries across America, we calculated how much each U.S. state increased its total public school payrolls from 2019 to 2023. We compared that number to the change in each state’s ranking on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which measures reading and math skills for 4th and 8th graders.

VIEW THE DATA HERE

By plotting the percentage change in payroll, state by state, versus the percentage change in the national rankings of its districts, a surprising picture emerges. Growing payrolls are not closely correlated with improved performance among districts in a given state. In fact, the opposite correlation appears. There is a mild inverse relationship between these two data sets. Higher overhead costs are associated with lower test scores. [1]

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This research suggests that an increase in administrator pay is a more likely cause of the negative correlation with student achievement.

Administrative bloat in public schools is not new. Benjamin Scafidi, an Economics of Education professor at Kennesaw State University, found that the number of non-teaching staff at U.S. schools increased by 702% from 1950 to 2009, while the number of teachers increased by only 252%. Meanwhile, student scores on the NAEP fell.

Scafidi wrote that this “irresponsible use of taxpayer dollars is indefensible,” and that was before the surge in salaries over the last few years. From 2010 to 2022, the number of administrative staff rose by another 41%, while overall school employment rose by only

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Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average (now > $25,000 per student) K-12 tax & spending practices. This, despite long term, disastrous reading results.

Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability

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 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.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

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?

“I’m Doing a Terrible Job. Pay Me More!” – on the Taxpayer Funded Madison School Board

Dave Cieslewicz:

Where would I be without the Madison School Board?

Every month or so they provide me with fodder for this blog. Why, just last week the district touted a new logo for which they paid an out-of-state design company $100,000, only months after the voters gave them another $600 million in taxing authority to spend, we thought, on actual education.

The Board provides me with so much material that I really should pay them. But then again I don’t need to as they’re poised to double their own salaries and give themselves taxpayer financed health insurance.

The Board will soon vote to make official a pay increase from $8,000 to $15,000. The Board president will get more and they’ll also get stipends to attend meetings that one would think are part of the job and should be covered by their salary. And then there’s the health insurance that will cost taxpayers about $200,000 a year if all seven board members take it.

According to a story in the Wisconsin State Journal, Board member Savion Castro summed up the reasons when he stated that most school boards are structured for “older, whiter, wealthier folks,” but that’s not an accurate reflection of the Madison district’s diverse student body, and increasing pay could make board positions “more accessible to the folks that look like the students and the families of the district.”

But, wait a minute. Four of the current board’s seven members are people of color, and two identify as having disabilities. There are no white men on the Board and nobody is wealthy. And in fact, one of the most dedicated, impactful board members in recent decades was Mary Burke, who committed the unpardonable sins of being both white and wealthy.

And while I’m on the topic, the philosophy behind Catro’s remark is pretty dangerous. Because he’s saying we should discourage public service based on race and income. In principle that’s what Jim Crow was.

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And as for diversity, the real diversity we lack on this Board is diversity of opinion. There’s not a single member of this group that cares about taxpayers, good order in the schools, test scores or the fact that Madison is losing students to other districts and charter schools. Instead, all seven members of the Board are, like Castro, obsessed with identity politics.

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Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average (now > $25,000 per student) K-12 tax & spending practices. This, despite long term, disastrous reading results.

Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability

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 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.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

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?

Solving Wisconsin’s Math Crisis

WILL:

The News: WILL has unveiled a new policy report, “Closing Wisconsin’s Math Gap: A Call for Early Numeracy Reform,” sounding the alarm on declining math achievement and offering solutions to reverse the crisis. The report draws on lessons from seven states that have led the way in implementing serious, practical, and bipartisan numeracy reforms. These efforts build on early literacy reforms adopted by dozens of states around the nation, including Wisconsin.

The Quotes: WILL Policy Director, Kyle Koenen, stated, “Without strong math skills, Wisconsin’s students will struggle in school, at work, and in life. This report highlights practical and bipartisan success stories from seven states that acted, and now it’s time for Wisconsin to do the same. If we want our kids to succeed in school and our workforce to stay competitive, we must start building a stronger math foundation in the early grades.”

WILL Associate Counsel, Lauren Greuel, stated, “School districts don’t have to wait for the Legislature to act. Our model policy gives school boards a clear framework to identify struggling students, support teachers, and close early skill gaps before they grow.”

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Math Forum Audio / Video and Links.

Expanding Parental choice in Madison?

In the survey that opened Sept. 2 and closes Sept. 26, district residents are asked to rank their top five priorities for the district. Among the choices are the “ability to have choice in school options such as magnet, STEM, Charter” and “access to language immersion programs such as Spanish (dual-language immersion) or other options.”

Green said that in her 11 years with the district, she doesn’t recall asking residents about whether they’d like options outside of the neighborhood schools framework. But the district has fielded plenty of questions from the public about it, she said.

“The community I’ve heard over the years, even just since I’ve been here, really an arts academy or a school for the arts, I’ve heard quite a bit, based on the arts-rich community we live in,” she said. “I’ve heard STEM, also.”

STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

The September survey is part of the district’s broader review of school attendance area boundaries. Dubbed “Building for the Future,” the review also is aimed at figuring out the best uses for two plots of district-owned land on the Far East and Far West sides, and evaluating district programs and options to make sure the district is “responsive to the needs of the city’s rapidly changing community,” according to the district’s communications office.

———

Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average (now > $25,000 per student) K-12 tax & spending practices. This, despite long term, disastrous reading results.

Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability

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 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.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

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: Free Speech! Sotomayor: “that law school failed”

Ann Althouse summary

“Every time I listen to a lawyer-trained representative saying we should criminalize free speech in some way, I think to myself, that law school failed.“

Said Sonia Sotomayor, quoted in “Sotomayor rebukes calls to ‘criminalize free speech’ in apparent swipe at Pam Bondi/The justice, in public remarks, didn’t name the attorney general, who has come under fire for comments to target people over ‘hate speech'” (Politico).

And so ends the decades long push — by the left — to criminalize hate speech. Thanks, Justice Sotomayor!
Posted b

K-12 Tax & $pending Climate: Chicago’s Pension Crisis

Bloomberg:

Chicago is stepping in to lend cash to its underfunded pensions so they have enough money to avoid asset sales to cover retirement checks as they wait for property taxes to come in after a computer issue delayed collections.

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more.

How dogs replaced children in Italy

Amy Kazmin:

Italy’s official rates of pet ownership — about 40 per cent of households report having at least one pet — may still be well below those of the UK and the US, at 60 per cent and 66 per cent respectively. But Tortorella, who also runs a dog day-care in the centre of Rome, says that while Italians have always loved dogs, “in the last 10 years, dogs or cats have really become treated as a member of the family. It’s a new, pet-friendly culture. They do the same things for their dogs as you can do with a child.”

From dog day-care with pick-up and drop-off shuttle services, to specialised pathology labs, to the organisation of solemn pet funerals, new enterprises are catering to the needs of the full pet life cycle.

In 2022, Italians spent €6.8bn on petcare, according to Nomisma, an Italian consultancy. While dogs were once fed table scraps, people are increasingly fussy over what they give them. “They worry about what they eat, the quality,” Tortorella said. “Now people cook for their pets.”

Civics: The Attorney General seems to think ‘hate speech’ is illegal. Charlie Kirk knew better.

Discussing Kirk’s work on college campuses, Ms. Bondi mentioned the “disgusting” antisemitism on display at many universities, and so far so good. But wait. “There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech, and there is no place—especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society,” the country’s top law enforcer told a podcast. “We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.”

Kirk would want a word. “My position is that even hate speech should be completely and totally allowed in our country. The most disgusting speech should absolutely be protected,” he once told a crowd. “The ACLU used to hold this viewpoint. The American Civil Liberties Union, they sued so that legitimate Nazis could march through downtown Skokie.”

Why? “As soon as you use the word ‘hate,’ that is a very subjective term,” Kirk said, in a video posted by his group in 2020. “Then all of a sudden it is in the eyes, or it is in the implementation, of whomever has the power.”

He was right, as governments around the world are proving almost daily. Armed British police recently arrested Graham Linehan, a TV sitcom writer, and reportedly questioned him about his posts on the internet, including one that read: “If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.” He says it was a joke, and it’s stupid, but criminal?

Who will save the dictionary?

Stefan Fatsis:

In 2015, I settled in at the Springfield, Massachusetts, headquarters of Merriam-Webster, America’s most storied dictionary company. My project was to document the ambitious reinvention of a classic, and I hoped to get some definitions of my own into the lexicon along the way. (A favourite early drafting effort, which I couldn’t believe wasn’t already included, was dogpile : “a celebration in which participants dive on top of each other immediately after a victory.”)

Merriam-Webster’s overhaul of its signature work, Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged—a 465,000-word, 2,700-page, 13.5-pound doorstop published in 1961 and never before updated—was already in full swing. The revision, which would be not a hardback book but an online-only edition, requiring a subscription, was expected to take decades.

Not long after my arrival, though, everything changed. Pageviews were declining for Merriam-Webster.com, the company’s free, ad-driven revenue engine: Tweaks to Google’s algorithms had punished Merriam’s search results. The company had always been lean and profitable, but the financial hit was real. Merriam’s parent, Encyclopedia Britannica, was facing challenges of its own—who needed an encyclopedia in a Wikipedia world?—and ordered cuts. Merriam laid off more than a dozen staffers. Its longtime publisher, John Morse, was forced into early retirement. The revision of Merriam’s unabridged masterpiece was abandoned.

Selling Air

Dave Cieslewicz:

MMSD’s case is much more infuriating. This is a district with lagging test scores, high truancy rates and lots of police calls and this is what they’re spending time and money on? And it’s the taxpayers’ money that they’re incinerating. What they’re doing is trying to create a new image without improving the substance. It’s like painting a house with a rotten foundation and a sagging roof. It’s pigs and lipstick.

But the idolization of branding and the hegemony of marketing departments is also a broader problem in our society. With apologies to Andre Agassi image is not everything. In fact, it’s not anything.

———

Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average (now > $25,000 per student) K-12 tax & spending practices. This, despite long term, disastrous reading results.

Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability

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 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.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

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 Governor Evers says no thanks to a federal tax credit for education

While all U.S. taxpayers can make donations and claim the credit, the money can only be disbursed in a state where the Governor has granted permission. Gov. Evers says no, telling the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that joining the federal program would be “catastrophic” for public schools. He added ”We have plenty of voucher schools. We don’t need voucher money.”

Wisconsin parents might disagree. School choice is popular in Wisconsin but the state’s current program is 300% of the federal poverty line in Milwaukee and Racine and 220% in the statewide program. The federal tax credits expand educational resources at no cost to state budgets. Low-income families that keep their children in public schools could see the money used for tutoring or special needs.

Big salaries and eye-popping perks: investigating Minnesota superintendent contracts

Ryan Raiche:

Hefty bonuses, monthly car allowances, and what in the world is longevity pay?

As many school districts face budget cuts and consider new tax levies, 5 INVESTIGATES reviewed the contracts for every superintendent at the 30 largest school districts in the state.

The contracts are not readily available. All of them require a public records request — and in some cases even cash — to obtain.

The documents reveal eye-popping perks, monthly stipends, allowances, and a handful of creative ways to describe what most people know as a “bonus.”

“The compensation question is important. It’s a fair question,” said Dr. Deb Henton, a former school superintendent and the current executive director of the Minnesota Association of School Administrators.

‘That Book is Dangerous’ takes on left-leaning censorship

Denise Robbins:

In the book, Szetela examines how well-intentioned efforts to diversify literature have triggered a wave of censorship, from mandatory sensitivity reads to morality clauses and social media–driven book cancellations, creating a chilling effect across publishing.

The inciting incident was the controversy about Chinese author Amélie Wen Zhao, whose young adult novel was criticized for its depiction of slavery. (She canceled publication and then un-canceled it, saying it was true to her cultural perspective of human trafficking across Asia.)

One of her critics was an author and sensitivity reader named Kosoko Jackson, who, shortly after, tried to publish a YA novel about the Kosovo war, only to have his own book withdrawn by his publisher.

“It was like a ‘Saturday Night Live’ satire of wokeness,” Szetela said. “If this is what I’m seeing as someone who doesn’t work in publishing, what was it like behind closed doors? In terms of acquisitions, in terms of editing?”

Szetela will discuss his book at a talk at the UW Center for the Study of Liberal Democracy on Monday, Sept. 22. Recently, the Cap Times sat down with Szetela to talk about his work at Mother Fool’s Coffeehouse.

Taxpayer funded Madison School Board Plans Pay & Benefit Increase

Board member Savion Castro said most school boards are structured for “older, whiter, wealthier folks,” but that’s not an accurate reflection of the Madison district’s diverse student body, and increasing pay could make board positions “more accessible to the folks that look like the students and the families of the district.”

Four of the current board’s seven members are people of color, and two identify as having disabilities.

Also under the new compensation plan, the board president would be paid an additional $1,200 annually, and the board vice president and Instruction and Operations workgroup chairs an additional $600 annually. The board president currently makes $8,300 a year.

Members would also get $100 each for attending and participating in half-day board retreats and $200 for attending and participating in full-day retreats

According to research by district administration, Milwaukee School Board members make $18,121, Kenosha members make $6,500, Green Bay members make $7,538.40 and Racine members make $3,600. The Madison School District, with about 25,500 students, is the second-largest district in the state.

Milwaukee is the only Wisconsin school district that makes its board members eligible for district health insurance. If Madison becomes the second, according to the district’s legal office, members who enroll in district-provided health care would be advised not to participate in discussions or vote on district employee health insurance matters, but they could vote on overall budgets that include health insurance provisions.

Making Madison board members eligible for health and dental coverage is estimated to cost the district about $194,600 annually, if all seven members opt for it. The additional pay is expected to cost $60,100 annually.

———

Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average (now > $25,000 per student) K-12 tax & spending practices. This, despite long term, disastrous reading results.

Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability

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 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.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Did taxpayer funded Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Underly Juice Test Scores for Reelection?

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?

Fewer than 10 percent of Milwaukee third graders are meeting reading targets

Corrinne Hess:

“Reading proficiency among kindergarten through third grade students is unacceptably low, and that reality carries long-term consequences for the future of our youth and our city,” said longtime educator Howard Fuller. “The solution is clear and evidence based. Research shows that when early grade educators receive high-quality, science-based reading instruction training and coaching, student outcomes can improve dramatically.”

Fuller is co-chairing the coalition along with JoAnne Anton of Herb Kohl Philanthropies and former MPS board member Mark Sain.

——-

——-

Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average (now > $25,000 per student) K-12 tax & spending practices. This, despite long term, disastrous reading results.

Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability

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 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.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Erkmen G. Aslim, Wei Fu, Caitlin K. Myers, Erdal Tekin & Bingjin Xue

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?

