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Danielle DuClos: Jones was appointed to the Branch 1 seat by Gov. Tony Evers last year after Susan Crawford was elected to the state Supreme Court. Prior to his appointment by Evers, he spent almost a decade as an attorney with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction under three state superintendents, including Evers. For about […]
Danielle DuClos: He oversaw the department’s legal strategy and educator misconduct investigations. Jones has also worked in private practice representing school districts and municipalities. ——- Governor Evers appointed Jones to the Dane County Circuit Court in 2025. Happily, we have a competitive election: Huma Ahsan. I’m glad reporter DuClos is covering former DPI lawyer Jones’ activities.
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 […]
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 […]
Danielle Duclos With low reading proficiency scores across the state, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin is exploring the causes and consequences of low literacy. This article is part of the By the Book series, which examines reading curriculum, instructional methods and solutions in K-12 education to answer the questions: Why do so many Wisconsin kids struggle to […]
Nicholas Bagley, Robert Gordon: The left has two competing impulses: Expand high-quality government services and embrace the public sector union agenda. But those two impulses are in tension with one another — and too many Democrats are in denial about that. At its core, the problem is that public sector unions generally fight to minimize […]
Danielle DuClos: “You’ve been in office about four and a half years,” Nass, a Republican from Whitewater, told her during a public hearing last fall. “Without that Cap Times article, I don’t think we’d be here today.” Legislators called the hearing with Underly weeks after the newspaper revealed the Department of Public Instruction investigated more than 200 educators […]
Natalie Eilbert: When Cap Times reporters Erin Gretzinger and DuClos wrote about Eliav Goldman, a Madison teacher recently arrested and charged on two counts of sexual misconduct against a student and grooming a child for sexual activity, we learned he was among the first to be charged under the new anti-grooming laws. But their story also showed disturbing […]
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 […]
Danielle DuClos: Dane County’s drug task force seized a sedan as part of a narcotics investigation, while Madison police seized $7,700 in cash in another case. In neighboring Sun Prairie, officers seized a total of $77,700 cash in two cases that took more than 100 hours of investigation combined. Each seizure last year was made […]
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 […]
Danielle DuClos This time with a focus on school districts wanting thousands of dollars to provide staff investigation records No statewide tracking of sexual misconduct and grooming by teachers exists in Wisconsin, including at the state Department of Public Instruction, which oversees educator licenses. A federal study estimates one in 10 students across the country […]
Danielle DuClos and Kayla Huynh: Most Wisconsin students are poor readers. Each year, about three out of every five typically fail to score proficient in state reading tests. But it’s not just students struggling. Wisconsin’s prospective teachers haven’t fared much better in exams they must pass to become a licensed educator. In the most recent […]
Corrinne Hess: “I think DPI is trying to appease the masses and go with the status quo,” Warner said. “I think they are putting in too many, and putting in poor quality because they are not willing to push the envelope of what they are expecting in schools.” —— More. —— Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin […]