Karen Sloan:

Students from two of the county’s most elite law schools have banded together to launch a national campaign to pressure Paul Weiss to drop ExxonMobil as a client.

A group of Harvard and Yale law students are asking counterparts at other law schools to sign a pledge that they will not interview for summer associate positions or work for Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison until the firm no longer represents the oil and gas giant. They say the firm’s representation of Exxon in a series of climate change lawsuits makes it complicit in the planet’s destruction.

“As future lawyers, we have a choice,” the pledge reads. “Will we commit ourselves to enabling corporations to continue putting human civilization at risk of climate catastrophe? Or will we dedicate our careers to making a positive impact in our communities and helping build a more just and sustainable future?”

Sharique Hasan and Anuj Kumar:

We analyze whether widespread online access to school-performance information affected economic and social segregation in America. We leverage the staged rollout of GreatSchools.org school ratings from 2006–2015 to answer this question. Across a range of outcomes and specifications, we find that the mass availability of school ratings has accelerated divergence in housing values, income distributions and education levels as well as the racial and ethnic composition across communities. Affluent and more educated families were better positioned to leverage this new information to capture educational opportunities in communities with the best schools. An unintended consequence of better information was less, rather than more, equity in education.

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.

Alfred Ng:

Like about a billion other people, 17-year-old Samantha Mosley spent her Saturday afternoon perusing Instagram. 

She was taking a glance at the Explore tab, a feature on Instagram that shows you posts tailored for your interests based on algorithms that track your online activities and target posts to your feed. 

But unlike many of Instagram’s users, Mosley and her high school friends in Maryland had figured out a way to fool tracking by the Facebook-owned social network. On the first visit, her Explore tab showed images of Kobe Bryant. Then on a refresh, cooking guides, and after another refresh, animals. 

“I’ve never looked at animals on this account,” Mosley mentioned in Washington, DC. At the hacker conference Shmoocon, along with her father, Russell Mosley, she’d just given a presentation on how teens were keeping their accounts private from Instagram.

Daley Alba:

Jim Shultz tried everything he could think of to stop facial recognition technology from entering the public schools in Lockport, a small city 20 miles east of Niagara Falls. He posted about the issue in a Facebook group called Lockportians. He wrote an Op-Ed in The New York Times. He filed a petition with the superintendent of the district, where his daughter is in high school.

But a few weeks ago, he lost. The Lockport City School District turned on the technology to monitor who’s on the property at its eight schools, becoming the first known public school district in New York to adopt facial recognition, and one of the first in the nation.

The district, said Mr. Shultz, 62, “turned our kids into lab rats in a high-tech experiment in privacy invasion.”

Scott Girard:

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.

Jim Bender:

More than 43,000 families in Wisconsin’s school choice programs likely will be surprised to learn that they constitute a “threat” to the state.

The editorial board of the Capital Times offered up that opinion in a recent attack on programs that serve these low-income and working-class families. The impetus for the editorial — what can charitably be described as a rant — was a school choice rally in the Capitol attended by more than 800 students and parents. It was also the first time a sitting United States vice president or president had been inside our state’s Capitol building.

In the 767-word editorial, the word “student” appeared but once. “Parent” and “family” were not mentioned at all. Milwaukee school board politics was heavily covered, however.

The editorial lauded Gov. Tony Evers for being “right” in opposing the state’s school choice programs. We can safely assume, therefore, that the editorial board will not object to assessing those programs based on criteria established by the governor during his tenure as Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Wisconsin’s three principal choice programs involve families in Milwaukee, Racine and the rest of state.

Let’s start with the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) where roughly 30,000 of the 43,000 students are enrolled. The DPI/Evers report cards rank schools using five categories, with the highest being “significantly exceeds expectations” or five stars. In the most recent ratings, this highest rank was awarded to 21 Milwaukee schools with a student population of color of at least 80%. Of those 21 schools, 14 are in the MPCP, five are autonomous charter schools and two are in Milwaukee Public Schools.

“An emphasis on adult employment”.

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators 

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.

Zuri Davis:

Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro issued fake subpoenas to pressure victims and witnesses to testify. Now facing a lawsuit, the Louisiana prosecutor is arguing that the practice falls under the umbrella of absolute immunity—the doctrine that says prosecutors cannot face civil action for carrying out their official duties.

The good news is that there’s a strong chance the courts won’t buy it.

The Lens uncovered Cannizzaro’s tactic in April 2017. He would send people notifications telling them to appear in court or face fines or jail time. The documents were neither authorized by a judge nor issued by a county clerk, the proper channels for subpoenas. Cannizzaro’s office was producing them itself. Worse yet: Even though the subpoenas were unlawful, he really did jail people who didn’t obey them.

In October 2017, the American Civil Liberties Union sued Cannizzaro and some of his staffers on behalf of the people who received the subpoenas. According to the suit, Cannizzaro’s office sought high bonds for those jailed for refusing to obey the orders, often higher than the bond set for the criminal defendants in the related cases. The victim in one domestic violence case was forced to spend five days in jail on a $100,000 bond; she appeared in court in an orange jumpsuit and shackles. Her alleged abuser was treated more leniently: He paid a $3,500 secured bond, returned home until his court date, and appeared before the court in his own clothes.

A rape victim, similarly, spent 12 days in jail. A child sex trafficking victim spent 89 days in jail, including Christmas and New Year’s Day.

Mike Adams:

Last week, I received a phone call from a professor who teaches in another department here at the University of North Carolina – Wilmington (UNCW), where I have taught for the past 27 years. He was reporting a case of possible discrimination, which resulted in a professor being denied tenure thus losing his livelihood very soon. When I received the call, I immediately began asking questions to assess the validity of his concern. After just a few questions, I came across some information that will shock the conscience of any clear thinking, rational individual.

By way of background information, professors at our university must pass through several hoops to get tenure after they are initially hired for a tenure-track position. The initial contract is only for a few years. If professors get reappointed, a few years later they have an opportunity to apply for lifetime tenure. But to get this tenure, they first have to get approval from a majority of the tenured professors in their department, their department chair, and their college dean. If applicants succeed at this, they face a final vote from the university-wide Reappointment, Tenure, and Promotion (RTP) Committee. Since every faculty member must pass through this committee, its chair is arguably the most powerful professor on campus.

In the case that was reported to me, the applicant had received all three initial approvals. But, then, the RTP committee chair rejected the application. When I learned this, I asked about who is currently on the RTP committee. That is when I learned that its chair is Dr. Kimberly Cook.

If you have followed my career or read my previous columns, you may recall that name. I successfully sued Cook (and others) in federal court for promotion discrimination. In fact, of the 500 or so faculty members at UNCW today, she is the only one to have ever been successfully sued for discrimination in federal court. 

Xinhua:

China’s Ministry of Education (MOE) has required colleges and universities nationwide to offer online teaching and learning resources following the postponement of school semesters.

According to a set of guidelines recently issued by the MOE, colleges and universities should make full use of all kinds of quality open online courses and laboratory resource platforms to organize online education activities.

Efforts should be made to make sure that online learning can be as efficient as learning in the classroom, said the guidelines.

Official data showed that as of Feb. 2, 22 online course platforms had opened more than 24,000 free courses covering 12 undergraduate disciplines and 18 majors of technical and vocational education.

Ed Regis:

In December 2003, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first flight of the Wright brothers, the New York Times ran a story entitled “Staying Aloft; What Does Keep Them Up There?” The point of the piece was a simple question: What keeps planes in the air? To answer it, the Times turned to John D. Anderson, Jr., curator of aerodynamics at the National Air and Space Museum and author of several textbooks in the field.

What Anderson said, however, is that there is actually no agreement on what generates the aerodynamic force known as lift. “There is no simple one-liner answer to this,” he told the Times. People give different answers to the question, some with “religious fervor.” More than 15 years after that pronouncement, there are still different accounts of what generates lift, each with its own substantial rank of zealous defenders. At this point in the history of flight, this situation is slightly puzzling. After all, the natural processes of evolution, working mindlessly, at random and without any understanding of physics, solved the mechanical problem of aerodynamic lift for soaring birds eons ago. Why should it be so hard for scientists to explain what keeps birds, and airliners, up in the air?

Howard Hardee:

After outlasting 45 fellow students in a war of words that played out over three hours, Matthew Brock won first place at Saturday’s All-City Spelling Bee.

Brock, 14, is an eighth-grader at Toki Middle School. He had his eye on the top prize after taking third place in the 2018 contest and falling to fourth last year, he said after the bee at Madison Area Technical College’s Mitby Theater.

“I read a lot and I practiced the study list,” he said. “Every time I see a word I don’t know, I look up the definition and try to understand whatever the context may be.

After second-place finisher Vincent Bautista stumbled over “euphonious,” Brock spelled it correctly and sealed his victory by getting “dolomite” right, too.

Brock will now move on to the Badger State Spelling Bee, scheduled for March 7 in Mitby Theater. The state champion will advance to the Scripps National Spelling Bee held in May in National Harbor, Maryland.

Wonderful!

Alan Borsuk:

Let’s focus particularly on Evers’ call for using some of the money to return state support of general operating costs of public schools to two-thirds of the total bill (with the other third coming generally from property taxes).  

A bit of history: In the early 1990s, there was strong opinion, particularly for then-Gov. Tommy Thompson and Republican legislators, that property taxes in Wisconsin were too high and school spending was increasing too fast. The result was creation of what was called “the three-legged stool” that would provide something for school spending increases to rest on.  

The three legs were: A cap on how much money school districts could collect in state aid and property taxes; a rule known as the QEO which effectively put a lid on how much pay and benefits for teachers could increase; and a commitment by the state to pay two-thirds of school costs in exchange for reduced property taxes (which actually worked, at least for a while).  

Teachers unions’ hated the QEO and it died during the time Democrat Jim Doyle was the governor. Revenue caps (which also constrained teacher pay and benefits) are alive to this day.  

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

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.

Molly Beck:

A Madison teacher charged with trying to create child pornography was allowed to travel home from an out-of-state trip with students who found hidden cameras in their hotel bathrooms and the victims’ parents haven’t been told why.

Madison School District officials won’t say whether they knew about the discovery of the cameras before David Kruchten, the accused teacher, and the students boarded a bus to travel back to Madison from Minneapolis for a Dec. 6-8 business club trip.

And police aren’t saying whether they suspected Kruchten before he and the students left Minneapolis in one vehicle to travel together for hours.

“Due to this being an active investigation, the district is not able to comment on the particulars of the case,” district spokesman Tim LeMonds told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Minneapolis Police Department spokesman John Elder said he couldn’t release details of whether officers contacted the district about the potential of Kruchten’s involvement before the group departed the city, but said the department ensured the students weren’t in danger. 

“We knew that by releasing him we weren’t jeopardizing anybody,” Elder said. “The safety of the children is absolutely the number one thing and each decision, as we moved through this case, we made sure in fact the children were safe.”

Kruchten is accused of secretly filming teenage students on three school-related trips during 2019. He was indicted in federal court in January over incidents in January and October of 2019 and charged Wednesday in Hennepin County, Minnesota, with hiding cameras in students’ hotel rooms during the Minneapolis trip. 

LeMonds said district officials haven’t interviewed Kruchten or anyone else about the incident because the Wisconsin Department of Justice asked them to hold off on investigating the incident until the criminal prosecution is complete. 

DOJ spokeswoman Gillian Drummond said the department did not order the district to stop its own investigation, but typically recommends that to make sure internal reviews do not affect a criminal prosecution. 

Christian Britscghi:

The residents of Hillsborough County, Florida, can sleep safely tonight following the arrest of 118 people for performing unlicensed contracting work as part of a Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office sting known as “Operation House Hunters.”

The sting, according to Patch, saw sheriff’s deputies pose as homeowners seeking handymen on social media to do jobs that required licensure. These unsuspecting handymen would be lured to one of five homes, where undercover deputies filmed them performing or agreeing to perform prohibited tasks like painting or installing recess lighting.

The stings were carried out between March and December of last year. The arrests were announced yesterday.