Abortion, Economic Hardship, and Crime

We study how abortion access affects economic hardship and crime. Using a database of abortion provider locations and operations in Texas from 2009–2019, we exploit variation in travel distance to the nearest facility created by clinic closures following the enforcement of Texas HB-2 in 2013. We confirm previous evidence that increased distance to the nearest abortion facility reduces abortions and increases births. We provide novel evidence that reduced access to abortion also leads to significant economic hardship, reflected in lower labor force participation, rising debt, widening income inequality, and heightened housing insecurity. This financial strain translates into higher rates of financially motivated crime, such as theft and burglary, with no significant effect on violent crime. These effects extend beyond directly affected individuals, reflecting intrahousehold spillovers. These findings suggest far-reaching consequences of restricted access to reproductive healthcare.

“By 2030, we would have the fewest students since the 1950s”

Quinton Klabon:

Good news: at 801,207, Wisconsin beat @AppliedPopLab’s 2025 estimate.
Bad news: the baby bust is here.
2030: -61,371/-7.7%
2035: -118,613/-14.8%

Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Alabama offer a playbook for improving reading outcomes.

Karen Vaites:

Collectively, they aren’t (yet) topping the nation for overall reading proficiency, although Mississippi, Tennessee, and Louisiana have moved into the top tier; they are tied for 14th in 4th grade reading proficiency. Instead, they compel attention because they are producing the clearest gains over the last 5 years, as other states backslide.

The Southern Surge shares a common playbook. All four states made a multilayered, sustained investment in both teacher training and curriculum improvement, alongside other reforms.

Together, these states send a clear signal that we can absolutely raise reading outcomes with the right investments, and they offer a blueprint to other states.

Let’s discuss the sources of the Southern Surge.

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Did taxpayer funded Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Underly Juice Test Scores for Reelection?

——-

Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average (now > $25,000 per student) K-12 tax & spending practices. This, despite long term, disastrous reading results.

Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability

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 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.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Christa Deneault & Evan Riehl:

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?

Should States Reduce Teacher Licensing Requirements? Evidence from the Rise of For-Profit Training Programs in Texas

We provide a comprehensive analysis of a Texas policy that relaxed teacher licensing requirements and created a large for-profit training industry. Using detailed administrative data, we show that for-profit-trained teachers have higher turnover and lower value-added than standard-trained teachers. But the policy significantly increased the supply of certified teachers, reducing schools’ reliance on uncertified teachers with even worse outcomes. Exploiting variation in policy exposure across schools, we find a zero net impact on student achievement due to these offsetting forces. Thus lower licensing requirements improved access to teaching and reduced training costs without harming students.

———

Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average (now > $25,000 per student) K-12 tax & spending practices. This, despite long term, disastrous reading results.

Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability

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 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.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

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 Teacher Performance Pay amidst Evers’ Mulligan Culture & Underly’s rigor reduction era

Did taxpayer funded Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Underly Juice Test Scores for Reelection?

In their July working paper, researchers from the Wisconsin Center for Education Research pointed to four main reasons district administrators have forgone performance pay:

It led to “discontent” among staff.
Principals were unable or unwilling to make performance distinctions among teachers.
Performance pay systems were too complex and required too much effort to administer.
Perceptions among school staff that more flexibility in pay led to inequities among teachers.

“Almost all the districts that experimented with using teacher performance as more than a minimal requirement for pay progression or bonuses have abandoned this approach,” the paper reports.

The 2011 law known as Act 10 that largely gutted most union rights for most public-sector workers made it possible for school districts to experiment with more flexible salary systems, and the goal of the WCER study was to see if any of the 25 districts that had made changes to their pay systems as of 2014 still maintained those changes 10 years later, in 2024.

Researchers obtained information from 24 of the 25 districts studied in 2014 and found that most of them had largely reverted to the step-and-lane system. This is despite some evidence in the education research literature that “flexible pay has potential benefits in terms of both teacher retention and student performance.”

…….

Researchers did not look at the state’s two largest school districts — Milwaukee and Madison — noting that they “appear to have made only minor changes in the traditional (compensation) schedule after Act 10.”

——-

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

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

——-

——-

Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average (now > $25,000 per student) K-12 tax & spending practices. This, despite long term, disastrous reading results.

Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability

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 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.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Niansi Ye, Ling Peng, Bei Deng, Hui Hu, Yuncui Wang, Taoyun Zheng, Yating Ai, Xueting Liu, Shi Zhou & Yucan Li:

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 World in Which We Live Now

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Our metastatic government and irresponsible fiscal policies exacerbate this. Soon, most U.S. expenditure will go to servicing debt, and we lack the political mechanisms to correct this. Worse, we now depend on foreigners or local retirees to buy our debt. Former President Biden’s policies, like freezing assets in U.S. dollars, discouraged investment in U.S.-denominated assets. If your assets can be frozen because you once met someone who had lunch with the brother-in-law of a banker connected to Putin, why take the risk of holding dollars?

——-

At the Tandon School of Engineering of NYU, where I spent more than fifteen years, the near-totality of both faculty and graduate students were foreign-born

——-

V. THE LIBERATING EFFECT OF SOCIAL MEDIA

The next point is an optimistic one: social media has transformed information flow. Historically, people traded information at the barber shop or fish market, acting as both conveyors and recipients. Big media disrupted this, turning us into passive consumers of TV lectures by the state and a bowdlerized press. Now, platforms like TikTok and X allow us to both share and receive information, returning to a natural model.

Social media is hard to control, even with censorship, and AI makes it even harder to manipulate without producing incoherent outcomes. For example, an ethnic cleansing in Gaza might have been covered up by traditional media in 1995, but in 2025, social media exposes it. The media only matters to politicians or those out of touch — anyone under 30 doesn’t care about ABC News.

Repetitive negative thinking is associated with cognitive function decline in older adults: a cross-sectional study

Psychological problems such as depression and anxiety increase the risk of cognitive impairment in older adults. But mechanisms on the effect of psychological disorder on cognitive function is inconclusive. Repetitive negative thinking (RNT) is a core symptom of a number of common psychological disorders and may be a modifiable process shared by many psychological risk factors that contribute to the development of cognitive impairment. RNT may increase the risk of cognitive impairment. However, there are fewer studies related to RNT and cognitive function, and there is a lack of epidemiological studies to explore the relationship between RNT and cognitive function.

‘Was it all smoke and mirrors?’: How adult children are affected by grey divorce

Molly Gorman

Divorce in later life is becoming more common – and scientists are beginning to explore the surprisingly deep impact this can have on adult children and their relationships.

Divorce is greying.

The US has one of the highest divorce rates in the world, even though over the past four decades, it has fallen among younger couples. Instead, middle-aged and older adults have taken over. In fact, adults aged 65 and older are now the only age group in the US with a growing divorce rate. For the over-50s, the rate also rose for decades, but has now stabilised.

Today, roughly 36% of people getting divorced are 50 and older, compared to only 8.7% in 1990. This is known as a “grey divorce”.

This tilt towards later-in-life divorce is happening for a mix of reasons, studies suggest. Lives are longer than they used to be, for a start, and older couples may be less willing to put up with unfulfilling marriagesthan before. Meanwhile, young people are getting married later and have become more selective when choosing a partner. As one researcher puts it, “the United States is progressing toward a system in which marriage is rarer and more stable than it was in the past

ost enough students to gunfire last year to fill a classroom. How can we stop the violence?

David Clarey Cleo Krejci :

Since taking over the district, Cassellius has repeatedly decried the devastating effects of gun violence on students and teachers. She has urged everyone from the mayor on down to take action. Her students are not dying at school, but in acts of community violence, and most shootings occurred outside school hours.

Efforts to address the violence do exist, spanning from prevention to enforcement. Each summer, hundreds of young people participate in summer camps, city-organized job placements and other prevention programs.

The goals often overlap: Give kids and teens a safe space after school. Connect them with mentors. Teach conflict resolution. Show them pathways into jobs and education.

Still, young people in Milwaukee continue to get shot and killed.

And as a new school year begins, everyone agrees: That should be unacceptable.

How Teacher Evaluations Broke the University

By Rose Horowitch:

The problem is that students are terrible judges of who’s a good teacher. Because learning is not always pleasant, they end up punishing teachers who teach the most and rewarding the instructors who challenge them the least. An extensive body of research shows no correlation—or even a negative correlation—between how students do on objective learning assessments and how they score their professors. One experiment found that Harvard physics students learned more from “active learning” instruction but thought they learned more by passively listening to a lecture. Another study demonstrated that Air Force Academy students who were taught by highly rated professors tended to do worse in subsequent classes.

Evaluations are also vulnerable to just about every bias imaginable. Course-evaluation scores are correlated with students’ expected grades. Studies have found that, among other things, students score male professors higher than female ones, rate attractive teachers more highly, and reward instructors who bring in cookies. “It’s not clear what the evaluations are measuring, but in some sense they’re a better instrument for measuring gender or grade expectations than they are for measuring the instructor’s actual value added,” Philip Stark, a UC Berkeley statistics professor who has studied the efficacy of teacher evaluations, told me.

“providing laptops to students did not have a positive impact on educational outcomes”

Santiago Cueto, ……

Developing countries have made large investments in expanding access to technology with the aim of improving children’s educational outcomes. Notwithstanding these substantial public and private investments, the evidence on their educational impacts has been ambiguous with a mix of positive effects (Muralidharan et al. 2019, Araya et al. 2019), null effects (Beuermann et al. 2015, Piper et al. 2016), and even negative effects (Linden 2008, Malamud and Pop-Eleches 2011).[1]However, with a few notable exceptions (Lakdawala et al. 2023, Yanguas 2020) most of the evidence is based on short-term estimates.

One highly publicised initiative that provided personal laptops to students in developing countries was the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) programme, which was implemented in over 40 countries. A large-scale experimental evaluation of the OLPC programme in Peru found no effects on academic achievement or enrolment in primary school after 15 months of programme implementation (Cristia et al. 2017). Here, we report on an experimental study that builds on this earlier work by examining the long-term effects of the OLPC programme in Peru (Cueto et al. 2024). To do this, we utilised a range of administrative and survey data to follow a new sample of students in 531 schools over 10 years.

Despite the absence of impacts on short-term academic achievement, expanding access to technology in schools could generate impacts on longer-term outcomes along two separate dimensions. On the one hand, there may be long-term effects on schools if teachers and principals need time to learn how to use technology effectively for pedagogical purposes.[2] On the other hand, there could be long-term effects on students as they progress through the educational system. Greater exposure to computers could lead to changes in students’ attitudes, behaviours, and a broad range of skills with larger effects on later educational outcomes. Thus, in this study, we examine the long-term effects of expanding school access to technology on both the academic performance of schools over time and students’ educational trajectories as they progress from primary to tertiary education.

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more.

College rankings have wielded an outsized influence, primarily for the wrong reasons

James Fallows:

This is a subject I know something about, having once been the editor of US News and having tried, with limited success, to clean up the ranking system.

-It’s a subject I care about, having heard so often from so many people about the distorting effects of trying to move “up” and “down” on these capricious measures. And it’s one I’ve written about regularly at this time of year, for instance in 2021, 2023, and 2024.²

-It’s timely subject, with the annual US News rankings coming out soon.

-And it’s a frontier on which I think there’s hope, based on a different approach to rankings now.

That promising approach is one honed over the past 20 years by The Washington Monthly, the publication on which I began my magazine career in the early 1970s. The magazine has taken an important step forward this year.

Background: How we got here.

I don’t often say, “There’s an article from a small magazine, back in 2001, that explains our whole problem these days.” But I’ll say it in this case.

Back in 2001, in The Washington Monthly, Amy Graham, whom I had worked with at US News, and Nicholas Thompson, whom I met in that era (when he was a college student) and who is now CEO of The Atlantic and author of a forthcoming book, together wrote “Broken Ranks,” a seminal piece that laid out the problem with rankings. The fundamental issue is that rankings mostly measure input, or what the colleges have, rather than output, or what the colleges do. As Graham and Thompson put it:

Fraudulent Publishing in the Mathematical Sciences

Ilka Agricola, Lynn Heller, Wil Schilders, Moritz Schubotz, Peter Taylor, Luis Vega

This report is the first of two publications of a joint Working Group of the International Mathematical Union (IMU) and the International Council of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM). In it, we shall analyze the current state of publishing in the mathematical sciences and explain the resulting problems. Our second publication will offer concrete recommendations, guidelines, and best practices for researchers, policymakers, and evaluators of mathematical research. It will explain how to detect and counteract attempts to game bibliometric measures, empowering the community to reclaim control over research evaluation and drive necessary change.

High school seniors score record lows in reading and math on the NAEP test.

Dake Kang and Yael Grauer:

In all three exams, students scored on average lower than on the most recent exam in 2019. Reading scores were about 10 points lower than when the exam was first administered in 1992. Declines were bigger among students who were lower performers, causing achievement gaps to grow. One silver lining: Scores at charter schools mostly didn’t fall.

Only about a third of high school seniors are prepared for college in either reading or math, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Colleges are adding introductory courses to teach what students should have learned in high school. Even Harvard teaches basic algebra.

The latest NAEP report tracks with the fourth- and eighth-grade reading scores released in January, which showed test scores have continued to decline since 2022. While schools nationwide have received hundreds of billions of dollars from the feds and states to address pandemic learning loss, a record number of eighth-graders can’t read.

High school seniors tested last year entered high school in 2020 and no doubt were harmed by school shutdowns. But reading and math scores have been sliding since 2013. One problem is the lowering of academic standards for students. Harvard’s Tom Kane tells us one culprit is “reduced accountability.”

How Silicon Valley enabled China’s digital police state

Over the past quarter century, American tech companies to a large degree designed and built China’s surveillance state, playing a far greater role in enabling human rights abuses than previously known, an Associated Press investigation found. They sold billions of dollars of technology to the Chinese police, government and surveillance companies, despite repeated warnings from the U.S. Congress and in the media that such tools were being used to quash dissent, persecute religious sects and target minorities.

Critically, American surveillance technologies allowed a brutal mass detention campaign in the far west region of Xinjiang — targeting, tracking and grading virtually the entire native Uyghur population to forcibly assimilate and subdue them.

NYC teens are adjusting to the smartphone ban

By Jessica Gould, Brittany Kriegstein, James Ramsay and Verónica Del Valle:

Court rejects Verizon claim that selling location data without consent is legal

Jon Brodkin:

Until 2019, Verizon “ran a ‘location-based services’ program that sold access to certain kinds of wireless customer location data,” the ruling said. “As part of that program, Verizon contracted with ‘location information aggregators,’ which collected customer data and resold it to third-party location-based services providers. Verizon had arrangements with two aggregators, LocationSmart and Zumigo, which in turn contracted with 63 third-party entities.”

Instead of providing notice to customers and obtaining or verifying customer consent itself, Verizon “largely delegated those functions via contract,” the court said. This system and its shortcomings were revealed in 2018 when “the New York Times published an article reporting security breaches involving Verizon’s (and other major carriers’) location-based services program,” the court said.

Securus Technologies, a provider of communications services to correctional facilities, “was misusing the program to enable law enforcement officers to access location data without customers’ knowledge or consent, so long as the officers uploaded a warrant or some other legal authorization,” the ruling said. A Missouri sheriff “was able to access customer data with no legal process at all” because Securus did not review the documents that law enforcement uploaded.

