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Governor Evers: TO THE HONORABLE MEMBERS OF THE SENATE:I am vetoing Senate Bill 454 in its entirety. The bill would mandate school boards and independent charter schools to assess the early literacy skill of pupils in four-year-old kindergarten to second grade using repeated screening assessments throughout the year and to create a personal reading plan […]
By Kadjata Bah, Josepha DaCosta and Moises Hernandez The Kohlenberg paper looks closely at school-to-prison pipelines and uses the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause to emphasize her case. She points out the Constitution “authorizes and mandates Congress to guarantee a meaningful floor of adequate functional literacy instruction nationwide.” During the past few years, federal courts have […]
AB446 Legislative links and lobbying information. (League of Women voters is against!) Speakers, in order: 0.08: Rep. Dave Considine (D-Baraboo) voted No. 4:50: Rep. Robert Wittke (R-Racine) voted Yes. 6:30: Rep. Deb Andraca (D-Whitefish Bay) voted No. 11:40 Rep. Janel Brandtjen (R-Menomonee Falls) voted yes. 14:14 Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt (R-Fond du lac) voted yes. 30.08: […]
mp3 audio Transcript (Machine Generated). Representative LaKeshia Myers. Related: Assembly bill AB446 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. My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading […]
mp3 audio Related: Assembly bill AB446
October 21, 2021 11:00a.m. CST. Watch via Wisconsin Eye. Wisconsin AB 446; SIS links. The list of lobbying organizations (many taxpayer supported!) opposed to Roadmap to Reading Success is remarkable: Association of Wisconsin School Administrators League of Women Voters Wisconsin (!) Pearson NA (!) Southeastern Wisconsin Schools Alliance WIRSA Wisconsin Association of School Boards Wisconsin […]
Transcript (machine generated) mp3 audio Notes and links on AB446. Kelly Butler Barksdale Reading Institute bio. 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. My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans […]
Kymyona Burk bio. Wisconsin AB446 notes and links.
Machine generated transcript. September 14, 2021 Assembly Education Committee Hearing audio. October 7, 2021 Senate Education Committee Hearing audio. Much more on our long term, disastrous reading results and Wisconsin AB446, here.
“1993: Wisconsin Students #3 in the Nation in Reading 2019: #27 If Mississippi can do it, we can do it”. 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. My Question to Wisconsin Governor […]
Frederick Hess: In Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee, we see a coherent series of actions that point in the same direction. The problem with most school reform efforts is not the sheer number of changes but the cultural discordance—the whiplash, fad-chasing, and stopping-and-starting. So, when a literacy agenda involves a number of moving parts, it’s […]
Brent Williams: ———- 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) […]
Chris Rickert: The Madison School District said Thursday that it is working with the man it hired to be the new principal at Lori Mann Carey Elementary School to make sure he gets the state educator’s license he needs to take the job. The district on Tuesday announced the appointment of longtime educator and activist […]
Geiger summary: Jamie Dimon on Democrats today: “I have a lot of friends who are Democrats today, and they’re idiots. I always say they have big hearts and little brains. They do not understand how the real world works. Almost every single policy they rolled out has failed.” ——- More and more people are realizing […]
Chris Rickert: Gothard used a press conference Wednesday to call on state and federal legislators to provide a bigger chunk of the money local districts need to educate students — or local property taxpayers will be left shouldering even more of the cost of public education. ——— Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average […]
Lauren Greuel and Cory Brewer: It’s not every day that the liberal-leaning Wisconsin Supreme Court unanimously sides with the Republican-run Legislature. But that’s what happened recently in a dispute over how $50 million of early literacy funds are distributed to Wisconsin schools. In its ruling, the court rejected false narratives pushed by the governor and his allies […]
Constance Grady: Every month or so, for the past few years, a new dire story has warned of how American children, from elementary school to college age, can nolonger read. And every time I read one of these stories, I find myself conflicted. On the one hand, I am aware that every generation complains that the kids who […]
Ava Menkes: One City Schools, the independent charter school on Madison’s south side, plans to hold a community rally Thursday at The Sylvee to celebrate its 10th anniversary. Over the last decade, One City has raised $50 million to help serve underprivileged students in the area through innovative and unique ways, according to founder and […]
Robert Colvile: A prime minister may now need not just a bulging folder of pre-cooked policies, but something tantamount to an invasion plan to transform the state Indeed, when you talk to people on the Labour side, what is surprising is not just how scathing they are about their own party’s performance — even accounting […]
Daniel Buck: School report cards have become such a farce, glorified propaganda 94% of Wisconsin schools “meet” or “exceed expectations.” Meanwhile, only 37% of Wisconsin students can read at grade level. But if the official report card says all is well, who is to question it? ——— Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability The taxpayer funded […]
Chris Rickert: Under the state’s complicated formula for doling out state dollars to local districts, districts that have lower than average property values per-pupil and spend less per-pupil than other districts tend to receive more state aid as their expenses go up, according to Dan Rossmiller, executive director of the Wisconsin Association of School Boards. […]
Kimberly Wethal: The law calls for a multi-faceted overhaul of the state’s elementary school reading curriculum. It aims to improve reading proficiency by emphasizing phonics and prohibits some methodologies, such as one in which young readers use clues to learn unfamiliar words. Critics say that leads to more guessing and lower rates of reading proficiency. The law, known […]
Allysia Finley: All of this will require a higher level of cognition than does the rote work many white-collar employees now do. But as AI is getting smarter, young college grads may be getting dumber. Like early versions of ChatGPT, they can regurgitate information and ideas but struggle to come up with novel insights or […]
Kyle Koenen: This is an alternate reality. The fact of the matter is that those funds would have likely been released long ago if the Governor had not line item vetoed a non-appropriation bill. That action was egregious and has resulted in the delay of long needed literacy reforms. Quinton Klabon: On a related note, […]
Gavin Escott The budget represents an increase of $51.8 million over the previous year and comes after the 2024 operating referendum created a “financial foundation for the future,” Superintendent Joe Gothard said in a letter. The district intends to spend $566.2 million on operations from revenues of $557.4 million, a 3.79% and 5.94% increase, respectively. […]
Jason Riley: The Ford Foundation has spent billions of dollars on poverty initiatives, human-rights advocacy and other selected causes, yet Henry Ford’s most significant achievement was developing the moving assembly line in the 1910s, which transformed manufacturing. Ford made automobiles accessible to America’s burgeoning middle class, expanded job opportunities, and accelerated the expansion of related […]
Liz Mineo: Experts have long known that reading skills develop before the first day of kindergarten, but new research from the Harvard Graduate School of Education says they may start developing as early as infancy. The study, out of the lab of Nadine Gaab, associate professor of education, found that trajectories between kids with and without reading disabilities […]
James Marriott: Writing is the most reliable (and often the most painful) method our species has devised of transforming half-formed notions and stray fancies into rigorous, logical thought. I cannot be the only opinion columnist to have discovered that ideas that sounded impressive when I was declaiming them in the pub have a habit of […]
Chris Rickert: “I will say from general experience and observation that most districts interact with the certified and non-certified group independently,” he said, “but approach annual increases for all employees with an eye toward relative fairness and equity — keeping staff at similar standing in the regional market for like employee groups.” Dan Rossmiller, executive […]
Chris Gomez-Schmidt (former Madison School Board member) A recent Wisconsin Policy Forum report projects a 20% increase in school property taxes this December, a $883 increase on the average home, driven by the two 2024 referendums and declining state aid. For a city that prides itself on deliberate work to address affordability, this tax increase […]
Kayla Huynh: Even with additional funding from the referendum, the Madison school district will also rely on $22.4 million in one-time funds this year to balance its budget. Undernext year’s proposed budget, the school district would spend $9.5 million more than it receives in revenue, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum, a nonpartisan, indendent research group […]
