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Ah politics. Funny how things “work”. Ben Jones: Prior to being appointed to the bench, Judge Jones built an impressive record as an attorney in private practice, and then was legal counsel under three successive Superintendents at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI), the state’s education agency. Ben distinguished himself at DPI as the […]
Senator Eric Limburger and Legislator Robert Wittke: February 10, 2026 Dr. Jill Underly, State Superintendent Department of Public Instruction 201 West Washington Avenue Madison, Wisconsin 53703 Dear Dr. Underly: 2023 Wisconsin Act 20 created several requirements for the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) related to literacy. In DPI’s report on the 2024-25 universal reading assessment […]
Mark Treinen: I really can’t let this stand @DrJillUnderly @WISCTV_News3. The superintendent’s continued claims of DPI transparency and our reporting’s inaccuracy are problematic. Thread. ——— Much more on Jill Underly, here.
David Blaska: All committed under the un-watchful eye of Superintendent Underly, a MAGA-hating progressive bought by the Democrat(ic) party (to the tune of $1,141,632 — 80% of her total campaign funding), supported by the teachers union, and endorsed by The Capital Times itself. As the news outlet reported: The WI Department of Public Instruction investigated more than […]
Danielle DuClos: The Cap Times found the Department of Public Instruction has investigated more than 200 educators from 2018 to 2023 following allegations of sexual misconduct or grooming. The reporting also revealed the department relies on a rudimentary system to track its investigations, obscuring the scale of misconduct for policymakers and the public. Wisconsin State […]
Senator John Jagler Here is the response from @DrJillUnderly to the letter and questions @SenRomaineQuinn and I asked about the @CapTimes investigation into teacher sexual misconduct investigations. I appreciate the reply. But her answers only leave me with few more questions 🧵 —- Dan Shafer: It is absolutely ridiculous that Dr. Jill Underly is off […]
Keegan Kyle: Underly stood by the department’s practice of allowing educators under investigation for misconduct to voluntarily surrender their licenses to avoid further investigation. She said voluntary license surrenders often spare victims from “retraumatization through lengthy investigations.” She also called these license surrenders a “binding, legal agreement to a permanent, lifetime ban on their ability […]
Chris Rickert: In their July working paper, researchers from the Wisconsin Center for Education Research pointed to four main reasons district administrators have forgone performance pay: “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 […]
Cory Brewer and Dan Lennington: This civil rights law protects all students from discrimination based on race. But Underly is determined instead to push racially divisive “diversity, equity and inclusion” policies, and to blame the Trump administration for “dictating” education policy. But this isn’t some novel federal overreach — it’s longstanding federal law. The U.S. […]
Matthew Yglesias: Democrats often seem reluctant to propose ideas that teachers’ unions don’t like, because they want their support (or at least non-hostility) in a primary. But I’m pretty sure the NJEA is going to back Spiller no matter what Sherrill or Gottheimer or Fulop say, so why not be bolder? Democrats could use fresh […]
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 […]
Corrinne Hess Schools that fail to comply with the Trump administration’s directive about diversity, equity, and inclusion may be at risk of losing Title I funding. This school year, Wisconsin received about $216 million in Title I funds. About $82 million of that money went to Milwaukee Public Schools. Underly said the request from the […]
Karen Vaites: Last year, I wrote about a specific, promising development in Wisconsin: the state published the strongest ELA curriculum list in the country. Unfortunately, the work in Wisconsin prior to that development, and since, underwhelms. I’m overdue to write about the broader context in Wisconsin, mostly because progress on curriculum improvement has stalled, and I should […]
IFRG: New public recordsreleased Thursday by the Institute for Reforming Government’s (IRG) Center for Investigative Oversight reveal how the Department of Public Instruction’s lenient enforcement of Milwaukee Public Schools’ 2024 finance deadlines set up different, more destructive outcomes than DPI’s stricter enforcement in previous years. Superintendent Underly’s DPI released the records March 5, 2025, 8 months after IRG’s June […]
WisPolitics email summary: The record spending in Wisconsin’s state schools superintendent race between education consultant Brittany Kinser and incumbent Jill Underly has now hit $4.5 million. Did taxpayer funded Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Underly Juice Test Scores for Reelection? notes and links on Incumbent DPI Superintendent Jill Underly.