The Words Scientists Are Changing to Scrub Diversity from Research Grants

Sara Randazzo, Caitlin Ostroff and Shane Shifflett:

Scientists are removing words like “diverse” and “disparities” from hundreds of federal grant renewals to avoid getting flagged in the Trump administration’s focus on eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows.

At least 600 research projects funded by the National Institutes of Health have been modified in the fiscal year starting in October to remove terms associated with diversity, equity and inclusion, the Journal analysis found. Nearly all of those projects were multiyear grants that had already been approved but were up for routine annual reviews. The modified grants were worth $480 million this cycle.

The most frequently deleted term was “diverse,” removed in 300 instances, followed by “underrepresented.”

In some cases, scientists are yanking words that aren’t DEI-related at all, but could be flagged as such, including references to “discrimination” of antibodies in transplant patients.

Notes on Milwaukees K-12 Tax & Spending Increase Plans

WisPolitics:

Milwaukee voters in April 2024 approved a referendum to allow MPS to increase its revenue limits by $252 million over four years after the district warned it faced a $200 million shortfall for the 2024-25 fiscal year.

Cassellius said she spent the summer ensuring all 50 of the district’s schools built before 1950 were cleared of lead issues, which the district announced Friday.

The district recently recouped roughly $33 million from the Department of Public Instruction after a financial crisis led to missed deadlines and accounting errors.

“We have been working on three streams of work at our finance division,” Cassellius said. “The first was just to finish that funding year ’24 audit. We were behind on that. We were missing deadlines.

The British War on Slavery

Alex Tabarrok:

British taxpayers shouldered an enormous military and financial burden to eliminate slavery, reflecting a generosity of spirit and a sincere attempt to address a moral wrong—an act of atonement that stands as one of the most unusual and significant in history.

Madison’s latest reduced rigor state test scores

Erin Gretzinger

Last school year, district administrators said, elementary schools experienced stable or decreasing scores in literacy and math, while attendance improved. Middle schools improved across the board. High schools had mixed results in literacy and math scores, with decreases in attendance and graduation rates.

District administrators told School Board members they are evaluating last year’s data and may recalibrate their 2027 goals. Cindy Green, the assistant superintendent of teaching and learning, said the school district will report back to the board this fall about how last year’s results factor into future targets.

“In terms of some of our lagging indicators … we have a lot of room to improve,” Superintendent Joe Gothard said at the meeting. “But the celebration is that there are some schools in there that are beating the odds.”

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Did taxpayer funded Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Underly Juice Test Scores for Reelection?

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Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average (now > $25,000 per student) K-12 tax & spending practices. This, despite long term, disastrous reading results.

Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability

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 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.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

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?

High Quality Research Rarely Informs Classroom Practice. Why?

Thomas S. Dee

To realize this potential, we must first confront an important but uncomfortable truth. The robust links that should connect education research, policy, and practice are too often broken or simply nonexistent. The implications of this systems-level failure are apparent: Key indicators of student learning have been in decline—particularly among our most vulnerable students—for over a decade.

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Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average (now > $25,000 per student) K-12 tax & spending practices. This, despite long term, disastrous reading results.

Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability

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 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.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

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?

An Engineering History of the Manhattan Project

Brian Potter:

Because of these difficulties, the gaseous diffusion plant didn’t begin operating until February of 1945. While the plant was originally planned to produce uranium to the roughly 90% U235 enrichment needed to build a bomb, it was discovered that beyond 36.6% enrichment, different types of barrier and different types of pumps being designed would be required. In the latter half of 1943 the plant was thus redesigned to produce 36.6% enriched uranium (using 2892 diffusion stages) that would then be fed into the electromagnetic process. By the end of the war, the gaseous diffusion plant had “contributed substantially to the manufacture of the fissionable material used in the fabrication of atomic weapons”, and would become the primary method of producing enriched uranium in the early post-war years.

In addition to the electromagnetic and gaseous diffusion separation processes, a plant to separate U235 by liquid thermal diffusion was also built. Thermal diffusion had been considered by the Manhattan Project early on, but it appeared insufficiently promising and there were no initial plans to build a thermal diffusion plant. However, work on the process continued by the Navy as a method of producing fissile material for nuclear reactors. By late 1942, it appeared much more promising as a feasible separation method, and Leslie Groves recommended that it continue to be developed by the Navy. Eventually, in June of 1944 it was decided to build a thermal diffusion plant at Oak Ridge to produce partially-enriched uranium as an input to the electromagnetic separation process, as doing so would speed up overall U235 production. The plant came online in late 1944.

70% of Madison families and students polled say they want weighted grading,

The School Board did not have any formal say in the decision, and two of the seven board members, Nicki Vander Meulen and Martha Siravo, have criticized administrators for not providing them with enough information about the issue. Vander Meulen has come out in favor of weighted grading, while Siravo said she did not have enough information to have a position.

Vander Meulen was the only board member to respond Thursday to a request for comment on the survey results. She reiterated that she had asked for information about the issue for “months” but was “repeatedly told this isn’t a Board decision.”

About 14% of family members and 11% of students were opposed to weighted grading, according to the survey results. About 17% of students and about 16% of family members were “neutral” on the question of whether to shift to weighted grading.

By contrast, a small plurality — or about 41% — of staff who filled out the survey said they opposed a shift to weighted grading. About 36% said they were in favor, and the rest were neutral.

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Notes on the Taxpayer Funded Madison School District’s Grading Policies.

k-12 Tax & $pending Climate: Illinois kids can’t read or do math at grade level

John Kass:

As I’ve written and reported before, Illinois kids can’t read or do math at grade level, and it’s getting worse. Again, all those kids are ready for under Pritzker is prison or a lifetime on welfare. And taxpayers flee.

Pritzker has billions to spend on himself. And many of us have become sickened by what Pritzker and the Democrats–and oily combine Republicans and their press agents–have done.

Many have left, yes, and I’m one of them. But our sons still live in Illinois and the young women they love. And nothing is ever written and inevitable. We can change destiny.

But it takes clear headed thinking, courage, and your votes.

civics: “Imposing silence on political opponents by brute force”

Ben Burgis & Meagan Day

…. whether in the form of state crackdowns on dissent or lone-wolf assassinations of leaders, undermines a principle that democratic socialists have always held dear.

Furthermore, the prospect of a descent into tit-for-tat political violence is an ominous development that threatens to narrow the space for meaningful political action. This augurs poorly for the political culture writ large, and in particular for the Left. We say things that others find extremely objectionable all the time, and we expect to be met with strenuous counterargument — not violent reprisal. While political violence has always existed around the fringes, this has mostly proven to be a reasonable expectation. It seems we have been living through a fragile consensus: in our otherwise extraordinarily violent culture, political leaders and commentators went mostly unharmed. Now the consensus appears to be unraveling, with chilling implications.

Attempted and successful assassinations of political leaders are on the rise, as are politically motivated killings of less notable people. While this type of violence originatesfrom all across the political spectrum, the Right has been responsible for vastly more of it than the Left for several decades. In the last few years, assailants increasingly seem to hail from the politically muddled, mentally disturbed, and heavily armed elements of the American populace whose general paranoia and disorientation have become enmeshed with an incoherently but viciously polarized political culture. Even garden-variety American mass gun violence has an increasingly political valence to it; where the school shooters of old were given to a kind of totalizing, depoliticized nihilism, today they scrawl contradictory political slogans on their weapons.