by Alarice McPark, age 13 The whole language approach was a reading instruction method invented by Dame Marie Clay in New Zealand in the 1970s, and it gained popularity in other countries by the late ‘90s. In this approach, children were taught to use contextual cues, such as the idea of the story, or use […]
Link: This was the standard curriculum for seventh and eighth grade English classes in Minnesota in 1908. Poems and novels that today would be considered too challenging or difficult. Students were expected to read entire books, where today we teach only snippets. How far we’ve fallen. Meanwhile: Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability The taxpayer funded […]
Jessica Berg: If you had walked into the classrooms at my Rockford, Illinois, elementary school a few years ago, you would have seen something very different from what happens there today. Back then, like many schools, students stayed in their grade-level classrooms throughout the day, and we delivered reading instruction accordingly. On paper, that seemed […]
via a kind email: In this session, we will: You’re invited to a free webinar on Thursday, June 26 at 1:00 PM(CT) to walk through the WILL Model Policy on Act 20 Reading and Retention and the newly released Companion Guide to Implementing Act 20. Under Wisconsin law (Wis. Stat. § 118.33(6)), all school districts must adopt a promotion and retention […]
Chris Rickert: Are you a Madison parent who has enrolled your child in a school outside the Madison School District? The Wisconsin State Journal is looking to speak with Madison parents about their decision to use the state’s open enrollment program to enroll their students in other school districts, such as Monona Grove, Sun Prairie […]
Corrinne Hess: Milwaukee Public Schools isn’t supporting its teachers and doesn’t have adequate systems in place for student learning at its schools districtwide, according to the second independent audit commissioned by Gov. Tony Evers. The 52-page report, focusing on the district’s instructional policies and methodologies, is as critical as the first audit, which the state released in […]
Chris Rickert: Despite the generally positive overall picture, the foundation also notes that for six of the 15 measures for which data on race are available, “Wisconsin’s racial disparities are some of the largest in the country.” Those measures are: For the first three measures, the gap between Black and white children was the largest […]
Dissident Teacher: With a captive audience, guaranteed revenue, and increased funding for poor performance, public schools have little incentive to ensure any child learns. There’s an enormous disconnect between what parents think public schools do and what the system actually produces. People believe schools exist to educate kids. They don’t. Like so many other systems […]
Chris Rickert: The two had nonetheless remained on the district’s payroll, although amid the investigation district leaders have refused to say what they were doing. Leading Southside have been an interim principal and assistant principal. In the Wednesday email, district Superintendent Joe Gothard says Southside’s current leadership team “will select a group of staff, parents, […]
Vladimir Kogan, Stéphane Lavertu and Zachary Peskowitz: We analyze the most comprehensive dataset on U.S. school board elections. We find that nearly half of races go uncontested and that incumbents are reelected more than 80 percent of the time when they run. Because many incumbents retire instead of running for another term, however, turnover is high […]
Alex Gutentag: On May 17, the Oakland, California, teachers union ended a two-week strike—the union’s third strike in five years. The district offered a substantial salary increase for teachers before the strike even began, but negotiations remained deadlocked for days over the union’s other demands. The Oakland Education Association (OEA) put forward several “common good” proposals that included drought-resistant […]
Dave Cieslewicz: But the district is not holding itself accountable where it matters: student performance. For whatever reason, Madison taxpayers have never demanded that the school board set goals for the results of all that investment. Last November voters overwhelmingly approved two referendums, totaling $607 million, the largest increase in MMSD history. And they did […]
Tim Daly: This isn’t just wrong. It’s a problem. There are lessons for our education community and for both political parties. Edu-Snobbery Hurts Us All • We miss opportunities to help kids. I’m not saying we should go “full Finland” and turn Mississippi into a junket destination and object of hero worship. It’s not perfect. As […]
