Scott Girard:

Logan Wroge:

Fall 2020 Administration Referendum slides. (

(Note: “Madison spends just 1% of its budget on maintenance while Milwaukee, with far more students, spends 2%” – Madison’s CFO at a fall 2019 referendum presentation.)

MMSD Budget Facts: from 2014-15 to 2020-21 [July, 2020]

Property taxes up 37% from 2012 – 2021.

– via a kind reader (July 9, 2020 update).

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 Results

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration

Kelly Meyerhofer:

The district said total compensation has exceeded the rate of inflation for the last seven years — something it said has helped recruit and retain the best and brightest teachers.

But the board directed officials to pause a proposed 1% increase to base wages and freeze part of a salary schedule that rewards staff the longer they work in the district.

Those raises could eventually be incorporated back into the district’s budget approved in the fall, depending on how the state budget shakes out.

Mirilli said she thinks Gov. Tony Evers will prioritize education in his budget given that he is a former educator. She was optimistic that the raises could be added back in, but said the board needs to be cautious because there’s so much uncertainty.

“This is not our final decision around this,” Mirilli said. “This is a placeholder based on what we know currently.”

Board members Carusi and Nicki Vander Meulen both voted against the preliminary budget. Carusi said she thinks the district’s financial situation “won’t be as dire” as predicted. Vander Meulen said she could not support taking away any money from teachers, even on a preliminary basis.

Recent Madison School District tax & spending history:

1. 4K-12 enrollment: -1.6% (decrease) from 2014-15 to projected 2020-21

2. Total district staffing FTE: -2.9% (decrease) from 2014-15 to proposed 2020-21

3. Total expenditures (excluding construction fund): +17.0% (increase) from 2014-15 to proposed 2020-21

4. Total expenditures per pupil: +19.0% (increase) from 2014-15 to proposed 2020-21

5. CPI change: +10.0% (increase) from January 2014 to January 2020

6. Bond rating (Moody’s): two downgrades (from Aaa to Aa2) from 2014 to 2020.

Logan Wroge:

Board members acknowledged the tough financial reality facing residents, but several members said the need to renovate aging school buildings and shore up the operating budget remains the same.

“These are not things I think we should be putting off,” board member Ali Muldrow said during an online Operations Work Group meeting. “We are talking about the integrity of our district.”

In these challenging times, our local businesses need your support. Find out how to get food, goods, services and more from those remaining open.

Board President Gloria Reyes, though, said while she supports the referendums, the board needs to be “cautious,” given how many people have lost their jobs or are on unsure financial ground.

The School Board sought in March to finalize the referendum questions, but the vote was scrapped as the public health situation worsened.

The majority of the $317 million facilities referendum — $280 million — would go toward renovating, repairing and adding onto the district’s four main high schools, each getting $70 million.

Notes, links and commentary on Madison’s planned 2020 tax and spending increase referendum plans.

David Blaska:

Cieslewicz gets the resentment felt by the Safer at Home protesters. 

• Wisconsin’s unemployment rate is estimated to be 27% due to closures and social distancing orders aimed at slowing the spread of the new coronavirus.

• National GDP dropped 4.8% in the first quarter, which only caught the first weeks of the national shutdown.

• “One in three Wisconsin small businesses may never reopentheir doors,” Cieslewicz writes. Yet … yet … yet

Meet Two Small Business Owners Fighting to Open Wisconsin

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

In addition, Madison recently expanded its least diverse schools.

Madison K-12 Spending up 19% from 2014-2020

Scott Girard:

While campaign season looks slightly different in a social distancing world, the Madison School Board races have continued this spring.

The ballot for the April 7 election includes two contested races and one uncontested seat. The five candidates participated in a virtual forum hosted by Simpson Street Free Press earlier this week.

Much more on the 2020 Madison School Board Elections, here.

Scott Girard:

“People win elections by hitting pavement, just historically. That was one of my biggest things, before the pandemic,” she said. “I wanted to gain the knowledge, or get more insight and talk to more people regarding my platform so that if I win the election that I kind of have that knowledge already.”

Like Pearson, Strong said he was adding some personalized letters about his platform to his plans along with more mailers.

“We knew eventually, once we saw other states putting in the stay-at-home placements, that was going to definitely impact us at some point,” Strong said. “It’s going to be a very close race, I believe it’s going to be very hard-fought. So I’m just trying to garner as much support from the community as I can.”

Vander Meulen said as a “semi-tech person,” the transition to focusing there hasn’t been too hard. What she misses, though, is connecting with voters on the campaign trail.

“People need human connection,” she said.

Notes and links on the 2020 Madison School Board election, here.

Scott Girard:

“Teachers are ready to do this work, but for whatever reason there’s a barrier set up in front of them,” Ball said. “A goal is to have no gap. I know we can do it in this community.”

School Board candidate Ball wants to ‘get out of the way of people doing their work’ to help close opportunity gap

Gomez Schmidt, the director of enrichment at test prep and college admissions tutoring service Galin Education, is a Minneapolis native with two school-age children — one at Memorial High School, another in seventh-grade at EAGLE School in Fitchburg — and a third that graduated from Memorial. She stressed the importance of the district’s work toward adopting a new literacy curriculum, expected to be rolled out in fall 2021, as a tool to help close the gap and develop children’s reading skills early.

“We have to go back to the basics and we have to find a curriculum that teaches explicit phonics and teaches kids what they have to know to read,” Gomez Schmidt said.

Pearson, a revenue agent with the state Department of Revenue, has three children in Madison schools, all at Lincoln. She pointed to herself Monday as an example of what Black Excellence can look like in Madison, as someone whose family has been here for three generations, despite the ongoing disparities.

Notes and links on the 2020 Madison School Board Candidates.

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

In addition, Madison recently expanded its least diverse schools.

I’ve posted a candidate summary, here.

Logan Wroge:

Three candidates for an open Madison School Board seat aligned on several issues facing the school district while offering their own solutions to other topics during a forum Tuesday.

The trio seeking the board’s Seat 6 — Karen Ball, Christina Gomez Schmidt and Maia Pearson — spoke of rebuilding trust between the community and the Madison School District, identified areas they would cut in a funding shortage, and made their pitches before the Feb. 18 primary.

Ball, director of academic success at Edgewood College, said she wants to ensure an effective transition for the new superintendent and prepare the community for two potential referendums this fall.

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

In addition, Madison recently expanded its least diverse schools.

Meanwhile, Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 district continues to plan for a substantial tax & spending increase referendum this fall.

Scott Girard:

During a board retreat Saturday to discuss strategies for both a capital and an operating referendum in April, board members generally agreed they wanted to vote in March — before board member Kate Toews’ term is over and a new board member takes her place.

Toews is not running for re-election to Seat 6 in April, and some board members said it could be a complex topic for a new board member to walk into. Board president Gloria Reyes also said she wants the outreach and communication process to begin as soon as possible.

“I do strongly believe that if we’re going to start a process and strategy we should all have voted,” Reyes said.

Public input on the projects, presented Monday night during an Operations Work Group meeting, shows overall support for both, though there are some concerns about how the operating funds would be used.

Board members and district staff have been working with a plan for a $315 million capital referendum to renovate the four high schools, build a new school in the Rimrock Road neighborhood and relocate the alternative Capital High School to the Hoyt building. The same ballot could ask voters for up to $36 million in operating funds over four years. That would allow the district to exceed state revenue caps by $8 million in 2020-21 and 2021-22 and $10 million in 2022-23 and 2023-24, though some board members asked to go lower than that at least for the first school year.

That complicates this summer’s budget process, as the board will have to approve two budgets — one for if the operating referendum passes and one in case it fails — but it also presents an opportunity for the board to show voters its priorities and the cost to the district if it fails, board members said.

Much more on the planned 2020 tax and spending increase Madison referendum.

A presenter [org chart] further mentioned that Madison spends about $1 per square foot in annual budget maintenance while Milwaukee is about $2.

Despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 school districts, Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

2013; 2019 Jennifer Cheatham and the Madison experience.

Scott Girard:

When he initially filed papers to run, Strong said he considers school safety and racial disparities in discipline and achievement to be the top issues facing MMSD.

“We have to make sure that our schools are safe and that they’re safe learning environments for our kids to learn and for our teachers to teach in,” Wayne Strong said. He stressed the importance of “tackling the achievement gap and just making sure that all of our students are given the best possible opportunity to get the quality education they deserve.”

The end of his campaign leaves Seat 6 as the only contested election, with three candidates running. Incumbent Kate Toews is not running for re-election, leaving newcomers Maia Pearson, Christina Gomez Schmidt and Karen Ball set for a Feb. 18 primary election. The top two vote-getters will move onto the April general election.

Curiously, this has occurred several times in recent years: Ed Hughes, after 3 unopposed campaigns withdrew from a competitive 2017 campaign after the primary!

2016 commentary.

Similarly, Sarah Manski withdrew after the 2013 primary…

Mr Hughes name resurfaces occasionally, lobbying against parent and school choice in the form of the 2019 Arbor school charter proposal and in the taxpayer supported Madison school administration’s 2020 spending increase referendum slides.

Finally, despite spending far more than most K-12 school districts, and tolerating long term, disastrous reading results, Mr. Hughes voted against the proposed Madison Preparatory Academy IB charter school (2011).

Scott Girard:

For the past seven months, Strong has been a program associate with the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. Strong said in an interview Thursday he considers school safety and racial disparities in discipline and achievement to be the top issues facing MMSD.

“We have to make sure that our schools are safe and that they’re safe learning environments for our kids to learn and for our teachers to teach in,” Strong said. He stressed the importance of “tackling the achievement gap and just making sure that all of our students are given the best possible opportunity to get the quality education they deserve.”

He said he dislikes having to choose a seat to run for in Madison’s at-large system, but determined Seat 7 was the “most comfortable” for him at this time. As someone who had children go through Madison schools and will have grandchildren in them in the future, Strong said he thinks he can provide leadership on the board and that he has a “passion for education.”

Vander Meulen said Thursday she was “glad to have a challenger” so that voters can make a choice based on what they value. She said the board’s three jobs are to make a budget, listen to constituents and write policies — and that they need to do more on the last of those.

“I’m choosing to run again because I want to continue to be a voice for the voiceless,” Vander Meulen said, citing the achievement gap and graduation rate for students with disabilities. “Things aren’t changing and they need to and the only way that happens is by speaking up and advocating.”

Notes and links on the 2020 Madison School Board Election.

This, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts and tolerating long term, disastrous reading results.

Scott Girard:

The Madison School Board seat left open by incumbent Kate Toews choosing not to run for re-election has a candidate.

Maia Pearson, a Madison native who has three children in Madison schools, will run for Seat 6. She filed her declaration of candidacy and campaign registration statement with the city clerk Monday and announced her campaign with state Rep. Shelia Stubbs, who is also a Dane County Board supervisor.

Pearson said at her announcement that she “really, truly cares about our children,” according to a video shared on Facebook by School Board member Ananda Mirilli.

In her application to the board in July, Pearson wrote that the district “faces critical issues in safeguarding our children, especially children of color, the invalidation of parents of color, and the ineffective training of the adults working directly and indirectly with students”

“There must be improved teacher training to ensure that teachers meet the needs of a multicultural student body and work effectively with parents of diverse cultures and races,” she wrote. “These and other proactive approaches are crucial to ensuring that students of color and different backgrounds feel safe and secure at Madison schools and that parents of color are validated and their concerns for their children’s safety heard, respected, and acted upon. It goes without question, after all, that feeling safe at school is a prerequisite to performing well and that we want all of our students to achieve to the full extent of their abilities.”

Stubbs offered her endorsement during Monday’s announcement.

“Maia is a young lady who is going to be a change leader,” Stubbs said.

Madison taxpayers spend far more than most K-12 school districts. Yet, we have long tolerated disastrousreading results.

Madison K-12 administrators are planning a substantial tax & spending increase referendum for 2020.

Commentary

Madison School District projects loss of 1,100 students over next five years, yet 2020 referendum planning continues.

Madison School Board approves purchase of $4 million building for special ed programs

2013: What will be different, this time? 2019: Jennifer Cheatham and the Madison Experience

Abbey Machtig:

Madison developed the community schools program in 2015 and Kennedy will be the eighth school with that designation. 

Starting next school year, Kennedy will be granted a community school resource coordinator and a family liaison who will work full-time from the school.

Kennedy also is adding several other new staff members, including another school social worker, a behavior specialist and a handful of new classroom teachers to help decrease class sizes.

“The idea is that all children and families benefit from the community school model by being able to access resources, opportunities and support to advance their learning and healthy development,” Community School Manager Sarita Foster said. “So, community schools address barriers that limit opportunities for students and families.”

But parents and teachers who have been advocating for more help and have witnessed Kennedy’s struggles for years, say the district’s support hasn’t come fast enough. 

——

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

David Blaska:

Those days dwindled in Dane County a good 30 years ago. In tandem with the teachers union and unionized labor, the Dane County Democrat(ic) Party has been muscling into office progressive candidates who, among other achievements, defunded school resource police officers and dumbed down honors classes.

In the last contested Madison school board election, the Democrat(ic) Party endorsed one Blair Mosner Feltham, who proclaimed “Our schools are products of white supremacy.” The Wisconsin State Journal also endorsed the Woke candidate, even after one of its education beat reporters proclaimed that critical race theory “isn’t taught in any of Wisconsin’s K-12 schools.” Yet, District officials acknowledgethat the NY Times’ 1619 Project is taught in Madison classrooms.

Endorsing Ms. MF over a working immigrant father, The State Journalquoted a UW-Oshkosh professorwho maintained that Issues like Covid lockdowns, critical race theory, and classroom chaos are “pretty disconnected from the reality of being a school board member.” Maybe that was the problem. 

→ Inconvenient headline: “Democrats spend [$230,000] on Wisconsin school board races, overtaking Republicans” (Read & Weep!)

——

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

WiSJ:

But the odd way Madison elects its School Board is a significant factor that needs fixing. State law requires candidates in cities with populations between 150,000 and 500,000 — meaning only Madison — to run citywide in seven numbered seats for three-year terms.

