2,346 results
Will Flanders: In Madison, less than 40% of students can read proficiently using the most recent legitimate data. Perhaps it’s not surprising that the union would shut down schools for a day for politics given their history of supporting COVID shutdowns—doing immeasurable harm to a generation SCOOP: The Madison Metropolitan School District (@MMSDschools) in Wisconsin […]
Leo Koerner: IN “Gen Z’s Right Turn” (September-October, page 20), Harvard Republican Club president Leo Koerner ascribes his conversion to a conservative viewpoint to resentment over early attempts to contain COVID-19 through mask mandates, lockdowns, and school closures, despite a lack of certainty over their effectiveness. It is worth recalling the devastating toll that the […]
Karol Markowicz The lives of our children were destroyed by lockdowns — and long lockouts — from school during the pandemic. This policy was largely forced through by Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. But we now know that President Biden and his wife-teacher, Jill Biden, were the ones who overruled their own medical […]
I think this is broadly correct, but there are strong teacher unions across Europe too. They were overruled by a political consensus in favor of kids. The US lacked this consensus. We don’t put kids first. https://t.co/OqW1XfnWa6 pic.twitter.com/H0jn2VFHUl — Anya Kamenetz (@anya1anya) May 12, 2023 Pre-pandemic test score results (blue bubbles) show enormous district-level inequality. […]
Given the academic and social challenges that students face, many local education agencies are planning to use #Covidrelief money to hire more staff members and beef up training, benefits and pay for those already on the payroll. https://t.co/UiT0INSU8N — FutureEd (@FutureEdGU) January 25, 2022 Mandates, closed schools and Dane County Madison Public Health. The data clearly indicate that […]
NEW: The Chicago Teachers Union says its planned vote tonight would see members refuse in-person work until Jan. 18 or until the city’s COVID-19 wave falls below the threshold Chicago Public Schools set last year, whichever happens first. — Nader Issa (@NaderDIssa) January 4, 2022 Maureen Kelleher: If ever there was a moment to ensure […]
Open Record: It’s a FOX6 investigation that sparked change before it even went to air. Thousands of tax dollars poured into a school program — but was it for the kids or a school leader’s relationship? In this episode of Open Record, FOX6 Investigator Amanda St. Hilaire explains how she came upon AVID and the […]
There are no hidden complexities that could possibly explain this misalignment of social priorities. #openschools@GavinNewsom pic.twitter.com/GfPCXWEq8b — Jeanne Noble (@JeanneNoble18) April 3, 2021 Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees). Molly Beck and Madeline Heim: which pushed Dane County this week not […]
The ultimate nightmare scenario for teachers unions isn’t a case like Janus but large numbers of African-American parents rejecting them as legitimate and not viewing them as partners in a shared cause. And this is why the Warren affair is so important. — James Merriman (@JamesMerriman6) November 25, 2019 Item 10.11: $100,000 contract to WestEd […]
Luca Dellana: The fact that (almost) all degrees have the same duration regardless of the complexity of the underlying field is the best evidence that education has been built around the universities’ needs, not the students’.
This week, President Obama called for the hiring of 10,000 new teachers to beef up math and science achievement. Meanwhile, in America, Earth, Sol-System, public school employment has grown 10 times faster than enrollment for 40 years (see chart), while achievement at the end of high school has stagnated in math and declined in science (see other chart).
Either the president is badly misinformed about our education system or he thinks that promising to hire another 10,000 teachers union members is politically advantageous-in which case he would seem to be badly misinformed about the present political climate. Or he lives in an alternate universe in which Kirk and Spock have facial hair and government monopolies are efficient. It’s hard to say.