Chris Rickert: About $478 million, or 20.2% more than last year. It’s a percentage increase that “is more than twice as large as the previous record for the district in our data going back to 1994,” according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum. The increase is being driven by several factors, according […]
Jim Bender and Patrick McIlheran A paper from an insiders’ group offers bad-faith arguments about Wisconsin school choice and the “decoupling” reform that would increase transparency A reform that wonks are calling “decoupling” — an excellent way to simplify school choice funding and eliminate choice’s impact on property taxpayers — is being opposed by the Wisconsin Association […]
Quinton Klabon: Here is who will help set Wisconsin school report card standards. There is not much they can do. The law is specific and key districts would get mad. So, wait for 2029 when DPI updates reading/maths standards, raise test cut scores to NAEP, and remake report cards accurately. ——— Meanwhile: The taxpayer funded Madison […]
TOSA2030 A rigorously documented, independent, community-led report detailing how Wauwatosa’s school governance has broken down over the past several years—academically, financially, and administratively. ——- Meanwhile: 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 […]
Packy McCormack: My hypothesis is that technology compounds more quickly than the government ossifies, and that entrepreneurship in a broad sense has overtaken institutions as the prime mover of American exceptionalism. One (very oversimplified) way to think of progress is as a vector sum of government and entrepreneurial forces. A vector is a quantity that has both a […]
Daniel Buck: One question persists in American education: How pervasive are the stories of kindergartners learning about transgenderism or high-schoolers waving Hamas flags in hallways? Among the four million teachers in the U.S. there will inevitably be cranks and ideologues who mistake their lectern for a pulpit. Examination of a typical American school district in […]
Quinton Klabon WELL. ——- 2019….. Evers mulligans: My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results 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” 2017: West High Reading […]
Chris Rickert: Under current district policy, students in fourth or eighth grade who have failed to meet certain academic standards can be forced to repeat those grades, even over the objections of parents. A decision to hold a student back can be appealed to the “superintendent or his/her designee,” but that official’s decision on the matter […]
Carmela Guaglianone A federal judge on Thursday struck down a lawsuitclaiming that “defective” teaching materials had prevented countless students in Massachusetts from learning to read well. “The court begins (and ends) its analysis with the educational malpractice bar,” Judge Richard G. Stearns wrote in his order dismissing the lawsuit against educational publisher Heinemann, its parent company […]
Kayla Huynh: Last year, during the Madison Metropolitan School District’s campaign for two referendums, the district estimated property taxes would increase by about $1,000 for the average homeowner. Voters in November approved the combined $607 million in school referendums, hiking property taxes to fund school building upgrades and day-to-day operating costs. Approval of the $100 […]
Chris Rickert: More than seven months after the principal and assistant principal of a Madison elementary school were removed from their positions amid multiple complaints from parents and staff, the two remain on the district’s payroll. Doing what, exactly, district officials won’t say. Candace Terrell and Annabel Torres remain listed in the district’s online employee […]
Kayla Huynh Lighthouse is now home to the largest number of voucher students in Madison. A majority of the school’s students identify as Hispanic or Black, and nearly all are from low-income households. The school’s website says, “We are facing unprecedented demand with 150 children on our waitlist as of fall 2024.” Lighthouse and other private voucher schools have […]
Tim Vanable: TV: I wonder about the tenability of ascribing a policy like extended school closures to a “laptop class.” Support for school reopenings did not fall neatly along educational lines. The parents most reluctant to send their kids back to school in blue cities in the spring of 2021 were black and Hispanic, research has […]
Kimberly Wethal: Many of the students are lagging from COVID-19 pandemic disruptions, they said. Others lack the organizational skills to be successful. An entire generation has lost the ability to do math in their heads. And most just need an adult at school who cares about them. —- The article fails to include total k-12 […]