The killing of Charlie Kirk already seems further proof that America’s violent mania is colliding head-on with our political culture’s dehumanizing tribalism. This toxic combination threatens to badly corrode democratic norms and extinguish any hope of left-wing progress.

More:

“You can dislike much of what Kirk believed and the following statement is still true: Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way. He was showing up to campuses and talking with anyone who would talk to him. He was one of the era’s most effective practitioners of persuasion. When the left thought its hold on the hearts and minds of college students was nearly absolute, Kirk showed up again and again to break it. Slowly, then all at once, he did. College-age voters shifted sharply right in the 2024 election.

Civics: Birth Rates and Woke Politics

Eric Kaufman:

These results echo findings reported last month by John Burn-Murdoch of the Financial Times, showing a rising fertility gap between young progressives and conservatives in rich countries. The difference was modest before 1990, but has widened to 0.6 of a child in America and 0.4 of a child across these advanced societies. In a similar vein, since 2010 the fertility gap between religious and non-religious women under 45 has increased considerably. American women who attend church regularly now have almost one more child, on average, than those with no religious affiliation.

Might we go further and identify the rise of “woke” politics — equal outcomes and emotional harm protection for women and minorities — as a factor in the post-2010 decline in fertility in the Anglosphere and Scandinavia? Second-wave feminism argued that the institution of the family oppressed women and reproduced the patriarchy. Some called for sisterhood and political lesbianism. Social media allowed these radical ideas to flow off campus into mainstream media and youth culture. Radical feminism was a key component of the “Great Awokening” alongside critical race and gender ideology, and reached fever pitch in the aftermath of the #MeToo movement.

The share of women under 30 identifying as bisexual soared in this period: in the American General Social Survey (GSS), it leapt from under 5% in 2010 to over 25% in 2022. According to Gallup, 31% of Generation Z women now identify as LGBT. In the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) student surveys, non-heterosexual identification is strongly linked to identifying as very liberal. Even controlling for ideology, non-heterosexuality is connected to progressive views such as endorsing the shouting down of offensive speakers on campus.

‘Where is your father?’ Denzel Washington’s character demands of a young delinquent.

Jason L. Riley:

Mr. Washington plays David King, a swaggering music executive and founder of a record label now in decline. King becomes entangled in a kidnapping plot when his chauffeur’s teenage son, having been mistaken for King’s son, is abducted by an aspiring rapper named Yung Felon and held for ransom. On its surface the movie is a police procedural. Yet it doubles as an engaging meditation on some of the best and worst aspects of black culture and the importance of father-son relationships.

Civics: Bubbles and market crashes make for great horror stories. But research shows how rare they are—and that the consequences aren’t all bad.

William Geotzmann:

But people don’t perceive that bubbles occur that infrequently. In research I’ve done with Robert Shiller and Dasol Kim, we conducted monthly surveys of U.S. investors over the past 25 years, asking about potential market crashes. Typically, they put the odds of a catastrophic crash in the next six months at 10% to 20%—much greater than history suggests. (Granted, the financial crisis of 2008-09 happened during our sample period and understandably terrified most savers.)

There have been a few seemingly catastrophic days when the market dropped precipitously. But not as many as you might think. Since 1887, there have been just four cases where the Dow Jones Industrial Average has dropped by more than 10% in a single day—and two of those were during the big crash of 1929.

The percentage of Americans saying college is “very important” has fallen to 35%

Lydia Saad:

All major subgroups of Americans express less support for higher education today than they did 12 years ago. The initial decline — between 2013 and 2019 — in the percentage rating college as very important was steeper among 18- to 34-year-olds than among older adults. However, since then, the rates among older adults have plunged, so that now only about a third of all age groups say a college education is very important.

Women, people of color, college graduates and Democrats have traditionally been more likely than their counterparts to value higher education, and that remains the case today. However, even among these pro-college groups, less than half now say college is very important.

Why did the taxpayer funded Madison School District pay for a new logo?

Fieldtrip entered into a $99,880 contract with the district last year to do the work, including research, strategy, messaging and planning.

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School logo updates.

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Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average (now > $25,000 per student) K-12 tax & spending practices. This, despite long term, disastrous reading results.

Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability

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 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.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

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 Public Schools Receive Junk Credit Rating: Future Implications Ahead

Zoomhoot:

On August 28, 2025, Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the fourth-largest school district in the US, passed a $10.2 billion budget and is facing a $743 million deficit. Prior to the budget passage, the big three credit rating agencies each rated CPS General Obligation (GO) Bonds “non-investment grade speculative,” also known by the more pejorative title “junk bonds.” CPS bonds received a Ba1 rating from Moody’s and a BB+ rating from both S&P Global and Fitch Ratings.

Marco Giovanni Nieddu, Roberto Nisticò, Federico II, and IZALorenzo Pandolfi:

The Effects of Tenure-Track Systems onSelection and Productivity in Economics

This paper examines how publication-based tenure-track systems affect the careers of Ph.D. graduates in Economics. We leverage a 2010 reform in Italy that replaced open-ended assistant professor (AP) positions with fixed-term contracts and introduced publication minimum requirements for career advancement. Using survey and administrative data,
along with a Difference-in-Differences Event-Study approach comparing Economics to less academically-oriented fields, we find that the reform significantly reduced the likelihood of Economics Ph.D. graduates entering academia in Italy, while increasing transitions to academic careers abroad or to public and private sector jobs. Talented graduates were disproportionately affected, revealing negative selection into Italian academia following the removal of permanent AP positions. Despite these trends, tenure-track hires tend to publish more in high-ranking journals, suggesting that the reform’s incentive effects may partly mitigate its negative selection effects.

Humanities and social sciences are among the most-cut UW programs

Liam Beran:

Eighty-two academic programs within the Universities of Wisconsin have been suspended or eliminated since 2022, according to records obtained by Isthmus in an open records request. A majority of those cuts were in the humanities or social sciences, according to an Isthmus analysis of the records.

Individual campuses recommend their own program suspensions and eliminations. This is often done when programs have low enrollments of students or when universities restructure academic divisions. Suspended programs stop enrolling new students and can be eliminated or reinstated within five years of being suspended, according to UW system policy. Eliminated programs cannot be reinstated without approval from the UW Board of Regents.

There is no universal classification scheme for academic disciplines. Isthmus employed the classifications used in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ “Humanities Indicators” project, a widely respected source for data related to humanities programs, to determine which category a suspended or eliminated program would fall under.

According to the records received, the UW system has since replaced 14 of the 82 programs. A number of programs related to animal science at UW-Madison, for example, were replaced with similar programs after the Departments of Dairy Science and Animal Sciences merged in 2020.

Taxpayer Funded Wisconsin DPI finalizes Lowers K-12 ‘cut scores,’ even as criticism continues

Cleo Krejci

Jill Underly, the top DPI official, finalized those changes Sept. 3. They will be applied to 2024-25 state report card data, which will be released in November.

“Just as you wouldn’t rely on a decade-old GPS to find your way today, we can’t use outdated performance benchmarks to guide school improvement,” Underly said in an Aug. 15 statement. “Students are learning in new, dynamic ways, and accountability systems must keep pace. Innovation in education means we transform how we measure success.”

Criticisms have continued past spring legislative session

As DPI finalizes changes from this summer, it continues to face criticism that it’s made three changes to cut scores since 2020.

Last spring, Republican lawmakers introduced a bill that would have forced DPI to revert Forward Exam cut scores to those in place in 2019-20. After the measure passed along party lines, Gov. Tony Evers ultimately vetoed the bill in March, saying that although he’s been critical of DPI’s approach, he took issue with lawmakers’ attempts to “undermine” the state agency’s independence and authority.