“These 118 con men and women were posing as contractors & preying on innocent homeowners in Hillsborough County, who were just looking to repair or improve their home,” said Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister at a Tuesday press conference. The mug shots of those picked up in the sweeps were displayed behind him on big posters.

Bill Wadge:

In my research career I’ve discovered many things, including the secret of academic success (too late to help my own career). I’m  going to share the secret  with  you.

The obvious way to succeed is to do something impressive, like prove a theorem or invent some new technology. This might be helpful, but could get you into trouble if you’re not careful.

Here’s the problem: say you’re a young researcher starting out. You’ve made some progress attacking problem P. Researchers A, B, C, … have also worked on P but you think your work  puts theirs to shame (which it may or may not do in reality).

The temptation is to write papers proclaiming the superiority of your work and the pathetic inadequacy of the contributions of A, B, C, …

Well, doing so is a huge Career Limiting Move (CLM). I know because I did exactly that, in the notorious ‘Cowboys’ section of the 1985 Lucid Book I wrote with the late Ed Ashcroft (he had nothing to do with the notorious section). In a companion post I  present an annotated version of the Cowboys section.

Anyway, what should you do instead? The exact opposite. Write a paper which says, “P is an important problem and many talented researchers have made significant progress. A has done X, and it is good; B has done Y and it is also good;  C has done Z and it too is good; …”

Mara Hvistendahl:

IN 1973, Harry Sheng was working as a mechanical engineer for Sparton Corporation, a defense contractor in Jackson, Michigan, when his mother got sick back in China. Sheng was among thousands of ethnic Chinese scientists then living in the United States, the early pioneers in what would become a sizable swath of the American research force. A native of Jiangsu province and a naturalized U.S. citizen, he had left home just before Mao Zedong came to power in 1949, and he hadn’t seen his friends or relatives in China since. But now relations between the two countries were improving. In 1971, the U.S. pingpong team had toured the mainland, and the following year, President Richard Nixon had made the historic visit that restored contact between the countries’ leaders. Sheng had just started his job at Sparton, but he loved his mother dearly. He and his wife booked flights.

On Nixon’s trip, the two sides had agreed to set up exchanges in science, which, like pingpong, was seen as a way to improve ties between the United States and China. Washington hoped that rapprochement with China would destabilize the Communist-led independence forces the U.S. military was fighting in Vietnam and increase America’s leverage over the Soviet Union. For Chinese American scientists like Sheng, the thaw presented a simpler opportunity: a chance to return to their hometowns, eat their favorite foods, and hug the parents they had left behind decades earlier.

Douglas Belkin:

Next week faculty at the University of California will weigh in on whether to drop the SAT as a requirement for admission due to concern that the test is biased. Their recommendation prompts another question with a potentially bigger impact for students and their families: Should schools continue to use SAT scores to award scholarships?

Colleges and universities give out about $30 billion a year in merit aid, which is often based on a student’s SAT or ACT. An additional $2 billion in merit aid distributed by states hinges on standardized test scores.

The University of California System, which collectively receives more applications with SAT scores than any other system, is reviewing whether to stop mandating the test. A decision is expected this year, and a committee looking into the issue is expected to submit a recommendation next week.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts stopped using the test for merit scholarships last year, said Andrew Palumbo, dean of admission. Instead, the school is weighing grades, community service and leadership. The school has made the SAT optional for applicants since 2007. “Using the tests doesn’t help us achieve our goals” of diversifying the student body, he said. Students who apply without the test are just as successful as undergraduates as peers who do submit the test, he said.

Jennifer Levitz and Melissa Korn:

“I know that I unfairly, and ultimately illegally, tipped the scales in favor of my children over others, over the hopes and dreams of other parents, who had the same aspirations for their children as I did for mine,” Mr. Hodge said in court Friday. He said he wasn’t driven by ego, but rather sought to give his own children a transformative educational experience like he had received.

Molly Beck:

But media law experts say the First Amendment protects journalists’ possession and publication of truthful information in the public’s interest, regardless of how the information was released to them — and even trying to stop a reporter from publishing violates the U.S. Constitution.

“Yes, I get it that if some reporter gets some information that frankly they shouldn’t have gotten they’re going to report it. I get that, but I think it’s very important that somebody sticks up for that kid and that’s us,” Evers said Tuesday. 

Hixenbaugh, the NBC News reporter, obtained records related to a child protective services case involving a former emergency room doctor at Children’s Wisconsin Hospital who has been charged with physical abuse of his newborn daughter. The reporter did not ultimately cite the records in his reporting.

The story includes details of the case, including information from medical records, and raises questions about whether the child was injured by an accident, rather than by abuse. 

In the warning to NBC News over release of the case’s investigation file, the department cited a portion of state law that says a person who receives such information may not “further disclose it.” The department did not allege NBC News directly participated in the illegal release somehow and does not plan to pursue criminal charges.

“When the agency turns over records to parties under this statute, we are very forward with these warnings as a normal course of action,” Department spokesman Tom McCarthy told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “The letter we sent to NBC was to inform them of these laws and what may happen if they violate them, while also maintaining our duties.”

McCarthy said Tuesday the department did not intend to threaten prosecution with its letter to NBC News.

Logan Wroge:

After a rocky first semester for Madison’s Jefferson Middle School, its interim principal assured parents Thursday she’ll work to address their concerns about safety.

“Here’s what I’m going to promise you, I am always going to be available to you,” said Mary Kelley. “I’m always going to be visible. I’m in the classrooms, I’m in the hallways.”

About three dozen parents showed up to a meeting about the school’s climate and culture, where Kelley outlined what the school would be focusing on and changing during the second semester.

Kelley, a retired Madison principal who most recently spent seven years at East High School, was named the interim head of the West Side middle school last month after the former principal, Tequila Kurth, told the district she was taking an extended leave of absence.

Background notes and links.

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.

Monica Anderson, Emily Vogels and Erica Turner:

Today, three-in-ten U.S. adults say they have ever used an online dating site or app – including 11% who have done so in the past year, according to a new Pew Research Center survey conducted Oct. 16 to 28, 2019. For some Americans, these platforms have been instrumental in forging meaningful connections: 12% say they have married or been in a committed relationship with someone they first met through a dating site or app. All in all, about a quarter of Americans (23%) say they have ever gone on a date with someone they first met through a dating site or app.

Previous Pew Research Center studies about online dating indicate that the share of Americans who have used these platforms – as well as the share who have found a spouse or partner through them – has risen over time. In 2013, 11% of U.S. adults said they had ever used a dating site or app, while just 3% reported that they had entered into a long-term relationship or marriage with someone they first met through online dating. It is important to note that there are some changes in question wording between the Center’s 2013 and 2019 surveys, as well as differences in how these surveys were fielded.1 Even so, it is clear that websites and mobile apps are playing a larger role in the dating environment than in previous years.2

These shifting realities have sparked a broader debate about the impact of online dating on romantic relationships in America. On one side, some highlight the ease and efficiency of using these platforms to search for dates, as well as the sites’ ability to expand users’ dating options beyond their traditional social circles. Others offer a less flattering narrative about online dating – ranging from concerns about scams or harassment to the belief that these platforms facilitate superficial relationships rather than meaningful ones. This survey finds that the public is somewhat ambivalent about the overall impact of online dating. Half of Americans believe dating sites and apps have had neither a positive nor negative effect on dating and relationships, while smaller shares think its effect has either been mostly positive (22%) or mostly negative (26%).

Abigail Thompson:

Seventy years ago the University of California introduced a loyalty oath, requiring employees to swear they were “not a member of the Communist Party.” After a contentious period in which 31 faculty were fired for refusing to sign, the requirement was reconsidered. An eventual consequence was the current Standing Order of the Regents 101.1(d): “No political test shall ever be considered in the appointment and promotion of any faculty member or employee.” This is a statement of principle. No one will be denied a position at the University of California based on political beliefs. No communist, no conservative, no progressive,…

Seth Gershenson:

We know from previous survey research that teachers who hold high expectations for all of their students significantly increase the odds that those young people will go on to complete high school and college. One indicator of teachers’ expectations is their approach to grading—specifically, whether they subject students to more or less rigorous grading practices. Unfortunately, “grade inflation” is pervasive in U.S. high schools, as evidenced by rising GPAs even as SAT scores and other measures of academic performance have held stable or fallen. The result is that a “good” grade is no longer a clear marker of knowledge and skills.

Authored by American University’s Seth Gershenson, Great Expectations: The Impact of Rigorous Grading Practices on Student Achievement examines to what extent teachers’ grading standards affect student success. Specifically, this report investigates the following questions:

David Perell:

Even though cereal is now viewed as over-processed and sugary, it was once viewed as a health food. Americans heard about the health benefits of cereal and ramped up their consumption. From the beginning, companies made heavy investments in advertising cereal because most people eat the same breakfast every day. 

Thus, just as readers are loyal to news sources, consumers are loyal to their favorite breakfast cereals. And like news, consumers inhale cereal during the frantic rush before work. Even if they aren’t the healthiest options, they’re cheap and easy to consume. 

Marketers promoted the benefits of cereal with slogans like “breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” Similarly, news organizations position themselves as an irreplaceable daily habit and with slogans like “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” While the Romans believed it was healthiest to eat only one meal per day and our ancestors only heard about major events, but we have been trained to be constant consumers, so we eat too much food and read too much news.

Aruna Viswanatha and Kate O’Keeffe:

When officials at the Texas A&M University System sought to determine how much Chinese government funding its faculty members were receiving, they were astounded at the results—more than 100 were involved with a Chinese talent-recruitment program, even though only five had disclosed their participation.

A plant pathologist at the Texas system, where the median annual salary for such scientists employed by the state is around $130,000, told officials that the researcher had been offered $250,000 in compensation and more than $1 million in seed money to start a lab in China through one of the talent programs. The researcher ultimately rejected the offer, according to the Texas system’s chief research security officer, Kevin Gamache, who led the recent 18-month review that has garnered praise from U.S. officials.

The arrest of a leading Harvard University scientist this week for allegedly concealing more than $2 million in Chinese backing underscored how serious Beijing is about attracting top talent.

Such funding is just the tip of the iceberg, by China’s own account. A decade ago the Chinese government pledged to spend what would amount to more than $2 trillion today to reverse a longstanding brain drain to the developed world in a quest to dominate the technologies of the future.

All of the targeted researchers in the Texas A&M system are working in fields identified by Beijing as priorities for scientific advancement, said Mr. Gamache. “We don’t see the same offers for English majors.”

Wall Street Journal:

That’s exactly what the bursar at St. John’s College—the most richly endowed college at Oxford—delivered when he responded to students occupying his 15th-century quadrangle and refusing to leave until the college divested its oil-company shares. The students want the college to sell the more than $10 million of its endowment now invested in Shell and BP, and they want it now.

The Times of London reports that bursar Andrew Parker made them a counteroffer. “I am not able to arrange any divestment at short notice,” he wrote. “But I can arrange for the gas central heating in college to be switched off with immediate effect. Please let me know if you support this proposal.”

The idea that the students themselves make a fossil-fuel sacrifice did not go over well. One protest organizer complained that Mr. Parker was being flippant, noting that “it’s January and it would be borderline dangerous to shut off the central heating.” Another suggested Mr. Parker was being provocative.

Again the bursar responded with wisdom: “You are right that I am being provocative but I am provoking some clear thinking, I hope. It is all too easy to request others to do things that carry no personal cost to yourself. The question is whether you and others are prepared to make personal sacrifices to achieve the goals of environmental improvement (which I support as a goal).”

James Wigderson:

A new bill to make school spending more transparent will get its first public hearing at the legislature on Thursday.

The bill, Assembly Bill 810, would create a computerized database of public school expenditures maintained by the Department of Public Instruction (DPI). The agency would then post the information on the internet for the public.

“DPI must present the data on its Internet site in a format that allows the public to download, sort, search, and access the data at no cost,” according to the Legislative Reference Bureau memo. “Finally, the bill requires DPI to annually conduct a public information campaign on the availability of financial data on its Internet site.”

The law, if passed by the legislature this session, would go into effect for the 2021-22 school year.