So every spring, candidates must choose which of two or three seats they will seek. For competitive reasons, new candidates tend to run for seats that incumbents don’t already hold. That lets incumbents avoid scrutiny.

It also can deny voters choices. For example, an incumbent ran unopposed for Seat 7 last spring, while two new candidates ran for Seat 6. But what if a voter preferred the two newbies over the incumbent? Voters can’t select those two on their ballots. 

In theory, a candidate with fewer votes could even win election. 

A better system would pit all candidates for Madison School Board in the same pool, with the top vote-getters earning however many seats are available. That’s how most school boards across Wisconsin conduct their elections. Or they assign seats to geographic areas.

——

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Simpson Street Free Press:

Local Journalists Interview School Board Candidates

Simpson Street Free Press hosts Q&A session for Madison school board candidates. Questions are posed by local education reporters. You can watch the video here:

Our panel of journalists — Abbey Machtig (Wisconsin State Journal), Kayla Huynh (Cap Times), Abigail Leavins (Isthmus), Sandy Flores Ruiz (Simpson Street Free Press), and Scott Girard (former Cap Times ed-beat reporter).

The candidates are Savion Castro (seat 2 incumbent, unopposed), and Maia Pearson (seat 1 incumbent, unopposed).

The moderators are Taylor Kilgore and Leila Fletcher from Simpson Street Free Press.

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

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 read, and what can be done about it? 

To read other stories in the series, click here.

Wisconsin’s Joint Committee on Finance approved Monday a list of four reading curricula schools can adopt to be in compliance with the state’s new reading law, Act 20. The curricula approved are those recommended by the state’s Early Literacy Curriculum Council, a nine-member council created to specifically evaluate K-3 reading curriculums for their compliance with Act 20.

The four curricula approved are:

• Core Knowledge Language Arts K-3
• Our EL Education Language Arts
• Wit and Wisdom with Pk-3 Reading Curriculum
• Bookworms Reading and Writing K-3

Act 20, signed into law last summer, requires curriculum to be backed by the “science of reading”: a decades-old body of research that explains how the brain learns to read. It includes an emphasis on phonics, which teaches students the sounds letters make and how those sounds combine in predictable patterns to form words.

The law’s changes are aimed at improving reading proficiency in the state, which has been low for years. Fewer than half of students at the state’s five largest school districts are considered proficient in reading, according to state exam scores since 2018.

Part of the law’s revamping of reading instruction requires schools to use specific instructional methods that are systemic and explicit by next school year. This instruction must include fluency, phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, phonics, oral language development, vocabulary, writing, comprehension and building background knowledge.

Earlier: Legislation and Literacy: Wisconsin Early Reading Curriculum Selection

——

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Gary Robertson:

While the state superintendent is head of the Department of Public Instruction, statewide school policy is left to the State Board of Education, for which the governor makes the most appointments.

Truitt, whose committee outspent Morrow, was Gov. Pat McCrory’s education adviser and chancellor of Western Governors University in North Carolina.

While the election “did not go the way I had hoped, I’m deeply proud of what we accomplished and I am gratified by the support of educators, parents, school and legislative leaders and so many others from across the state,” Truitt wrote on Facebook on Wednesday. Her term ends at the end of the year. 

Morrow participated in the march on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to protest Joe Biden as the 2020 presidential winner, but she said she left the area when ordered by authorities and didn’t enter the building, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported.

Dave Cieslewicz:

A few weeks ago I wrote about a study that showed that Madison public schools are underperforming both state and national averages for math scores. And while everyone is bouncing back a bit after COVID, Madison students’ improvement has severely lagged.

Now comes a Wisconsin State Journal report on absenteeism. It’s bad everywhere but again worse in Madison. The three charts below, from the State Journal story written by reporter Chris Rickert, compare Madison to Middleton and Sun Prairie.

——

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

David Wahlberg:

The Monona Grove School Board candidate forum will be from 1 to 2:30 p.m. Four candidates are running for three three-year terms. They are incumbents Eric Hartz and Philip Haven, and challengers Katie Moureau and Janice Stone.

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

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 Experience 2004-

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

David Blaska:

Someone tell the Madison public schools we need more global warming, not less. The school district is planning to hit up taxpayers for $1 billion — one Billion with a capital B dollars — in referenda over the next 20 years to go carbon neutral. 

MMSD can’t teach or keep young Javon safe but it’s going to replace that Swedish girl’s perpetual scowl with a Mona Lisa smile.

Blaska’s Bottom Line:What local government needs is an independent budgetary watchdog — something like the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance. (Where are the Frautschis and the Evjue Foundation when you really need them?) Meanwhile, the Republican state legislature is once again trying to give us a break on our income taxes — Gov. Evers having once before vetoed.

——

Explore Madison taxpayer’s k-12 $pending, now at least $23k per student.

——

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Chris Rickert:

Math achievement did not necessarily line up with per-pupil spending in Dane County and Wisconsin’s largest districts. Madison spent the most, for example, of the 10 county districts included in the analysis, or $18,896 per pupil in the 2021-22 school year, according to data from the state Department of Public Instruction. Among the state’s largest districts, it was second only to Milwaukee, which spent the most per student, or $19,164, in 2021-22, and had the lowest math scores.

Schools nationwide closed to in-person learning on the recommendation of federal health officials in March 2020 and in some cases, such as in Madison, didn’t fully reopen until the 2021-22 school year — a year and a half later. Public health researchers have long known that the old and the sick were most at risk of dying or developing serious illness from COVID-19, and research as early as the fall of 2020 indicated that in-person schooling did not create an elevated risk of getting COVID for students or employees.

While it’s not known to what degree closing schools curbed the spread of the disease, an October 2022 analysis by the joint Madison-Dane County public health agency of COVID hospitalizations and deaths linked to in-person schooling in Dane County showed there had been no deaths and eight hospitalizations among school populations — six of students and two of teachers.

One school-age person in Dane County, a 16-year-old boy, died of COVID-19, on Nov. 25, 2020.

——

$pending is always a challenge, given the moving numbers.

Mr. Rickert mentions current school year spending of $591,000,000 for 25,581 students or $23,103 per student.

——-

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Gavin Escott:

The search is underway for a new dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education after Diana Hess stepped down as the head of one of the nation’s highest-ranked education schools. 

Hess, who served as the dean of the School of Education since 2015, announced in October she would be leaving her leadership position and returning to a faculty role in summer of 2024. During her tenure, Hess oversaw new programs to support students and solidified the education school’s status as No. 3 in the nation, according to U.S. News.

——-

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Kayla Huynh:

The Madison Metropolitan School District has named two former education administrators and one current administrator as finalists to be the next superintendent.

Two of the finalists left their former jobs after facing criticism for their performance.

The finalists are Mohammed Choudhury, the former state superintendent of schools at the Maryland Department of Education; Joe Gothard, a Madison native who is superintendent of Saint Paul Public Schools in Minnesota; and Yvonne Stokes, the former superintendent at Hamilton Southeastern Schools in Indiana. 

The Madison School Board began interviews with candidates in closed meetings last month and selected the three candidates from nearly 60 applicants, according to district officials.

——

David Blaska:

——-

Dave Cieslewicz:

There’s some process left, with three or four sets of interviews ahead, and the board isn’t expected to make a decision until the end of February. At least on paper, Gothard is clearly the strongest candidate while Choudhury seems like a guy you’d want to stay away from. But I would give the edge to Stokes. I’m not sure this board will be able to resist the chance to hire the first Black woman superintendent.

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Kayla Huynh:

The Madison Metropolitan School District has named two former education administrators and one current administrator as finalists to be the next superintendent.

Two of the finalists left their former jobs after facing criticism for their performance.

The finalists are Mohammed Choudhury, the former state superintendent of schools at the Maryland Department of Education; Joe Gothard, a Madison native who is superintendent of Saint Paul Public Schools in Minnesota; and Yvonne Stokes, the former superintendent at Hamilton Southeastern Schools in Indiana. 

The Madison School Board began interviews with candidates in closed meetings last month and selected the three candidates from nearly 60 applicants, according to district officials. 

The finalists will participate in a final round of in-person interviews next week with the board as well as over 100 nominated community members and staff who were selected through a lottery process. 

On Feb. 6, two of the interviews will be recorded and live-streamed online, including one interview with a student panel from noon to 1:30 p.m. and another with parents and caregivers from 6:30 p.m. to 8:55 p.m. 

The board expects to select MMSD’s next leader in late February, replacing former Superintendent Carlton Jenkins, who retired last summer after three years at the helm. Formerly retired educator Lisa Kvistad is serving as interim superintendent for the current school year.

——-

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

WILL:

WILL Client, Kristi Koschkee, stated, “Act 10 is pro-taxpayer and pro-freedom. This legislation provides public employees like me the freedom to not participate in unionization, or be compelled to finance or support political speech I do not agree with. It’s critical that we stand up for this law and not undo the years of positive results produced for Wisconsin.”

Our Client: WILL Client and Defendant, Kristi Koschkee, faces significant harm if Act 10 were to be somehow repealed or scaled back. Ms. Koschkee is a public-school district employee who values the benefits the Legislature provided her via Act 10.

Koschkee does not want her local union interfering with her relationship with her employer by bargaining on subjects beyond those permitted by Act 10 or entering agreements that last longer than a year. She supports requiring unions to rectify annually, does not want to have her decision to abstain from a union certification vote work in the union’s favor, and does not want to be pressured into participating in recertification elections. Ms. Koschkee also opposes allowing unions to access employee wages directly through payroll deductions.

——

Notes and links on Act 10.

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

——

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Will Flanders:

It’s an unfortunate reality that demographic factors historically play a large role in student performance; any honest assessment of how schools and school sectors are performing must take those factors into account. Much of the reporting on school performance, though, ignores this reality. This report endeavors to incorporate these factors through rigorous statistical modeling that controls for, and assesses the impact of, several student characteristics. This report has been updated to include data from the 2022-23 report cards.

Among the key findings:

• Students in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program continue to outperform their public school peers. Proficiency rates in private choice schools were about 8.6% higher in English/Language Arts (ELA) and 7.0% higher in math on average than proficiency rates in traditional public schools in Milwaukee.
• Charter school students in Milwaukee continue to outperform their public school peers. District charters saw 6.9% and 6.6% higher proficiency in ELA and math respectively than traditional public schools.
• Statewide, choice students outperform their public school peers in ELA. Proficiency rates were about 5.4% higher in ELA for students participating in school choice statewide than traditional public school students. No difference was found in math performance.
• Wisconsin continues to struggle with its achievement gaps. Statewide, a school with 100% low-income students would be expected to have proficiency rates 40.6% lower in ELA and 44.0% lower in math compared to a hypothetical school with zero low-income students. For African American students, that gap is 17.8% in ELA and 20.3% in math. Hispanic students have an achievement gap of approximately 6.3% in math, but no significant gap was found in ELA.
• Choice and charter schools are more efficient with taxpayer money. Once the demographics of students in the schools are taken into account, choice and charter schools earn more proficiency per $1,000 of spending than traditional public schools in both Milwaukee and the state as a whole.
• Choice schools offer more value added. 12 of the top 20 schools in the state where student performance exceeds expectations based on demographics are in the state’s choice programs.
• Rural schools perform worse than schools in any other type of geography. On average, proficiency in Wisconsin’s rural schools is significantly lower in both ELA and math than urban, suburban, or town schools.

Commentary.

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Abbey Machtig:

The pandemic significantly affected the projects.

Not only did it exacerbate inflation and supply chain delays, but it also altered the scope of work by bringing new needs to attention — such as improving HVAC systems and ventilation and getting rid of environmental hazards such as asbestos in the old school buildings.

These expenses meant the district had to scrounge up $28 million beyond the $317 million voters authorized in the 2020 referendum, bringing total spending to $345 million.

High inflation accounted for $11 million of that, additional electrical and mechanical work accounted for $9 million, and environmental work accounted for another $8 million, according to school board materials.

Some of those extra dollars came from the district’s general education fund and from money the district saved from staff vacancies and reduced energy usage in buildings during the pandemic. Fundraising gave the district extra money to work with as well.

——

Madison school district spending over the decades, now at least $25k/student.

——

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Naomi Martin and Mandy McLaren

At school, she panics if she has to read aloud. She’s a conscientious student and keeps her grades up, but it isn’t easy; at times she has such trouble synthesizing the novels she reads in English class, she Googles plot summaries to remind herself of what happened. Even in math, word problems are thickets.

Madison von Mering, a driven 16-year-old who loves field hockey and sailing, is not a strong reader. As a young child, she was never correctly taught how to sound out unfamiliar words.

More.

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Kayla Huynh:

The 2024 Madison School Board election cycle will include both incumbents running for re-election unchallenged.

Candidates for the board began circulating nomination papers and gathering the required signatures in December. Incumbents Maia Pearson and Savion Castro were the only two to submit those papers by the Jan. 2 deadline, according to Ian Folger, spokesman for the Madison Metropolitan School District.

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

James Lister:

The Madison School Board needs to take a hard look at the lessons of the last 10 years. The general functioning and the overall management of the school district have been poor and unprofessional. If you call the central offices, you seldom get ahold of a person or get a call back.

Teachers are mistreated and disrespected by students and administrators. No wonder so many quit the profession or retire as soon as possible. Disruptive students ruin lessons and intimidate classmates based on the erroneous theory that we are helping disruptive students by leaving them in the classroom when they are highly agitated. They have very low consequences for poor behavior.

The School Boards that hired the last two superintendents are responsible are taking an excellent district and driving it into the ground by hiring poor superintendents.

No, we should not return to the 1950s and ’60s when classes were in rows and students never spoke. Yet we must reinstate self-discipline and respect for all people in our schools where hard work and learning are cherished. Parents must be responsible for the behavior of their children and support teachers.

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Michael R Ford and Fredrik O Andersson

In this article, 25 years of data are utilized from nonprofit schools operating in the United States’ oldest and largest private school voucher program to test theories of isomorphism. We find that startup and religious schools belonging to an umbrella organization such as an archdiocese are particularly likely to serve similar student bodies at similar costs. In addition, we find that isomorphic pressures increase the longer a school participates in the Milwaukee voucher program, and that increased program regulation is related to increased sector isomorphism. The results illustrate the difficulty of using New Public Management style reforms, at scale, to encourage a diversity of nongovernment providers to provide a service traditionally provided by the public sector. The results will be of interest to scholars studying nonprofit institutional theories, school choice, and New Public Management style reforms.

Jill Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

David Leonhardt:

Now, though, a growing number of experts and university administrators wonder whether the switch has been a mistake. Research has increasingly shown that standardized test scores contain real information, helping to predict college grades, chances of graduation and post-college success. Test scores are more reliable than high school grades, partly because of grade inflation in recent years.

Without test scores, admissions officers sometimes have a hard time distinguishing between applicants who are likely to do well at elite colleges and those who are likely to struggle. Researchers who have studied the issue say that test scores can be particularly helpful in identifying lower-income students and underrepresented minorities who will thrive. These students do not score as high on average as students from affluent communities or white and Asian students. But a solid score for a student from a less privileged background is often a sign of enormous potential.

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Anyone hoping for improvement in Madison’s public schools will need to keep waiting. Incumbent school board members Savion Castro and Maia Pearson will be reelected by default in April as no challengers showed up before the filing deadline yesterday. Sincere congratulations to Castro and Pearson. They’ve stepped up. They put their names on the line. I strongly disagree with their views, but I have to respect the fact that they’ve put themselves in the arena. It’s ironic that the story of their de facto reelection appeared on the same day as a story about how MMSD is moving away from letter grades. Failing a class? Heading for a “D”? Turns out you’re not failing at all. You’re “emerging.” It wasn’t at all clear what MMSD is trying to accomplish by moving away from letter grades. They admit that it will create more work for already over-burdened teachers and they’ll need to translate “emerging” into a “D” at some point so that high school students can have a GPA for their transcripts when applying for college. I guess it spares a kid’s feelings in the short-run, maybe. Also, attendance and behavior won’t be taken into account with the new non-grading system either. In fact, this board seems to view good behavior as some sort of privileged cultural hegemony. I see it as just good behavior. It’s being respectful of your fellow students and teachers. Maybe I just don’t get it. I guess you’d have to say that when it comes to my grasp of MMSD policies my work is emerging. This is precisely the kind of stuff about this school board that drove me to encourage challengers to the incumbents. When this board, or any group of leaders, sees every issue in terms of race and gender they’re pretty much guaranteed not to solve the problem because they’ve misdefined it from the start. The problem is not a racial achievement gap. The problem is that there are some kids, of every race, who aren’t learning. To cover that up with words like “emerging” is just moving us further away from solutions rather than confronting the problem. We’ve got a school system where more than 60% of students are consistently performing below grade level in English and math, where behavioral problems are going unaddressed thanks to an ill-conceived “Behavior Education Plan,” and where parents have been voting with their feet for over a decade. And now we’re going to continue down that same road by phasing out the accountability (and yes, the pressure — it’s a good thing) that comes with real grades.

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Abbey Machtig:

“You have to manage the expectations, the emotions, the fears of ‘is my child making the right progress’ — that is the question I think we hear families ask the most,” she said. 

Students and parents also may worry that grades won’t translate on applications to colleges, jobs or other opportunities after high school. However, students at East High will still receive a letter grade for each class at the end of the semester and maintain a GPA throughout high school, Schaefer said.

The grades translate as Advanced = A; Proficient = B; Developing = C; Emerging = D, according to the East handbook. 

Schaefer said the transition to this system will bring extra work for teachers, who have to change how they assign grades and learn a new system for entering them into the online gradebook. Schaefer recommends instructors focus on between three and eight priority standards for each course.

Yet, Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results despite spending far more than most taxpayer funded k-12 systems.

Commentary.

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Abbey Machtig:

The Madison School Board is scheduled to hire a new superintendent by February or March. The board began interviewing candidates in closed meetings this month and will continue into January. The board is expected to announce two or three finalists and hold open interviews where the public can participate.

The new superintendent will eventually replace Lisa Kvistad, a longtime district educator who has been serving as interim superintendent since June. She was selected to replace Jenkins earlier this year.

This time around, the board is looking for a superintendent familiar with Madison who can “lead large-scale change” and has a track record of improving outcomes for students of color, according to a job profile drafted and approved in October.

School Board elections also will take place on April 2. Incumbents Maia Pearson and Savion Castro have announced their reelection campaigns. Board members serve in staggered, three-year terms.

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

David Blaska:

Madison school board members Savion Castro and Maia Pearson are seeking re-election in April. They are thoroughly Woke. Get 100 signatures to get on the ballot. Nomination papers are not due until January 3. The forms candidates need can be found here even though, strangely, the city’s website has not been updated!

Blaska’s Bottom Line: DEI is the hill upon which Tony Evers and his Democrats have chosen to fight. The shame and guilt taught from UW-Parkside to UW-Superior is injected directly into our kids’ classrooms and, increasingly, into workplace sensitivity training — public and private sector. It sharpens the oppressor/victim dichotomy now weaponized against Jews and Asians. It stifles free inquiry.

—-

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Jill Barshay:

In 2017, public interest lawyers sued California because they claimed that too many low- income Black and Hispanic children weren’t learning to read at school. Filed on behalf of families and teachers at three schools with pitiful reading test scores, the suit was an effort to establish a constitutional right to read. However, before the courts resolved that legal question, the litigants settled the case in 2020. 

The settlement itself was noteworthy. The state agreed to give an extra $50 million to 75 elementary schools with the worst reading scores in the state to improve how they were teaching reading. Targeted at children who were just learning to read in kindergarten through third grade, the settlement amounted to a little more than $1,000 extra per student. Teachers were trained in evidence-based ways of teaching reading, including an emphasis on phonics and vocabulary. (A few of the 75 original schools didn’t participate or closed down.)

A pair of Stanford University education researchers studied whether the settlement made a difference, and their conclusion was that yes, it did. Third graders’ reading scores in 2022 and 2023 rose relative to their peers at comparable schools that weren’t eligible for the settlement payments. Researchers equated the gains to an extra 25 percent of a year of learning.

This right-to-read settlement took place during the pandemic when school closures led to learning losses; reading scores had declined sharply statewide and nationwide. However, test scores were strikingly stable at the schools that benefited from the settlement. More than 30 percent of the third graders at these lowest performing schools continued to reach Level 2 or higher on the California state reading tests, about the same as in 2019. Third grade reading scores slid at comparison schools between 2019 and 2022 and only began to recover in 2023. (Level 2 equates to slightly below grade-level proficiency with “standard nearly met” but is above the lowest Level 1 “standard not met.”) State testing of all students doesn’t begin until third grade and so there was no standard measure for younger kindergarten, first and second graders.

——

Meanwhile:

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Bob Peterson

Establishing two school systems — one public and one private, yet both supported with tax dollars — only expands the ability of private schools to pick and choose the most desirable students

Supporters of Wisconsin’s voucher schools make it seem that the schools are just one of many variations of our public schools. Don’t be fooled.

Voucher schools, often referred to as “choice” schools, are private schools that receive taxpayer money that pays for tuition. To argue that a private school is “public” merely because it receives public tax dollars is like arguing that Metro Mart is a public grocery store because it accepts food stamps.

Peterson was member of the Milwaukee School Board from 2019-2023, and board president for the final two years. He was also a classroom teacher for more 25 years, and president of the Milwaukee teachers’ union from 2011-2015.

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

David Blaska:

Who is behind the lawsuit seeking to bring down Wisconsin’s school choice program that helps 52,000 low-income, often minority students, escape failing public schools? Guy named Kirk Bangstad. 

Killing school choice is written into the Democrat(ic) party platform. Obeisance to the teachers union and the one-size-fits-all government school monopoly is central to Woke progressivism. Easier to seize control. That is why the news media says little more than that Kirk Bangstad is a Minocqua WI-based contract micro-brewer of beers named after his heroes, like “A.O.C. IPA” and “Biden Beer.” Ran for political office as a Democrat. Unsuccessfully.

→ Of the top 10 schools in reading proficiency in Wisconsin that largely serve low-income children, six are voucher or charter schools, according to the Institute for Reforming Government. — Wall Street Journal

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Will Flanders and Noah Diekemper

Annually, when Wisconsin’s new school report cards are released, we learn that Wisconsin’s schools must all be located in Lake Wobegone, where everyone is above average. School districts like Beloit (14.1% proficiency in reading) and Milwaukee (11.5% proficiency in math) are somehow not judged to be deserving of a ranking in the lowest category on the report card.  This year, Milwaukee even managed to reach the middle category of “Meets Expectations.”  

There are a number of reasons that this seems to happen every year. Each school and school district receives an overall score on a 100 point scale. – Those scores are then put into accountability rating categories at certain cut points. DPI has the power to set these cut points. The cut points from this year’s report card are reproduced in Table 1 below.

As recently as the 2020-21 school year, DPI  moved the cut points for each rating, which had the effect of moving some districts up in their rating despite not showing any measurable improvement. 

But the reality is that the chief cause of this phenomenon is state law that requires us to not judge school districts on a level playing field. In districts with more low-income students, student proficiency is weighted less highly than it is in districts with fewer low-income students. Instead, student growth is weighted more highly in high poverty districts. There are other components that go into the report card score as well that include outcomes for target groups and graduation metrics, but only between growth and achievement are weights varied in this way.

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Judd Legum:

Last month, Baggett submitted a form seeking to remove The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold from a Santa Rosa school library, alleging the book was pornographic. On October 25, the librarian from Milton High School reached out to Baggett and said the first step in the challenge process was to have a meeting at the school to discuss her concerns. Baggett responded that she would not participate in a meeting and warned the librarian of “the legalities that could arise if this book remains accessible to minors.”

—-

Another view:

Even before the Southern Poverty Law Center, the discredited far-left smear factory, put the parental rights group Moms for Liberty on its “hate map” alongside chapters of the Ku Klux Klan, left-leaning outlets had repeated claims that the parental rights group’s leaders had harassed school board members or other moms who disagreed with them. 

The Daily Signal has examined many of these claims and found them baseless. In many cases, the Moms for Liberty leaders themselves appear to have suffered harassment in situations where outlets such as Media Matters and activist groups such as GLAAD portray them as the villains.

Moms for Liberty co-founders Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich repeatedly have condemned threats and harassment. They have insisted there is no evidence that Moms for Liberty leaders encouraged or engaged in school board threats.

“These are not our people, we denounce it,” Descovich told ABC affiliate WFTS-TV in Tampa Bay, Florida, back in 2021. 

The list below mostly focuses on the incidents highlighted by Media Matters in April. It doesn’t address a Moms for Liberty chapter that took heat for quoting Adolf Hitler, because that chapter clearly quoted Hitler sardonically to illustrate a point, not as an endorsement.

——

Meanwhile:

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Corrinne Hess:

The proposed bill, authored by Sen. Mary Felzkowski, R-Irma, and state Rep. Jeff Mursau, R-Crivitz, extends that exception to applicants for all licenses that require the FORT exam.  

Felzkowski and Mursau did not respond to requests for comment. 

Lawmakers, DPI and the Wisconsin Association of School Boards say the change is necessary to help alleviate the state’s teacher shortage. For years, the FORT test has had dismal results. Only 54 percent of first-time test takers passed for the 2020-21 school year. That’s down from 66 percent in 2014-15.   

“Passing the FORT examination can be a costly and time-consuming process, with a relatively high failure rate, especially among teacher license applicants of color and applicants whose first language is not English,” according to the Wisconsin Association of School Boards. “There is also little credible evidence that passing the FORT exam, by itself, improves teacher performance or produces any positive impact on students’ literacy skills or reading achievement.”  

But some reading advocates and teachers say the onus should be on colleges and universities to better prepare their education students to teach, rather than throw away the test.  

Curtis Kadow is a third grade teacher at Kosciuszko Elementary School in Cudahy. Kadow did not have to take the FORT test — he became a teacher before the test was implemented 11 years ago.

Still, Kadow sees value in the test.  

“I believe it’s our only check to make sure that our universities are helping our pre-service teachers understand the science of reading and those foundational skills that they need in order to be successful coming into the workforce,” Kadow said. “I think it’s kind of interesting that our Legislature passed this really big reading bill focused on the science of reading, but now we’re trying to get rid of a test that checks for that.” 

The Cudahy School District, which serves a suburb on Milwaukee’s south shore, shifted to the phonics-based science of reading three years ago and test scores show it’s beginning to pay off.

Kadow understands the argument by lawmakers and DPI that low pass rates on the FORT exam are making it more difficult to hire staff, but to him, that means universities should change how they’re teaching.  

“If we think about the Forward exam, lots of kids don’t pass that, and we’re not getting rid of it,” he said. “Why? Because it’s a check to make sure that schools are doing what they need to do.”

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Will Flanders:

WILL Research Director Will Flanders’s new policy brief, Needs Improvement: How Wisconsin’s Report Card Can Mislead Parents, provides an important explanation of how Wisconsin’s school report cards work and how the various inputs work towards a school’s score. Specifically, Flanders highlights:

• School report card scores vary widely based on student demographics. In schools with fewer low-income students, overall performance is given more weight. In schools with more low-income students, growth is given more weight.
• Wisconsin’s report card can make some bad schools look good. Some schools with less than 5% proficiency in math and English are rated as “Meets” or “Exceeds” expectations on the current report card. This severely limits the ability of families to make use of the report card as a metric for school quality.
• The report card harms private schools in the choice program due to a mismeasurement of disability & economic status. Disability status affects growth scores and the economic status of students effects the weight of growth in the report card score. Both of these factors are often measured inaccurately in choice schools, harming their overall scores.
• Private school systems cannot get school-level report cards. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) has made it so that private school systems must choose between byzantine enrollment and auditing systems or getting individual school report cards for their schools. Without individual school report cards, it is more difficult for schools to determine how each school in their system is doing.

The Report (PDF).

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Ann Althouse

If you’re not seeing the replies there — I know I’m not — then read “Randi Weingarten gets educated about exactly who is to blame for the rise in homeschooling/The American Federation of Teachers union boss shared an article on ‘What’s behind the increase in homeschooling'”

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Wayne Shockley:

Kirk Bangstad and Julie Underwood attempted to make a case against private school vouchers in their column on Wednesday, “Why we’re fighting against private school vouchers.” 

While they do make a couple of good points in their arguments, such as the need for greater accountability, most of their points are not valid. One of their points is particularly reprehensible. They attempt to smear all non-public schools with the history of “segregation academies” in the south after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of Education decision against segregated schools.

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Patrick McIlheran:

Two-thirds of children whose schools are under attack by Minocqua beer baron are racial or ethnic minorities, many are poor, many are very likely his fellow Democrats

In the lawsuit bankrolled by the Minocqua beer marketer, Kirk Bangstad, who’s trying to kill school choice in Wisconsin, his lawyers make an icy admission: They know it will “impact tens of thousands of children” to throw them out of their schools. They’re asking the state Supreme Court to hurt those kids anyway.

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Recently, @bangstad and Julie Underwood had an oped in the @WiStateJournal attempting to justify their lawsuit to end #SchoolChoice in WI. Like most of what has been released in this effort, it is full of half-truths and at-best misunderstandings of school choice. A 🧵

— Will Flanders (@WillFlandersWI) November 7, 2023

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Wall Street Journal:

Progressives tee up a case for the state Supreme Court’s new majority.

This should be an easy case, but the new 4-3 progressive majority on the Court is cause for worry. If the lawsuit is successful, it could end school choice in Wisconsin without a possibility of appeal because the case is based on state law claims. The result would mean upheaval for 29,000 children in Milwaukee’s voucher program, 4,000 in Racine and 19,000 in the rest of the state. Judges call that a “reliance” interest to consider carefully when considering a precedent.

The real power behind this case is the teachers union. Bob Baxter, executive director of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, says tests scores are a “fallacy” and that “every student that’s in a voucher school suffers.” Students who attend charters “are not learning the curriculum they need to learn in order to be a part of a democratic society,” Mr. Baxter adds. “We believe the right wing wants to crush participation in democracy.”

But the vouchers passed democratically. The real democratic issue here is whether four progressive Justices are going to trample their court’s precedent and the voters and impose their own policy preferences. That would rob poor children of better choices in favor of the unions who financed Justice Protasiewicz’s judicial campaign. Who’s anti-democratic?

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Scott Girard:

Safety and sustainability are on the minds of West High School students.

A Madison School Board panel, organized by the school’s Sifting and Winnowing Club, featured student-generated questions that repeatedly focused on those two subjects, with a few others mixed in.

More than 400 students attended the two sessions Friday afternoon in the school’s cafeteria, with questions from moderators and the audience directed at board members Ali Muldrow, Maia Pearson and Nicki Vander Meulen.

Oluwadara Fadiran, a junior and the vice president of the club, said it’s important for students to have the opportunity to hear directly from board members.

“I feel like there’s a massive disconnect between the School Board and the school itself, because a lot of my friends want to make a lot of action, they want to make a lot of change, but they don’t know how,” Fadiran said.

Fadiran said she had hoped “to hear a bit more concrete answers” from the board members, but thanked the moderators for pushing and getting more specific plans from them.

“It was clear that they weren’t really here to give an exact plan, more so the values,” she said. “The values are great. I just want to see more action.”

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

David Blaska:

Once every blue moon, the Head Groundskeeper does what he says he is going to do. Posing as average citizen “David Blaska,” he sat in with eight other citizens at one of three roundtables coordinated 10-04-23 by the headhunters hired by the Madison public school district to find yet another a new superintendent.

Monica Santana Rosen, head priestess of the Chicago-based Alma Advisory Group, moderated Blaska’s table. Must say, she was equanimous — especially when one self-righteous scold tried to censor Blaska’s comment that our schools should quit with the diversity, equity & inclusion scam and teach, instead, the one skill essential to all learning: self-discipline. Too many kids are not learning it at home. Our schools teach grievance and victimhood, instead. And bad manners, judging by that table mate.

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Marquette:

Please join us for an “On the Issues” program at 12:15 p.m. on Oct. 20, 2023, at Marquette Law School. A new book by Pulitzer Prize-winning education journalist Cara Fitzpatrick takes up the rise of the school choice movement across the United States. The Death of Public School: How Conservatives Won the War over Education in America goes back to the beginning of advocacy for school vouchers and charter schools and chronicles the path to today. Milwaukee, home to the first urban voucher program in the United States, is a major focus of the book.

Fitzpatrick won a Pulitzer Prize in 2016 for a series of stories she wrote about school segregation in Florida. She is now an editor for Chalkbeat, a national online education reporting organization.

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Dang le

Fort Worth resident Maria Gonzalez knew her daughter’s grades were off. 

Gonzalez’s 8-year-old daughter, Citlalic, got perfect scores at school. Her teacher said she was doing great. 

Get to know your community better with our free newsletters. Sign up today so you don’t miss a thing!

But Gonzalez knew something else from observation — her daughter couldn’t read. 

“I guess I was just, in a way, making it easier for me, because I was just going through what they were telling me,” she said.  

Gonzalez was among about three dozen parents who flew balloons at Ella Mae Shamblee Library to mourn Fort Worth’s low literacy rate. Only 44% of students across all school districts and charters in the city of Fort Worth are reading at grade level. The next day, Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker proclaimed Sept. 8 as International Literacy Day in the city.

Fort Worth is committed to students’ success by creating youth library programming, providing free community Wi-Fi in underserved neighborhoods and providing safe walking routes to schools, Parker said.

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Ruth Conniff:

Still, the inequities among public schools in richer and poorer property tax districts are nothing compared to the existential threat to public education from a parallel system of publicly funded private schools that has been nurtured and promoted by a national network of right-wing think tanks, well funded lobbyists and anti-government ideologues.

For decades, Wisconsin has been at the epicenter of the movement to privatize education, pushed by the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation, a mega-wealthy conservative foundation and early backer of Milwaukee’s first-in-the-nation school voucher program. That program has expanded from fewer than 350 students when it launched in 1990 to 52,000 Wisconsin students using school vouchers today.

This year school privatization advocates scored a huge victory when Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, a longtime ally of public schools, agreed to a budget bargain that includes a historic bump in the amount of tax money per pupil Wisconsinites spend on private school vouchers. The rate went up from $8,399 to $9,874 for K-8 students and from $9,405 to $12,368 for high schoolers.

Not only is the amount of money taxpayers spend on private education increasing, in just a couple of years all enrollment caps come off the school choice program. We are on our way to becoming an all-voucher system. 

This makes no sense, especially since, over the last 33 years, the school voucher experiment has failed to produce better outcomes in reading and math than regular public schools.

——-

Meanwhile, Madison taxpayers have long supported substantial, well above average $pending – now greater than $25k per student!

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Abbey Machtig:

The Madison School District bought the land for $6.4 million and construction was estimated to cost about $25 million, financed by a 2020 facilities referendum. Landscaping and playground construction at Southside Elementary are continuing, according to the district website.

The school serves an especially diverse population. Of the students in the area, 81% are from low-income households, 89% are students of color and 50% are English learners, according to district data from February. The school’s location at the center of the community “provides one of the best walking options available,” according to the district. 

Mullen said attendance was an ongoing issue at Allis: If students missed the bus, they often had to miss school altogether that day. 

Having a school closer to home will also create more opportunities for families to meet face to face with educators and see their students’ school, she said.

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Nicholas Kelly:

Education was a big winner of a bipartisan agreement in the recently enacted state budget. Public schools will receive an increase of more than $1 billion. Per pupil spending for Wisconsin’s private school choice programs will grow by $2,000 to $3,000 per student. 

Even after these historic funding increases, state payments to schools in the parental choice programs will still be less than 70 percent of the funding per student that public schools receive.

With the substantial new education spending, what’s the bang for the buck? What’s the return to Wisconsin taxpayers from their investments in public schools and the parental choice programs? At School Choice Wisconsin, we wanted to find out.

Our approach relied on publicly available data at the Department of Public Instruction’s website. To measure results, we used DPI Report Cards, which provide a comprehensive assessment of how the agency ranks public schools and schools in the choice programs. To measure funds invested, we used DPI data on per pupil public school revenue and state payments for pupils in the choice programs.

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Rachel Hale:

Since it started in January 2021 Moms for Liberty says it has expanded to 285 chapters in 46 states with over 125,000 members. In Wisconsin, chapters in Kenosha, Marathon, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Polk, Rock, St. Croix, Vilas, Washington, Winnebago and Wood County have popped up over the past two years.

It’s hard to pinpoint how many members are active in Wisconsin — the Wood County and Ozaukee County chapters estimated that there are 400 and 6,000 members in their groups, respectively. A national spokesperson said they do not have updated state membership numbers.

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Rory Linnane

St. Augustine Preparatory Academy unveiled a new $49 million elementary school on Milwaukee’s south side Tuesday, showcasing a major expansion as school leaders also discussed plans for a new north-side branch on the former Cardinal Stritch campus.

About 730 students in kindergarten through fourth grade are expected to start school this week in the new building, which can eventually hold up to 900 students as the school plans to admit more students. Across the street in the older building, about 1,100 students are expected to attend middle and high school.

With the capacity to eventually serve a combined total of about 2,400 students at both buildings on the south side, school leaders said it has become the largest single-campus school in Milwaukee.

More exciting news for #SchoolChoice in Wisconsin even as @bangstad and Minocqua Brewing seek to snuff out the opportunity for these low-income, primarily minority students to have educational options. https://t.co/u3Q0PRr5YC

— Will Flanders (@WillFlandersWI) August 23, 2023

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Danyela Souza Egorov:

Tim Castanza admits that he was “triggered.” The year was 2016, and Castanza, then working for the New York City Department of Education, attended a Community Education Council meeting in Staten Island, where several mothers of kids with dyslexia spoke. The public schools didn’t have any programs for their children, they said, describing how long schools took to offer proper evaluations and how the district failed to provide adequate services, even after children received diagnoses. Along with Rose Kerr, a retired DOE principal and director of education for Staten Island’s borough president, Castanza wanted to do something. “I know what good phonics instruction looks like because of my elementary school teacher,” Castanza, who received an ADHD diagnosis in college, said. “Still, I had a lot of needs that were not met at that school.”

Three years later, Castanza opened the school that he wished he could have attended himself: Bridge Prep Charter School. Designed according to scientific reading instruction, the school offers all the necessary support for children with dyslexia and other language-based learning difficulties. City leaders should learn from its impressive results.

Bridge Prep’s advantage consists not just of a different curriculum but of a different way of training teachers and an expansive capacity to meet students’ needs. Nearly two-thirds of students at Bridge Prep have an Individual Education Plan, and nearly all of these receive multiple services. Seven in ten Bridge Prep students also hail from low-income families, which often cannot afford extracurricular phonics coaching (a common but expensive practice among high-income students who struggle to read). The school, therefore, offers 60 minutes of daily instruction based on the Orton-Gillingham Approach. Phonics instruction gets delivered to students grouped by grade and ability. This is “equity,” Castanza says. A school is “not prepared to teach every kid” unless it has a structured literacy program, he adds.

Georgia Orosz’s son has benefited. When he came to Bridge Prep to repeat second grade, he was reading at kindergarten level, had a dyslexia diagnosis, and was writing in reverse. And his struggles at school had become a behavioral issue. His mother was so frustrated with the Staten Island public school he attended that she planned to homeschool him—until a therapist referred her to Bridge Prep. Her son enrolled in the school right before the pandemic. By the beginning of fifth grade, he was reading at grade level.

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

The fight for #SchoolChoice in Wisconsin is not over. Today Minoqua Brewing Co announced an effort to take away educational options for tens of thousands of low-income families. pic.twitter.com/vSl4wT46BR

— Will Flanders (@WillFlandersWI) August 20, 2023

notes and links on Minocqua Brewing.

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Ameillia Wedward:

Janet Protasiewicz’ recent confirmation as a member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court earlier this month has conservatives worried about the possible end of a decade of conservative reforms, from Act 10 to voter ID laws. But another concern receiving less attention is the prospect of challenges to Wisconsin’s school choice programs.

School choice has stood against challenges in the past, but now that it’s at stake in state court, taxpayer dollars are on the line.

While there are several cases and laws that reaffirm Wisconsin’s choice programs from a religious angle — and Wisconsin’s own governor signed into law increases to choice earlier this summer — the current concern is that school choice will face scrutiny from a financial standpoint: Can the state fund both school choice and public schools simultaneously?

Currently, under the Wisconsin constitution, local funds must be used for local schools. Although the state finances the choice program, when a student leaves the public school system to participate, the state subtracts that pupil’s funding from their respective district, which then has to make up the revenue loss by increasing property taxes. In other words, to fund both systems, taxpayers end up paying twice: once to fund the school choice program and again to pay the district’s tax hikes.

Some have argued that this violates the state constitutional requirement that property taxes fund “common schools.” But concerns like this ignore a plausible funding mechanism that could appease school choice and public school advocates alike while sparing the taxpayer’s wallet. By decoupling private choice funding from property taxes and funding students instead, the state could reduce costs for local taxpayers. Under a decoupling plan, students that use school choice would be financed fully by the state, and all property tax implications would be removed.

This isn’t a new idea. By the 2024-25 school year, the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program will be funded directly via the state. By the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty’s conservative estimations — before the new law and under the old voucher amount — if the state followed the same model, decoupling would cut property taxes over $168 million statewide.

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

BIANCA VÁZQUEZ TONESS

Across the country, students have been absentat record rates since schools reopened during the pandemic. More than a quarter of students missed at least 10% of the 2021-22 school year, making them chronically absent, according to the most recent data available. Before the pandemic, only 15% of students missed that much school. 

All told, an estimated 6.5 million additional students became chronically absent, according to the data, which was compiled by Stanford University education professor Thomas Dee in partnership with The Associated Press. Taken together, the data from 40 states and Washington, D.C., provides the most comprehensive accounting of absenteeism nationwide. Absences were more prevalent among Latino, Black and low-income students, according to Dee’s analysis.

The absences come on top of time students missed during school closures and pandemic disruptions. They cost crucial classroom time as schools work to recover from massive learning setbacks.

Absent students miss out not only on instruction but also on all the other things schools provide — meals, counseling, socialization. In the end, students who are chronically absent — missing 18 or more days a year, in most places — are at higher risk of not learning to read and eventually dropping out. 

“The long-term consequences of disengaging from school are devastating. And the pandemic has absolutely made things worse and for more students,” said Hedy Chang, executive director of Attendance Works, a nonprofit addressing chronic absenteeism.

Related: Taxpayer funded Dane County Madison public health mandates and closed schools.

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Scott Girard:

The complaint was made public in May following a public records request by NBC15 reporter Elizabeth Wadas, whom LeMonds allegedly said was “quickly becoming the sleaziest journalist in Madison” and whom he called “a pig of a journalist.” LeMonds tried to fight the release of the complaint, which was responsive to Wadas’ records request, in court, arguing it did not meet the balancing test for what the public needed to know compared with the damage it would cause.

A judge ruled against him, however, and the documents related to the initial investigation were released in late May.

He remained working in his role until mid-June, when he was placed on paid leave. The letter placing him on leave, dated June 12, was also provided as part of Tuesday’s released records.

Chris Rickert:

The staff also told district investigators that LeMonds frequently expressed his disdain toward certain reporters, all of them women.

On Oct. 6, 2022, he allegedly told members of the district’s communications department that there was “no way” he would respond to three interview requests from an unnamed reporter, described as a woman of color, because he “didn’t like her.” In that same meeting, he asked staff to share any negative experiences they had with former Wisconsin State Journal reporter Elizabeth Beyer, whom he called “a horrible human being.”

He also reportedly called WMTV (Ch. 15) reporter Elizabeth Wadas “a pig of a journalist,” who was “quickly becoming the sleaziest journalist in Madison.”

LeMonds in June pointed to the district’s initial investigation findings as proof absolving him of the claims. Two months earlier he’d sued his employer to prevent the release of the records including those claims. That bid was denied in late May.

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Jeff Davidson

With school about to commence around the country, in two to four weeks, a friend mentioned that her granddaughter has been home-schooled for her whole academic career. She is currently in her 9th year, yet, by all indications, she is academically on par with most high school seniors. 

Curiously, when the young lady sought to visit the local high, the principal was intentionally obstructive. What, pondered the grandmother, could the principal want to hide? How confronting might a one-hour visit be?

Maybe what he has to hide is classrooms filled with posters and charts designed to indoctrinate children to accept far Leftist views. He might wish to conceal indications of acceptance of “The 1619 Project,” a rainbow flag, and demeaning references to Donald Trump, white males, or Conservatives. In seconds, perhaps, an objective visitor could see the degree to which classrooms have become indoctrination centers.

He might wish to hide beleaguered teachers, belligerent students, and class room decorum in the gutter. Who knows?

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

James Vaznis:

The ballot initiative would allow students to graduate “by satisfactorily completing coursework that has been certified by the student’s district as showing mastery of the skills, competencies, and knowledge contained in the state academic standards and curriculum frameworks in the areas measured by the MCAS high school tests.”

A small group of union activists, parents, and high school graduates filed a ballot initiative Wednesday, with the backing of the state’s largest teachers union, that would end a state provision requiring students to pass the MCAS tests to graduate, setting up a potentially costly election fight.

Currently, high school students must pass Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System exams in English, math, and science to graduate. More than 700 high school students a year typically don’t receive a diploma because they didn’t meet that requirement, according to state data. Instead, they received “certificates of attainment,” which are given to students who only satisfied local graduation requirements. However, many educators say a number of students who don’t pass MCAS ultimately drop out.

The ballot question is the MTA’s latest effort to end the graduation requirement. Earlier this year, the MTA and other unions had legislation introduced on Beacon Hill that would end the graduation requirement.

Groups, such as the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, have been aggressively fighting the unions’ efforts.

“MCAS is a crucial instrument for measuring students’ vital signs to make sure they’re getting the education they deserve and that they need to be successful after high school,” the business alliance said in a statement.

Notes and links on MTEL.

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

EXPLICIT: Osseo parent reads from an explicit book available in Osseo district libraries and is stopped by the school board chair, saying that last time something like that was read, the “language was offensive to some.” pic.twitter.com/W3Cr7E2kOZ

— Alpha News (@AlphaNewsMN) July 26, 2023

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Baby Vinick:

Wisconsin schools that had a longer period of virtual or hybrid learning during the pandemic saw graduation rates rise among wealthier students and fall among those at an economic disadvantage, a new study found.

The study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, published in the journal Educational Researcher, analyzed data from 429 public high schools in the state during the 2020-21 school year and two years before then.

It found that between September 2020 to May 2021, a full school year, virtual or hybrid learning increased the socioeconomic gaps in high school graduation rates by nearly 5 percent. Students are considered economically disadvantaged if they are from a household eligible for free or reduced-price meals under the National School Lunch Program. 

Ran Liu, a UW-Madison education professor and author of the study, called the finding that affluent students’ graduation rates increased surprising. But she said disparities in access to resources is likely part of the explanation. And it’s possible that future events – not just a pandemic – could cause new disruptions.  

“We need to understand that in-person schooling may have merits that cannot be replaced by virtual and hybrid learning mode,” Liu said.

Dane County Madison Public Health mandate summary.

“Dance studio complaint”

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Jeff Eiden:

But there’s a major problem undercutting our progress. We don’t have nearly enough skilled workers to get this job done at the speed required. It’s estimated that we’re going to need 1 million more electricians and 400 thousand new HVAC technicians in the next ten years. 

Tradespeople are the true lifeblood of the clean energy transition — they do the critical on-the-ground work to rewire homes, upgrade electrical panels, and put solar panels up onto roofs. Without enough of them, we risk falling short of our climate goals, while frustrating the very early adopting customers we need to kickstart the transition to fully electrified buildings.

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Mitchell Schmidt:

The parent, only identified in the ruling as Jane Doe 4, was the last of 14 parents who initially sued the district in 2020 over a policy that’s part of a guidance document on student gender identity. The policy covered topics that include communication with the families of transgender and nonbinary students about their identities.

The issue of whether the 14 parents who initially sued in 2020 could do so anonymously went to the state Supreme Court, which ruled 4-3 last summer that the parents’ identities must be disclosed to attorneys involved in the case, but not to the public. All but one parent ultimately dropped out of the case.

Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington in November ruled that the parent cannot sue the district because she had not identified any harm she’s suffered or was likely to suffer as a result of the policy.

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Abbey Machtig

This rural patch on Madison’s West Side is one of more than 35 school gardens around the Madison School District, including Lapham, Midvale and Crestwood Elementary schools, Badger Rock Middle School and East and West High Schools. 

Although school is out for the summer, the gardens are far from empty. A network of volunteers and employees help with garden maintenance, and summer camps give students a chance to get outside. The summer camp at Spring Harbor Middle School, currently in session, hosts more than 80 students between the ages of 10 and 14 over the summer. 

Getting your hands dirty 

School gardens aren’t just a place for students to burn off excess energy. By getting their hands dirty outside, students are developing critical learning skills, said Dave Ropa, a science teacher at Spring Harbor and the school’s greenhouse and garden coordinator.

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Christina Gomez-Schmidt:

An essential duty of any school board is to help plan and approve the annual district budget. Like most budgets, household or business, the goal of a school district budget is to match revenue with expenses to produce a balanced budget. This goal ensures that school districts are managing local, state and federal taxpayer funds to operate public education in a responsible and sustainable way.

The Madison School District’s budget approved on Monday for next school year is neither balanced nor sustainable.

In providing maximum wage increases (8% plus an average 2% increase for experience and advanced degrees), over $26 million is added to every future budget. Increasing hourly custodial wages, unexpectedly changing health insurers and a new transportation contract added millions more.

For two years, the School Board has discussed the looming fiscal cliff once federal pandemic funding for education ends. Yet this budget makes the fiscal cliff even higher against the advice of the district’s own financial experts. One-time funding (the last year of federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund money as well as the district’s fund balance) is used to cover the operating deficit created. Expenses cannot sustainably continue to outpace revenues.

People are also reading…

As a result, significant cuts will be needed to balance the next budget cycle. This will most likely affect schools, classrooms and students directly.

An average 10% salary increase for Madison School District teachers and staff is an incredible boost for each individual staff member. This was another difficult school year, and everyone is challenged by the rising costs of inflation. Staffing shortages continue, and the pressure to address this reality is understandable.

Yet it is the responsibility of the board to consider how this increase affects future budgets in a system with over 4,000 employees and significant challenges ahead. These challenges include continued declining enrollment, guaranteed increases to health care insurance costs, and significant investments needed in instruction, strategic equity projects, maintenance for aging buildings and meeting the district’s 2040 renewable energy goals.

School districts face compounding budget challenges when enrollment declines, costs increase, students need greater support to learn, and cuts to spending are politically unpopular. All of these factors mean less funding, greater expenses, and pressure to not make changes to staffing or programs. A realignment of the Madison School District’s vision, strategy and investment is needed to avoid even larger future deficits.

We can lament the lack of adequate state investment for public education. We should collectively continue to advocate for stronger investment in our public schools. This year’s state budget provides a welcome increase in funding. But no matter what funding levels exist, every school district must still balance its budget as a primary responsibility to its local communities and to future students.

Budgets reflect priorities. Staff are a priority. But we have to acknowledge that the decision to overextend the budget to address one priority will likely limit the district’s future ability to address other priorities where investment is needed.

This should give every district stakeholder pause as we approach that fiscal cliff.

Gomez Schmidt served on the Madison School Board from 2020-2023. She is executive director of the nonprofit Galin Scholars.

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Alec Schemmel and Meghan Blonder:

A National Assessment of Educational Progress report published Wednesday found that math and reading scores among U.S. 13-year-olds are at their lowest levels in decades. Cardona responded to those findings by praising “positive results” in student achievement, arguing that the “historic investments and resources” provided by President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan would “reverse the damage.” In school districts across the country, however, a large portion of those funds did not go to more tutoring or new school materials. Instead, they funded bonuses for teachers and administrators.

In North Carolina, for example, the Wake County Public School System from March 2020 to April 2023 spent 78.5 percent of its total pandemic relief funding on salaries and employee benefits, according to the district. Chicago Public Schools—a district where union teachers repeatedly refused to return to the classroom during COVID—similarly spent 77 percent of its pandemic money on staff bonuses, salaries, and benefits. In Tennessee, meanwhile, the state’s comptroller found that a district funneled nearly $28,000 to one administrator alone. And in Nebraska, Lincoln Public Schools attempted to use COVID relief dollars to issue across-the-board teacher bonuses, but the state’s Department of Education said no.

The use of so-called emergency COVID funds to pay for five-figure staff bonuses reflects the stark divide between Republicans and Democrats on education policy. Democrats generally balk at school choice, shooting down taxpayer funding for charter schools in favor of additional public school spending. For Republicans, that spending is already at an all-time high with little to show for it and showcases the need to pursue alternative options rather than funneling more money to powerful teachers’ unions working to pay out their members.

“It turns out the hundreds of billions in taxpayer money that was ‘direly needed to safely reopen schools and improve infrastructure’ was a lie,” Nicki Neily, founder and president of parental rights group Parents Defending Education, said in response to districts’ using federal COVID funds to pay for staff bonuses. “The same teachers’ unions that kept schools closed are now misusing the taxpayers’ money to smooth things over with their growingly dissatisfied members through bonuses and raises. What a slap in the face to families.”

School Choice Under Attack: Minocqua Brewing Company’s $1 million Super PAC just announced plans to file a new lawsuit to eliminate school choice in Wisconsin – citing the new liberal Supreme Court majority.
Permalink here: https://t.co/9BTEyAv7da pic.twitter.com/AC4pJVaT3s

— Dan Lennington (@DanLennington) June 20, 2023

Related: WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators (2010)

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Elizabeth Wadas:

The Madison Metropolitan School District’s head of communications, Tim LeMonds, is on leave amidst an ongoing investigation. NBC15 Investigates confirmed LeMonds’ employment status with the district’s human resources team Thursday afternoon.

Earlier this month, MMSD broke its silence after a complaint alleging harassment and bullying against its head of communications was made public after NBC15 Investigates went to court to make the complaint public.

After a Dane County judge ruled MMSD had to release the complaint to the public, the district sent a public statement. It was sent byf Communications Manager Ian Folger who confirms the statement was drafted by MMSD’s legal team. The statement addressed a complaint against LeMonds that alleges instances of “emotional abuse, bullying, unequal pay, and harassment on the basis of gender, and race or ethnicity” against current and former district employees.

The complaint details how LeMonds allegedly interacted with and spoke about female journalists, including NBC15′s Elizabeth Wadas. According to the complaint, LeMonds allegedly described Wadas in a Zoom meeting as “Quickly becoming the sleaziest journalist in Madison…What a pig of a journalist” in response to a story Wadas was working on that wascritical of a high school football coach. The school did an initial investigation into the complaint months ago and found most of the claims were found “without merit.” And no action was taken against LeMonds at that time.

More. And.

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

There was a lot of good news for #SchoolChoice in WI yesterday, but it was disconcerting to see that some remain either grossly misinformed on the issue or are intentionally misleading. One of the worst offenders was @RepKristina, who made claimed the program is racist (1/x). pic.twitter.com/OrrC3sEHxx

— Will Flanders (@WillFlandersWI) June 15, 2023

School vouchers became a popular tool for perpetuating segregation after Brown v. Board of Education. Southern legislators enacted bills for tuition vouchers or grant programs to close down public school systems altogether, rather than desegregate.