Related: Madison School District 2010-2011 Budget Update: $5,100,000 Fund Balance Increase since June, 2009; Property Taxes to Increase 9+%, and Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman:
“Beware of legacy practices (most of what we do every day is the maintenance of the status quo), @12:40 minutes into the talk – the very public institutions intended for student learning has become focused instead on adult employment. I say that as an employee. Adult practices and attitudes have become embedded in organizational culture governed by strict regulations and union contracts that dictate most of what occurs inside schools today. Any impetus to change direction or structure is met with swift and stiff resistance. It’s as if we are stuck in a time warp keeping a 19th century school model on life support in an attempt to meet 21st century demands.” Zimman went on to discuss the Wisconsin DPI’s vigorous enforcement of teacher licensing practices and provided some unfortunate math & science teacher examples (including the “impossibility” of meeting the demand for such teachers (about 14 minutes)). He further cited exploding teacher salary, benefit and retiree costs eating instructional dollars (“Similar to GM”; “worry” about the children given this situation).
Thanks much for taking the time from your busy schedule to respond to our letter below. I am delighted to note your serious interest in the topic of how to obtain middle school teachers who are highly qualified to teach mathematics to the MMSD’s students so that all might succeed. We are all in agreement with the District’s laudable goal of having all students complete algebra I/geometry or integrated algebra I/geometry by the end of 10th grade. One essential component necessary for achieving this goal is having teachers who are highly competent to teach 6th- through 8th-grade mathematics to our students so they will be well prepared for high school-level mathematics when they arrive in high school.
The primary point on which we seem to disagree is how best to obtain such highly qualified middle school math teachers. It is my strong belief that the MMSD will never succeed in fully staffing all of our middle schools with excellent math teachers, especially in a timely manner, if the primary mechanism for doing so is to provide additional, voluntary math ed opportunities to the District’s K-8 generalists who are currently teaching mathematics in our middle schools. The District currently has a small number of math-certified middle school teachers. It undoubtedly has some additional K-8 generalists who already are or could readily become terrific middle school math teachers with a couple of hundred hours of additional math ed training. However, I sincerely doubt we could ever train dozens of additional K-8 generalists to the level of content knowledge necessary to be outstanding middle school math teachers so that ALL of our middle school students could be taught mathematics by such teachers.
No Adult Left Behind: How Politics Hijacks Education Policy and Hurts Kids, by Vladimir Kogan (Cambridge University Press, 328 pp., $29.99) In February 2021—the same month the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a school-reopening plan that effectively extended the Covid closures—teachers’ union bosses Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and […]
Neeraja Deshpande He begins with the problematic notion that “schools are ‘community institutions.’” This is a politically convenient concept that allows schools to get away with poor performance and drift from their core mission, making education about everything but academic performance. “Would residents be OK with drinking contaminated water, laced with dysentery and typhoid, in […]
Dana Goldstein: Dana Goldstein traversed Orlando with a team of public school recruiters who were searching for families. A decline in the number of babies being born and a boom in private school vouchers and home-schooling have combined to create an enrollment crisis for public education. The threat is so great that some school districts […]
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 […]
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 […]
William Andrekopoulos Fortunately, I had a mostly strong and supportive board with the courage to pass those recommendations even when there were hostile reactions from the public. These included closing under-enrolled schools, changing school start times for transportation savings, moving to central kitchens, and negotiating benefit changes. There is not enough space here to talk […]
National Literacy Institute: WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004- “Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.” The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a […]
Scott Girard: While the walkout was focused on Assad, as Yang continually reminded the group when conversation drifted to other resources and solutions, it also highlighted a larger concern: many of the students there said they couldn’t trust any other adult in the school. “If you’re not a minority, you wouldn’t understand the impact of […]
Emily Oster: Local governments are relaxing pandemic restrictions at a dizzying pace, removing mask requirements and vaccine entry rules for businesses. Politicians are generally pushing for a return to normalcy. But for one group, change is not forthcoming: children. The removal of mask mandates in schools is likely weeks, if not months, away in some […]
Mike Antonucci: As is plain from the numbers, we spiked in both during the summer of 2020, and everything returned to normal soon after. Not one of the above stories, nor any news report on the issue I have seen, contains any mention that public education employment has the second lowest quit rate of any […]
Wisconsin Supreme Court: For the respondent, there was a brief filed by Remzy D. Bitar, Sadie R. Zurfluh, and Municipal and Litigation Group ̧ Waukesha. There was an oral argument by Remzy D. Bitar. For the petitioners Wisconsin Council of Religious and Independent Schools, et al., there was a reply brief filed by Richard M. […]
Wow! NPR tonight. Teachers justifying why it’s better for schools to be closed. “Kids are resilient. Parents tell me their kids are falling behind but they have to understand they are falling behind in arbitrary developmental goals we’ve set”. ? — Victoria Fox (@drvictoriafox) December 23, 2020 Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public […]
Heather MacDonald: The United States is being torn apart by an idea: that racism defines America. The death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer in late May 2020 catapulted this claim into national prominence; riots and the desecration of national symbols followed. Now, activists and their media allies are marshaling […]
Scott Girard: Madison Teachers Inc. has filed a complaintagainst the Madison Metropolitan School District related to a survey sent out to staff last week. The Prohibited Practice Complaint was filed Monday with the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission and seeks an immediate cease and desist of the survey and asks that the district be made to destroy […]
Logan Wroge: To help students make the transition to a higher-intensity setting, two Madison School District teachers spend time at Goodman South instructing courses with solely STEM Academy students and some with a mix of traditional college and high school students. “We thought it was really important to have high school teachers be part of […]
ABC 7: The Albany Teachers Association is currently in negotiations with its district. Their contract expires in the fall. They feel the real battle though is with the state and plan on addressing school funding with Governor Gavin Newsom. “Because the districts can do what they can do, but the state has a lot more […]
Nate Bowling: That’s an injustice and there’s no way to spin that. There shouldn’t have been a strike. I found the last two weeks mind-numbingly frustrating because it was preventable. If the McCleary Settlement was done with transparency, rather than dead-of-night-last-second deal making, we wouldn’t be here. If a fair contract had been offered from […]
Chris Rickert: Like the rest of the board, both also voted to approve the 304-page employee handbook that replaced union contracts beginning in summer 2016. District legal counsel Dylan Pauly pointed to two board policies that include provisions related to managing conflicts of interest among board members. One says board members should “avoid conflicts of […]
Laura Waters: Plenty, according to members of the “Save Camden High School” cadre, who have rebranded themselves under the New Jersey Communities United banner and are planning a confrontation tonight at the Camden Board of Education meeting. Instead of following Sheriff Wilson’s example of placing children’s academic needs on top, this group has decided a […]
The Harlem-based educator and activist Geoffrey Canada first met the filmmaker Davis Guggenheim in 2008, when Canada was in Los Angeles raising money for the Children’s Defense Fund, which he chairs. Guggenheim told Canada that he was making a documentary about the crisis in America’s schools and implored him to be in it. Canada had heard this pitch before, more times than he could count, from a stream of camera-toting do-gooders whose movies were destined to be seen by audiences smaller than the crowd on a rainy night at a Brooklyn Cyclones game. Canada replied to Guggenheim as he had to all the others: with a smile, a nod, and a distracted “Call my office,” which translated to “Buzz off.”
Then Guggenheim mentioned another film he’d made–An Inconvenient Truth–and Canada snapped to attention. “I had absolutely seen it,” Canada recalls, “and I was stunned because it was so powerful that my wife told me we couldn’t burn incandescent bulbs anymore. She didn’t become a zealot; she just realized that [climate change] was serious and we have to do something.” Canada agreed to be interviewed by Guggenheim, but still had his doubts. “I honestly didn’t think you could make a movie to get people to care about the kids who are most at risk.”
Two years later, Guggenheim’s new film, Waiting for “Superman,” is set to open in New York and Los Angeles on September 24, with a national release soon to follow. It arrives after a triumphal debut at Sundance and months of buzz-building screenings around the country, all designed to foster the impression that Guggenheim has uncorked a kind of sequel: the Inconvenient Truth of education, an eye-opening, debate-defining, socially catalytic cultural artifact.
Related: An increased emphasis on adult employment – Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman’s recent speech to the Madison Rotary Club and growing expenditures on adult to adult “professional development“.
Everyone should see this film; Waiting for Superman. Madison’s new Urban League President, Kaleem Caire hosted a screening of The Lottery last spring. (Thanks to Chan Stroman for correcting me on the movie name!)
Caire is driving the proposed Madison Preparatory Academy International Baccalaureate charter school initiative.
Milwaukee Superintendent Questions Affordability of Half-Empty Schools The head of Milwaukee’s public schools is being blunt with parents: MPS likely cannot afford to keep as many teachers in the district’s half-empty schools. Superintendent Brenda Cassellius told parents at a recent community forum that while students and parents would like a full slate of teachers, counselors, […]
Kristoff: That is why the small organized minority beats the large disorganized majority, almost every time. Not because it is right. Because it shows up. Now look around. The grant-funded NGO, the bureaucracy defending its budget, the activist network with full-time staff, the lobby with an office next to the ministry. Each has a lot […]
“Education Consumers” “too many states have chosen to tell parents their children are on track when they aren’t” say Arne Duncan and Margaret Spellings in a new Ed Week piece linked below. These charts compare the most recent National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) 4th gr reading and math reports with the state testing reports. The discrepancies […]
Erin Gretzinger: Project Read AI has a lesson generator for teachers to develop practice texts based on specific concepts and words their students have learned so far. Another feature allows teachers to input students’ spelling data — often used as a proxy for how well students are decoding — to help identify common mistakes and […]
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction today announced eight schools across the state have been named Wisconsin Blue Ribbon School winners, recognizing them for exceptional academic performance and success in closing achievement gaps. “It is an honor to recognize these exceptional schools,” State Superintendent Dr. Jill Underly said. “This achievement is made possible by the students, educators, staff, families, and leaders who work every […]
Eli Baumwell This commentary was originally published in the West Virginia Watch. The American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia announced a lawsuit last week over the unconstitutional underfunding of public schools. I’m not exaggerating when I say this may be the most important case we have filed in my 10 years with this organization. The promise […]
Nicole Ault States do a disservice to students by emphasizing fuzzy concepts over knowledge. High-school students in New York have for nearly 150 years taken exit exams to graduate. While the Empire State is phasing out these Regents Examinations, it’s phasing in a new standard it calls a “portrait of a graduate.” That’s a list of six qualities […]
Erin Gretzinger: This year’s property taxes for the average Madison home, valued at roughly half a million dollars, increased by 16% or $683. The school district’s proposed 2026-27 budget, which will be finalized later this month, would raise taxes for the average home by 6.4% or $311. In an interview at Madison Teacher Inc.’s office this month, Missureli […]
Will Flanders and Kyle Koenen: Wisconsin schools sit at a crossroads. After a decade of significant education reforms, Wisconsin has lost ground on key measures of student performance. Wisconsin is now one of the worst states in post-pandemic academic recovery and continues to have the largest Black-White achievement gap of any state. Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Department of Public […]
Daniel Willingham: They mostly repeated what they always say about choice, charters, integration, poverty, or whatever. That’s why I was irked. They didn’t have anything new to say because a story is not new evidence which calls for new arguments. A story is a fresh point of discussion. The examples change, but the logic doesn’t. […]
Erin Gretzinger: Regardless of whether new school buildings happen, elementary schools set to be at less than 65% utilization 10 years from now include Stephens, Lapham and Marquette, Jeffrey Erlanger (formerly Lindbergh), Mendota, Lowell and Sandberg. Middle schools set to be at less than 65% utilization in 10 years include Black Hawk, O’Keeffe, Sennett and […]
Elizabeth Wolnik: More taxpayer-supported spending on education doesn’t equal better academic results. That’s the central finding of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty’s September 2026 report, The Wisconsin Education Comeback: A Roadmap for Student Success, released the day before State Superintendent Jill Underly’s State of Education address. WILL documents and lays out what the real […]
Musa al-Gharbi: To recap: the education system in the U.S. has long been defined by a deep cultural contradiction. On the one hand, advocates for mass education hoped to use the classroom to integrate the marginalized and uplift the disadvantaged. On the other hand, their conception of these “others” was bigoted and condescending and elites’ […]