Chris Rickert: District Director of Early Learning Culleen Witthuhn pointed to a number of reasons for why it saw the increase last year but not in the first two school years the district offered full-day 4K at some sites. ——— Madison Education Partnership: “professional development and evidence-based curricula in 4K Literacy” – Recommendations for the […]
Dana Goldstein: What happened to learning as a national priority? For decades, both Republicans and Democrats strove to be seen as champions of student achievement. Politicians believed pushing for stronger reading and math skills wasn’t just a responsibility, it was potentially a winning electoral strategy. At the moment, though, it seems as though neither party, […]
Tim Daly: This has made it awkward in recent years, as Mississippi has become the fastest-improving school system in the country. You read that right. Mississippi is taking names. In 2003, only the District of Columbia had more fourth graders in the lowest achievement level on our national reading test (NAEP) than Mississippi. By 2024, […]
Notes. —– Meanwhile: 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 […]
Marc Eisen: “Those communities are still building single-family homes in places where people can develop generational wealth, which they can’t do when they’re renting. That’s my biggest concernquite frankly. Apartments don’t build generational wealth.” That’s one big reason Bauman thinks the economic inequality gap “hasn’t improved one bit” in the Madison area. The Rev. Alex Gee’s “Justified Anger” essay is a powerful document for exploring […]
Kayla Huynh: The district will reduce the number of half-day classes held at its elementary schools, according to district figures. The district is instead adding half-day programs at four day care sites, including Here We Grow, the Red Caboose, the Playing Field and Pequeños Traviesos, according to Folger. Green said Stephens Elementary is offering four new […]
Chad Aldeman: “The average Black student in Mississippi performed about 1.5 grade levels ahead of the average Black student in Wisconsin. Just think about that for a moment. Tim Daly: Mississippi Can’t Possibly Have Good SchoolsAnd yet it does. Are we ready to deal? Underperforming states escape scrutiny. Our biases prevent us from asking, for […]
Larissa Phillips Despite this alarming statistic, some educators believe it’s impossible to teach these adults to read. However, this notion is misguided and requires a different approach. Marian* was in her late 30s when we first met, and she asked me to help her learn to read. This was in 2007. I was the new-ish […]
Karl Zinsmeister: Administrative resistance to reform has left Washington littered with dysfunctional tar pits. For literally 20 years the FAA has been “rolling out” NextGen, its desperately needed tech modernization of air traffic control, and still nothing is properly automated. The Pentagon has failed its annual audit for the last seven years running, yet no heads […]
Dave Cieslewicz: That led to all kinds of silliness. Here in Madison the culmination of the ludicrousness happened when a student stumbled on the fact that a big rock on the UW campus had been referred to by an offensive name… once… a hundred years ago. So, the UW spent $50,000 to move the rock […]
Matthew Ygelsias: The dumbing of America Nat Malkus from the American Enterprise Institute observes that, to the extent they are available, test scores for American adults are also in decline. In other words, the flagging performance of American students isn’t just about something that’s happening in schools; it’s about something that’s happening in our society […]
San Francisco Chronicle: But for an even bleaker example of how state leaders are failing to rise to the urgency of the moment, Californians should consider the response to AB1121 from Assembly Member Blanca Rubio, D-Baldwin Park (Los Angeles County). The seemingly uncontroversial bill would require California teachers in transitional kindergarten through fifth grade to be trained in […]
Quinton Klabon: Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Act 20 science of reading moment; watch both parts!😭 —— 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 […]
Heather MacDonald: Disparate-impact theory holds that if a neutral, colorblind standard of achievement or behavior has a disproportionately negative effect on underrepresented minorities (overwhelmingly, on blacks), it violates civil rights laws. It has been used to invalidate literacy and numeracy standards for police officers and firemen, cognitive skills and basic knowledge tests for teachers, the […]
Kayla Huynh: The Madison Metropolitan School District has long calculated high schoolers’ GPAs on a 4.0 scale. A weighted system would take into consideration the difficulty of coursework, assigning higher value to grade points for Advanced Placement or honors classes. Students, parents and staff have shown interest in switching to weighted grades, according to district […]
Victor Davis Hanson: Harvard has refused to accept the orders of a Trump administration commission concerning its chronic problems with anti-Semitism, campus violence, and racial tribalism, bias, and segregation. Yet, unlike some conservative campuses that distrust an overbearing Washington, Harvard and most elite schools like it want it both ways. They do as they please on […]
Chris Rickert The father of a Cherokee Heights Middle School student is facing a felony battery charge for allegedly attacking a security assistant at the Near West Side Madison school. According to a criminal complaint filed Monday: The 44-year-old Madison man went to the school just after 5 p.m. Wednesday along with his son and […]
Joanne Jacobs summary: Only one in three fourth-graders reads proficiently in Georgia, reports Atlanta News First. Gov. Brian Kemp is expected to sign new laws requiring schools to use research-based reading methods and teacher-ed programs to train teachers in the “science of reading,” reports Andy Pierrotti. Two legislators who are former teachers, a Democrat and […]
Limited background amidst Wisconsin (and Madison’s) long term, disastrous reading results: Did taxpayer funded Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Underly Juice Test Scores for Reelection? notes and links on Incumbent DPI Superintendent Jill Underly (back story). Underly supports eliminating our one elementary teacher content knowledge requirement, the Foundations of Reading (FORT). Perhaps this forensic thread offers a […]
Alex Crowe: Myers returned to university where she completed a second master’s degree that focused on how students learn, with detailed and specific knowledge of how to teach reading and writing. It has been almost two years since a sweeping review of teacher education recommended 14 reforms to radically reform training courses. Backed by the nation’s education […]
Will Flanders Yesterday, this article was published that talks extensively about Wisconsin’s private school choice programs. It is full of many misconceptions and half-truths about the programs I will address here 🧵. a The article claims that private schools deny admission to students with disabilities. I’ve yet to see a single credible claim that VOUCHER […]
Kayla Huynh When Becca Schwei volunteered to help organize a volleyball tournament for East High School last fall, she was surprised to learn the school lacked a booster club. The club had disbanded after the COVID-19 pandemic put organized sports on pause, leaving East High as the only Madison high school without an active booster. […]
Sarah Schwartz As recently as 2019, three-quarters of K-2 teachers said that they used the three-cueing system to teach students to read, according to an EdWeek Research Center survey. But in the years since, as the science of reading movement has gained ground, the approach has faced mounting criticism. Some popular curriculum publishers have announced that […]
Will Flanders That Mississippi–a state with far more challenging demographics–has surpassed Wisconsin on the NAEP in 4th grade reading ought to be a five alarm fire for the education establishment. The answer instead from DPI was to lower student expectations–accepting failure. —— The taxpayer funded Madison School District long used Reading Recovery… The data clearly indicate that being […]
Karen Vaites: Stellar essay by @cafeteria_duty, published by @HKorbey, on the emergence of “test-free” schools as a quality marker in progressive communities – paired with incurious attitudes about school performance. I had a similar conversation with a pair of Brooklyn friends. They were asking me for advice on finding a school for their Kinder-age son. […]
Summary The report highlights sobering 2024 statistics: only 5.8% of Black 11th-graders in Madison—22 out of 310 students—were prepared for college-level reading and writing, compared to 27% of Black students nationally and 10.3% statewide. In math, just 7.1% of Madison’s Black 11th-graders were college-ready, lagging behind 8% nationally and 6.4% across Wisconsin. Wisconsin ranks last […]
Michael Zwaagstra Imagine you were to ask a random group of Canadian parents to describe the primary mission of schools. Most parents would say something along the lines of ensuring that all students learn basic academic skills such as reading, writing and mathematics. Fewer parents are likely to say that schools should focus on reducing […]
Chris Rickert: The U.S. Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Both DPI and the Madison School District offer various programs and resources in the DEI field, although whether any of them would violate the Trump administration’s interpretation of federal nondiscrimination law is unclear. Among the resources offered by DPI […]