The roots are in the history✌🏽 pic.twitter.com/wZHQF1GFtv

— Rep. Kristina Shelton (@RepKristina) June 15, 2023

Just mis-leading. Who start the Choice/voucher program in Wisconsin???? Wait for it…. Polly Williams a Black Woman Democrat from Milwaukee along with Howard Fuller, a Black Man, Gary George a Black Man, Democrat from Milwaukee, (R) Gov. Thompson https://t.co/XgzMLE8PPg

— Orlando Owens (@orlandoforwi) June 15, 2023

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

NCTQ

All children deserve to learn to read, and all teachers deserve the preparation and support that will allow them to help their students achieve this goal. Yet more than one-third of fourth graders—1.3 million children¹ in the U.S.—cannot read at a basic level.²

Not learning how to read has lifelong consequences. Students who are not reading at grade level by the time they reach fourth grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school,³ which in turn leads to additional challenges for them as adults: lower lifetime earnings,⁴ higher rates of unemployment,⁵and a higher likelihood of entering the criminal justice system.⁶ Even more alarming, the rate of students who cannot read proficiently by fourth grade climbs even higher for students of color, those with learning differences, and those who grow up in low-income households, perpetuating disparate life outcomes.⁷ This dismal data has nothing to do with the students and everything to do with inequities in access to effective literacy instruction.

The status quo is far from inevitable. In fact, we know the solution to this reading crisis, but we are not using the solution at scale. More than 50 years of research provides a clear picture of effective literacy instruction. These strategies and methods—collectively called scientifically based reading instruction, which is grounded in the science of reading—could dramatically reduce the rate of reading failure. Past estimates have found that while three in 10 children struggle to read (and that rate has grown higher since the pandemic), research indicates that more than 90% of all students could learn to read if they had access to teachers who employed scientifically based reading instruction.⁸

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Jeff Zymeri:

School choice programs in Wisconsin have not significantly affected outcomes for public school students or led to a decline in their test scores, according to a study released on Monday.

Will Flanders, research director at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, which commissioned the study alongside School Choice Wisconsin, told National Review that this finding goes directly against one of the main talking points of school choice opponents.

Instead of finding test scores in steep decline, the study saw small positive shifts in reading scores and no statistically significant effect on math scores. Wisconsin has been offering private school alternatives since the 1990s.

Critics often argue that school choice not only diverts critical resources from public schools, but also that choice schools will “skim” the best students, leading to a group of students in public schools that is more challenging to educate. “We have a long track record of this program in Wisconsin and we have no evidence in support of that notion,” Flanders said.

Flanders said Milton Friedman’s notion of school choice as providing the necessary competition to lift all ships is at the heart of the study’s findings.

“When the public school monopoly actually has to deal with competitors, for the first time in many instances, they’re forced to start listening to the desires and needs of families in their communities and that results in improved performance,” said Flanders. “They’re required to become more efficient.”

The study builds upon past research on the Milwaukee Public Schools to include data on outcomes in Racine Public Schools and schools throughout Wisconsin.

More, here.

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Center for Research on Education Outcomes:

Our third installment: This study examines the academic progress of students enrolled in charter schools compared with the progress of students enrolled in traditional public schools (TPS).

How charter school students learned over time
Fifteen years of student performance can provide insights into how schools, school operators, K–12 academic programs and education policy impact student academic success.

Study results: A valuable tool for possibility and growth
Our evidence shows how successful, diverse schools deliver critical proof points of ways to improve outcomes for students and pave the road ahead.

🧵The evidence is increasing for charter schools, according to @CREDOatStanford‘s 3rd national study. It’s not perfect. Some charters are horrible. My takeaways… (1/7)

— Jill Barshay (@jillbarshay) June 12, 2023

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Jason Bedrick and Corey DeAngelis

That $900 mil­lion is barely 2% of to­tal Ari­zona state spend­ing of $80.5 bil­lion in 2022. Ari­zona pub­lic schools spend about $14,000 per pupil, or $1.4 bil­lion for 100,000 stu­dents. If the de­part­ment’s en­roll­ment pro­jec­tion is reached, school choice would serve roughly 8% of Ari­zona’s stu­dents for 6% of the $15 bil­lion that Ari­zona will spend on pub­lic schools.

A new re­port by the Com­mon Sense In­sti­tute finds that “cur­rent en­roll­ment in Ari­zona pub­lic dis­trict and char­ter schools com­bined is over 80,000 stu­dents be­low pre-pan­demic pro­jec­tions,” pro­duc­ing a sav­ings of $639 mil­lion. Ari­zona’s pop­u­la­tion is grow­ing, so the vast ma­jor­ity of those stu­dents left for pri­vate or home schools, for which they could avail them­selves of Ari­zona’s two pri­vate choice poli­cies. In ad­di­tion to the 58,000 stu­dents us­ing ed­u­ca­tion sav­ings ac­counts, last year school tu­ition or­ga­ni­za­tions is­sued more than 32,000 tax-credit schol­ar­ships.

The at­tacks on school choice are more than a pub­lic re­la­tions cam­paign. When Ms. Hobbs’s bud­get re­tained last year’s school-choice ex­pan­sion, Ari­zona’s At­tor­ney Gen­eral Kris Mayes used the “bank­rupt the state” talk­ing point as a pre­text to threaten a law­suit. In a pub­lic let­ter to Ms. Hobbs and the Leg­is­la­ture, Ms. Mayes de­cried the “cat­astrophic drain on state re­sources caused by uni­ver­sal Em­pow­er­ment Schol­ar­ship Ac­counts.” She later went on tele­vi­sion and threat­ened to in­ves­ti­gate par­tic­i­pat­ing fam­i­lies for “waste, fraud, and abuse.”

Interesting “Wisconsin Watch” choice school coverage and a very recent public school article

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Scott Girard:

The Madison Metropolitan School District is “committed to doing the hard work and restoring the integrity” of its communications team following the release of an employee complaint against spokesperson Tim LeMonds last Friday.

In an unsigned statement posted to its website Thursday and sent via email to reporters by Communications Manager Ian Folger, the district said it “will conduct a full review of the department operations, structure and human interaction in the coming months,” with no more specific timeline.

“At the same time, the District will have significant leadership changes this summer, and through those transitions we will work to reorganize and restore relationships that are essential to our success,” according to the statement. “We will work to build a positive workplace culture for employees.”

Those leadership changes include Superintendent Carlton Jenkins retiring and longtime administrator Lisa Kvistad taking over as interim superintendent during a search for the next permanent leader. Chief Financial Officer Ross MacPherson and General Legal Counsel Sherry Terrell-Webb are among other top leaders leaving this summer.

.@MMSDschools released a statement this afternoon after last week’s release of an employee complaint against its spokesperson, Tim LeMonds. Says it will “conduct a full review of the (communications) department operations, structure and human interactions in the coming months.” pic.twitter.com/KK3U0r59WY

— Scott Girard (@sgirard9) June 1, 2023

Dave Cieslewicz:

In fact, in a story last week in Isthmus by Deborah Kades, she reports that when WMTV reporter Elizabeth Wadas approached Jenkins at a public meeting last winter LeMonds prevented her from reaching him. He told her that the meeting was for the public. Wadas informed him that being a reporter did not make her an alien, but apparently to no avail.

LeMonds also leads a communications department for a district that, beyond just LeMonds, seems intent on not communicating. In 2019 a Madison East educator and trip chaperon was found to have placed hidden cameras in the hotel bathrooms of students. The district conducted an investigation to determine if staff followed policy regarding the reporting and follow up on these incidents. The investigation concluded they had, but the district refused to release the report. Parents and students were, understandably, upset. Even school board members were not allowed to read it. Then, inexplicably and in response to another open records request on yet another camera incident, the district released the full report to Isthmus in August of 2021. LeMonds refused to answer Isthmus reporter Dylan Brogan’s questions about it at the time. 

And over a long period, the MMSD holds the dubious distinction of being the least transparent public agency in the state. In March, the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council “awarded” the district with its No Friend of Openness (Nopee) award. The council wrote: “It’s rare for a public institution that depends on taxpayer support to be as awful as this one when it comes to public records and accountability. The district, through spokesperson Tim LeMonds, has become notorious for outrageous delays and excuses, prompting multiple lawsuits alleging violations of the records law. Tom Kamenick of the Wisconsin Transparency Project has said he has “received more complaints about MMSD than any other government agency.” It is time for the district’s casual contempt for the public’s right to know to come to a screeching halt.”

Tim LeMonds had good reason to fight the release of a complaint against him. Now he should tell his side of the story.

Chris Rickert:

In a statement released Thursday by district officer of internal communication Ian Folger, the district says “the information shared publicly last week was difficult for all individuals mentioned in the documents, as well as for those who interact with them. It is abundantly clear that there are relational problems within the District’s communications department that need to be addressed.”

Folger said LeMonds remains a full-time district employee and that his role with the district has not changed. He said he could not comment on whether LeMonds is under further investigation by the district, but LeMonds said in a Thursday interview that as far as he knew, he is not.

LeMonds — who in the interview said he was speaking only on behalf of himself — said he has not been subject to any disciplinary action in the wake of the documents’ release and “categorically” denied that he called Stephanie Fryer, the spokesperson for the Madison Police Department, an “idiot,” as was alleged in the court documents.

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Housed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Journalism School (along with Marquette University), the formation, affiliation(s) and funding sources of Wisconsin Watch have generated some controversy. Jim Piwowarczyk noted in November, 2022:

“Wisconsin Watch, a 501(c)(3) organization that disseminates news stories to many prominent media outlets statewide and is housed at the taxpayer-funded UW-Madison campus, has taken more than $1 million from an organization founded by George Soros over the years. Wisconsin Right Now discovered that the group is still prominently pushing out stories by a writer, Howard Hardee, who was dispatched to Wisconsin by a Soros-funded organization to work on “election integrity” stories and projects.” When major media outlets like WTM-TV and the Wisconsin State Journal run stories by Wisconsin Watch or Hardee, they fail to advise readers that he’s a fellow with a Soros-linked group. The group says that “hundreds” of news organizations have shared its stories over the years, giving them wide reach.

The Soros family also boasts significant influence over American media. An analysis from the Media Research Center found numerous media outlets employ journalists who also serve on boards of organizations that receive large amounts of funding from Soros.

More recently, and amidst Wisconsin’s biennial budget deliberations including many billions ($11.97B in 2019! [xlsx] excluding federal and other sources) for traditional government K-12 school districts, Wisconsin Watch writer Phoebe Petrovic posted a number of articles targeting choice (0.797%!! of $11.97B) schools:

May 5, 2023: Considering a Wisconsin voucher school? Here’s what parents of children who are LGBTQ+ or have a disability should know. (Focus on < 1% of redistributed state taxpayer spending).

May 5, 2023: False choice: Wisconsin taxpayers support schools that can discriminate. (Focus on < 1% of redistributed state taxpayer spending).

May 20, 2023: Federal, state law permit disability discrimination in Wisconsin voucher schools. (Focus on < 1% of redistributed state taxpayer spending).

## May 22, 2023 via a St Marcus Milwaukee sermon [transcript]- a church family whose incredible student efforts are worth a very deep dive. Compare this to Madison, where we’ve tolerated disastrous reading results for decades despite spending > $25k+/student!

## May 23, 2023: Curious (false claims) reporting on legacy k-12 schools, charter/voucher models and special education via Wisconsin coalition for education freedom. (Focus on 99% of redistributed state taxpayer spending).

May 31, 2023: ‘Unwanted and unwelcome’: Anti-LGBTQ+ policies common at Wisconsin voucher schools. (Focus on < 1% of redistributed state taxpayer spending).

May 31, 2023: Wisconsin students with disabilities often denied public school options via another Wisconsin Watch writer: Mario Koran. (Focus on 99% of redistributed state taxpayer spending).

WI’s open enrollment program is one of the best in the country, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t limitations. When anti-#SchoolChoice folks use @WisconsinWatch articles to attack, they should also remember the same things happen in public schools. https://t.co/EwPIiwm7CU

— Will Flanders (@WillFlandersWI) June 1, 2023

The free market roots of #SchoolChoice are often overlooked in today’s political debates. It’s important to remember that the goal of school choice isn’t the elimination of public schools, but rather the lifting of all ships by providing competition to the public school monopoly. https://t.co/t49It5boHq

— Will Flanders (@WillFlandersWI) June 1, 2023

Related: Governor Evers’ most recent budget proposals have attempted to kill One City Schools’ charter authorization…… and 2010: WEAC $1.57M !! for four state senators.

June 2, 2023 Wisconsin Watch’s Embarrassing Campaign against Vouchers and Christian Schools

Oops:

“Wisconsin Watch isn’t nonpartisan in a way that a layman would understand the term. Rather, it’s nonpartisan because there isn’t a party far enough to the left to earn its support.” @LutherAbel1 dismantles Petrovic’s reporting.https://t.co/2U1miyLSv7

— Patrick McIlheran (@PaddyMacMke) June 2, 2023

In examining who Wisconsin excludes from school choice, we’ve seen how private voucher schools discriminate against LGBTQ+ students and those w/ disabilities.

Here, @MarioKoran examines how public schools reject kids w/ disabilities from open enrollment https://t.co/gsNYBO6ocX

— Jim Malewitz (@Jmalewitz) June 1, 2023

Yeah, @WisconsinWatch has long leaned left and can easily be similarly accused of avoiding introspection. Lol https://t.co/GBseKikRh6

— Chris Rickert (@RickertWisSJ) June 3, 2023

Their literal next piece (by a different reporter, true) was on inadequate special needs funding, so it’s suspicious to overlook that when critical of voucher schools and special needs.

The sexuality piece was bad journalism with unfounded logical leaps.https://t.co/A8WQgg2bdP

— Quinton Klabon (@GhaleonQ) June 3, 2023

Why might civics minded have an interest in funding sources (such as Wisconsin Watch, WILL, ActBlue and so on)?

Two examples:

Billionaire George Soros is taking a stake in the Bernalillo County district attorney’s race, backing Raul Torrez with a $107,000 contribution to an independent expenditure committee.