Libby Sobic, the Director of Education Policy for the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, explained in an interview by John Muir of WTAQ on Tuesday the importance of increasing school expenditure transparency.

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.

Briana Reilly:

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers is calling on lawmakers to use $250 million in newly projected surplus dollars to bolster K-12 funding through school-based mental health services and special education aid in districts across the state.

The former state schools superintendent, who signed an executive order Thursday ordering a legislative special session to act on the sweeping plan, also aims to restore the state’s commitment to fund two-thirds of what’s required to educate students and direct $130 million of the funds for property tax relief through the state’s equalization aid formula. 

The push comes after recent revenue projections show Wisconsin is expected to see $452 million more in its general fund to end the biennium than previously anticipated, opening up a discussion about how the state should spend the extra money. 

Republicans have advocated for spending some of the funding on tax relief. But Evers in a state Capitol news conference Thursday said his proposal would both lower property taxes and “invest in our kids,” adding: “We can do both.” 

“We need to help around the issue of rising property taxes. We get that,” he said. “Investing in our schools will do that.”

Democratic leaders Sen. Jennifer Shilling and Rep. Gordon Hintz applauded the effort in a statement, saying the investment would give kids better opportunities and give a boost to Wisconsin’s education system. 

“We need to ensure we are retaining quality teachers, investing in modern facilities and meeting high education standards to give students the best chance at getting ahead,” Shilling, D-La Crosse, said. “We need to put our money where our mouth is if we want to re-establish Wisconsin’s reputation as a leader in K-12 education.” 

But GOP legislative leaders were skeptical of the idea, with Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald taking to Twitter to knock the proposal as one driven by teachers’ unions that are “calling all the shots in the East Wing.” 

The Wisconsin DPI, long lead by Governor Tony Evers, has granted mulligans to thousands of teachers who failed to pass this reading content knowledge examination.

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

Nathan Konz:

Last week, the Iowa Department of Education released the 2019 school ratings with nine of our area school buildings earning a “commendable” or better score. Each public school receives a score out of 100 based on standards laid out in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). South Central Calhoun High School was the only building in the region to earn a “high performing” classification, scoring 62.57. Audubon Middle and High School, Carroll Middle School, Coon-Rapids-Bayard Elementary, Ar-We-Va Junior and Senior High School, Greene County Middle School, Paton-Churdan Junior and Senior High School and the East Sac County Middle and High Schools all rated as commendable, scoring between 54.91 and 60.60. Only one school, Audubon Elementary, was identified as a priority under ESSA, meaning they will need to develop an improvement plan to address targeted issues. A full list of local school and their ratings can be found included with this story on our website.

ESSA is a topic rarely heard around the taxpayer supported Madison School District.

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.

Notes and links on previous Superintendent searches.

2013; 2019 Jennifer Cheatham and the Madison experience.

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

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.

Elizabeth Dohms:

Late last month, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction took a stand on a long-debated method of teaching reading to students, ruling that phonics has a place in literacy education after all.

An approach that teaches students how written language represents spoken words, phonics got its endorsement from state schools Superintendent Carolyn Stanford Taylor during the 2020 Wisconsin State Education Convention in Milwaukee. Stanford Taylor said reading outcomes are “not where we want them to be,” and that DPI will make efforts to support schools in delivering phonics-based materials.

This announcement has some in the world of education rejoicing, saying this is a step in the right direction. John Humphries is one of them.

Humphries is superintendent of the School District of Thorp, which is about an hour west of Wausau, and educates about 650 students in grades K-12. The district has spent thousands of dollars on new programs, professional development and consultants to steer staff at toward this type of research-based teaching, he said. 

And by the district’s own measurements, it’s working.

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.

Matt Stoller:

It’s always been a bit of a puzzle for me to define just what the Democratic Party is. There are no formal membership dues, and registration varies by state. Candidates can sometimes run for the party nomination without being a member. And that leaves out the actual mechanisms of governance, the think tanks, banks, corporations, and law firms in which the various policy experts work as a sort of shadow government.

One of the better books on the Democratic Party comes from a former Joe Biden staffer, Jeff Connaughton, who coined the term “the blob” to denote the network of lawyers, lobbyists, Congressional staffers, foreign policy experts, podcasters, media figures and pollsters who comprise the groupthink of the Democrats. These people know each other, marry each other, take vacations together, book each other on shows, hire each other, and work together on policies and campaigns. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s a community.

But that community, if it becomes immune from external pressure, can become dangerous. And that’s what happened in Iowa. 

There were two parts to the fiasco. The first was the narrow community in Iowa.

The Iowa caucuses are for most of us an experiment in democracy, but for key actors in Iowa the caucuses are a business. Take former Iowa Governor and Obama Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack, whose endorsement was highly sought after. Vilsack is now a highly paid dairy lobbyist. Vilsack is well known, but then there are behind the scenes men like Jerry Crawford. 

A lawyer with white hair mowed like a golf-course fairway, Crawford is something of a kingmaker back home in Des Moines. He has shepherded every Democratic presidential nominee in the most important caucus state going back to 1980 — every nominee except for one, that is. Crawford, 65, still blames himself for Clinton’s 2008 third-place finish in the Hawkeye State, from which her campaign never really recovered. He vows that 2016 will be his year to make it right for her. “I’m trying to make amends,” he said.

Crawford was a lobbyist for Monsanto and Exxon. The Democratic Party is riddled with minor ward bosses like Crawford, especially in early states like Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. It’s not a criticism to observe that these communities have leaders. But of the insularity of the political class has enabled institutional actors within the Democratic Party in Iowa to become fused with corporate power through informal and formal financial and social relationships.

As corporations get more and more concentrated, these relationships eventually wear down the competence of a political apparatus. The night before the caucus, the Iowa Democratic Party head said, “These are probably the most prepared we’ve ever been as a party for these caucuses. We’ve run through a few different scenarios, but I can tell you, we’re ready.”

The rhetoric around a recent Wisconsin education event is informative.

Molly Beck:

Gov. Tony Evers’ administration sought to block a journalist from publishing information from a confidential child abuse investigation by threatening prosecution, a rare move that could violate the U.S. Constitution.   

Paul K. Piff, Daniel M. Stancato, Stéphane Côté, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, and Dacher Keltner:

Cassandra Coburn:

Finland’s educational system is routinely praised as among the best in the world, achieving superb results through methods regarded by other scholastic systems as unorthodox. Among the differences that single it out for praise is the delayed start to education, with compulsory schooling beginning with a pre-primary education for children at 6 years old, and full-time schooling only starting at age 7. In contrast to the battery of tests faced by children elsewhere in the world, there is only one mandatory standardised test, taken at age 16. Commentators coo over the low amount of homework pupils are given, and the high regard in which teachers are held. But one of the most surprising—and important—aspects of schooling in Finland doesn’t make it to the headlines: the provision of social and health care for students from within schools themselves. Nowhere is this more crucial than in increasing capacity to help children with mental health disorders.

Ben Meyer:

Charlee Krueger finds her backpack and coat, and her mother Renee scrapes ice from the windshield of their car.  By 7 a.m., they’re ready to go.

Charlee is a second grader at Maple Grove Elementary School in the Merrill Area Public School District.

She’s one of just 80 students enrolled in the far-flung school about 15 miles from the city.  She could be one of the final 80 to attend school there, as Merrill contemplates closing it before next year.

The Kruegers used to live on a farm in the country near Maple Grove.  They just moved closer to Merrill, but Charlee still takes a special bus every day to get to the rural school that’s more than just a school.

“If it was necessary, I would find a way to provide transportation to Maple Grove.  It’s that important to me,” Renee says.

Global Gene Editing Regulation Tracker:

Click on a country (eg. Brazil, US) or region (eg. European Union) below to find which human / health products and processes are approved or in development and their regulatory status.

Scott Girard:

In November, Memorial High School sophomore Jake Zarov found two of the units in his health class were “kind of problematic.”

One had students counting their calories every day and the other was a measurement of body mass index. The first functioned as “a restriction of how much to eat,” Jake said, while the second “was very inaccurate” and led some students to feel pressured to share their number with peers.

“In the high school setting, that’s going to get public, people are going to share,” he said. “It’s making a number confine you.”

Alvaro de Menard:

I first discovered Fernand Braudel when Tyler Cowen answered the question: “whose entire body of work is worth reading?”, placing him next to people like Nietzsche and Hume. It was good advice.

Braudel starts working on his doctoral dissertation in 1923, at age 21, intending to concentrate on the policies of Philip II of Spain in the form of a conventional history. To support himself, he teaches at an Algerian high school for a decade, then at the university of Sao Paulo until 1937. During this period he keeps up with developments in France, especially Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre’s Annales School, which focuses on long-term history and statistical data.

In 1934, 11 years after he began, Braudel starts to find quantitative data. Population figures, ship cargoes, prices, arrivals and departures. These will form the basis of his novel, data-driven approach. Five years later, in 1939, he finally has an outline ready.

Then the Nazis capture him. He spends the next 5 years in a POW camp where he writes the first draft of La Méditerranée without access to any materials, mailing notebooks back to Paris. When the war ends, he becomes the de facto leader of the second generation of the Annales School. An additional four years after that, 26 years after he started working on it, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II is published.

David Blaska:

Board of education president Gloria Reyes demands “the conversation around school discipline needs to be centered on race,” according to the WI State Journal.

Those who counter that school discipline needs to be centered on behavior will be asked to leave the conversation. Maybe the answer is pick out some white kids and toss them out of school. Got to make the numbers work.

So, come clean, Madison teachers. Admit your guilt. Quit suspending kids who shoot a fellow student at Jefferson middle school. Stop picking on the ring leaders of those cafeteria brawls. Allow that girl to wreak havoc at that Whitehorse middle school classroom. Maybe tomorrow she will behave. Got to make the numbers work. Don’t want to wind up like Mr. Rob, an out-of-work pariah. Keep your heads down.

More:

Do you enforce order in your classroom? SHAME! Or do you press the earbuds in tighter and ignore the chaos? GREAT!

You believe adult authority figures have something to teach our young people? REPENT! Or are you doing penance for your complicity in 1619? YOU ARE SAVED!

Demand personal responsibility and academic performance? What are you? A Republican? !!!

Inspire students to work harder to overcome hurdles? How do you light your tiki torches, fella — with kerosene or paraffin?

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.

Notes and links on previous Superintendent searches.

2013; 2019 Jennifer Cheatham and the Madison experience.

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

Halima Gikandi:

It was 5 p.m. on a Thursday in Nairobi, Kenya, and the streets were crowded with people rushing to get home for dinner. But Philemon, a 25-year-old science researcher, was just getting ready for his second job as an academic writer.

Philemon is part of the global industry of contract cheating in which students around the world use websites to commission their homework assignments. He asked that his full name not be used for privacy reasons due to the sensitive nature of his work.

Service providers like Philemon don’t like to call it “cheating” — they prefer the terms “academic writer” and “online tutor.”

“My clients have been coming from various regions in the world,” Philemon said. “I have worked for a client in Australia, in the US. In Kenya? Very rare.”

Philemon began academic writing in 2017 when he was a university student seeking a flexible part-time job. Today, Philemon can make as much as $1,000 a month — as long as he gets good grades for his clients.

Ken Dilanian:

It was a brazen scheme to steal another company’s product, according to a federal criminal complaint.

University of Texas professor Bo Mao, prosecutors say, took proprietary technology from an American Silicon Valley start-up and handed it over to a subsidiary of Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications conglomerate.

But what makes the case against Mao particularly noteworthy is how he was accused of carrying out the theft: By using his status as a university researcher to obtain the circuit board under the guise of academic testing.

Mao, who has pleaded not guilty, is among the latest defendants in a string of U.S. criminal cases alleging Chinese spying in the academic world. In late January, the chairman of Harvard’s chemistry department was arrested by FBI agents in his office, charged with lying about a lucrative relationship with a Chinese talent recruitment program. The same day, a former Boston University student was accused of visa fraud after she allegedly failed to disclose her status as a lieutenant in the People’s Liberation Army.

Will Fitzhugh:

This Summer, for the seventh year, The Concord Review History Camp will offer a chance for secondary students who qualify, including rising ninth graders, to spend two weeks working with our instructor/coaches on serious history research papers on topics of their own choosing. These papers, when completed, may be submitted for consideration by The Concord Review.

Since 1987, The Concord Review has published 1,362 serious history papers by secondary students from 46 states and 41 other countries. The most recent issue had essays from Hungary, India, Korea, Vietnam, and many U.S. states. 152 of our authors have gone to Harvard, and the work of our authors is recognized by many other highly selective colleges.

The 2020 History Camp will have a day camp in San Francisco from June 8 to June 19, a residential camp in Boston from June 22 to July 3, and a day camp in Seoul from July 22 to July 31. Application available at tcr.org. Send questions to Steven Lee at steven.lee@tcr.org.

Scott Girard:

The contract runs from June 1 to May 31 of the following year.

The agreement would allow Gutiérrez 25 vacation days each year, 10 holidays off and up to 13 personal illness days. It will provide up to $8,500 for moving expenses as Gutiérrez and his family move from Seguin, Texas, and cover “reasonable temporary living expenses” up to Nov. 1, 2020.

Gutiérrez was announced last Friday as the School Board’s choice among its three finalists for the open superintendent position, currently filled by interim Jane Belmore.

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.

Notes and links on previous Superintendent searches.

2013; 2019 Jennifer Cheatham and the Madison experience.

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

Logan Wroge:

In the first semester of this school year, 1,524 out-of-school suspensions were issued. That’s up from 910 in the fall of 2015 — a 67% increase — and the number of fall semester suspensions has steadily increased during the past five years.

“If we say this is about how black kids behave, I think that that’s a problem,” Muldrow said. “If we say this is about how we interact with black and African American students, then I think we’re having a more accurate conversation.”

Board President Gloria Reyes said the conversation around school discipline needs to be centered on race but added that the good work teachers are doing to support the district’s anti-racism efforts also should be recognized.

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.

Rich Kremer:

The share of Wisconsin high school students deemed to be college-ready has declined since the 2014-2015 school year according to a new report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum. While the state leads most others that test 100 percent of high school students, the data also shows significant gaps in college-readiness based on race and economic status.   

The Wisconsin Policy Forum analyzed ACT data collected by the state Department of Public Instruction (DPI) since it began requiring all high school juniors to take the ACT.

The report shows that the state’s composite score — an average of all results — fell slightly last school year to 19.6 compared to the average of 19.8 from the 2017-2018 academic year. The state’s composite ACT score during the 2014-2015 school year was 20. Those numbers are important because ACT scores are one of the factors colleges use when deciding which students to admit. For the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire an ACT composite score of 21-26 is recommended students. For UW-Madison an ACT score of 27-32 is recommended.

The Policy Forum notes, however, that the slight decline in the state’s composite score “is masking potentially significant declines within each subject area that are relevant to students’ ‘college readiness.'”

The ACT sets benchmarks to determine a student’s ability to earn passing grades in English, math, reading and science. In each subject, less than 50 percent of students met the goal. The state’s benchmark scores for reading increased slightly during the last school year over numbers from 2017-2018.

Hanna Campbell & Montana Kaimin:

Out of all the students, faculty and staff at the University of Montana, only six students entered a Martin Luther King Jr. Day writing contest. And all of them were white.

The writing contest was sponsored by the University and asked students to write about how they are “implementing Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy here at the University of Montana.” When the University posted an announcement Monday, Jan. 20 with the four all-white winners of the contest on Facebook, over 1,000 comments flooded the post. Many commenters questioned why no one students of color entered the contest and how that could reflect poorly on the University of Montana’s atmosphere.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Day Committee, made up of members of the Black Student Union, the head of the African-American studies program Tobin Miller-Shearer, as well as other community members, developed the idea of the essay contest. According to Miller-Shearer, he wanted the contest to encourage everyone, not just members of the Black Student Union, to further King’s message.

“The intention was to challenge the entire UM community to take King’s actual legacy seriously, rather than to encourage volunteerism as has been done in the past,” Miller-Shearer said in an email.

Coursera:

Learn how to think the way mathematicians do – a powerful cognitive process developed over thousands of years.

Mathematical thinking is not the same as doing mathematics – at least not as mathematics is typically presented in our school system. School math typically focuses on learning procedures to solve highly stereotyped problems.

Sarah Darmanjian:

“When enough people who can afford to leave New York State are gone, who will be left to pay for the infrastructure, health care, schools and other necessities?” said Sen. Tedisco. “This is a bi-partisan effort to shine the light on this problem that’s causing people to leave our Upstate communities and to find out why the Empire State is fast becoming the ‘Empty State’ so we can change the agenda to keep them here,” he said.

Roundtable discussions with small businesses, workforce development, health care, education, economic growth and development, manufacturing and technology representatives will be held once data from the questionnaires have been collected.

According to U.S. Census information, N.Y.’s population has steadily decreased over the past 4 years. The Empire Center said they estimate approximately 1.4 million residents have moved out of N.Y. and gone to other states.

Let’s Compare: Middleton and Madison Property Taxes

2019: Madison increases property taxes by 7.2%, despite tolerating long term, 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.

James S. Bikales and Kevin R. Chen:

Chemistry department chair Charles M. Lieber has been placed on an “indefinite” paid administrative leave after being charged in federal court with failing to disclose funding from the Chinese government, according to University spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain.

Lieber was charged with “making materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statements” to U.S. government agencies, according to an affidavit filed Monday. The charges come as both the United States government and Harvard embark upon a campaign to curb “academic espionage,” a process by which researchers funnel academic information to foreign governments.

Lieber reportedly lied to the Defense Department and the National Institutes of Health about ties he allegedly had to China’s Thousand Talents Plan, per the affidavit. The TTP was established in 2008 by the Chinese government to attract scientists from across the world. The federal government, however, has designated the program a danger to national security.

Lieber also allegedly led Harvard to inaccurately tell the NIH that he had no affiliation with the TTP.

Issues and insights:

If you aren’t already overdosed on irony, apparently an inexhaustible natural resource in Washington, where the “party of the people” seeks to oust arguably only the second populist president in American history, it’s worth mulling the 1970s origins of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court.

In the wake of Watergate, and Richard Nixon’s use of federal intelligence and law enforcement to hound his political enemies (in the spirit of his immediate predecessor, Lyndon Johnson), Democratic Sen. Frank Church’s committee found that U.S. covert agencies were engaged in the work of the devil, such as preventing Communists from gaining power in Latin America and the Middle East. Part of the supposed cure was the establishment of an irregular, secret court to facilitate the evaluation of classified materials when the FBI or intelligence community requested warrants to spy on U.S. citizens acting as foreign agents and threatening our national security.

As Kyle Peterson of the Wall Street Journal recently described on Fox News what he called the “irreparably broken” process, whose genesis was a bill written by Sen. Ted Kennedy, “I mean, you have the government going to this court and saying we would like to surveil this person … there’s not an adversarial process; there’s nobody standing up for his rights in front of the court. The judge signs off on it – no accountability whatsoever.”

It is this dangerously dysfunctional, undemocratically insulated institution that is responsible for the country being put through the two-year agony of the Robert Mueller investigation of what we now know to be baseless suspicions of Russian collusion by Trump operatives.

A court set up to prevent our intelligence and law enforcement agencies from being used for politicized purposes actually facilitated exactly that.

Introducing @Faktabaari’s factchecking service in Finland ?? , @Kari_Kivinen gives @FiveNationsNet #5nn delegates a simple checklist to help students spot mis-, dis- & mal-information https://t.co/MhJxM8grfz pic.twitter.com/xe49DKF5hz

— Cllr Ben Miskell (@benmiskell) February 2, 2020

Finnish ?? ?? Headteacher @Kari_Kivinen explaining the distinction between mis-, dis- and mal-information & how he uses it in school. Simply using the term ‘fake news’ in the classroom isn’t helpful #5NN @FiveNationsNet pic.twitter.com/Ef36RkDLPO

— Cllr Ben Miskell (@benmiskell) February 2, 2020

Related: Commentary and Data on Madison’s High School Graduation Data:

In 2017, only 9% of MMSD’s black students met college-readiness benchmarks on the ACT in reading and math. How do we reconcile this with the 65.6% grad rate for black students the following year?

“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”

Jon Gabriel:

This week, reporters revealed that the state Department of Education released the personal information of nearly 7,000 families who use Empowerment Scholarship Accounts. Worse still, they sent it to Save Our Schools, staunch opponents of the program and educational choice in general.

ESAs enable parents, mostly those who have children with special needs, to direct their taxpayer dollars for specialized educational therapies or curriculum. The accounts help bridge the huge financial gap for families requiring customized assistance in the classroom.

The department released a spreadsheet that included the account balances of every ESA account in the state, along with names, email addresses and the grade in which the student is enrolled. Special needs students even had their disability listed.

2011: A majority of the Madison School Board aborted the proposed Madison Preparatory IB charter school

“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”.

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

John Cochrane:

I’m working on an economic view of political polarization. One aspect of that project is the extent to which many institutions in our society have become politicized. Today’s post is one little data point in that larger story. It tells a little story of how to politicize an institution and silence dissenters.

Jerry Coyne reports on the “diversity equity and inclusion statement” required of anyone hired by the University of California, or desiring a raise or promotion. This is a required statement each candidate must write “Demonstrating Interest in and Ability to Advance Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.” It’s not about whether you are “diverse,” meaning belonging to a racial, gender, or sexual-preference group the University wishes to hire. It is a statement, as it says, of your active participation in a  political movement.

Jerry’s news in this post is that the statements are now being scored numerically, and only the files of those scoring high enough are passed on for scholarly review. Jerry previously posted  here on the case of Abigail Thompson, professor of mathematics at UC Davis, who dared to question diversity statements in a letter to the American Mathematical Society, pointing out that they are political tests

More, here.

Cori Petersen:

This week has marked the tenth annual National School Choice Week, a celebration of educational options all over the country, but in Wisconsin, school choice is a much older tradition. Here, 2020 marks the thirty-year anniversary of school vouchers aka the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP). As we celebrate this legacy, I sat down with State Senator Alberta Darling, an education reform champion who has been in the fight from the beginning, to talk about her battles in the legislature to expand school choice, what she would do if she were governor for a day, and why school choice is no longer a bipartisan issue.

Darling entered the Wisconsin assembly in a 1990 special election. In 1992 she was elected into the Senate representing the eighth district, which includes part of Milwaukee county and areas to the north and west. Before long, she found herself deep in the weeds of the controversial fight for school vouchers.

Ann Schimke:

About two-thirds of Colorado’s teacher preparation programs, including the state’s two largest, earned low grades for how they cover early reading instruction, according to a new report from the National Council on Teacher Quality.

The report, which is controversial for its reliance on documents such as course syllabi and textbooks, claims to assess whether teacher prep programs adequately cover five key components of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

Nationwide, about half of traditional teacher prep programs received an A or a B in this year’s report, the third round of evaluations published on the topic since 2013. In Colorado, six of the 19 programs evaluated received an A or B this year, including Adams State University, Colorado State University-Pueblo, Colorado Christian University, Western State University, and both the undergraduate and graduate programs at University of Colorado-Colorado Springs.

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.

FIRE:

Since 2011, FIRE has named and shamed 65 individual colleges and universities as America’s worst for free speech. Some — we’re looking at you Harvard, DePaul, and Syracuse — are regulars and have appeared four or five times. Others have slunk away in embarrassment after being listed. But all have one thing in common: They had the chance to do the right thing when it came to free speech, but chose otherwise. 

This year’s list of the 10 worst colleges for free speech includes a college that fired a professor over an innocuous joke on social media, another that allowed its student government to flatly reject a student club because of its conservative beliefs, one that unilaterally canceled a faculty-organized lecture, and a college that suspended a librarian for curating a historical display highlighting the university’s own photos of its racist past.

As in previous years, FIRE’s 2020 “worst-of-the-worst” list is presented in no particular order, and both public and private colleges are featured. Public colleges and universities are bound by the First Amendment. Private colleges on this list are not constitutionally required to respect student and faculty speech rights, but explicitly promise to do so.