Capital Times Editorial:a In contrast, Underly is backed by the state’s most ardent advocates for public-school students and teachers. Many of her backers are Democratic legislators, and she’s supported by the party. But, more importantly, she’s supported by educators who work in the state’s urban and rural schools, technical colleges and universities. American Federation of […]
John Nichols summary The contest pits two people with very different views against one another. Underly — who taught in rural schools before becoming an elementary school principal, school district superintendent, university academic advisor and administrator, and assistant director at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction — was elected to serve as superintendent in 2021. […]
Corrinne Hess: She wants to make it easier for failing schools to somehow seem like they’re succeeding,” Vos said during a press conference. “I hope that’s one of the areas that we’ll get some speedy discussion on, hopefully bipartisan support. Because I would hope that no one, the most liberal person or the most conservative […]
Emilee Fannon: Are standards lower? DPI officials have defended the new benchmarks, saying they align more directly with the state’s Forward Exam and teaching standards. Underly noted other states, such as Oklahoma and New York, have recently lowered their testing benchmarks. However, the Institute for Reforming Government, a conservative think tank, points to changes for […]
Dave Cieslewicz And the racial achievement gap in Madison was far worse than the rest of the state. Statewide the gaps were 43% for English and 50% for math. About 60% of white students were proficient in English compared to 17% of Black students. About 64% of white students were proficient or better in math […]
Kayla Huynh Among the changes are lower scoring standards for each performance level and different labels categorizing students. In an interview with CBS 58, state Superintendent Jill Underly said students “appeared to be doing worse than they really were” under the previous system. Madison Metropolitan School District leaders this month offered the School Board a sneak […]
WisPolitics: Underly road a historic wave of cashflow to win in 2021, marking a significant win for Dems of the GOP. While the race was officially nonpartisan, the Dem Party contributed $949,844 to Underly’s campaign, which spent $1.53 million over the election. In all, candidates and outside groups spent $3 million on the race, a […]
Scott Girard: It’s been a challenging few years for K-12 education, both locally and nationally. Wisconsin State Superintendent Jill Underly is nonetheless “optimistic” about what’s ahead for the field. “I think people are coming together, realizing that if we want to improve the lives of all Wisconsinites and especially the kids who are going to […]
Dylan Pahman and Alexander William Salter: It would be one thing if inflation were unforeseeable, but it isn’t. The Federal Reserve flooded the market with money for years and supported the market for government debt. Politicians ran record deficits as the Fed happily purchased bonds. The result was an unprecedented money-supply increase, to almost $22 […]
Parents defending education: New documents released in a federal lawsuit filed by parents alleging anti-Asian discrimination case against the school board in Fairfax County, Va., reveal that board members knew that the new admissions policies to America’s No. 1 high school, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, were “racist,” “anti asian” and “political.” […]
Representative Jeremy Thiesfeldt: Moving the goal line on scores doesn’t change the sorry outcomes Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt and the Chairman of Assembly Committee on Education released the following statement on the results of the 2019-20 District and School Report Cards released by the Department of Public Instruction on Nov. 16:“Wisconsin State Superintendent Jill Underly and […]
Molly Beck: One of the most influential lawmakers over the state budgeting process said he wouldn’t support increasing funding for the state education agency because its new leader elected Tuesday was heavily backed by Democrats and teachers unions. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, made the statement just an hour after Pecatonica School District Superintendent Jill […]
Transcript [Machine Generated PDF]: Deborah Kerr: [00:43:53] Um, whose turn is it to go first? Okay. That’s fine. Yeah, we’re pretty good at figuring this out. Um, [00:44:00] so that’s one thing we can do. Um, yes, I support the FORT. I fo I support the Praxis test. So you gotta think about something. Why […]
Wisconsin Democracy: Liberal groups are winning the money race in the so-called “nonpartisan” state school superintendent race, where Pecatonica Area School Superintendent Jill Underly faces Deborah Kerr, a retired Brown Deer schools superintendent. Three groups that generally back Democratic candidates in partisan elections – A Better Wisconsin Together, Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin – […]