Among the most vocal critics to the changes is the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, a law firm often aligned with conservative politics. It has released several statements, and analyses, that are critical of DPI.

This fall, a group of school board officials and current or former superintendents is trying a new approach: getting school boards to pass resolutions saying report card changes “make it impossible to meaningfully compare data from year to year.”

“Frequent and arbitrary changes are not only making it impossible for school leaders to understand and track school performance, the changes themselves are doing a disservice to students by cloaking lackluster academic performance data with other metrics,” reads a statement from the Wisconsin School Leaders for Excellence, which formed in January.

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Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average (now > $25,000 per student) K-12 tax & spending practices. This, despite long term, disastrous reading results.

Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability

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 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.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

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?

8 of 13 UW campuses have enrollment growth this fall

Corrinne Hess:

This year’s enrollment is 164,340 across the UW system, according to preliminary estimates released Tuesday. That’s down 96 students from the final 2024 fall enrollment counts.

UW system officials wouldn’t quantify the “significant declines” in international students, but international enrollment could drop as much as 15 percent at colleges nationwide, according to NAFSA: Association of International Educators.

Civics: “She wound up in an America where we have abandoned public spaces to the most disordered and depraved”

Kat Rosenfield:

The video of Iryna Zarutska’s final moments on that North Carolina train is like something out of a horror movie—not because of the terrible way it ends, but because of how it begins.

Shot from overhead inside the fluorescent-lit interior of a Lynx light rail car in Charlotte, North Carolina, the footage silently tracks the arrival of a slender young woman in glasses and khakis, her hair tucked up under the uniform cap of a local pizzeria. She enters the train, her eyes on the phone in her hand rather than the environment around her; she barely looks up as she drops into an empty seat.

If this were a horror film, this is the moment when the audience would sit up and start shouting at the screen: Oh my god, stop! What are you doing? Don’t sit there!

Because there’s someone else in this shot, sitting in the seat just behind the one the young woman has taken. It is a man whose attire, whose posture, whose mannerisms, and whose mere presence on public transit in this U.S. city at that time of night all signal that he is someone from whom you should keep your distance. Someone you should watch out for even as you pretend not to notice him, and certainly not someone you want to turn your back on.

Notes on Closed Universities of Wisconsin Campuses

Sabine Martin

Since the Universities of Wisconsin started shuttering two-year branch campuses in 2023 amid steep enrollment declines, counties that own the buildings and land have been left to regroup and decide what’s next for the properties.

Meanwhile, they’re on the hook for maintaining what they still own. At a cost of thousands of dollars each month, that adds an urgency to counties’ efforts to redevelop the former campuses.

“We do not have the funds to sustain this on an ongoing basis,” Richland County Board Chair David Turk said of the former UW-Platteville Richland campus.

Each county that had a UW branch campus that has since closed is eligible for a grant of up to $2 million to redevelop the property under a state law.

A look at Dallas’ Solar Prep School

Paul Tough

What Williams wanted in her classroom was diversity. That is a controversial notion in public education these days, when the federal government is threatening to withhold funds from school systems and colleges that make it a priority. But Williams’s desire wasn’t a political matter. To her, it simply made practical sense. Whether they were rich or poor, her students were going to grow up in a country defined by its diversity, and she didn’t want to teach them in an environment marked by its absence.

So in the spring of 2023, Williams applied for a job at another Dallas Independent School District campus, the experimental Solar Preparatory School for Girls. By design, half of Solar Prep’s students come from families who are economically disadvantaged and half from households with higher incomes. The wealthier group includes plenty of middle-class kids but also many girls whose parents could afford one of Dallas’s tonier private schools but choose instead to send their daughters to Solar Prep.

I met Williams on a warm morning at a community event in the Oak Cliff section of South Dallas. She was wearing a purple Solar Prep T-shirt and standing behind a table that the school’s PTA had set up to recruit prospective students. When we spoke, her enthusiasm came out in a joyful rush. “The inspiration that I experience every day through my girls is something that I wish every teacher in the United States could experience,” she told me. “It’s literally love overflowing.”

Notes on student skills

Brendan Harley:

In the classroom, I help students learn how, not what, to think. We live in an age where mountains of information are available. The trick is knowing what to do with that information — how to navigate what is known and, more important, how to deal with what is uncertain.

I also run a tissue engineering research lab. Undergraduates, graduate students and postdoctoral associates (those who have already received a doctorate) work together in teams to develop new biomedical technologies. It is essential young researchers learn how to identify a problem, develop strategies to address it, build teams and assess how well they meet their goals, and overcome failures along the way.

Instead of learning to match patterns, young researchers must learn how to illuminate new spaces and create entirely new connections. And because we work at the edge of what is known, our studies often take us in directions both surprising and entirely different from how we set off.

Redistributed Taxpayer Funds and Harvard Compliance

That’s essentially what Judge Allison Burroughs said in her 84-page opinion, which includes new details from legal discovery on how the Administration leveraged federal funds to try to control Harvard’s hiring, admissions and curriculum.

On April 3 the government sent Harvard a list of “pre-conditions” to continue receiving federal money. Harvard had a “choice”—the Administration’s euphemism for its ultimatum—between installing “new leadership in problematic depts” and “receivership.” The government also sought a first lien on all Harvard assets “as collateral” in the event that Harvard failed to comply with its demands.

A week later the Administration detailed further conditions. The government told Harvard to do an external audit of “viewpoint diversity” in “each department, field, or teaching unit.” To provide ill-defined balance, it demanded that the school hire “a critical mass of new faculty” and admit “a critical mass of students.” When Harvard refused, the Administration froze the $2.2 billion in funds.

The Administration cited federal regulations that let the government terminate a grant if it “no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities.” This was a switcheroo, according to the judge, because officials earlier had claimed authority to end the grants because Harvard allegedly broke the Civil Rights Act by tolerating antisemitism on campus.

Sun Prairie changes West High School leadership amid abuse probe

Sabine Martin

It remains unclear why Ford is stepping into Ploeger’s job during the first week of the new school year and if it’s related to the ongoing investigation.

“We are confident in the ability of Mr. Ford and the administrative team to lead our school and ensure a smooth continuation of learning and support for our students,” the district’s top leaders wrote to parents.

The Sun Prairie School District did not respond to the Wisconsin State Journal’s request for clarification regarding the leadership change.

US Twelfth-Grade Math and Reading Scores Hit New Low

Matt Barnum:

“Students are taking their next steps in life with fewer skills and less knowledge in core academics than their predecessors a decade ago,” said Lesley Muldoon, executive director of the board that oversees the tests. “This is happening at a time when rapid advancements in technology and society demand more of future workers and citizens, not less.”

The 12th-grade scores come with an important asterisk. It is possible that progress is being obscured by rising high-school graduation rates, which could mean that more lower-performing students are taking the exams. It also is unclear whether there has been any recovery in the time since these tests were administered, more than a year and a half ago.

In reading, two-thirds of seniors could determine the purpose of a persuasive essay, but only one in five was able to draw a conclusion from such an essay, supported by the text.

In math, 60% of students deduced the population of an area using information on size and density, while just under half correctly turned a real-world scenario into an algebraic expression.

Students who were already struggling tended to fall further behind, creating an even wider gap between the top and bottom. Girls’ scores, on average, dropped faster than boys’. Both trends have shown up on other assessments.

“you can’t vote your way to building bridges, fam, and the socialists literally want to kill you”

Mike Solana:

topics including: our full summer of gnarly ass violence, the center lib’s dangerous dance with mamdani, left wing values in conflict that doom this thing to failure, and what it took men like FDR to succeed (tldr it wasn’t democracy). full piece:

The Abundance Delusion.