George Soros, a multibillionaire who has only the most tenuous connection to Colorado, is paying for negative ads against incumbent District Attorney Pete Weir, a Republican, pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into the effort.

Phoebe Petrovic:

Wisconsin Watch reviewed public materials for about one-third of the state’s 373 voucher schools and found that four out of 10 had policies or statements that appeared to target LGBTQ+ students for disparate treatment. Some had explicitly discriminatory policies, such as expelling students for being gay or transgender. 

All 50 of the voucher schools with anti-LGBTQ+ stances identified by the news organization are Christian, with denominations including Lutherans and Catholics, among others. Almost every school cites religious principles as a basis for their positions.

Suzanne Eckes, an education law professor at University of Madison-Wisconsin, argued that language casting gay or transgender identities or behavior as sinful, even without policies codifying the perspective, “has a discriminatory intent behind it.”

She also pointed out how some policies, although not explicit, could result in LGBTQ+ students being treated inconsistently from others. For example, some schools specifically ban all sexual contact outside of a straight, cisgender marriage.

Green Bay Adventist Junior Academy, which has nearly 68% of students on vouchers, says that it “does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation (in admissions), but does discriminate on the basis of sexual misconduct,” which includes “homosexual conduct.” Reached by phone, a representative of the school said: “We have no comment.”

Werth, now approaching graduation from college, said his experience, although difficult, was not as hostile as the policies now in place at his alma mater and elsewhere.

It would be useful to compare $pending on traditional public schools and the voucher budget…

PART 2 of our series on voucher discrimination is now out, focused on students with disabilities. Per advocate: “We have two parallel school systems: one of which is oriented toward serving students with disabilities and the other which never has been.” https://t.co/J7npNaheRb

— Phoebe "listen to Open and Shut" Petrovic (@PhoebePetrovic) May 22, 2023

More:

Curious (false claims) reporting on legacy k-12 schools, charter/voucher models and special education via Wisconsin coalition for education freedom.

A “Wisconsin Watch” look at voucher schools; DPI heavy, no mention of $pending or achievement…

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Alan Borsuk:

Year after year, MPS reading scores are abysmal, strong signs of the problems with educational success that lie ahead for many students. There are bright spots; some MPS schools consistently have better results.

But overall, in spring 2022 — the most recent results available — more than half (54.1%) of MPS third- through eighth-graders were rated “below basic” in reading on Wisconsin’s Forward tests, while 26.2% were at the basic level and 14.1% were rated proficient or advanced. Another 5.6% didn’t take the tests. Among Black students, 7% were advanced or proficient and 64.7% were below basic. In some schools, fewer than 2% of students were proficient and none were advanced.

It is fair and important to note that the overall success of students in private, parochial and charter schools generally wasn’t much different, although some schools stand out for above-average success year after year.

Specifically, in spring 2022 results for Milwaukee students using publicly funded vouchers to attend private schools, 41% were rated as below basic, 32% as basic, and 19% as proficient or advanced. The voucher percentages include ninth-, 10th- and 11th-grade students.

There are positive reading reforms for my Milwaukee! But:

1. the skyrocketing scores are not correct. 43% of that school skipped the pandemic test, sadly.https://t.co/SQmNwAMxAM

2. board meetings have not mentioned training/coaches/method/rigor. Scores seem flat this year. https://t.co/QlCbQhw5To pic.twitter.com/42hP6NEcNL

— Quinton Klabon (@GhaleonQ) May 31, 2023

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Scott Girard:

“I’d been looking forward to high school and it was so hyped up,” said West High School senior Alex Vakar. “It felt like this necessary period for growth because people always talk about them being the best days of their lives, and we missed out on half of that.”

Dances, sports, time with friends, theater performances — all of them were canceled or altered at some point over the past four years, and that’s just outside the classroom. The interruption to students’ learning was severe, and even while virtual learning was a positive for some, students noticed missing foundational pieces when they returned to in-person classes.

That environment faced a sudden change on the afternoon of March 13, 2020, as district officials announced an extended spring break, and later that afternoon Gov. Tony Evers closed schools statewide.

“Of course, we’re freshmen in high school, we’re like, ‘Let’s go! It’s an extra week!’” Mueller said. “Initially we were all just super excited for it because we didn’t know enough about it.”

No one knew how long it would last.

“When I heard that we were closing down and school was shutting down, I was in my geometry class and my teacher just said, ‘Hopefully I’ll see you next week,’” Vakar recalled.

Reality quickly set in, as the wait for a return kept being extended and the school district tried to formulate a plan to continue students’ learning. That spring, MMSD began virtual learning but switched to a “pass/no pass” grading system for high schoolers and froze grade point averages at their first semester level.

Vakar grew increasingly frustrated with MMSD as she saw peers in surrounding school districts return while Madison remained virtual. When Vakar returned in spring 2021 to a limited schedule at West, as the district phased in in-person instruction and a hybrid schedule, she noticed the differences from fall 2019: masking, one-way hallways and one class in which she “was completely alone with the teacher” while the rest of the class was on Zoom.

Dane County Madison Public Health Notes and links.

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

James Vaznis:

Boston Public Schools spends more per student than any other large school district in the country, according to the latest figures from the US Census Bureau, a new distinction that reflects how BPS’s budget keeps growing even as student enrollment continues to decline.

The city’s highest-in-the-nation cost, of $31,397 per student during the 2020-21 school year, represented a nearly 13 percent increase from the previous year, or about $3,600 more per student, according to the census, which examined spending in the country’s 100 largest districts.

During that same period, BPS enrollment dropped by about 2,500 students, according to the state’s annual Oct. 1 head count.Yet for all the money BPS is spending, many education advocates, parents, and students are bewildered at how little the district generally has to show for it. State standardized test scores are low, huge gaps in achievement exist between students of different backgrounds, and the district had to aggressively fight off a state takeover last year.

Madison taxpayers spend about $26K per student, far more than most, though not as much as Boston.

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Peter Jamison:

Across the country, interest in home schooling has never been greater. The Bealls could see the surge in Virginia, where nearly 57,000 children were being home-schooled in the fall of 2022 — a 28 percent jump from three years earlier. The rise of home education, initially unleashed by parents’ frustrations with pandemic-related campus closures and remote learning, has endured as one of the lasting social transformations wrought by covid-19.

But if the coronavirus was a catalyst for the explosion in home schooling, the stage was set through decades of painstaking work by true believers like those who had raised Aaron and Christina. Aided by the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) — a Christian nonprofit that has been dubbed “the most influential homeschool organization in the world,” and is based less than five miles from the Bealls’ house in Northern Virginia — those activists had fought to establish the legality of home schooling in the 1980s and early 1990s, conquering the skepticism of public school administrators and state lawmakers across the country.

Through their influence, a practice with roots in the countercultural left took on a very different character. Among conservative Christians, home schooling became a tool for binding children to fundamentalist beliefs they felt were threatened by exposure to other points of view. Rightly educated, those children would grow into what HSLDA founder Michael Farris called a “Joshua Generation” that would seek the political power and cultural influence to reshape America according to biblical principles.

## I’ve known a number of people who chose home schooling. In many cases, academic rigor was a significant factor. Religion was for some as well.

Perhaps these links might offer a bit of background:

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Scott Girard:

The complaint against Madison Metropolitan School District spokesperson Tim LeMonds that he fought to keep private alleges he bullied and harassed numerous employees under his management as well as members of the local media.

Filed in October 2022 by three employees, one of whom has since left the district, the complaint includes a timeline of examples of poor behavior beginning in March 2021 through early October 2022. It also includes experiences shared by former employees who are not officially part of the complaint.

The district released the complaint in response to an open records request on Friday. On Thursday, a Dane County Circuit Court judge ruled against LeMonds’ lawsuit seeking to stop that release based on concerns about the potential reputational damage it could cause. LeMonds began working in MMSD in 2019.

This is jaw dropping stuff from the person whose job is dealing with media https://t.co/q36Xfn1itx

— Naomi Kowles (@NaomiKowles) May 26, 2023

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Scott Girard:

The Madison Metropolitan School District can release an employee complaint filed against its spokesperson as part of a response to an open records request, a Dane County judge ruled Thursday.

Circuit Court Judge Rhonda Lanford ruled against MMSD’s executive director for communications, Tim LeMonds, who filed a lawsuit against MMSD on March 24 asking the court to stop the release of a few documents that are responsive to an open records request.

“I do not think that the plaintiff, Mr. LeMonds, has come close to showing that the public interest of protecting his reputation outweighs the public’s right to know,” Lanford said. “Especially in a case involving the public schools and how not just investigations are conducted, but how well how they are conducted and the results of that.”

The public records request came from NBC15 reporter Elizabeth Wadas, who requested all emails from Dec. 19, 2021, through Dec. 19, 2022, that contained her name or references to an NBC15 reporter. The district released hundreds of pages of records related to the request, but per open records law notified LeMonds that the complaint would be part of the release and allowed him time to challenge that.

Here’s a pic I took in February of @ElizabethWadas standing her ground on questions about public records as MMSD comms director Tim LeMonds dodged and pushed back (verbally) https://t.co/K5exXVGtda pic.twitter.com/oy4R53wwkt

— Mark Treinen (@MarkTreinen) May 27, 2023

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Eugene Volokh:

From Livingston Parish School Bd. v. Kellett, decided Thursday by the Louisiana Court of Appeal (Judge Allison Penzato, joined by Judges Duke Welch & Walter Lanier):

[T]he School Board discovered that Ms. Kellett, the mother of a child attending Live Oak Elementary School, “repeatedly concealed” electronic devices in her child’s clothing or personal belongings in November 2019. Ms. Kellett purportedly used these devices to “intercept communications by and between faculty, students, and others in the school and/or classroom during school hours and while on school property.” One such device, an AngelSense, had GPS capability to track the child’s whereabouts and also allowed verbal communications between Ms. Kellett and her child. The School Board obtained a temporary restraining order (TRO) on January 27, 2020, then a preliminary injunction on April 8, 2020, prohibiting Ms. Kellett’s use of these devices on school property.

The School Board also accused Ms. Kellett of being critical of the School Board and publicly discussing “her child’s special needs” and individual education plan with the media. Ms. Kellett allegedly maintained a “live web blog and other ongoing social media posts” that involved discussion and disclosure of information related to the School Board, the special education program, and other identified individuals. According to the School Board, these posts have “caused concern for parents of other [Livingston Parish School System] students and have defamed and slandered the reputations of [the School Board] and Live Oak Elementary staff.” The January 27, 2020 TRO and April 8, 2020 preliminary injunction addressed this additional complaint by the School Board. Pertinently, the April 8, 2020 preliminary injunction enjoined, restrained, and prohibited Ms. Kellett from:

… d) … engaging in any form of written, verbal, or physical displays of hostility, anger, or disparagement, and/or from making threats of any physical assault, and/or any disorderly conduct that results in fear or disruption of activities through hostile and inappropriate behavior toward any LPSB [Livingston Parish School Board] member, administrator, faculty or staff at Live Oak Elementary School and/or on any LPSS [Livingston Parish School System] public school bus or other school property, and/or while participating in any educational or other school related business or function, including but in no way limited to any Individual Education Plan (IEP) or Individual Health Plan (IHP) meetings or evaluations required to facilitate the minor child’s special education and health care needs;

f) … making or publishing and/or from engaging in any activity to make, disseminate, publish or broadcast defamatory, slanderous, libelous, frivolous and/or fraudulent claims or statements concerning [the School Board], its faculty, staff and employees, as defined by R.S. 14:47-48, 13:3381(B), directly or by her enlisting the assistance of any other person(s) on her behalf ….

The School Board argues that false statements, like Ms. Kellett’s accusations against the School Board and its employees, which purportedly include allegations of criminal conduct, are not constitutionally protected free speech. Worse, it asserts, the words uttered by Ms. Kellett are defamatory per se. In Kennedy v. Sheriff of East Baton Rouge (La. 2006), the Louisiana Supreme Court recognized that words that expressly or implicitly accuse another of criminal conduct, or which by their very nature tend to injure one’s personal or professional reputation, without considering extrinsic facts or circumstances, are considered defamatory per se. “When a plaintiff proves publication of words that are defamatory per se, falsity and malice (or fault) are presumed, but may be rebutted by the defendant.” Thus, before liability can be imposed for the publication of words that are defamatory per se, the defendant must be given an opportunity to rebut the presumption.

Wisconsin coalition for education freedom:

Wisconsin Watch has released its third article in a series attempting to discredit the great work choice programs do in Wisconsin. Their latest article misrepresents admission policies of choice schools while ignoring the fact that public schools often engage in admission practices that would be illegal for schools participating in the state’s choice programs.
Wisconsin Watch is again making false claims.

• In their most recent article, Wisconsin Watch again misrepresents school choice admission practices and now adds a false narrative that schools “expel” students with disabilities at will. Their claims don’t match reality, nor is a single example provided.
• Fact: Schools in Wisconsin’s choice programs may not discriminate against any eligible family based on a student’s disability.i
• As with many individual public schools, individual private schools are not required to provide a full range of disability services. Parents who choose to enroll their student do so only after being fully informed of available services.
  Some Wisconsin public schools have admissions processes that would be illegal for private choice schools.
• Public school districts often have specialty public schools, in addition to their residentially assigned schools. Public schools are permitted to create admission requirements for these schools.
• Public schools having admission requirements is not a new phenomenon, with the practice being documented in Wisconsin for decades.ii (Link)
• Today, specialty schools like those in Milwaukeeiii (Link) use a points system to admit students based on their report card scores, attendance, standardized test scores, and an essay. In Green Bay,iv (Link) students must complete a test for admission to a school for the gifted.
  1
• Choice schools must admit students on a random basis if there is excess demand with few exceptions, primarily related to being in the same family as an existing student.v (Link)
  Public schools reject students in the public school full-time open enrollment program.

Phoebe Petrovic:

As an advocacy specialist at Disability Rights Wisconsin, Joanne Juhnke regularly finds herself on the phone with parents concerned about their children’s treatment at school.

Most complaints concern public schools, which enroll the majority of students. State funding for special education has shrunk, forcing districts to struggle to provide services, and disparate treatment of students with disabilities at public schools persists. But in public school, families have a state body to appeal to: the Department of Public Instruction.

DPI is far less helpful in disputes with private schools, which under state law can legally discriminate against students who need certain disability accommodations — or even kick them out. This applies even to private schools that receive taxpayer-funded tuition vouchers to educate students.

The calls Juhnke receives from voucher families often contain the same story. A family has enrolled a child with disabilities in a private school. Administrators have begun pressuring the student to leave or have kicked them out, something public schools cannot do. The parents are shocked. They’re sure the schools can’t do that.

Many times, Juhnke has to tell them: Yes, they can.

“You went into this school choice program thinking that you were the one, as the parents, who have the choice,” she said. “Really, on the other end, the school holds more choice cards than you do, and you’re coming out on the wrong side of that.”

I find the timing of Wisconsin Watch’s articles curious, amidst budget season. Ideally, the writer might dive deep and wide into the effectiveness of our well funded k-12 system. Reading would be a terrific place to start.

This Wisconsin Watch article was referenced in a recent St Marcus (Milwaukee) podcast. St Marcus operates an extraordinarily successful choice school on the City’s near north side. Read more, here.

Governor Evers’ most recent budget proposals have attempted to kill One City Schools’ charter authorization……

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

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

Corrinne Hess:

Since the pandemic, fewer Wisconsin students have reliably made it to school. The state’s attendance rate reached a new low of 91 percent last year and chronic absenteeism continues to be an issue, with more than 22 percent of students missing at least a month of school. 

The picture is even more grim for high school students. The latest state data shows more than a quarter — 26 percent — of Wisconsin high school students missed a month of the 2021-2022 school year.  

A student is considered chronically absent when they attend less than 90 percent of school days. The overall attendance rate for Wisconsin high school students was 89.7. Milwaukee Public Schools high school students attended only 70 percent of the time.

Attendance is an important measure of student engagement and a predictor of future achievement, dropout or late graduation. And attendance rates have been dropping since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

School avoidant behavior, also called school refusal, is when a school-age child refuses to attend school or has difficulty being in school for the entire day. Several mental health experts told USA TODAY it has become a crisis that has gotten worse since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Scott Girard:

This year, the two sides are about $11.7 million apart, with MMSD offering a 3.5% increase in its draft budget and MTI, the teachers union, asking for the maximum 8%. MTI, as it did last year, has rallied and spoken out publicly about its concerns should the district remains at 3.5%, including intensifying the district’s ongoing staff shortage.

District officials have said the 3.5% is the best they can do right now amid uncertainty surrounding the state budget and long-term fiscal challenges like decreasing enrollment and the coming end of federal COVID-19 aid.

Below, the Cap Times explains the numbers behind the disagreement. (Budget deep dive)

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Will Flanders and Matt Levene:

Forward Exam scores show that Wisconsin students are struggling in reading. Currently statewide, only about 36.8% of students scored proficient or higher on the Forward Exam, meaning the majority of students are falling behind. Reading problems cut across all socioeconomic and racial lines. Much attention has been focused on the “Science of Reading,” and the persistence of reading curricula around the state that are not focused on these metrics. The Science of Reading is a ‘back to the basics’ approach that is focused on learning phonics, increasing vocabulary, and sounding out words rather than the context-clue based “guessing” techniques that have become popular in recent decades. Until now, it has not been possible to take a statewide look at what curricula districts are using for reading, and whether this choice has a relationship to student outcomes.

This paper takes advantage of a new dataset available from the Department of Public Instruction that details the curricula used in each district around the state. We correlate reading outcomes on the Forward Exam with some two of the most widely criticized curricula that rely on “Whole Language” techniques—Lucy Calkins and Fountas and Pinnell.

Key takeaways include:

Whole Language techniques are still in wide use. About 44% of schools around Wisconsin under the high school level are still using Lucy Calkins and/or Fountas and Pinnell.

Use of Lucy Calkins is correlated with lower proficiency. Controlling for a number of other factors that are known to affect reading scores, the use of Lucy Calkins is correlated with about a 2.1% decline in ELA proficiency. No relationship was found with Fountas and Pinnell, possibly due to lower usage rates.

Combined, use of either curriculum is correlated with lower proficiency. Controlling for a number of other factors known to affect reading scores, the use of Lucy Calkins or Fountas and Pinnell is correlated with 2.7% lower reading scores.
Policymakers should consider adopting best practices from the Science of Reading. States like Mississippi have seen significant jumps in reading proficiency by moving away from Whole Language methods to science-based methods. The evidence here suggests Wisconsin could benefit from doing the same.

A list of district-level reading curricula is available on WILL’s School Scorecard. Visit https://will-law.org/school-scorecard/ to see what is in use in your community.

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Will-Law

Recently Wisconsin Watch released articles criticizing the Wisconsin parental choice programs and incorrectly claiming that private schools may “discriminate.” This memo provides resources and information about the false claims made in the article and talking points to refute them. 

The claims that private schools may “discriminate” are false. 

These claims are false. Wisconsin Watch claims that federal law “allows religious entities to discriminate against LGBTQ+ students” and that schools in the parental choice program may discriminate against LGBTQ+ students or those with disabilities “once that student is enrolled.” 

Private schools are governed by different laws than public schools.  There are specific prohibitions of discrimination that apply to private schools participating in the parental choice program. For example, Wisconsin law requires private schools in the choice programs to do a blind admission process. Schools are not permitted to create barriers for enrollment for student based on anything other than the DPI application and income verification forms. Private schools are allowed to give existing students and their siblings eligibility preferences.  

Private schools are not permitted to “discriminate” against students with disabilities. 

The Obama Administration began a misguided investigation into private schools in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program in 2011. DPI, at that time, correctly stated that private schools in the program have a different legal standard to serve students with disabilities. Despite a three-year investigation, there were no instances of discrimination found. 

Private schools have a different legal standard than public schools for students with disabilities. 

Public schools are subject to several state and federal laws regarding the education of students with disabilities including the requirement that public school districts may not deny any student access to a “Free and Appropriate Public Education” and receive specific funds to educate children with disabilities. Even within public school districts, not all individual schools are required to provide a full range of special education services.

Private schools must meet a different legal standard. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Title III of the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) set forth requirements for private schools. 

Title III of the ADA requires private schools to make “reasonable modifications” for individuals with disabilities to access the facility and prohibits private schools from discriminating against individuals based on their disability. Changes to accommodate may not fundamentally alter the nature of the goods and services provided by the private school or impose an undue financial or administrative burden on the private school. Similarly, Section 504 requires private schools to make “minor adjustments” for individuals with disabilities to access the facility. Private schools may consider  the nature of the program provided and the expense of accommodations sought when serving individuals with disabilities under Section 504. 

Furthermore, private schools participating in the Wisconsin Special Needs Scholarship Program, to specifically serve students with disabilities, must meet with families to complete an agreement to discuss the educational needs of each student and to explain special education resources available at the school. Participating private schools are also required to provide reports to parents about student progress.

The Wisconsin Watch articles do not specifically claim a private school violated the federal laws regarding students with disabilities. 

Private schools in Wisconsin serve hundreds of students with disabilities.

Academic research found that private schools in Wisconsin parental choice programs serve many students with disabilities. Reported disability rates are often lower because choice schools lack the financial incentive public schools have for identification.

This is further supported by the growing participation in the Special Needs Scholarship Program, a state-funded program to give students with disabilities funding to attend a private school of their choice. Since the program’s creation in 2015, participation has grown by 815%, from 215 to 1,986 students. 

Private schools in the choice program welcome all students. 

Private schools in the choice program choose to participate in the program, with full knowledge that they are opening their doors to students and families from all different backgrounds and beliefs. Many of these schools participate because they want to serve as many students as possible. 

Private schools in the choice program may not require participation in religious classes. 

Once enrolled, all students are subject to the policies of the school, religious policies included. If families disagree with the religious beliefs of the school, state law permits families to opt their children out of religious instruction. 

Additionally, the choice program is a voluntary program that empowers families to choose the school that best fits their child’s needs. Families are always free to choose to send their children to a school that matches their values.

Religious schools have a constitutional protection to serve students based on their beliefs. 

The U.S. Constitution protects the free exercise of religion. This allows religious schools to teach and make decisions based on their religious beliefs. For private, religious schools, this includes decisions relating to policies and procedures at the school. 

Both the Wisconsin Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court have determined that parental choice programs are legal. 

The claims that taxpayer dollars should not go to schools that enforce their religious beliefs has been litigated both in Wisconsin and most recently in the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that if states choose to create and provide a parental choice program the state may not discriminate against faith-based schools and may not bar students from using public funds to attend religious schools. 

With private schools, the choice ultimately lies with the student, parent, and family. 

All families deserve to access high-quality schools that meet their child’s needs. Far too many families are stuck in their assigned public schools, but school choice provides families with the option to attend the school that is the best fit for their child.

Ultimately, parents and students have every right to go to a school that matches their moral convictions.  The whole idea behind school choice is if a parent or student is upset with how a school is run, then they can in fact go somewhere else and take their money with them. 

For additional questions, please contact:

Nic Kelly, kelly@parentchoice.org

Libby Sobic, libby@will-law.org

Notes and links on “Wisconsin Watch”

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Laurel White:

Remote learning during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic was more likely to negatively affect the high school graduation rates of students from lower-income households than their higher-income peers, according to a new UW–Madison study. 

The study, published in Educational Researcher, found a longer time in virtual or hybrid learning environments during the 2020–21 school year decreased overall high school completion rates and increased the gap in completion rates between economically disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students.

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Kimberly Wethal:

Higher rates of chronic absenteeism are largely driving the increase, as about 98% of the district’s 2,231 at-risk students have been deemed “habitually truant,” defined as missing more than 10% of days in an academic year. The number of students considered habitually truant during the 2021-22 school year more than tripled from the year before, according to data presented to the Madison School Board Monday night.

Students in grades five through 12 are considered at risk by the state when they either have dropped out or can be classified in two or more categories considered detrimental to their education, including being:

• One or more years behind their peers in the number of high school credits earned.
• Two or more years behind in basic skill levels.
• Pregnant or a parent.
• An eighth-grader who scored below “basic” on state exams.
• Habitually truant.

The number of students in each category increased in 2021-22, with the exception of students who are pregnant or parenting, a number that’s fallen from 40 five years ago to just a handful now. About 1,714 students, or more than 10%, had fallen behind by two school years, an increase from 946 students in 2018-19, the last year before the pandemic. The number of eighth graders scoring low on state exams has doubled since then.

The number of at-risk students each year is based on data collected the year prior. In 2021-22, there were 14,980 students in grades five through 12 in the district.

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

DRAKE BENTLEY:

In her letter, Underly stated, “Whether you realize it or not, you are, under the guise of protection, causing undue harm to students and staff. However, this damage is reversible. It is paramount that you change course now.”

Underly requested that the administration reverse the policy to “foster inclusive environments,” saying the controversial issues policy is “eliminating conversation on topics that you have in the past deemed controversial.”

Reversing the policy “will send a clear message to the residents of Waukesha and all of Wisconsin about the high priority you place on ensuring a well-rounded education for your students that reflect the pluralistic nature of our society,” Underly wrote.

Last week, the administration placed first-grade dual-language teacher Melissa Tempel on administrative leave after she spoke out about the district’s decision to ban “Rainbowland.”

Underly addressed Tempel’s leave in her letter by citing the text from the controversial issue policy. She said the district needs to re-evaluate its decision to place Tempel on leave and should recognize that “‘acknowledging the rights of (the district’s) professional staff members as citizens in a democratic society’ is, in fact, in the best interests of the School District of Waukesha.”

Thank you to @SenatorKapenga, Rep Allen, Rep Neylon, and Senator Hutton for issuing this reminder to @DrJillUnderly. When over half of Wisconsin kids can’t read or do math at grade level, she needs to focus on improving public education and not issue veiled political threats. pic.twitter.com/TbksgMBA6n

— Nicole (@BigNicEnergy) April 22, 2023

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Dave Zweifel:

Although you might never know it by last week’s meeting of the Madison School Board, school districts are very much included in the law that requires government — which belongs to and is paid for by the public after all — needs to be transparent in all that it does. There is no room for secrets unless specifically exempted under the law.

To me, the meeting to discuss the embarrassing failure of the Madison Metropolitan School District’s response to open records requests was an embarrassment itself. Administrators tried to explain why the district has become a laggard in fulfilling openness requests, often simply denying access or stonewalling for months to release records that “shall be honored as soon as practicable and without delay.”

They revealed that the job that long ago was designated as the records custodian, the person responsible for releasing requested public records, no longer exists. Instead, the district’s legal department has been taxed with the job and apparently is overwhelmed by other tasks.

That’s patently unacceptable, and I’m surprised School Board members didn’t demand an accounting. No governmental body can just ignore the law because it refuses to assign adequate staff to comply with it.

Wisj:

But one of the lawsuits was actually filed by the district’s own spokesman, Tim LeMonds. After the district determined it had to release a complaint against LeMonds by his staff, the tight-lipped LeMonds — whose job is supposed to be communicating with the public — sued his employer to stop disclosure.

You can’t make this stuff up — or justify it.

More, here.

“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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Scott Girard:

Two months after announcing his retirement, outgoing Madison Superintendent Carlton Jenkins has been named a finalist for the top job in a Tennessee school district.

Chalkbeat Tennessee, an education news website, reported Saturday that Jenkins is among three finalists to be the next Memphis-Shelby County Schools superintendent. The School Board there, however, was not happy with the list of three finalists selected by a search firm, including Jenkins.

“After a public meeting that at times turned tense, the board announced it would pause plans to interview finalists for the position until it receives the names of all 34 applicants,” Chalkbeat reported, adding that board members questioned the process rather than the credentials of any specific candidates during their Saturday meeting.

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 requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

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

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results 

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

“An emphasis on adult employment”

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?