Daniel Bice: No one has been a bigger promoter of public schools during the race for state school superintendent than Jill Underly. That was, no doubt, a large part of the reason that Underly, the Pecatonica school superintendent, has won the endorsement of state and local teachers unions. But back when it was her decision to […]
Will Flanders: We also look at Wisconsin’s largest school choice program–open enrollment. Here, you see the marketplace working as families move to school districts with better academic outcomes and graduation rates. The Report: WILL’s Apples to Apples report provides a rigorous, side-by-side comparison of academic performance across Wisconsin’s public, charter, and private choice schools. Because […]
Preeya P. Mbekeani, John P. Papay, Ann Mantil & Richard J. Murnane: Improving education and labor market outcomes for low-income students is critical for advancing socioeconomic mobility in the United States. We use longitudinal data on five cohorts of 9th grade students to explore how Massachusetts public high schools affect the longer-term outcomes of students, […]
Jason Riley: Far too many children are still assigned to substandard schools, and too many remain unable to read or do math at grade level. Meanwhile, educators and policymakers seem preoccupied with nonsense like helping students “transition” behind their parents’ backs or indoctrinating impressionable youngsters with social-justice poppycock to promote trendy political causes. American kids […]
Dan Lennington: Note that the plan tells teachers to actively deceive parents by referring to students one way in school & another way in front of family. WILL: “The Supreme Court reinforced that parents have enforceable rights to be involved in major decisions affecting their children’s health and wellbeing. Because of this clarification, WILL is […]
Preeya P. Mbekeani, John P. Papay, Ann Mantil & Richard J. Murnane: Improving education and labor market outcomes for low-income students is critical for advancing socioeconomic mobility in the United States. We use longitudinal data on five cohorts of 9th grade students to explore how Massachusetts public high schools affect the longer-term outcomes of students, […]
Brian Fraley: The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction is returning to the Wisconsin Dells for its 11th annual WISEdata Conference on March 18 and 19. This gathering of school administrators and data coordinators comes as the agency tells state lawmakers in Madison that it is facing a dire fiscal crisis that could lead to staff layoffs. The […]
Teagan King The 2024 referendum passed by a wide margin, but some people are feeling surprised by what they’re having to contribute to it. Do you have any response to some taxpayers’ concerns? We don’t assess properties, so we’re not increasing the property value, and if property value goes up, of course the tax rate […]
Cap Times: Two Madison School Board seats will be decided by voters on April 7, and the Cap Times will bring together the candidates for each seat in a public forum on Wednesday, March 11, at La Follette High School. The moderators will be Cap Times education reporter Erin Gretzinger and Taylor Kilgore of the […]
Erin Gretzinger: As authorities investigate allegations that an East High School staff member fed dog food to a student, state Rep. Shelia Stubbs and other community leaders called on the Madison school district to expedite its review and release more information. At the state Capitol Friday alongside Stubbs and others, Debra Hawkes said the staff […]
Boston Globe: A 2023 study of 19 teacher preparation programs in Massachusetts underscored the need for this requirement. That study, conducted by the National Council on Teacher Quality, gave grades of D or F to 15 of those 19 programs for their literacy training, while only 3 received an A or better. Several of the state’s largest teacher preparation […]
Samuel Goldman In addition to its tension with underlying constitutional principle, this is almost certainly a counterproductive response to populist challenges. Bollinger’s response to collapsing trust is to insist that citizens and their direct or indirect representatives are entitled to only a nominal role in the direction of institutions that claim to act in their […]
Chris Mueller Wisconsin homeowners face one of the heaviest property tax burdens in the country, according to a new report from WalletHub. The personal finance website compared property tax rates in all 50 states and the District of Columbia by using U.S. Census Bureau data, which it said shows the average U.S. household pays $3,119 a year […]
Dave Cieslewicz: And here’s what Pearson is alleged to have done according to a criminal complaint as part of formal charges brought against her last week. She and a friend, Brandi Grayson, were out together just before Christmas. At about 11 PM they parked in a loading zone behind a theatre. When a security guard asked them […]
Corrinne Hess: “This is a constitutional challenge to the deficiency of the state public finance system for our schools,” said Jeff Mandell, president of Law Forward, the firm representing the plaintiffs. “Despite heroic efforts that have held our schools together for as long as they’ve made it under this deficient funding, it’s not enough. These […]