K-12 Tax & $pending climate: Parenthood as Madison grow$ bricks and mortar

Steve Kornacki summary:

So, here are the gaps for men and women. For men:

Having children – +25% Trump voters
Being married – +18% Trump voters
Being grounded spiritually – +16% Trump voters
Owning own home – +8% Trump voters
Having no debt – +5% Trump voters
Financial independence – +4% Trump voters
Making family/community proud – +1% Trump voters
Able to retire early – +1% Trump voters
Having money to do things you want – +14% Harris voters
Using talents & resources to help others – +19% Harris voters
Having emotional stability – +20 Harris voters
Fulfilling job/career – +24% Harris voters

For women:

Having children – +20% Trump voters
Being grounded spiritually – +18% Trump voters
Being married – +14% Trump voters
Owning own home – +10% Trump voters
Financial independence – +8% Trump voters
Able to retire early – +3% Trump voters
Having no debt – +2% Trump voters
Making family/community proud – +5% Harris voters
Using talents & resources to help others – +15% Harris voters
Having money to do things you want – +19% Harris voters
Fulfilling job/career – +19% Harris voters
Having emotional stability – +21 Harris voters

civics: Journalists do whatever the narrative requires at the moment, but does it still work?

Glenn Reynolds:

Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian refugee, was killed on a Charlotte commuter rail train by a crazed black man, Decarlos Brown, Jr. He sat down behind her, and then, for no obvious reason, pulled out a knife and began stabbing her in the throat. There was blood everywhere.

And there’s video, which the Charlotte town officials tried and failed to keep secret. But the national press is, as noted above, not simply downplaying it, but ignoring it.

They’re not even making excuses. They might say that violence on commuter trains isn’t news — though I don’t know if that’s true when you’re talking Charlotte instead of the Bronx. They might say that black on white violence isn’t news, though that’s kind of an iffy position. Everyone knows, and DOJ statistics demonstrate, that’s it’s much more common than white on black, but do they want to invoke that as a justification? Maybe they don’t want to encourage random violence by crazy people? But they cover that all the time.

The truth is, this story just hurts the narrative. The black-on-white angle hurts, but the real problem is that Decarlos Brown, Jr., is a repeat violent offender who has spun through the revolving door of the criminal justice system for years, a man with 14 arrests, many for violent crimes such as larceny, armed robbery, and violent threats. But despite being regularly arrested, he was repeatedly released.

Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles said that you can’t arrest your way out of these problems. Well, not if you keep letting people go, anyway:

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Charles Cooke:

Lyles was keen to propose that “we will never arrest our way out [of] issues such homelessness and mental health.” That’s nonsense. The guy who committed this crime had been arrested over and over and over again — including for assault, breaking and entering, robbery with a dangerous weapon, and communicating threats. He had resisted arrest. He had failed to appear in court. He had been caught multiple times in possession of a firearm — which his status as a felon prohibited. If, instead of being out on the streets, he had been in prison, this would not have happened. Or, to put it another way: If the authorities had done their jobs, they could absolutely have “arrested their way out of” this murder.

Heck, they’re doing it now! Per local news, the killer has been arrested and “charged with first-degree murder in connection to Zarutska’s death.” Why? Obviously, because, given his proclivities, it is understood that he must be kept away from the general public. So why not earlier? Surely it cannot be the case that we can arrest our way out of murders only after a murder has been committed? We have other laws in this country than those against murder — laws that are supposed to be enforced in their own right, and that, when enforced, often serve to nip would-be repeat-offenders in the bud. During her remarks, Lyles made sure to confirm that, “I am not villainizing those who struggle with their mental health or those who are unhoused.” But, of course, that’s not what she’s being asked to do. She’s being asked to villainize — or, if she can’t bring herself to make moral judgements, to ensure that the criminal justice systems deal with — people who have rap sheets that look like this:

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Ann Althouse summary:

I write, prompting ChatGPT to respond to the NY Post column with the headline, “Horrid video of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska’s slaughter on Charlotte train is met with deafening silence from Dem leaders, media.”

ChatGPT’s answer can be read here, where you will also see that prompt was my second prompt.

Civics: Google Anti-trust litigation

Court Filing:

The fact is that today, the open web is already in rapid decline and Plaintiffs’ divestiture proposal would only accelerate that decline, harming publishers who currently rely on open-web display advertising revenue. As the law makes clear, the last thing a court should do is intervene to reshape an industry that is already in the midst of being reshaped by market forces.

“The board should show more success before it rewards itself, such as boosting reading scores and stemming the loss of families to suburban districts”

David Blaska:

How surprised is anyone that the part-time Madison school board wants to nearly double its pay to $15,000 (from $8,000) AND claim generous health and dental insurance worth between $82,000 and $220,000? After hitting up us taxpayers for an extra $100 million for operations and another $500 million for buildings and grounds. In other words, the seven young progressives (none of them business people) want their cut! The Wisconsin State Journal gets it right:

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Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average (now > $25,000 per student) K-12 tax & spending practices. This, despite long term, disastrous reading results.

Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability

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 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.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

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 cost of K-12 transparency should be zero

James V. Shuls

How much are you willing to pay to find out what your local public school is teaching? On its face, the question sounds absurd. The cost of transparency should be zero.

When the Show-Me Institute launched the Curriculum Transparency project in 2022, which examined the extent of diversity, equity, and inclusion materials in schools, we sent out Sunshine requests to every school district in the state. In return, we received bills totaling nearly a million dollars ($908,192). For example, Lee’s Summit sought $40,609 to comply with our request.

Notes on School Performance Awareness

Tim Daly:

Fast-forward to 2025. Public satisfaction with schools is the lowest ever recorded. In a recent Gallup survey, respondents were asked to name our nation’s most important problem. Three percentsaid education. Back in 2000, it was five times that many and education topped the list of concerns, beating out perennial hits like crime and taxes.

During last year’s presidential campaign, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris barely discussed education on the stump and were not asked about their plans in debates.3

Let’s face it: Education is an also-ran issue. Given that student outcomes are mired in a long depression, that’s worrisome.

How did we get here?

Education’s run as a top public concern was relatively brief, as Rick Hess and others have pointed out. There are several possible explanations for its decline:

Parental School Choice Chat

Shannon Bream:

Video

Florida’s John Kirtley on School Choice

Pioneer Institute:

In this week’s episode of The Learning Curve, co-hosts U-Arkansas Prof. Albert Cheng and American Federation for Children Senior Fellow Shaka Mitchell interview John Kirtley, Managing Partner and co-founder of Keswick Partners, and founder and Chairman of Step Up for Students, a nonprofit that manages Florida’s state-funded K-12 scholarship programs serving over half a million students. Kirtley shares his journey from the private sector into education reform in the late 1990s, and why business leaders must actively engage in shaping K-12 policy. He reflects on Florida’s steady, incremental expansion of school choice programs, explaining how this long-term approach built a critical mass of school choice families despite longstanding opposition, and offers lessons for newer ESA states like Arizona, Texas, and Iowa that seek to accelerate growth. Mr. Kirtley addresses challenges ahead, from ensuring a strong supply of high-quality private schools to managing the complexities of universal ESA programs. He also discusses how to measure and maintain accountability in parent-driven school choice programs, strategies to reverse stagnating NAEP scores, and the opportunities presented by the new federal education tax credit program. Mr. Kirtley also asked that we share this compelling school choice video: Drop The Suit Rally in Tally 2016.

Governance and the University of Virginia