Jessica Grose: Florida would join Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Alaska in lowering their testing standards or graduation requirements of late. After the absolutely dismal National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores from 2024, which showed that a higher percentage of eighth graders scored “below basic” in reading than at any point in the test’s 30-year history, you would […]
Ray Carter The results of nationwide testing show that students in Oklahoma lag behind students in nearly all of the 50 states when it comes to reading proficiency. Those results represent more than hardship for individual students or a loss of bragging rights for state officials. According to experts, Oklahoma’s low reading outcomes also translate […]
“Hilarius Bookbinder”: I’m Gen X. I was pretty young when I earned my PhD, so I’ve been a professor for a long time—over 30 years. If you’re not in academia, or it’s been a while since you were in college, you might not know this: the students are not what they used to be. The […]
Dave Cieslewicz: Some of my liberal friends have expressed their unhappiness over my endorsement of Brittany Kinser for State Superintendent of Public Instruction. So, let me expand on my reasons. When I was at the city of Madison and there was a managerial opening I always first thought about how that department was functioning. If […]
“Hilarious Bookbinder” I’m Gen X. I was pretty young when I earned my PhD, so I’ve been a professor for a long time—over 30 years. If you’re not in academia, or it’s been awhile since you were in college, you might not know this: the students are not what they used to be. The problem […]
Simpson Street Free Press SSFP student reporters and local journalists interview candidates for this year’s school board race. If you missed our forum, now’s your chance to catch up! Stay informed and get to know who’s on the ballot. —— The taxpayer funded Madison School District long used Reading Recovery… The data clearly indicate that being able to […]
www: WisPolitics summary: Co-author Sen. John Jagler, R-Watertown, said the standards give parents a false impression of how their kids are doing in school. He also said it’s a problem that data can’t be compared year-to-year, which is problematic considering learning loss during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said the state should go back to the […]
Chris Rickert: It’s also laid bare what could be an inequity in the new guaranteed-admission regime because most Dane County public high schools also don’t weigh their grades for difficulty — meaning that, in theory, students who get straight A’s in all regular-level classes could have a better chance at getting in to UW than […]
Raul Emanuel “Democrats need to be honest with parents, too: We shuttered schools for too long in response to the pandemic, and we need to stop looking at our shoes and hoping no one highlights our role in the devastating consequences.” —— Covid era Dane County Madison Public Health Mandate and Lockdown policies. Waiting for an analysis of […]
Lucas Robinson: That’s a massive infrastructure undertaking ahead, and aligning those buildings with the district’s climate change and sustainability goals will be a big part of their development. To coordinate the sustainability component of those projects, the district has hired Bryanna Krekeler to be its first-ever sustainability manager. Krekeler is a Madison native whose work […]
Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner But those results are now old news. Wirepoints has just run the new Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) 2023 Report Card data and the outcomes are worse even though the impacts of covid are another year behind us. In 2023, there were 67 Illinois schools where not a single student tested […]
WILL: Additional Background: Beginning in the 2020-21 school year, DPI made several changes to Wisconsin’s academic accountability system that have made it less rigorous. These changes were made unilaterally by the Department without any input from the legislature or Governor. These changes included: Earlier this year, WILL endorsed Assembly Bill 1, introduced by Senator John Jagler […]
Jonaki Mehta: There was one exception: Louisiana. In 2019, Louisiana’s fourth graders ranked 50th in the country for reading. Now, they’ve risen to 16th. According to an even more granular analysis, Louisiana is the only state that has not only made a “full recovery” from the pandemic in both math and reading, but has improved upon […]
Lucas Robinson: At last Monday’s School Board meeting, Madison Teachers Inc. President Michael Jones called the referendums a “bait and switch.” “I should have known better than to trust a district that spent the equivalent of multiple educators’ annual salary on school logos and rebranding that no one asked for,” Jones told the board, referring […]