Zach Groshell: What Has Changed AI is dramatically better than it was a year ago. New models have emerged that are not just incrementally improved but fundamentally more capable. That part is clear. What hasn’t changed requires a longer conversation. What Has Not Changed Direct Instruction in the Engelmann tradition remains the most effective method […]
By Sasha Rogelberg He said Gen Z is the first generation in modern history to score lower on standardized tests than the previous one. While skills measured by these tests, like literacy and numeracy, aren’t always indicative of intelligence, they are a reflection of cognitive capability, which Horvath said has been on the decline over the […]
Anna Hansen: The three top spellers advanced to the Badger State Spelling Bee on March 21, so Barnhill will be joined by Joanne Aldoori of Madinah Academy, who placed second, and third-place finisher Ignatius Fassino of St. Ambrose Academy. Casey Barnhill found his spelling bee victory cradled between Colombia, Peru and the Pacific Ocean. The […]
Erin Gretzinger The Dane County district attorney filed misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and resisting an officer against Madison School Board Vice President Maia Pearson Thursday. The charges stem from a December incident involving Pearson and Brandi Grayson, the CEO of Urban Triage, that led to their arrests. Both Pearson and Grayson have entered not guilty pleas and […]
Chris Rickert: Jensen then told police that the person who made the original report in October has a stepsister who goes to Thoreau, that the stepsister had seen the photo and told her mother about it, and that the mother had reported the photo’s existence to the school. Madison police and the Madison School District […]
The Economist: It helps that red states have gone back to basics: legislators in state capitals have enacted new rules that require teaching reading via phonics and holding failing schools accountable. Those decisions matter a great deal for classrooms. But America is made up of more than 13,000 school districts, most of which have the […]
Garry Tan: I sometimes wonder about the fervor education bureaucrats have for making standardized testing optional. Then I hear stories like Aleysha’s and know exactly why they do it. Tests reveal the rot. San Francisco paid 6-figures to education school bureaurcrats pushing “Grading for Equity” — homework doesn’t count, unlimited test retakes, lateness and absence don’t affect […]
Jorge Elorza: America is in a decade-long education depression. Barely a third of students are proficient in reading or math across most grades in recent testing, achievement gaps are widening fast, and too many college freshmen are arriving on campus unable to read a full book or do middle-school-level math. Chronic absenteeism has surged after the pandemic; students are disengaged. Educators […]
Brian Fraley: DPI has a transparency problem that is quickly becoming a legal one. After a year of stonewalling our investigation into what we discovered was a taxpayer-funded Waterpark Workshop, the department has yet to release the vendor contract. Conveniently for them, it is the very document they claim restricts their ability to provide more details […]
Brian Fraley: The larger concern is less about election mechanics and more about institutional behavior. For many Wisconsin families and local officials, DPI increasingly appears less like a responsive public agency and more like a distant authority issuing directives from Madison. Frustrations over guidance, priorities, and regulatory tone are no longer rare complaints. They have […]
San Francisco Chronicle: But San Francisco’s strike did not occur in a vacuum. The California Teachers Association, the powerful statewide union representing teachers, has made no secret of the fact that it is coordinating a statewide campaign — dubbed “We Can’t Wait” — to align teacher strikes in more than two dozen districts, from San Francisco to Los […]
Quinton Klabon: 🚨ACT 20 READING UPDATE🚨 A.B.T.: “Ain’t been taught.” 8,897 (!) Madison 4k to 3rd grade students scored lower than 75% of the students in the national comparison group during the 2024-2025 school year. Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average (now > $26,000 per student) K-12 tax & spending practices. This, despite long term, disastrous reading […]
Institute for reforming government: Without following open meetings requirements under Wisconsin law, the secretly adopted test standards could be invalidated. Under state law (Wis. Stat. § 19.97(3)), a court may declare void any action taken at a meeting held in violation of the Open Meetings Law, including DPI’s adoption of new Forward Exam standards. KEY […]
Brian Fraley: The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction has many problems. They’re self righteous, secretive and indignant. Their communications efforts do not offer clarity, they obfuscate. This was on full display in their spokesperson’s response to Dairyland Sentinel’s reporting. The statement was emailed out to many media outlets. Here’s a link to the full statement as […]
Danielle DuClos: The bill would require the department to publish on its website if an educator surrendered their license amid an investigation into misconduct. It would also remove ways to justify denying access to case records under state open records laws and mandate the department fulfill requests for case records within 14 days, if an […]
Eli Stark-Elster: Am I willing to say that Common Core, rather than social media, was the singular force underlying the heightened destruction of youthful minds? No, I’m not. As Tyler Cowen pointed out in a conversation with Haidt, reducing these mood shifts to one cause or another is a bit like reducing a hurricane to the flapping […]
David Phillips The current situation has come about because of the uneasy marriage of two related but ultimately distinct missions: the traditional mission of the university to transmit knowledge and mold character and the mission of the academy to discover, produce, and test that knowledge. The issue isn’t merely that the present arrangement allows ideologues and recalcitrant administrators to […]
Unexpectedly, I was recently prompted to consider 2026 Wisconsin Gubernatorial candidates and education. Herewith are my 2 big goals. Focus: 1. All hands on deck to improve Wisconsin literacy. a. 97,414 4k-3rd grade students scored lower than 75% of the students in the national comparison group. Data via the 2024-2025 Early Literacy Screener (Act 20) […]
Quinton Klabon: In 2024-2025, Wisconsin public schools employed more people than at any other time in state history.1 2 The problem: Wisconsin educated the fewest public-school students since 1991-1992.3 4 With schools set to have the fewest students since the 1950s in just 5 years, budgets are ripping at the seams.5 That fiscal cliff is […]
Jim Bender & Patrick McIlheran: Accused of gutting academic standards, manipulating report cards, slacking on fiscal oversight and bungling oversight of sexual misconduct among teachers, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction is facing a crisis of confidence — and new questions about whether it is capable of handling myriad key functions. Did taxpayer funded Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Underly Juice […]
Kayla Huynh : Nearly 37% of Wisconsin students in 4-year-old kindergarten through third grade scored below the 25th percentile on early literacy assessments last school year, according to the state Department of Instruction. For Milwaukee Public Schools, over half of 4K through third graders – or nearly 12,500 students – tested below the 25th percentile, […]
Dana Goldstein: “We do one book after state testing, and we did ‘The Great Gatsby.’ … A lot of kids had not read a novel in class before.” — Laura Henry, 10th-grade English teacher near Houston “My son in 9th grade listened to the audio of ‘A Raisin in the Sun.’ For ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ […]
Kevin L. Cope, Jens Frankenreiter, Scott Hirst, Eric A. Posner, Daniel Schwarcz and Dane Thorley: In the past few years, large language models (LLMs) have achieved significant technical advances, such that legal-advocacy organizations are increasingly adopting them as complements to — or substitutes for — lawyers and other human experts. Several studies have examined LLMs’ […]
Jonathan Chait: Every once in a while, a state or city discovers a new and better way to educate poor children. Inevitably, a group of skeptics arises to insist that this new way doesn’t work, that even attempting to shrink the gap between rich and poor students is a fool’s errand. Strangely enough, these skeptics tend, […]
Richelle Wilson: Recent test scores show that only about half of Wisconsin students are proficient in reading. Those numbers are even more stark for Native American students. In 2022, only 5 percent of Native third graders in Brown County were reading at grade level. “To find out that 95 percent of our children were struggling — […]
Quinton Klabon: Is the Mississippi Miracle in reading real? Yeah! If anyone ever debunks it, it will not be people who cannot read a ranking chart. “To their credit, when I reached out to the authors about this mistake, they acknowledged it and reached out to get it fixed before publication.” Kelsey Piper: All right, […]
Developed by Barb Novak, PhD Director, Office of Literacy: School and District level data (.xlsx). Act 20 annual reporting. —— Chris Rickert: Nearly 44% of Madison School District 4K through third graders scored below the 25th percentile on an early literacy screener required under a 2023 state law, the state Department of Public Instruction reported Monday, […]
Chris Rickert: Folger explained the delay in getting to Elvehjem and Lindbergh by saying that the process last school year to pick a name for the former Southside Elementary — now Lori Mann Carey Elementary — took longer than expected. “We are now on track to start the process for two schools this year,” he […]