Jeff Madrick:

Actually, we can find low income as the main cause of the hardships and damage of poverty by looking at the consequences of current welfare policies themselves. Government programs in which benefits have changed over time provide abundant data for isolating low incomes as a fundamental cause of problems.

Variations in government programs, or the creation of new programs, create what scholars sometimes call natural experiments. This “exogenous” increase in incomes offers an opportunity to measure the consequences of sudden increases in benefits and income compared to periods when funding was lower, or compared to those families who did not get increases.

Two sets of government-expanded income programs offered among the most interesting examples of natural experiments about the impact of money. The benefits of the Earned Income Tax Credit, which are especially helpful for families with children, were generously raised in 1993. The value of the credit increased by 40 percent on average for families with one child and roughly 100 percent for those with two children.

Researchers estimated how much improvement there was for those children in families with significant increases in tax credit income, comparing them to those where incomes didn’t rise as much. Such exogenous increases of income were separated from the effects of other potential coincident factors such as parental behavior or education. There were also increases in the EITC before 1993 and again in 2009 that add to the dataset on these issues. In addition, the state EITCs provided more information for analysis.

The results were a particularly fascinating affirmation that money makes a major difference. The children whose families had significant increases in EITC income as compared to those who did not had higher school grades and results on achievement tests, attended college in greater proportion, and were generally healthier. One study also showed that the birth weight of newborns was higher in these newly better-off families, and the stress level for mothers was also measurably reduced.

Looking back to the early 1970s, Richard Nixon proposed a guaranteed income program in the form of a “negative income tax” in order to continue but streamline the implementation of the War on Poverty. The lower the income of the poor family, the greater the tax refund benefits would be (to a maximum ceiling benefit); benefits would be distributed in the form of cash payments. It was a forerunner of the Earned Income Tax Credit. But in Nixon’s case, even if a family earned no income, it would receive a cash stipend. Opponents were concerned that it would encourage individuals not to work.

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.

Dillon Rosenblat:

The Arizona Department of Education likely violated federal student privacy laws when it released a spreadsheet that inadvertently named every parent with an Empowerment Scholarship Account in the state. The spreadsheet then fell into the hands of a group that opposes expansion of the program.

The Yellow Sheet Report, a sister publication of the Capitol Times, also obtained the spreadsheet through a public records request for documents showing the account balance of every ESA account in the state, and, on the surface, the documents the department provided appear to properly redact personally identifiable information. But when the Yellow Sheet Report highlighted the document, it became clear it was improperly redacted. Copying the entire table into a text reader reveals the redacted portions. 

The likely explanation is that the department blackened the background in columns containing the names and email addresses of nearly 7,000 parents with ESA accounts, but didn’t re-scan the document to ensure the words didn’t show through. 

2011: A majority of the Madison School Board aborted the proposed Madison Preparatory IB charter school

“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”.

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

Annysa Johnson:

Fewer than half of high school juniors in Wisconsin are considered college-ready in core subjects, based on the latest round of ACT test results, according to a new analysis released Friday by the nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum.

And the percentage of students who met that benchmark has declined in every subject but one since the state began requiring the test in the 2014-15 school year, it said.

According to the report, about 48.7% of students who took the ACT last year were deemed college-ready in English, down from 54% in the 2014-15 school year. Math dropped from 36.2% to 29.2%, and science from 31.7% to 31%, after peaking three years earlier.

“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”

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

Additional Madison notes and links.

“As with other standardized tests — including the Wisconsin Forward Exam and the [NAEP] — the ACT data show significant gaps among students along racial, ethnic and socioeconomic lines.” https://t.co/VaCLMFVP0i

— Chan Stroman (@eduphilia) February 1, 2020

via Yes, they graduated, but can they read?. Madison school district touts graduation rates, but academic proficiency in question.

David Dayen:

Attendees at a controversial closed-door policy summit this week at Google headquarters included representatives from a broad section of think tanks and policy shops on the center-left, according to a document obtained by the Prospect. A former Democratic FCC Commissioner and numerous members of consumer, civil rights, and human rights organizations participated in the summit.

The get-together was held at Google’s Mountain View headquarters, and the tech giant promised it would be the first of a “series of quarterly policy and product summits.” Top Google lobbyists Karan Bhatia and Mark Isakowitz spoke at the event, as well as other company officials, about products like search, advertising, and artificial intelligence, according to Axios.

Through conferences like this, Google, whose reputation has suffered in Washington amid a backlash against the power and dominance of Big Tech, can play the influence game without technically engaging in lobbying. By bringing together groups that have the ear of policymakers and can present themselves as a nominally independent voice, Google can implant—even if subconsciously—its viewpoints on a host of policy topics. It’s a lobbying event masquerading as a conference, in other words, and could prove more fruitful than direct lobbying.

Many taxpayer supported K-12 school districts use Google services, including Madison.

Chester Finn:

An unhappy episode in Montgomery County, Maryland, (where I live) reminds us that the quest for accountability options other than standardized assessments can open the door to new forms of chicanery.

First, a bit of background. Maryland’s high school graduation requirements include statewide end-of-course exams in science, algebra, English, and government. Students may substitute passing scores on AP or IB exams in several of those subjects, but it’s accurate to say that the Old Line State has stuck with mandatory EOCs even as a number of jurisdictions have backed away from them. Still, there are kids who have trouble passing those exams, and Maryland has long offered a work-around known as the Bridge Plan. Students who twice fail the EOC in a subject can undertake an individual project in that subject, and if they successfully complete it, their exam failure won’t preclude them from graduating. Ten or 11 percent of Maryland diplomas are typically achieved with the help of the Bridge Plan, and in some parts of the state it has become a major highway to the graduation stage: Almost a quarter of the diplomas in Prince George’s County and close to two-fifths of those in the city of Baltimore are Bridge-dependent. Which is to say, sizable fractions of the girls and boys in those jurisdictions would not be graduating from high school if they were actually required to pass the state EOCs.

The Bridge Plan has been controversial for years now and was much debated—and deplored—during my time on the State Board of Education and the Kirwan Commission, the obvious issue being whether kids who graduate with its help are, in effect, getting diplomas they don’t truly deserve because they haven’t actually met the state’s none-too-demanding academic standards in core subjects. Legislators are currently weighing the Kirwan recommendations, and if those get adopted in full, the Bridge Plan will eventually be history, though much finetuning will need to be done by state education officials before new standards and metrics for “college and career readiness” are set for the long haul, and there is certain be continued pressure to allow some sort of workaround.

Jordan Bailey:

In 2008, 21-year-old Brandon Brown shot a man in Portland’s Old Port. He was eventually convicted of attempted murder and elevated aggravated assault, and sentenced to 17 years in prison.

Now Brown is poised to be the first person in Maine to earn a master’s degree while incarcerated, and may be the first inmate to conduct approved research on fellow inmates for his thesis project.

Brown shot former Marine James Sanders, crippling him, on June 24, 2008, and was sent to Maine State Prison in early 2010. His years of reflection on the crime and its aftermath, and his participation in the University of Maine at Augusta prison college program, led him to an interest in restorative justice and a commitment to education.

He is now the first Maine prisoner to enroll in graduate school and is a few months away from earning a master’s degree from George Mason University. He is researching the stories inmates tell of themselves for themes that might affect their reintegration into society. 

Glenn Reynolds:

“Segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever!” Those words were thundered by Alabama Gov. George Wallace in his 1963 inauguration speech. But, in fact, the very next year, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, which brought an end to segregation.

Or did it?

Wallace later repented of this phrase, but in 2020, the 1963 George Wallace seems to be getting some traction. Because all over America — and even in Alabama — universities and schools are promoting and endorsing schemes that divide and label students by race.

Travis Kirkwood:

Do humans understand each other? Any honest attempt to answer this question will need to consider some profound and important facts. The question is broad, but worth asking repeatedly. Modern writers and thinkers fail to fully appreciate the merit in marrying science and philosophy, which the great psychotherapists of the 20th century (and many great philosophers before them) did rather admirably. Their writings shed light on the under-explored depths of our humanity. Historically, the inevitable faults of humanness are recurrent; the whims of our finite, imperfect human nature.

Mutual misunderstandings run deep and at times prove to be dangerous. It is neither feasible nor especially useful to pass over the various reasons we fail to understand one another. There is also nothing novel or compelling about listing the countless examples of human misunderstanding such as war, tribalism, and political polarization. It is more useful to proceed with a relatively narrow focus, in an attempt to fully articulate one specific reason why humans do not truly understand one another. That reason is complexity.

In the face of the ineffable complexity of the universe—language, geopolitics, economics, the unique neurophysiology of individuals, the fundamental constituents of matter (quantum physics), and history itself—we are left to navigate oceans of uncertainty. It is therefore true that what we do not know—or cannot know—far outweighs what we do know. We are finite beings in a world of seemingly infinite complexity. It is well beyond our capacity to understand or explain even our own consciousness.

Scott Girard:

WILL wrote in its December letter that it was representing a group of 15 parents with students in the district and that the guidance “contains certain policies that violate our clients’ constitutional rights as parents.”

“Specifically, the Policy allows children of any age to change gender identity at school without parental notice or consent, prohibits teachers and other staff from notifying parents about this (without the child’s consent), and, in some circumstances, even requires teachers and other staff to actively deceive parents,” the letter stated.

Madison Memorial High School junior Maggie Di Sanza and sophomore Amira Pierotti, who lead the school’s Gender Equity Association, told the Cap Times it’s instead an essential component of protecting students’ rights at a time that could be especially difficult for them, even if their parents are supportive.

“It’s just incomprehensible to me that anyone would target these rights and do it with not a care about the students, about kids,” Amira said. “This (potential lawsuit) isn’t for the betterment of others, this is because you are scared that you don’t know what’s going on with your kids and that you’re afraid they’re trans or gender-expansive because you are transphobic.”

The two students said they began to rally for support of the guidance after WILL’s initial complaint in the fall.

This week, they began circulating a petition to other district schools and creating signage for teachers to put up in their classrooms to reassure students they would support them. Amira said it’s especially important given the statistics of non-binary and gender fluid students being more likely to be kicked out by their parents, report anxiety and consider self-harm.

“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”

Libby Emmons and Barrett Wilson:

On Thurs Jan 23, University of Toronto professor of psychiatry Dr. Ken Zucker, a leading international expert on gender dysphoria, and editor-in-chief of Archives of Sexual Behaviour, spoke at McGill University. Dr. Zucker’s presentation was titled, “Children and Adolescents with Gender Dysphoria: Some contemporary research and clinical issues.” 

Inviting Dr. Zucker to speak in an open forum was an act of courage, as he is Canada’s most controversial researcher/clinician in this domain. In a recent column for the National Post on the run-up to this event, I summarized the story of his persecution by hostile trans activists and linked to a more detailed account.

Dr. Zucker’s critics accuse him of practicing “conversion therapy,” by which they mean his objective is to prevent his patients from transitioning. But what Dr. Zucker actually practices, as he explained to me in an interview, is “Developmentally Informed Psychotherapy.” 

In layman’s terms, Dr. Zucker looks at his patients holistically in order to determine if the distress that brought them to his attention is a function of gender dysphoria alone, or gender dysphoria as one of a number of factors, including issues arising out of family dynamics, autism spectrum disorder, depression, anxiety and so on. If in the course of treatment, it becomes clear that finding comfort in his or her natal sex is a reasonable goal for the client, Dr. Zucker offers guidance to that objective. If it becomes clear that only transition will answer to the patient’s need, Dr. Zucker endorses transition, and puberty blockers or hormone therapy as required. 

But any form of traditional psychotherapy is considered to be a form of subversion by many trans activists because trans activists reject assumptions that gender dysphoria is a disorder or even a “distress” requiring psychotherapy. Their watchword is “affirmation,” the assumption that if a young child – even as young as three – says he or she wants to change genders, they know what they want and their wish must be respected, often without any further exploration at all before social transition is encouraged. 

“Watchful waiting”—withholding immediate affirmation, giving the child’s parents and professional observers time to assess the depth and putative permanence of the expressed desire—is also anathema to a small, but vocal group of trans advocates. To these activists, Dr. Zucker’s perspective is superannuated, offensive and, in their discourse, “harmful.” It was a given that the announcement of the event would spark protest. It was just a matter of what kind, and how obstructive it would be.

Edelman:

Online Survey in 27 markets.

33,000+ respondents.

19 October to 16 November 2018

Natalie Wexler:

Every two years, education-policy wonks gear up for what has become a time-honored ritual: the release of the Nation’s Report Card. Officially known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, the data reflect the results of reading and math tests administered to a sample of students across the country. Experts generally consider the tests rigorous and highly reliable—and the scores basically stagnant.

Math scores have been flat since 2009 and reading scores since 1998, with just a third or so of students performing at a level the NAEP defines as “proficient.” Performance gaps between lower-income students and their more affluent peers, among other demographic discrepancies, have remained stubbornly wide.

Among the likely culprits for the stalled progress in math scores: a misalignment between what the NAEP tests and what state standards require teachers to cover at specific grade levels. But what’s the reason for the utter lack of progress in reading scores?

Ed Treleven:

A Madison East High School business and marketing teacher, accused of trying to create child pornography with hidden cameras of unwitting members of the school’s business club, appeared before a packed courtroom in the federal courthouse Thursday, as many of those attending watched in tears.

David M. Kruchten, 37, of Cottage Grove, who was indicted by a federal grand jury on Wednesday and arrested at his home Thursday morning, didn’t look back at the gallery as marshals brought him into court wearing a green T-shirt, dark gray athletic pants and leg irons to face seven counts of attempting to produce child pornography.

The din of cries and sobs was constant in the small courtroom as dozens of current and recent East students listened while U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter Oppeneer ordered Kruchten to remain jailed until at least next Wednesday. Another hearing will be held to decide whether Kruchten can be released until he faces a trial on the charges.

The gallery was filled almost entirely with young women suspecting they may be victims of Kruchten, along with their parents and supporters, according to attendees who declined to be identified.

Through his lawyer, federal defender Joseph Bugni, Kruchten pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Students and parents, some who appeared shaken, left the courthouse without speaking to gathered media after Thursday’s hearing.

Steven Elbow and Scott Girard:

The incident during the two-day trip with 15 students on Dec. 6 to Dec. 8 has roiled the school’s popular business-oriented DECA program, and school district officials have offered counseling and other services to the alleged victims. 

Kruchten was placed on administrative leave after the trip, during which multiple students who were staying at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Minneapolis discovered hidden video recording devices. As of Thursday, he remained employed with the district and on administrative leave.

The charges apparently relate to incidents other than the Minneapolis trip.

A grand jury indictment unsealed by the U.S. Western District Court after his arrest charges Kruchten with seven counts of attempting to produce child pornography. The charges involve seven different victims. Each count carries a penalty of between 15 and 30 years in prison.

Each count charges him with using hidden recording devices. 

“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”

Lisa Van Damme:

Years ago, I accompanied an 8th-grade student I had homeschooled as she visited prospective high schools. At one school, the director of admissions welcomed us and then proceeded to assault my student with the information that entry to college had become highly competitive, and she must therefore chart the right course through the right high school to stand even a chance of admission to the better colleges. She then proceeded to sell the school with the following: my student would need to take multiple AP courses—this school offered a wide variety; she would need to complete the IB program—they were honored to be a member school; she would need to be competitive in a sport and ambitious in an extra-curricular activity—they had many from which to choose. As the director mapped out all that my student must do (with the unquestioned assumption that admission to Harvard was her foremost educational goal), I looked over—and saw her wilt.

This was a child of whom I had endless vivid, touching stories from the classroom—stories of her gasping out loud when she was irrepressibly moved by a passage from Victor Hugo’s Ninety-Three; stories of her eagerly recreating science lessons at home with her parents as students; stories of her writing with ferocious confidence (though she had previously loathed writing), because, she said, I taught her how. Now, before both our eyes, education was becoming nothing about the development of invaluable, life-long skills, nothing about the discovery of joy and utility in the acquisition of knowledge, nothing about the deepening of a capacity for emotional experience. Admission to high school was about… admission to college, which was about…

The answer to that was nothing more than a vague, unstated apprehension of doom.

Lyle Jeremy Rubin:

A short answer to these questions can be found in a January 9 posting on Foreign Policy’s website, co-written by two senior fellows at the Middle East Institute, a reputable think tank known for producing bien pensant foreign policy opinion on the Chevron or United Arab Emirates dime, among others. The authors urge more “defense institution-building,” specifically a 60 percent increase in funding for programs like the Ministry of Defense Advisors and Defense Institute of International Legal Studies, venues where U.S. troops would continue to “actively mentor, advise, and train” Iraqi soldiers. The article focuses on military support, but it is likely these upgrades would be accompanied by a U.S. civilian police presence. Advisors to the bipartisan Task Force on Extremism in Fragile States have long pushed for increased police mentorship in countries like Iraq or Afghanistan, including the repeal of Section 660, an obscure law that constricts the ability of the U.S. government to train police forces abroad.

Section 660, as it happens, was introduced in 1975, and was designed to prevent the kinds of human rights abuses that plagued mentorship programs in Latin America throughout the Cold War. This brings us to the longer answer to the question about what mental pictures are hidden by Duckworth’s verbiage. It is an answer that Stuart Schrader explores in his recent work of scholarship, Badges Without Borders: How Global Counterinsurgency Transformed American Policing.

Alexis Madrigal::

History, as a discipline, comes out of the archive. The archive is not the library, but something else entirely. Libraries spread knowledge that’s been compressed into books and other media. Archives are where collections of papers are stored, usually within a library’s inner sanctum: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s papers, say, at the New York Public Library. Or Record Group 31 at the National Archives—a set of Federal Housing Administration documents from the 1930s to the ’70s. Usually, an archive contains materials from the people and institutions near it. So, the Silicon Valley Archives at Stanford contains everything from Atari’s business plans to HP co-founder William Hewlett’s correspondence.

While libraries have become central actors in the digitization of knowledge, archives have generally resisted this trend. They are still almost overwhelmingly paper. Traditionally, you’d go to a place like this and sit there, day after day, “turning every page,” as the master biographer Robert Caro put it. You might spend weeks, months, or, like Caro, years working through all the boxes, taking extensive notes and making some (relatively expensive) photocopies. Fewer and fewer people have the time, money, or patience to do that. (If they ever did.)

Tyler Cowen:

Why so many of America’s best and brightest college graduates go into management consulting, finance or law school is a perennial question. There are some compelling theories, which I will get to, but first I would like to turn the question around: Why are so many people in top positions, whether in the public or private sector, so old?

I submit that these two trends — and a third, declining productivity growth — are related: Many tasks have become increasingly complex in America, often more complex than people can learn in just a few years. By the time you have experience enough to perform them, you are less interested in taking risks. In your young adventurous years, by contrast, the only jobs you can get are those that don’t reward (or allow) adventure. The result of all this is a less audacious America.

Start with the Ivy Leaguers. I have no rancor against lawyers, financiers or management consultants, but the pursuit of these careers seems like a misallocation of human creativity. Those jobs do not comprise most of the value of the U.S. economy, so why are they such a magnet?

An emphasis on adult employment:

“Beware of legacy practices (most of what we do every day is the maintenance of the status quo), @12:40 minutes into the talk – the very public institutions intended for student learning has become focused instead on adult employment. I say that as an employee.

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.

Riley Vetterkind:

Felzkowski and Stroebel say the bill would make it easier for retired teachers to fill workforce shortages in local school districts in order to meet the needs of students. Since 2009-10, the number of Wisconsin teachers has declined by 1,338, or 2.2%, while the number of public school students over the same time frame decreased by 2,269 , or 0.5%, according to the Wisconsin Association of School Boards.

“While I think the teacher shortage has pushed our districts toward really creative solutions, we are reaching a tipping point where even these innovations will not be able to shield a district from feeling the effects of these shortages down the road,” Felzkowski said. “One of the best resources to address this issue is at our fingertips — retired educators.”

But the bill comes with a catch that its authors argue would account for the change and ensure the continued integrity of the Wisconsin Retirement System: Raising the minimum retirement age at which a participant may begin collecting benefits from 55 to 59½. The change would only affect employees under the age of 40 at the time the bill becomes law, and would also exclude protective service occupations, such as police officers and firefighters.

An emphasis on adult employment:

“Beware of legacy practices (most of what we do every day is the maintenance of the status quo), @12:40 minutes into the talk – the very public institutions intended for student learning has become focused instead on adult employment. I say that as an employee.

Joanne Jacobs:

In Chicago’s Old Town, children who live north of North Avenue go to top-rated Lincoln Elementary (63 percent white, 14 percent low-income), while those south of the line go to low-rated Manierre (96 percent black, 4 percent, Latino, 93 percent low-income).

“At the end of the 2018–19 school year, not a single eighth grader from Manierre was proficient in reading, compared to 81 percent of Lincoln eighth graders,” writes Tim DeRoche on Quillette. The schools are one mile apart.

In many cities, the best public schools are open to children of affluent families, who pay a premium to live near “good” schools, he writes. Segregation by race and family income is enforced by school districts.

The district spent $19 million to expand Lincoln, when it was overcrowded, so no students would have to be sent to Manierre, writes DeRoche. Now there are some empty seats, but nobody south of the line is admitted.

Manierre has lost students to magnets, charters and private schools. The district had proposed closing it and sending students to another low-performing school in another gang’s neighborhood. That proved politically impossible

Leila Fletcher (Madison West High School Senior):

Simpson Street Free Press is invested in and applies the science of reading with our students. We have for decades.

It is true, however, that debates about reading instruction continue. Teachers and reading specialists continually discuss—and dispute—what methods of reading instruction are truly most effective, and ultimately, what method should be used in our schools.

Today, in our country, reading levels continue to decrease; only two-thirds of fourth graders can read at grade level, which leads to high school seniors still unable to meet proficiency. The numbers in Wisconsin are among the worst in the country. And reading results in Madison are at crisis level.

Many experts believe this is a result of the instructional methods that teachers nationwide are instructed in and taught to use. These instructional methods, called the “three-cueing” system, teach students compensation strategies that struggling readers come to depend on after falling behind without having learned to read. All students in three-cueing classrooms are being taught this way, and as reading researcher David Kilpatrick has noted, “[t]he three-cueing system is the way poor readers read.”

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.

David Blaska:

BULLETIN: Channel 3000 is reporting that “Several schools in Madison were on lockout status Wednesday morning because of a shooting, according to the Madison Metropolitan School District. Sennett Middle School, East High School, La Follette High School and Nuestro Mundo Community School were affected.

---

When you don’t have facts or reason, you try to drown out the speaker. Which is what protestors at the WI State Capitol attempted Tuesday (01-28-2020) in Madison as Vice President Mike Pence promoted school choice in the rotunda of the Wisconsin state capitol in Madison WI. 

If you are The Capital Times, servile mouthpiece of the ruling liberal-progressive-socialist hegemony here in Madison — you hurl spittle-flecked diatribe invectives. Only “lackeys” of “the usual cabal of billionaire[s] support school choice, says Dane County’s Progressive Voice.

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.

Ian Visits:

Over 3,000 military maps, views and prints collected by King George III have been digitised and published online free to visit by the Royal Collection.

The culmination of ten years of research by Dr Yolande Hodson to catalogue one of George III’s most prized collections, the new website makes these important documents publicly available for the first time and allows them to be explored in minute detail.

No just of considerable academic interest — but just stunning to browse and look at.

Edward Archer:

For most of the past century, the United States was the pre-eminent nation in science and technology. The evidence for that is beyond dispute: Since 1901, American researchers have won more Nobel prizes in medicine, chemistry, and physics than any other nation. Given our history of discovery, innovation, and success, it is not surprising that across the political landscape Americans consider the funding of scientific research to be both a source of pride and a worthy investment.

Nevertheless, in his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned that the pursuit of government grants would have a corrupting influence on the scientific community. He feared that while American universities were “historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery,” the pursuit of taxpayer monies would become “a substitute for intellectual curiosity” and lead to “domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment…and the power of money.”

Eisenhower’s fears were well-founded and prescient.

My experiences at four research universities and as a National Institutes of Health (NIH) research fellow taught me that the relentless pursuit of taxpayer funding has eliminated curiosity, basic competence, and scientific integrity in many fields.

Robby Soave:

The 1619 Project—The New York Times Magazine’s much vaunted series of essays about the introduction of African slavery to the Americas—will now be taught in K-12 schools around the country.

School districts in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Buffalo, New York, have decided to update their history curricula to include the material, which posits that the institution of slavery was so embedded in the country’s DNA that the country’s true founding could be said to have occurred in 1619, rather than in 1776.

“One of the things that we are looking at in implementing The 1619 Project is to let everyone know that the issues around the legacy of enslavement that exist today, it’s an American issue, it’s not a Black issue,” Dr. Fatima Morrell, associate superintendent for culturally and linguistically responsive initiatives for Buffalo Public Schools, told Buffalo’s NPR station.

Buffalo teachers and administrators have already begun studying the 1619 material so they can implement it into their curricula. The NPR story correctly notes that the essays examine “lesser-known consequences of slavery,” like “how plantation economics led to modern corporate, capitalist culture.”

Many historians, though, have questioned The 1619 Project’s accuracy. Five of them penned a letter to The New York Times expressing dismay “at some of the factual errors in the project and the closed process behind it.” These historians said the project’s contention that the American Revolution was launched “in order to ensure slavery would continue” was flat-out wrong.

Another historian, Phil Magness of the American Institute for Economic Research, has criticized Matthew Desmond’s 1619 Project essay, which claimed that modern American capitalism has its roots in plantation slavery. Magness has persuasively argued that this claim lacks verification, and that Desmond relied on bad data about cotton-picking rates in the pre-Civil War south.

“Desmond’s thesis relies exclusively on scholarship from a hotly contested school of thought known as the New History of Capitalism (NHC),” wrote Magness in a second article. “Although NHC scholars often present their work as cutting-edge explorations into the relationship between capitalism and slavery, they have not fared well under scrutiny from outside their own ranks.”

Daniel M. Russell and Mario Callegaro:

In a cheery, sunshine-filled fourth-grade classroom in California, the teacher explained the assignment: write a short report about the history of the Belgian Congo at the end of the 19th century, when Belgium colonized this region of Africa. One of us (Russell) was there to help the students with their online research methods.

I watched in dismay as a young student slowly typed her query into a smartphone. This was not going to end well. She was trying to find out which city was the capital of the Belgian Congo during this time period. She reasonably searched [ capital Belgian Congo ] and in less than a second she discovered that the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo is Kinshasa, a port town on the Congo River. She happily copied the answer into her worksheet.

Jim Davies:

ooking around our planet today, it’s hard not to be struck by humanity’s uniqueness. We are the only species around that writes books, runs experiments, and builds skyscrapers. Our intelligence must have also been useful when we were evolving—presumably it helped us to be better hunters and avoid being hunted ourselves, for instance. Perhaps even more importantly, our growing intelligence enabled early humans to compete with each other: We evolved to be intelligent to keep up with everybody else evolving to be intelligent. Smarter people are more attractive to others, and are better at jockeying for status within complex social groups. It is well-known that humans underwent an intelligence arms race that resulted in a rapid growth in cognitive ability. What is less well-known is how the need for women to be able to walk and run helped this boom in smarts.

A lot of our growth in intelligence is due to an increase in brain size. Even when looking at the differences between one person and another, brain size accounts for 16% of the variance in intelligence. A bigger brain might have been the simplest way to make us smarter. As brain sizes grew, so did the pelvises of the women who had to give birth to all of these big-headed babies.

David Blaska:

A crusader has stuck his out out of the foxhole to take on the political correctness that is destroying Madison’s public schools. We introduced him to you Blaska Policy Werkers two weeks ago. He is Peter Anderson, an environmental activist. 

Peter has put up a website called “Durable Justice.” Bookmark it. (We’ll wait. Got it?) Anderson headlines his introductory essay, “Why MMSD has failed to help disadvantaged black students.”

It is essentially the message Blaska has been sounding these past two years and in last year’s campaign for school board. Unlike that unsuccessful candidate, Anderson is not weighed down with Blaska’s conservative activism. In other words, he is a good Madison liberal. (Remains to be seen for how long, but Anderson says his group is looking for a permanent leader). 

Anderson dares to take on the Madison establishment’s cowardice in confronting the school district’s obsession with “racial justice” at the expense of school discipline, personal responsibility, and educational achievement. We excerpt from that essay:

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.

Notes and links on previous Superintendent searches.

2013; 2019 Jennifer Cheatham and the Madison experience.

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

Elizabeth Winkler:

Ingrid Daubechies is a woman of formidable firsts: the first tenured female professor of mathematics at Princeton University (1994), the first woman to receive the National Academy of Sciences Award in Mathematics (2000) and the first woman elected president of the International Mathematical Union (2011). But she isn’t particularly interested in planting stakes on mathematical territory or laying claim to laurels.

“I feel successful being part of a bigger whole,” she says. “It’s such a man thing to want your effigy. That…

Greg Afinogenov:

At least not in its current form.

Glenn Beaton:

Some 52 years after Martin Luther King Jr’s death and one week after the three-day weekend for which he is now remembered, Harvard says it discriminates against people with bad personalities. After all, what good is knowledge, morality and dreams if you’re no fun?

To the fun-loving bureaucrats running Harvard, personality is measurable by your skin color and your sex life. They believe that good personalities are found in blacks, Hispanics, gays, transgenders, whites and just about everyone else, in roughly that order.

Except Asians. Harvard says Asians have bad personalities. And so to be admitted, Asians need an SAT score about 140 points higher than whites and about 450 points higher than blacks.

You might reasonably ask: How did Harvard decide that Asians have bad personalities?

Plenty of objective personality tests are out there, but Harvard doesn’t use them. It instead uses a subjective evaluation of the applicant by one of those fun-loving bureaucrats. At an in-person interview, the bureaucrat takes note of whether the applicant is Asian has a bad personality.

I suppose it’s a lucky thing for Harvard that Asians have bad personalities. Because otherwise their high merit would get more of them admitted at the expense of lower-merit whites, blacks, Hispanics, gays and transgenders.

Nekima Levy Armstrong:

It is an open secret in Minneapolis and the Twin Cities that black and brown children are being left behind within the public school system. The dominant narrative places the blame on poor children of color and their parents, as well as their communities. When racial stereotypes are used as the default to explain away systemic failures, everyone loses; but especially children of color who lag behind their white peers in reading, math and high school graduation rates. They are relegated to the margins of society and the criminal justice system.

We recently celebrated the life and legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his work toward a more equitable society. But it seems as if, in the area of education, our city and other cities across the country have gone backward.

Thankfully, some cities are doing a significantly better job than others at closing the opportunity gaps in education — as is made clear in a newly published report by brightbeam, a nonprofit education advocacy organization.

One might expect that politically progressive cities would be leading the way in closing the opportunity gap in education, given the history of racial segregation and oppression in this country, and the rhetoric of progressives about overcoming that history and creating a more just and inclusive society.

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.

Larry Alex Taunton:

Seduced by the communist promise of earthly bliss, Muggeridge and his pregnant wife, Kitty, moved to Moscow in 1932. The rumors that Stalinist Russia was anything but a “workers’ paradise” did not dampen their spirits in the least. Shaking the dust of London and the West off of their shoes, they were full of high ideals and naïve optimism upon arrival in the USSR. Muggeridge, working as a correspondent for the prestigious British daily The Manchester Guardian, quickly earned a name for himself among the Moscow bosses as a supporter of the regime. His reports were rapturous tributes to the wonders of Soviet government, economics, agriculture, and arts.

Yet even as he wrote of a communist utopia, Muggeridge was beginning to have doubts — doubts about the veracity of the information the Soviet government spoon-fed the foreign press and which it, in turn, passed on to a naïve Western public. He was also beginning to rethink his understanding of human nature. Foreign journalists working in Stalin’s Russia operated according to the strict dictates of the government — interviews were scripted, travel was restricted, and reports were censored. All the while, the secret police eavesdropped on their conversations, read their mail, noted their associations, and followed their every move. Any journalist who was deemed to be subversive faced, at the very least, harassment and immediate deportation. Consequently, many newsmen, preferring a comfortable existence to disgrace and unemployment, sacrificed journalistic integrity in favor of an amicable agreement with the regime.

According to these rules, journalists would post to their Western editors news items that cast the USSR in a favorable light. In return, the Soviet government would allow them to remain in the country to live a comfortable existence, supplying their guests with such creature comforts as caviar, vodka, and mistresses. Muggeridge was quick to sample any delights offered and, initially, he willingly passed along Soviet propaganda, not the least because he was ideologically predisposed to believe it. Nevertheless, the signs of terror and human degradation steadily gnawed at his conscience. Even the seemingly omnipresent NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB) could not hide all of the starving people or quell all of the stories of genocide. Some rumors had it that in the countryside, where no foreigner was permitted without advance application and escort, millions had died.

Courtney Everett:

The Department of Public Instruction recently announced it will endorse ‘explicit phonics instruction.’ A professor joins us to explain these new state standards and what research says about phonics. Plus, we’ll examine how Wisconsin schools are teaching students to read today.

“You know, we talk a lot about how poverty has a huge impact on educational outcomes, which it absolutely does. But what we don’t talk about is the way that educational practices magnify these effects, and the way that we teach kids to read…is a primo example of how policies that we’ve put in place and practices that we use can magnify the existing differences in opportunity.”

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

Patrick Hauf:

The NEA is the largest teachers’ union in the U.S. with more than 3 million members. It collected nearly $400 million from American educators in 2018, according to federal labor filings. The union is also one of the most politically active in the country, spending $70 million on politics and lobbying in 2017 and 2018. Nearly all of the union’s political action committee spending went to Democrats during the midterm cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

US abortion data:

In 2016, 623,471 legal induced abortions were reported to CDC from 48 reporting areas. The abortion rate for 2016 was 11.6 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years, and the abortion ratio was 186 abortions per 1,000 live births.

Compared with 2015, the total number and rate of reported abortions fell by 2%, and the abortion ratio decreased by 1%. Additionally, from 2007 to 2016, the number, rate, and ratio of reported abortions decreased 24%, 26%, and 18%, respectively. In 2016, all three measures reached their lowest level for the entire period of analysis (2007-2016).

Women in their twenties accounted for the majority of abortions in 2016 and throughout the period of analysis. The majority of abortions in 2016 took place early in gestation: 91.0% of abortions were performed at ≤13 weeks’ gestation; a smaller number of abortions (7.7%) were performed at 14–20 weeks’ gestation, and even fewer (1.2%) were performed at ≥21 weeks’ gestation. In 2016, 27.9% of all abortions were early medical abortions (a nonsurgical abortion at ≤8 weeks’ gestation). The percentage of abortions reported as early medical abortions increased 113% from 2007 to 2016, with a 14% increase from 2015 to 2016. Source: MMWR Surveill Summ 2019;68(No. SS-11).

WHO global abortion data.

Liam O’Connor:

Princeton has little to show for its experiment in “grade deflation,” except inflating grades that continue to lag behind those of its peer institutions. 

I obtained restricted records from the Office of the Dean of the College on 120,000 grades awarded over the past three years at the nation’s top-ranked university. I confirmed their accuracy by comparing them to figures published in a recent memorandum. 

The data are definitive: it’s never been easier to get an A at Princeton.

“Deflation worked, and then, when it went away, it had no long-term effect,” said professor Paul Courant GS ’74, an economist who viewed my statistics and co-authored a prior study on grades at the University of Michigan. 

A- was the median grade in the 2018-2019 academic year. 55 percent of course grades were in the A-range. In 1998, they were 43 percent of course grades, according to a faculty report I acquired from Mudd Manuscript Library.

B-range grades comprised 34 percent, and the C-range comprised six percent. D’s were merely half a percent. A Princetonian’s chance of getting a F was one in a thousand. The remaining four percent went to “passes.”