Timothy Shanahan: The latest reading test results should be troubling to all. I’m reacting to the PISA results that were recently issued (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2026). PISA – Programme for International Student Assessment – is the test used to compare nations in academic performance. These reading, math, and science results were from […]
Erin Gretzinger and Olivia Herken: More and more Wisconsin school districts have gone to referendum in recent years, citing financial stress. Local property tax levies — which help fund public schools — have reachedthe highest level in over 30 years. Schools are experiencing staff shortages and budget shortfalls, and school leaders say student achievement is dropping as state funding hasn’t kept up with […]
Rebecca Loroff: More schools are going to referendum as fewer voters indicate they want to support them. According to a Marquette University Law School poll from February, a record number of voters, 60% to 40%, said that lowering property taxes was more important than increasing funding K-12 for education. At the same time, the Wisconsin Policy Forum […]
The Education Gadfly The viral article by Nikole Hannah-Jones— “In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?”—sparked an outpouring of responses from opinion writers far and wide, as did the accompanying This American Life episode. As a public service—and because of the opportunity I believe this moment provides to the school reform movement—I am […]
Lydia Moynihan: As the university system increasingly becomes a wildly expensive bastion of anti-Western sentiment, key figures in Silicon Valley are betting on alternatives to higher education. They argue that even the Ivy League is no longer producing the best candidates — nor are they even accepting some of the most qualified students. “It used […]
Erin Gretzinger Just 44 students opted out of using Chromebooks last school year, according to district records obtained by the Cap Times under the state open records laws. This school year, that number jumped to 249 students — a 466% increase. While the number of students opting out remains a fraction of the district’s more […]
Bruce Baker: [more] My critiques of Marguerite Roza, the Edunomics Lab, and Education Resource Strategies — with receipts. Every quotation is verbatim from the linked post or article.24 The short version I’ve spent an embarrassing share of my career, seventeen years and counting, cleaning up after Marguerite Roza. It has come in two waves. The […]
Bruce Baker: In a new brief (full PDF here), I estimate a stochastic frontier model of district efficiency using the National Education Cost Model: roughly 129,000 district-years for about 8,100 districts in 38 states, 2009–2024. The frontier is the best outcome achievable at a given level of spending relative to cost. Each district’s efficiency is its […]
That’s the amount Illinois school districts want for renovations, additions, fieldhouses, career centers, and “21st-century learning.” The cost to taxpayers of all those proposals over the next 30 years, if passed, will be nearly $4 billion when interest costs are included. There’s more than just debt taxpayers will be on the hook for when it comes […]
David Blaska: If the Brewers can compete why can’t our schools? State school boss Jill Underly in her annual State of Education address last week asked Wisconsin voters to cough up more tax dollars and while we’re at it, stamp out competition to the government school monopoly. Because (the part she didn’t say), public schools can’t […]
Erin Gretzinger: Chuck Moore, executive director of Impact Christian Schools, agreed the voucher cap lifting won’t significantly impact Madison private schools largely due to capacity limits. The nonprofit supports more than two dozen private Christian schools across Wisconsin, including several in Dane County. “I think there’s a very big misunderstanding by people about the cap […]
Robert Pondiscio: I’m going to be impatient and blunt: Nikole Hannah-Jones’s daughter did not fail to learn fractions because she and her classmates were black. Her teacher did not repeatedly fail to show up to work because the school was segregated. Neither did her assignments go ungraded because affluent children attended school elsewhere. The report […]
Noah Smith Giving students good grades when they don’t understand the material is the hallmark of a crappy school. In fact, this epidemic of fake grades is spreading; University of California professors are complaining that their students can’t do middle-school math. This is partly UC’s fault, for dropping standardized tests as an admission criterion, and letting […]
Dave Cieslewicz Here’s a modest idea: what if we took schools off the property tax? I mean entirely. Doing that would address multiple problems while creating one big new one. First, the good news. Here are the problems it would address. High property taxes. Wisconsin has the 10th highest property taxes in the nation and schools […]
Ian Leslie: Following the confrontation in the car, and after much soul-searching, Hannah-Jones decided to let Najya choose which high school to go to. Najya identified the top-performing schools in the area as her preferred options. This meant a heavily white, middle class school, and one with academic selection: the kind of school to which […]
Robert Pondiscio: Roland Fryer observes that “resources alone can’t explain disparate outcomes among schools serving similar children with similar budgets” (“The Education of Nikole Hannah-Jones,” op-ed, Sept. 24). He’s right, but we should follow that insight where it leads. For decades, education debates have focused nearly to exclusion on structures and inputs: funding, segregation, poverty, class […]
Bruce Baker has been sharing “taxpayer funding k-12 adequacy” maps: Interestingly, Madison at > $28,000 per student appears rather “blue”, in the overfunded zone. ————— Money and School Performance: Lessons from the Kansas City Desegregation Experiment The Economist: Schools for the poor are not poor schools: A viral personal essay leaves its political implications unsaid […]
Will Flanders, Cory Brewer, Lauren Greuel, Brooke Smith and Kyle Koenen: Education in Wisconsin stands at a crossroads. Wisconsin has a strong educational foundation, an established system of public schools, and educational options that give families choices beyond their assigned district schools. But Wisconsin should aspire to more. After important reforms in the 2010s, progress […]
Erin Gretzinger Panelists also pointed to the competition Madison schools are facing from other public school districts, charter schools and private schools. ——— Madison’s district, despite an elite university pipeline, hypereducated leadership, and a shiny, new strategic plan, suffers the same frailties as Milwaukee’s: basement performance, backbreaking spending. But while Milwaukee is pulling out of its tailspin […]
Rich Calder, Susan Edelman, Deirdre Bardolf: Failing the New York State teachers’ exam really paid off — especially for a Queens man who learned this month he’s getting a $2 million windfall over it. Roughly 5,200 black and Hispanic ex-Big Apple teachers and once-aspiring educators are expected to collect more than $1.8 billion in judgments […]
Erin Gretzinger In setting a $609 million preliminary plan for this school year’s budget, the Madison school district is counting on lawmakers to fulfill their promise to boost how much the state reimburses school districts for providing special education. ### Note that total spending is far higher: $989,102,432 for 25,003 students or $39,559 per student. June, 2026 […]
Teagan King: If the software flags a student’s reflection as concerning, the school principal and student services team are alerted, and district staff will decide on the appropriate response, Leia Esser, the district’s executive director of student and staff supports, said in an email. Responses can include a teacher check-in, family contact, connection with a […]
Nikole Hannah-Jones A decade ago, I made a decision about my daughter’s education that I hoped would challenge New York City’s separate and unequal school system. Now 16, she thinks I made the wrong choice. My hands tightened on the steering wheel as I worked to keep my face neutral, buying a few moments to […]
Michael Strong Schooling is one function that is almost universally dominated by government managed institutions around the world. The belief that governments should provide “public schools” and that those schools were an “investment in human capital” and that they were “vital” for democratic citizenship are among the most deeply embedded beliefs around the world. Many […]
Dave Cieslewicz: Because they are always written by committees they read like what committees write. They say nothing. And often at great length. Nobody ever looks at a strategic plan after it is finished. Employees hate these exercises because they see them for what they are and managers like them for the same reason. Because […]
Zhang Can: 1. A growing number of doctoral graduates from elite global and domestic universities are bypassing traditional careers in academia to become secondary school teachers in China’s major cities, driven by an oversupplied labor market and fierce competition for university posts. [para. 1] At Shenzhen Middle School, all 21 prospective hires hold master’s degrees or higher, including […]
AJ. Bayatpour No other state funds its K-12 schools the way Wisconsin does, and there’s hope an influx of new faces at the state Capitol in January will lead to a new funding formula. Currently, Wisconsin’s school funding system is a combination of several different aid sources. The base is revenue limits introduced in 1993, […]
Alex Oliveira: Blue states with strong teachers’ unions overwhelmingly have worse student literacy scores than Republican states where educators don’t have as much say over policy, a shocking new analysis found. At least eight of the ten states where students had the worst literacy scores were liberal strongholds with politically powerful teachers’ unions, while just […]
Allysia Finley Between 2018 and 2025, reading performance fell in some three-fourths of countries. U.S. math and reading scores fell by the equivalent of three-quarters of a year of learning and trailed China, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, the U.K., Canada and Australia. “Most troubling is the decline in the very skills that matter most in […]
Barbara Biasi, Chao Fu, and John Stromme: ———- More. My JMP showed that flex pay for teachers ⬆️avg average achievement. But is it good for ALL students? 1/n We show that this is not necessarily the case, that low-achieving students can be left worse off, and illustrate how this trade-off arises and how targeted bonuses can improve both achievement and […]
Will Austin I am not ready to hand over learning to a robot, or a “guide.” Think of your favorite, most impactful teacher right now. I bet you are smiling. Learning is so important, so human, that it requires and is in some way defined by the people you learned with and from. If there […]
Erin Gretzinger: Now, he is working closely with south side families once again as the first associate director of family, youth and community engagement, a new joint position between Centro Hispano and the Madison school district. In Ambriz’s view, his job is to be a “bridge” in communication. Ambriz said he is well positioned to […]
John Burn-Murdoch: There was one problem: even as these visits were taking place, Finnish scores were in a sustained slide. Today, its results are little better than the average country, and many argue its exceptional performance — which peaked around 2000 — owed more to the conventional comprehensive approach it had used in previous decades. Recent results in […]
WBAY news staff: A new report shows Wisconsin property tax levies saw their biggest jump in nearly 20 years. According to the Wisconsin Policy Forum, levies are up 5.8% on the latest bills. The state’s total property value has now topped $1 trillion. Democratic candidate David Crowley said, “I’ve delivered for working Wisconsin families that […]
Quinton Klabon Talk to your typical Wisconsinite and they will tell you Milwaukee is the past, Madison is the future. Milwaukee is shrinking, unsafe and broke, they will argue, while Madison is flush with people, turning out votes, and have you seen all of the new construction? I do not buy it. To keep Wisconsin strong, […]
Rachel Canter For the past year, my phone hasn’t stopped ringing from callers wanting to learn more about how Mississippiimproved its public schools. Frustrated by sagging reading and math scores, educators, advocates and lawmakers across the country are curious about reforms that transformed Mississippi from a national punchline into a leader in reading and math proficiency—policies […]
Wall Street Journal A new report finds a lot of critical theory and not much of the basics. Children learn a great deal about race and gender in schools these days, but not nearly enough about reading and math. A big reason is the colleges that teach the teachers, and a new report forthcoming Wednesday brings more […]
Erin Gretzinger: As students in the Madison school district start the new school year, administrators will continue to limit students’ access to artificial intelligence features on school-issued devices, including Chromebooks. AI applications like Chat GPT and Google’s Gemini tool are blocked or disabled on students’ computers this year, district spokesperson Edell Fiedler said in a […]
OECD: More than 760 000 students took the PISA science, mathematics and reading test in 2025 across 91 countries and economies, representing around 33 million 15-year-olds across the world. The highest performers in PISA 2025 across these three domains were the Chinese jurisdictions of Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and Singapore. Additionally, Estonia, Japan, Korea, Macao (China), […]
Ed West I’m not the only parent who feels increasingly anxious about their children’s media diet. For teenage boys in particular, entertainment often comes in the form of YouTube, which for any adult briefly glancing at the screen seems to feature an array of thumbnailed gawping imbeciles, besides an invitation to watch the latest work […]
Isabel Lohman, Lori Higgins, Chalkbeat Detroit: Michigan third grade reading scores continued to slide in the state’s most recent standardized tests this year, even as schools begin to implement reading reforms.Just 38.2% of third grade students in Michigan are proficient in English Language Arts, down from 38.9% the previous year, according to results released Friday from […]
by Doug Lemov Key Points Introduction The importance of fluent reading is routinely underestimated, especially as it applies to middle and high school students. Far from a mere primary-grade issue, fluency is a prerequisite to reading comprehension at every level. Dysfluency is a hidden crisis in American schools, and the decline in recreational reading among children […]
Daniel Buck: For the last decade, academic scores in Wisconsin have been in steady decline. Seeing as our state’s civic, economic and cultural health depends on a well-educated population and the majority of students attend public schools, it is imperative that policymakers reverse this trend. This report recommends three broad avenues for lawmakers to consider, […]
Cicero Institute: $7.7 BILLION — that’s how much compensation grew at America’s homeless NGOs from 2013 to 2024, while homelessness rose to a record 771,480. Advocates argue that ending homelessness requires more federal funding, citing rising rents and a workforce they characterize as “woefully underpaid.”1The National Alliance to End Homelessness’s 2023 report “New Estimates Suggest […]
David Blaska: Surprise surprise, as Gomer Pyle would say. The Behavior Education Plan (BEP) STILL isn’t working! Its failure is so obvious that even the Madison school board can’t ignore it. When superintendent Joe Gothard, in his second year on the job, says he hears “a lot of staff feedback about the BEP” you can […]
Kaleem Caire’s FB post (screenshot): Today, we will welcome back more than 400 children to One City Schools. Nearly 85,000 children will walk through the doors of traditional public, public charter, and private K-12 schools in Dane County, Wisconsin, and another 17,500 will attend child care programs. That’s more than 100,000 children being taught and […]
Erin Gretzinger: In addition to creating Ambriz’s joint role, the agreement expanded Centro’s youth programming into Lincoln and Leopold elementary schools on the south side. While Centro has worked with the district for many years to provide programming to middle and high school students, Menéndez Coller said the elementary school level had been a missing link. Norma […]
Taxpayer Funded Madison K-12 System: Performance Objectives Academic Achievement MMSD will increase overall student academic achievement Belonging MMSD will increase the percentage of students who feel they belong in their school, as measured by the climate survey. College Credit/Credentials MMSD will increase the percentage of students who graduate with credits or credentials that provide postsecondary […]
Jeffrey Tucker: At an antique store over the weekend, I was startled to pick up a 1927 edition of the Hardy Boys to find it was written in higher English than one normally encounters for adults now. This was for 8-12 year olds! A century ago. ——— 2025-2026 Madison 4k-3rd grade Early Literacy Screener report: The […]
Corri Hess: When students return to Wisconsin schools over the next few weeks, their cell phone use will be limited. Phones have been prohibited during class time since July 1. But some parents say the new law doesn’t go far enough — they would like to see all screen use limited in classrooms. “Our concerns are […]
Natasha Singer Publicly, Randi Weingarten, the A.F.T. president, was bullish. In an interview at the time, she said the partnership would help educators learn to use chatbots “safely, wisely and ethically,” while also getting them a seat at the table with behemoths like Microsoft and OpenAI as they developed and refined their A.I. products. I […]
Ivana Greco In July, Angie Sullivan, co-host of the popular podcast, I’ve Had It, decided to tell her audience she’d had enough of homeschooling. Per Sullivan: “I think it’s just f***ing weird…that you want your kids around you all day, every day and all night.” She went on to say: “I don’t trust somebody that wants to […]
The taxpayer funded Madison School Board Special Meeting: School Board Memo: One City Schools, Inc. submitted two Initial Applications on August 14, 2026, requesting conversion of its existing charter schools from authorizer status under the University of Wisconsin Office of Educational Opportunity (OEO) to instrumentality charter schools under MMSD. On Wednesday, the Board of Education […]
Erin Gretzinger: However, the district’s long-entrenched challenges continue to loom large over Gothard’s legacy. Despite the city’s growth, the school district’s enrollment has steadily fallen from its peak about a decade ago and could further squeeze the district’s budget if the slide continues. Gaps in academic achievement between white students and students of color have daunted the district […]
Colby Decker: “We need to activate, in Wisconsin, sixty thousand classroom teachers” — Tony Evers First literacy was treated as optional for some kids.Then he moved to “activate” the entire teaching force. What does Evers mean?What type of activism if not literacy? ——- 2025-2026 Madison 4k-3rd grade Early Literacy Screener report: The bar moves faster than […]
Dana Goldstein After years of studying how human beings write, the cognitive psychologist Ronald T. Kellogg concluded that drafting a basic persuasive essay was as mentally taxing as digging a ditch was physically exhausting. Writing well requires a command of vocabulary, spelling and grammar. It forces writers to comprehend a subject, to sift through their […]