Noah Smith: Rice’s article is very long and has many more details about how and why public education quality has collapsed in America. The basic story is that the education reform movement spearheaded by George W. Bush, which focused on improving test scores, collapsed in the mid-2010s. After that, public schools across the country began […]
Joanne Jacobs summary: The most selective schools — San Jose State, San Diego State, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Cal Poly Pomona, Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach State — are not included. Cal State schools have higher graduation rates than community colleges. But students who wouldn’t apply if they had to fill out an […]
Megan McArdle: UC San Diego report shows students are not prepared for college, especially in math. Progressive educators watered down curriculums, gutted gifted and talented programs, and weakened admissions standards for honors classes and magnet schools. Colleges dropped standardized testing requirements, in part because that made it easier to diversify their student body. None of […]
Garry Trudeau arrives (finally) in 2025…. —— Did taxpayer funded Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Underly Juice Test Scores for Reelection? ——- Only 31% of 4th graders in Wisconsin read at grade level, which is worse than Mississippi. ——- Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average (now > $25,000 per student) K-12 tax & spending practices. This, despite long […]
Quinton Klabon: ——- Poverty explains 50% of Forward Exam scores and 36% of ACT. So, control for poverty, and you can accurately rate and rank schools! best: Wauzeka-Steuben (small), Fond Du Lac (medium), Sheboygan/Janesville (big) ——- large districts’ Forward: Sheboygan: mid 4Janesville: mid 4Elmbrook: high 3Waukesha: mid 3Middleton: mid 3Wausau: mid 3Eau Claire: mid 3Appleton: […]
By Jim Bender & Patrick McIlheran Accused of gutting academic standards, manipulating report cards, slacking on fiscal oversight and bungling oversight of sexual misconduct among teachers, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction is facing a crisis of confidence — and new questions about whether it is capable of handling myriad key functions. The latest blow […]
Bowtied Bull: “Many people die at twenty five and aren’t buried until they are seventy five” – Benjamin Franklin Conceptually, this is still true today. The vast majority of people can’t see beyond one task in front of them. They don’t have a structure of vision of what decades are supposed to look like. They […]
Charles T. Clotfelter, Helen F. Ladd & Jacob L. Vigdor Education researchers and policy makers agree that teachers differ in terms of quality and that quality matters for student achievement. Despite prodigious amounts of research, however, debate still persists about the causal relationship between specific teacher credentials and student achievement. In this paper, we use […]
Erin Gretzinger: Asked by the Cap Times this month about the school district’s progress on fulfilling the requirements, district officials said 703 teachers had enrolled in the training as of the 2025-26 school year. Out of those enrolled, about 524 educators — or 75% — had completed the training. The district said 25 teachers hadn’t […]
Sir John Glubb: Education undergoes the same gradual transformation. No longer do schools aim at producing brave patriots ready to serve their country. Parents and students alike seek the educational qualifications which will command the highest salaries. The Arab moralist, Ghazali (1058-1111), complains in these very same words of the lowering of objectives in the […]
Karen Vaites: Getting rid of public gifted education programs will accelerate the enrollment crisis hitting American public schools When Zohran Mamdani came out in favor of eliminating New York City’s gifted and talented program in the earliest grades, it represented the latest chapter in an ongoing debate about gifted and selective schooling options in our nation’s largest […]
Institute For Reforming Government “DPI’s state report cards say rich districts are worth the property taxes, even when they aren’t, and poor districts meet expectations, even when they don’t. Meanwhile, DPI underrates many of Wisconsin’s best districts,” said Quinton Klabon, Senior Research Director at the Institute for Reforming Government. “Parents should not have to play a guessing […]
Danielle DuClos: After Evers dropped the 2017 rule changes while serving as state superintendent, neither his successor, Carolyn Stanford Taylor, nor the current state superintendent, Jill Underly, promulgated similar measures. Underly says the Department of Public Instruction is now working on two related rules, though. Facing pressure from critics after the Cap Times investigation, Underly […]
Kayla Huynh: The state Legislature’s bipartisan audit committee on Nov. 5 ordered a review into the Department of Public Instruction’s process for removing, suspending or restricting educator licenses. The audit comes as State Superintendent Jill Underly has received criticism for her department’s handling of grooming and sexual misconduct allegations against licensed school staff. The Legislative Audit Bureau will examine the […]
Michael Cuna & Elaine Shen: Despite dramatically expanded access to selective U.S. colleges, first-generation students persistently trail continuing-generation peers in GPA, internship attainment, and early-career outcomes. We identify a key mechanism: the hidden curriculum unwritten strategies like cold-emailing alumni or strategically engaging faculty essential for success yet unknown and costly to discover without guidance. Leveraging […]
Vance Ginn: Note from Adam: There is growing momentum to limit or repeal state and local property taxes, which poses an interesting dilemma for libertarians and fiscal conservatives. Advocates see property taxes as relatively efficient, transparent, and minimally distortionary, while critics argue they fuel government growth, undermine secure property rights, and make housing more expensive. The […]
Danielle DuClos: State legislators called both hearings this week in response to reporting by the Cap Times that uncovered hundreds of sexual misconduct and grooming investigations conducted by the department from 2018 through 2023. In a joint statement, the audit commitee’s co-chairs — Sen. Eric Wimberger, R-Oconto, and Rep. Robert Wittke, R-Caledonia — said Underly and the department “failed […]
Corrinne Hess: Wisconsin State Superintendent Jill Underly announced several changes on Tuesday to strengthen student safety amid criticism of her agency’s handling of accusations of sexual misconduct by educators. Underly also announced DPI would create a new online database to expand DPI’s existing pubic license look-up tool so the public can see teacher licenses that […]
Mark Treinen: I’ve been doing journalism a long time and don’t recall a public official ever demanding a “public correction” of an entire story, and then proposing a bunch of fixes to the exact problems highlighted in the @CapTimes story. Jon Styf: DPI Superintendent Jill Underly appeared in front of the Senate Committee on Education […]
Colleston Morgan, Jr. Good points in the full piece. IMO, there’s a throughline from the Des Moines debacle to @DrJillUnderly’s @WisconsinDPI teacher misconduct mess: an overreliance on broken licensure systems, substituting bureaucratic credentials as a proxy for educator quality & effectiveness. The Des Moines superintendent episode wasn’t an immigration story – it was a story […]
Chad Aldeman: So which schools help students get started on the right path? Last year, we set out to find the school districts that were doing the best job of teaching kids how to read. Now, we are expanding that search to individual schools — and have found 2,158 where third-grade reading scores are much higher than […]
Quinton Klabon: We are near all-time highs in percentage of publicly funded students. And people can object to vouchers if they want. But we have the fewest -number- of publicly funded students since 1995. We can afford it! More. Did taxpayer funded Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Underly Juice Test Scores for Reelection? ——- Only 31% of […]
Maggie Macintosh: Human rights investigators have found that parents of struggling readers across Manitoba are being forced to take on “a full-time job” of advocacy so their children can become literate in local public schools. The Manitoba Human Rights Commission released the long-awaited findings of its probe into literacy 101 education on Thursday — the […]
Office of Literacy, Office of the State Superintendent, Barb Novak: Reporting for Wis. Stat. §§ 115.39(4)(g) Administrators and Educators DPI is required to report (for the 2023 – 24 and 2024 – 25 school years), the number of individuals who completed the mandatory professional development training under 2023 Wisconsin Act 20, section 27 (2), which […]
Karen Vaites: This week, the Massachusetts House passed legislation that would give its department of education – known as DESE – the right to mandate use of state-approved curriculum. A similar bill failed last year, yet Massachusetts outcomes have continued to slide: In October, the Boston Globe proclaimed a “Northern Nosedive” in reading scores, and finally, Massachusetts leaders are willing to touch a […]
Ray Mendez: We devote this blog to Mr. Ray Mendez, parent of a Madison public school student to Superintendent Joe Gothard and the school board: The head-stomping at Madison Westwas not a “fight.” It was a near-fatal attack. Madison Police arrested three teens; two are accused of first-degree reckless injury and battery, and a third faces battery and […]
Gina Raimondo She also added that “a lesson we can learn from China is that they invest in the talent… whereas we don’t have an effective workforce system in this country, we incentivize attendance… we send everyone to college [and] people don’t have skills for jobs. China is incredibly intentional… There is a lot we […]
1636 Forum: “Students know that an ‘A’ can be awarded . . . for anything from outstanding work to reasonably satisfactory work. It’s a farce,” said a faculty member. “We are terrified of the A-,” one student admitted. Another added, “I think the current grading system is working very well.” These are among the many […]