But the proliferation of A’s isn’t as alarming as the many ways that students who are trying to maximize their grade point averages (GPAs) can game the system. Grades are full of quirks. The problem is that the outside world that assesses students for jobs and scholarships doesn’t seem to know or care about these nuances. 

David Jesse:

The squeals of elementary students at recess and the occasional hiss of a tractor-trailer’s tires on the main drag serve as the only soundtrack as a quartet of high school students saunter down a Baldwin street, heading for some fun away from school.

Traffic stops briefly as it leaves town, next to the county courthouse and a gas station at the town’s only traffic signal — a flashing red light.

It’s a stereotypical rural small-town scene.
The skills gap is going to kill rural America. If there’s nowhere for students to get the training they need, they aren’t going to be able to get the jobs they need.

Two hundred miles southeast, on the edge of the University of Michigan campus, it’s louder — a jackhammer pounds away, a steady stream of cars rolls along a nearby street and students crowd sidewalks. A homeless man pleads for help. Inside a coffee shop, one of several within a couple blocks, tables are full of students studying, professors working on plans and townies just sipping a latte.

It’s a stereotypical college town scene.

The towns show little similarity. Ann Arbor is in Washtenaw County, Michigan’s richest county in terms of median household income. Baldwin is in Lake County, Michigan’s poorest.

Washtenaw is Michigan’s most educated county, with the highest percentage of adults with some sort of college degree. Lake County is among Michigan’s least educated, with the second-lowest percentage of college-educated adults.

Meghan Cox Gurdon:

At the British Museum in London, down a long string of galleries filled with Greek antiquities, there is a glass case that contains a glossy black-and-ocher amphora, resembling a jug or vase. The object was made by a craftsman in Athens sometime early in the Golden Age, around 490–480 BC, and it’s decorated with a figure on either side. The first is a musician in long skirts and a checkered tunic shown in full-length profile. We seem to have caught him just as he blows into a reed instrument.

On the other side, a man in pleated robes stands in a position of relaxed command, with one arm thrust out and resting on a tall wooden staff. The man’s mouth is open, and if you look closely, you can see a tiny arc of text springing from his lips. Translated, the words read: “Once upon a time in Tiryns . . .”

This figure is a rhapsode, or “stitcher of songs,” and a kind of living prefiguration of the act of reading aloud. In ancient Greece, a rhapsode did not read from a book, however. He was the book. His memory held, among other works, the two great epics of Homer, The Iliad and The Odyssey. He would pull them from the shelf and read them aloud, so to speak, when he recited them.

The Homeric tales, loved to this day, are terrific creations. They brim with action, drama, stealth, deceit (and with manifestations of honor and dishonor so distinct from our own as to seem bizarre). The Iliad encompasses the ten years of the Trojan War, when the massed armies of the Greek kingdoms besieged the walled city of Troy. In its verses we meet sulky, ferocious Achilles, noble Prince Hector, handsome Paris, and lovely Helen. The second great Homeric tale, The Odyssey, follows Odysseus, wiliest of the Greeks, over the ten years it takes him after the conquest of Troy to reach his home island of Ithaca and his clever, long-suffering wife, Penelope. During his travels, Odysseus contends with mutinous crewmen, the erotic temptations of Circe and Calypso, and monsters such as the man-eating cyclops Polyphemus and the homicidal Sirens. At one point, Odysseus also has to wrest his men free of the addictive, obliterating pleasures of the lotus flower.

Noah Smith:

A high-profile court case about meritocracy and college admissions has captured much attention. A group called Students for Fair Admissions alleges that Harvard University uses highly subjective personality ratings to penalize Asian applicants. The former tend to outperform white applicants on every measure except for so-called personality, but the number of Asian-American students at Harvard has fallen relative to the Asian-American population, while the number for white students has risen, during the last 25 years. Defenders of the policy, meanwhile, said that the personality ratings are necessary to account for the different challenges students face growing up.

While the case is sensational because of the allegations of racism, fundamentally it’s about a deeper question. Does meritocracy still make sense as a guiding principle for the modern American economic system?

The Foundations of Reading, Wisconsin’s one elementary reading teacher content knowledge requirement is (was) an attempt to improve our K-12 students’ disastrous reading results.

Readers may find the Foundations of Reading results of interest (2.4MB xlsx). (3 February 2020: link updated to remove partial ss identifiers, via a kind DPI message).

The test is based on Massachusetts’ successful MTEL teacher content knowledge examination.

The Wisconsin DPI, long lead by Governor Tony Evers, has granted mulligans to thousands of teachers who failed to pass this reading content knowledge examination.

The information was obtained via an open records request to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.

At the Pence rally. A lot of people here with yellow sashes in support of school vouchers. Many nonwhite.

— Rocknrolli OneAndOnly (@RocknRocknrolli) January 28, 2020

.@vp mentions @GovEvers‘s absence and a bill to be reintroduced today by @RepBrostoff to phase out school vouchers in Wisconsin: “I know the governor can’t be here with us today so let’s make sure he hears this, we’re not going to let that happen.”

— Mitchell Schmidt (@schmidtmitchell) January 28, 2020

Molly Beck:

Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday gave an election-year defense of President Donald Trump’s education policies — assuring parents at a Capitol rally that under the Republican president, children will not be stuck in poorly performing schools.

Pence and U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos turned a state rally promoting alternatives to public schools into a stump speech for Trump, who needs to keep Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes in his corner as he faces reelection and an impeachment trial.

“I’m here in Wisconsin because this is where it all began,” Pence told a crowd of hundreds in the Wisconsin State Capitol’s rotunda, referring to Milwaukee’s private school voucher program — the nation’s first.

The visit to the statehouse — a first for a sitting vice president — put on alert local education officials and public school advocates who see the Trump administration as a threat to public school funding, which they argue has been decimated over the last 10 years by the programs Pence and DeVos promoted.

Mitchell Schmidt:

In a press conference after Pence’s speech, Rep. Jonathan Brostoff, D-Milwaukee, said his bill would phase out vouchers in the state and reinvest in public schools.

“(Pence) has no idea what’s going on here,” Brostoff said. “He represents a complete erosion of one of the most fundamental values and one of the greatest values of this country which is strong public education and that’s certainly a Wisconsin value.”

Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, also spoke at the event, with both vowing to uphold the state’s voucher program.

“As long as Republicans control the Legislature, we plan to keep it,” Fitzgerald said.

During his speech, Vos encouraged students participating in the event to cheer for Trump, Pence and DeVos and boo “those who don’t like school choice.”

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin held an event in response to Pence’s visit, where party chairman Ben Wikler called the event a celebration for the attack on public schools by President Donald Trump and his administration.

“Trump and his cronies are sabotaging public education because it’s not their children who go to public school,” Wikler said.

Logan Wroge (fails to compare total spending)

The Milwaukee voucher program started in 1990-91 under former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson, who attended Tuesday’s rally.

In the first year, the program enrolled 337 students. Enrollment has grown almost every year. This fall, 28,978 students attended 130 private schools on vouchers in Milwaukee.

Another voucher program in Racine started in the 2011-12 school year, followed by a statewide program in 2013-14 and a fourth for students with disabilities in 2016.

In the Milwaukee, Racine and statewide programs, 42,392 students enrolled in private schools this fall using a voucher, or just under 5% of the total school-aged population.

The use of vouchers, though, has yet to catch on in Madison as only three schools in the city signed up to accept students this school year through the statewide program, which state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said leaves Madison children with “limited choices.”

Scott Bauer:

Vice President Mike Pence touted alternatives to a public school education during a visit Tuesday to the state where the private school voucher program began, stopping in battleground Wisconsin for a noontime celebration in the state Capitol.

Pence, and U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos were both briefly drowned out by chants of “shame” from dozens of protesters who gathered one floor down in the Capitol building. The protesters, some carrying signs calling for the separation of church and state, also booed throughout their comments.

School choice — which includes private school vouchers, charter schools and other nontraditional options — has long been an issue that divides Republicans and Democrats, particularly in Wisconsin. Conservatives have championed offering students an alternative to public schools, giving Pence a chance to appeal to Republican voters in a swing state during national school choice week.

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

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.

2011: A majority of the Madison School Board aborted the proposed Madison Property Academy IB charter school.

Voucher schools spend far less per student than traditional government supported schools. Traditional K-12 School Districts capture local (property), redistributed state and federal funds, while voucher schools largely survive on state taxpayer funds.

Gregorian Guitchounts:

On a chilly evening last fall, I stared into nothingness out of the floor-to-ceiling windows in my office on the outskirts of Harvard’s campus. As a purplish-red sun set, I sat brooding over my dataset on rat brains. I thought of the cold windowless rooms in downtown Boston, home to Harvard’s high-performance computing center, where computer servers were holding on to a precious 48 terabytes of my data. I have recorded the 13 trillion numbers in this dataset as part of my Ph.D. experiments, asking how the visual parts of the rat brain respond to movement.

Printed on paper, the dataset would fill 116 billion pages, double-spaced. When I recently finished writing the story of my data, the magnum opus fit on fewer than two dozen printed pages. Performing the experiments turned out to be the easy part. I had spent the last year agonizing over the data, observing and asking questions. The answers left out large chunks that did not pertain to the questions, like a map leaves out irrelevant details of a territory.

David Blaska:

No wonder Dad is irate!

It’s always the unscripted moments that define a political campaign.

A man known to the national news media only as “Irate Dad” confronts Elizabeth Warren, mother superior of the giveaway state (Big enough to promise everything you want, strong enough to take away everything you’ve earned). The Democrat(ic) presidential candidate wants taxpayers to pick up $640 billion in student loans, thereby removing yet another brake on escalating college tuition costs, subsidizing grievance studies, creating another dependent class, and making fools of people who pay their debts.

What part of ‘Free’ does he not understand?

A man who appears to be in his late 40s approaches candidate Elizabeth Warren in Grimes, Iowa: 

IRATE DAD: “I just want to ask you one question. My daughter’s getting out of school. I’ve saved all my money. She doesn’t have any student loans.” 

WARREN: [nods] “God bless you.”

IRATE DAD: “Am I going to get my money back?”

WARREN: “Of course not.” 

IRATE DAD: “So you’re going to pay for people who didn’t save any money and those of us who did the right thing get screwed. My buddy had fun, bought a car, went on vacations. I saved my money. He made more than I did, but I worked a double shift, worked extra. My daughter’s worked since she was 10. So, you’re laughing at me.”

WARREN: “No.”

IRATE DAD: “That’s exactly what you’re doing. We did the right thing and we get screwed.”

WARREN: “Thank you for your thoughts.”

⇒ Ms. Warren, tell your campaign staff to put Irate Dad down as a Maybe.

Steven Malanga:

Government-union membership fell again in 2019, continuing a decade-long decline. Workers in public-sector unions now number 7.066 million, representing a drop of nearly 100,000 in one year and the smallest government-organized labor membership in 20 years. Since 2009, when the ranks of government-union members peaked at 7.896 million, public-labor groups have lost more than 10 percent of their membership. The percentage of government workers belonging to unions has dropped to 33.6, the smallest proportion of the government workforce since 1978. The most recent numbers illustrate how government unions continue to suffer from the hangover of the recession of 2008-2009, in part because of a slow rebound in government employment during the economic expansion that began in 2010. The numbers may also reflect some losses that unions have suffered in the wake of the 2018 Supreme Court Janus decision, which gave public-sector workers the right to opt out of joining a union or paying fees.

The trends are particularly ominous for public unions because 2019 should have been the year that they started bouncing back. In the tenth year of an economic expansion, state tax and local collections grew robustly, increasing by 9 percent in the second quarter and 5.6 percent in the third quarter, according to government surveys. States and municipalities subsequently hired more workers. The number of local government employees, for instance, jumped by nearly 100,000 in 2019, to 14.573 million. But these gains haven’t translated into increases in union membership, particularly in municipal government, the largest segment of public-sector employment. The total government workforce in America has returned to its pre-financial crash levels, but union headcount has failed to follow suit.

Related: Act 10.

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators