808 results
Dave Cieslewicz: For example, in 2024, Madison voters approved a record $507 million capital improvements referendum. One of the largest items in that referendum was $85 million for a new, bigger building to house Sherman Middle and Shabazz High schools. Yet, that building is at only 50% of capacity, and projections are for enrollments to go down. Before […]
The Economist: Until recently, most leading AI research was produced by experts based in the West. That is changing. In 2025, for the first time, more studies presented at the world’s top AIconference had lead authors based in China than in either America or Europe. To better understand the international ebbs and flows of AI talent, The Economist tracked the education histories […]
Chris Rickert: Madison School District teacher exchanged nearly 130,000 messages with a female student and repeatedly told her he loved her and pressured her for increasing amounts of physical contact, a criminal complaint alleges. Eliav M. Goldman, 29, was charged Tuesday with felony grooming and sexual misconduct for his behavior with the student, which began […]
Erin Gretzinger: Under state open records laws, the Cap Times obtained the open-ended survey responses, which reveal the extent of tension in the community over what should be the school district’s priorities as it redraws school boundaries. While dozens stressed the importance of diverse schools and equitably distributing resources, many also urged the school district […]
Washington Post: Higher graduation rates are something to celebrate, so long as they’re actually backed by an increase in academic achievement, but Boston’s standardized test scores tell a different story. Mayor Michelle Wu (D) says her city’s graduation rate at public high schools — 81.3 percent last year, the highest in district history — came […]
Will Flanders: That Wisconsin schools are somehow “underfunded” is pure misinformation. Below is inflation adjusted spending since 2000. We spend MORE than we did in 2000. We spend within $200 of the all time highs right before Act 10. The media needs to start questioning this narrative. ——- more. ——- Fast Lane Literacy 1998! Money and […]
Shannon Whitworth: For example, the Obama administration implemented a race-based disciplinary approach for secondary schools. In practice, this policy led many schools to limit discipline to avoid racial disparities in disciplinary outcomes, reducing accountability for students’ unacceptable behavior in school. In turn, that policy encouraged disruptive behavior in classrooms. It also created an environment not conducive […]
Joe Gothard: I want to sincerely thank the community members who havewrittenletters to the editor about my recent comments in a March 2 Wisconsin State Journal article. In it, I used “tax rate” when I meant “tax amount.” I realize my wording missed the mark, and I regret any misunderstanding this caused. My consistent message has been that […]
Teagan King: This year, 25,029 students are enrolled in Madison schools, a 0.5% decrease from last year, when 25,155 attended. Enrollment also has fallen statewide over the past five years, according to data from the Department of Public Instruction released earlier this month. Larger 12th-grade classes than incoming freshman classes are partially to blame for […]
WILL: .@WILawLiberty is excited to announce Dr. Cade Brumley as our Keynote Speaker at the 2026 School Board Summit! 📚 Focus: Transforming Education: Lessons from Louisiana’s Reform Efforts📍 Renaissance Milwaukee West Hotel📅 Friday, April 24, 2026 REGISTER NOW: zeffy.com/en-US/ticketin… ——- Legislative Letter to Jill Underly on Wisconsin Literacy. Notes and links on current Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Jill Underly.
Paul Runko: So it’s time for K-12 public education to have a “Moneyball” moment. Here’s the “stats” that should matter when schools construct their teacher rosters: 1. Classroom Management Students can’t learn if they are constantly distracted by their peers or chaos in the classroom. Principals, administrators, and school board members can easily observe a […]
Will Flanders Public scjools apparently have realized the(y) can no longer lie about their failures, and have now decided to blame taxpayers. $18,592 per kid is more than enough. Private and charter schools get better results for $1000s less per student. ——- Fast Lane Literacy 1998! Money and school performance. A.B.T.: “Ain’t been taught.” 8,897 (!) Madison 4k […]
John Stossel: “My child can’t read!” That’s become a common complaint from parents. Why? It might be because kids are distracted by social media and video games. But I think it’s also because reading instruction became lazy and political. “Progressives” at teachers’ colleges pushed a reading technique called “Balanced Literacy.” Instead of memorizing sounds and […]
Chad Aldeman: Besides, thanks largely to the state’s investments in free community college for everyone and tuition- and fee-free public four-year college for students from low-income families, the number of students attending public colleges and universities has jumped by about 24,000 since 2022. That’s a gain of 16 percent in three years, reversing years of declines and […]
Brian Fraley: DPI has yet to provide all the public documents I requested 14 months ago. I enlisted the help of the Institute for Reforming Government. It shouldn’t take threats of legal action to get government agencies to release public data, but here we are. Eventually, DPI did release SOME of the information we requested […]
Wall Street Journal Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is supposed to be the great moderate hope for Democrats in 2028, but on Friday he revealed himself as a captive of the left’s most destructive interest group. He vetoed a bill to opt his state into the federal tax-credit scholarship program, taking dictation from the teachers union. “The answer […]
Steven Walters: “Between the 1999-2000 and 2022-2023 school years, statewide fourth grade reading proficiency dropped from 78% to 44.8% (a 43% decline…) and statewide eighth grade math proficiency dropped from 42% to 30.5% (a 27% decline..).” If the governor and Legislature don’t respond to a ruling that the current system is unconstitutional, the suit asks […]
Erin Gretzinger: As Mosner Feltham and Vander Meulen underscored their track records and ongoing endeavors to improve the Madison Metropolitan School District, Molle and Colussi-Lynde spotlighted their ideas and what differentiates them from their opponents. The candidates share many overarching priorities, such as advocating for changes to the state funding formula for public schools and addressing salary compression for […]
Dave Cieslewicz: Now, to be sure, I will happily vote for both of them because any change to this dismal board has to be a step in the right direction. Incumbents Blair Mosner Feltham and Nicki Vander Meulen have been part of a board that is leading the district to new depths each year. Year […]
Bipartisan Policy Center Calls for federal alignment, clear career pathways, removal of barriers to keep U.S. competitive WASHINGTON, DC—The Bipartisan Policy Center today released a comprehensive blueprint for tackling one of America’s most important domestic challenges: preparing America’s workforce for the jobs of today—and into the future. In a newly released report, “A Nation at […]
Frederick Hess After all, it was 26 years ago this spring that the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development issued its National Reading Panel report, which made the case for the science of reading and emphasized the need for explicit instruction in phonemic awareness and systematic phonics instruction. Those recommendations were the foundation of the […]
Nicole Barbaro Simovski: Many states including Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Texas, and Utah now require instructors to make their course syllabi publicly available. The reasons are clear, advocates argue: The public has a right to knowwhat is being taught in public university classrooms, and students should have clarity on the course content and objectives before spending their tuition dollars to […]
WILL: Wisconsin continues to lead the nation in the racial achievement gap between white and African American students. According to the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in fourth grade reading, Wisconsin’s 45-point gap is the largest in the country—13 points greater than the next grouping of states such as Louisiana, Michigan, and South […]
Dave Cieslewicz: Maia Pearson, the chair of Madison’s police oversight board and a Madison school board member, has been charged with criminal misdemeanors related to her resisting arrest in an incident in downtown Madison in December. In a criminal complaint, it is alleged that she and her friend, Urban Triage executive director Brandi Grayson, verbally […]
Chris Rickert: Pearson and Grayson were arrested after Grayson refused to move her vehicle — in which Pearson was a passenger — out of a theater’s no-parking area and argued with theater employees, according to police and the Dane County District Attorney’s Office. A source with knowledge of the event has said that the theater […]
Matthew Yglesias The growing progressive interest in exotic new tax-policy ideas — like Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna saying they can raise trillions in revenue from a base of around 1,000 billionaires — shows a left that has lost faith in the idea of asking Americans to pay higher taxes in exchange for more and better public services. And […]
Will Flanders: We also look at Wisconsin’s largest school choice program–open enrollment. Here, you see the marketplace working as families move to school districts with better academic outcomes and graduation rates. The Report: WILL’s Apples to Apples report provides a rigorous, side-by-side comparison of academic performance across Wisconsin’s public, charter, and private choice schools. Because […]
Preeya P. Mbekeani, John P. Papay, Ann Mantil & Richard J. Murnane: Improving education and labor market outcomes for low-income students is critical for advancing socioeconomic mobility in the United States. We use longitudinal data on five cohorts of 9th grade students to explore how Massachusetts public high schools affect the longer-term outcomes of students, […]
Jason Riley: Far too many children are still assigned to substandard schools, and too many remain unable to read or do math at grade level. Meanwhile, educators and policymakers seem preoccupied with nonsense like helping students “transition” behind their parents’ backs or indoctrinating impressionable youngsters with social-justice poppycock to promote trendy political causes. American kids […]
Dan Lennington: Note that the plan tells teachers to actively deceive parents by referring to students one way in school & another way in front of family. WILL: “The Supreme Court reinforced that parents have enforceable rights to be involved in major decisions affecting their children’s health and wellbeing. Because of this clarification, WILL is […]
Preeya P. Mbekeani, John P. Papay, Ann Mantil & Richard J. Murnane: Improving education and labor market outcomes for low-income students is critical for advancing socioeconomic mobility in the United States. We use longitudinal data on five cohorts of 9th grade students to explore how Massachusetts public high schools affect the longer-term outcomes of students, […]
Brian Fraley: The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction is returning to the Wisconsin Dells for its 11th annual WISEdata Conference on March 18 and 19. This gathering of school administrators and data coordinators comes as the agency tells state lawmakers in Madison that it is facing a dire fiscal crisis that could lead to staff layoffs. The […]
Teagan King The 2024 referendum passed by a wide margin, but some people are feeling surprised by what they’re having to contribute to it. Do you have any response to some taxpayers’ concerns? We don’t assess properties, so we’re not increasing the property value, and if property value goes up, of course the tax rate […]
Cap Times: Two Madison School Board seats will be decided by voters on April 7, and the Cap Times will bring together the candidates for each seat in a public forum on Wednesday, March 11, at La Follette High School. The moderators will be Cap Times education reporter Erin Gretzinger and Taylor Kilgore of the […]
Erin Gretzinger: As authorities investigate allegations that an East High School staff member fed dog food to a student, state Rep. Shelia Stubbs and other community leaders called on the Madison school district to expedite its review and release more information. At the state Capitol Friday alongside Stubbs and others, Debra Hawkes said the staff […]
Boston Globe: A 2023 study of 19 teacher preparation programs in Massachusetts underscored the need for this requirement. That study, conducted by the National Council on Teacher Quality, gave grades of D or F to 15 of those 19 programs for their literacy training, while only 3 received an A or better. Several of the state’s largest teacher preparation […]
Samuel Goldman In addition to its tension with underlying constitutional principle, this is almost certainly a counterproductive response to populist challenges. Bollinger’s response to collapsing trust is to insist that citizens and their direct or indirect representatives are entitled to only a nominal role in the direction of institutions that claim to act in their […]
Chris Mueller Wisconsin homeowners face one of the heaviest property tax burdens in the country, according to a new report from WalletHub. The personal finance website compared property tax rates in all 50 states and the District of Columbia by using U.S. Census Bureau data, which it said shows the average U.S. household pays $3,119 a year […]
Dave Cieslewicz: And here’s what Pearson is alleged to have done according to a criminal complaint as part of formal charges brought against her last week. She and a friend, Brandi Grayson, were out together just before Christmas. At about 11 PM they parked in a loading zone behind a theatre. When a security guard asked them […]
Corrinne Hess: “This is a constitutional challenge to the deficiency of the state public finance system for our schools,” said Jeff Mandell, president of Law Forward, the firm representing the plaintiffs. “Despite heroic efforts that have held our schools together for as long as they’ve made it under this deficient funding, it’s not enough. These […]
Zach Groshell: What Has Changed AI is dramatically better than it was a year ago. New models have emerged that are not just incrementally improved but fundamentally more capable. That part is clear. What hasn’t changed requires a longer conversation. What Has Not Changed Direct Instruction in the Engelmann tradition remains the most effective method […]
By Sasha Rogelberg He said Gen Z is the first generation in modern history to score lower on standardized tests than the previous one. While skills measured by these tests, like literacy and numeracy, aren’t always indicative of intelligence, they are a reflection of cognitive capability, which Horvath said has been on the decline over the […]
Anna Hansen: The three top spellers advanced to the Badger State Spelling Bee on March 21, so Barnhill will be joined by Joanne Aldoori of Madinah Academy, who placed second, and third-place finisher Ignatius Fassino of St. Ambrose Academy. Casey Barnhill found his spelling bee victory cradled between Colombia, Peru and the Pacific Ocean. The […]
Erin Gretzinger The Dane County district attorney filed misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and resisting an officer against Madison School Board Vice President Maia Pearson Thursday. The charges stem from a December incident involving Pearson and Brandi Grayson, the CEO of Urban Triage, that led to their arrests. Both Pearson and Grayson have entered not guilty pleas and […]
Chris Rickert: Jensen then told police that the person who made the original report in October has a stepsister who goes to Thoreau, that the stepsister had seen the photo and told her mother about it, and that the mother had reported the photo’s existence to the school. Madison police and the Madison School District […]
The Economist: It helps that red states have gone back to basics: legislators in state capitals have enacted new rules that require teaching reading via phonics and holding failing schools accountable. Those decisions matter a great deal for classrooms. But America is made up of more than 13,000 school districts, most of which have the […]
Garry Tan: I sometimes wonder about the fervor education bureaucrats have for making standardized testing optional. Then I hear stories like Aleysha’s and know exactly why they do it. Tests reveal the rot. San Francisco paid 6-figures to education school bureaurcrats pushing “Grading for Equity” — homework doesn’t count, unlimited test retakes, lateness and absence don’t affect […]
Jorge Elorza: America is in a decade-long education depression. Barely a third of students are proficient in reading or math across most grades in recent testing, achievement gaps are widening fast, and too many college freshmen are arriving on campus unable to read a full book or do middle-school-level math. Chronic absenteeism has surged after the pandemic; students are disengaged. Educators […]
Brian Fraley: DPI has a transparency problem that is quickly becoming a legal one. After a year of stonewalling our investigation into what we discovered was a taxpayer-funded Waterpark Workshop, the department has yet to release the vendor contract. Conveniently for them, it is the very document they claim restricts their ability to provide more details […]
Brian Fraley: The larger concern is less about election mechanics and more about institutional behavior. For many Wisconsin families and local officials, DPI increasingly appears less like a responsive public agency and more like a distant authority issuing directives from Madison. Frustrations over guidance, priorities, and regulatory tone are no longer rare complaints. They have […]
San Francisco Chronicle: But San Francisco’s strike did not occur in a vacuum. The California Teachers Association, the powerful statewide union representing teachers, has made no secret of the fact that it is coordinating a statewide campaign — dubbed “We Can’t Wait” — to align teacher strikes in more than two dozen districts, from San Francisco to Los […]
Quinton Klabon: 🚨ACT 20 READING UPDATE🚨 A.B.T.: “Ain’t been taught.” 8,897 (!) Madison 4k to 3rd grade students scored lower than 75% of the students in the national comparison group during the 2024-2025 school year. Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average (now > $26,000 per student) K-12 tax & spending practices. This, despite long term, disastrous reading […]
Institute for reforming government: Without following open meetings requirements under Wisconsin law, the secretly adopted test standards could be invalidated. Under state law (Wis. Stat. § 19.97(3)), a court may declare void any action taken at a meeting held in violation of the Open Meetings Law, including DPI’s adoption of new Forward Exam standards. KEY […]
Brian Fraley: The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction has many problems. They’re self righteous, secretive and indignant. Their communications efforts do not offer clarity, they obfuscate. This was on full display in their spokesperson’s response to Dairyland Sentinel’s reporting. The statement was emailed out to many media outlets. Here’s a link to the full statement as […]
Danielle DuClos: The bill would require the department to publish on its website if an educator surrendered their license amid an investigation into misconduct. It would also remove ways to justify denying access to case records under state open records laws and mandate the department fulfill requests for case records within 14 days, if an […]
Eli Stark-Elster: Am I willing to say that Common Core, rather than social media, was the singular force underlying the heightened destruction of youthful minds? No, I’m not. As Tyler Cowen pointed out in a conversation with Haidt, reducing these mood shifts to one cause or another is a bit like reducing a hurricane to the flapping […]
David Phillips The current situation has come about because of the uneasy marriage of two related but ultimately distinct missions: the traditional mission of the university to transmit knowledge and mold character and the mission of the academy to discover, produce, and test that knowledge. The issue isn’t merely that the present arrangement allows ideologues and recalcitrant administrators to […]
Unexpectedly, I was recently prompted to consider 2026 Wisconsin Gubernatorial candidates and education. Herewith are my 2 big goals. Focus: 1. All hands on deck to improve Wisconsin literacy. a. 97,414 4k-3rd grade students scored lower than 75% of the students in the national comparison group. Data via the 2024-2025 Early Literacy Screener (Act 20) […]
Quinton Klabon: In 2024-2025, Wisconsin public schools employed more people than at any other time in state history.1 2 The problem: Wisconsin educated the fewest public-school students since 1991-1992.3 4 With schools set to have the fewest students since the 1950s in just 5 years, budgets are ripping at the seams.5 That fiscal cliff is […]
Jim Bender & Patrick McIlheran: Accused of gutting academic standards, manipulating report cards, slacking on fiscal oversight and bungling oversight of sexual misconduct among teachers, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction is facing a crisis of confidence — and new questions about whether it is capable of handling myriad key functions. Did taxpayer funded Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Underly Juice […]
Kayla Huynh : Nearly 37% of Wisconsin students in 4-year-old kindergarten through third grade scored below the 25th percentile on early literacy assessments last school year, according to the state Department of Instruction. For Milwaukee Public Schools, over half of 4K through third graders – or nearly 12,500 students – tested below the 25th percentile, […]
Dana Goldstein: “We do one book after state testing, and we did ‘The Great Gatsby.’ … A lot of kids had not read a novel in class before.” — Laura Henry, 10th-grade English teacher near Houston “My son in 9th grade listened to the audio of ‘A Raisin in the Sun.’ For ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ […]
Kevin L. Cope, Jens Frankenreiter, Scott Hirst, Eric A. Posner, Daniel Schwarcz and Dane Thorley: In the past few years, large language models (LLMs) have achieved significant technical advances, such that legal-advocacy organizations are increasingly adopting them as complements to — or substitutes for — lawyers and other human experts. Several studies have examined LLMs’ […]
Jonathan Chait: Every once in a while, a state or city discovers a new and better way to educate poor children. Inevitably, a group of skeptics arises to insist that this new way doesn’t work, that even attempting to shrink the gap between rich and poor students is a fool’s errand. Strangely enough, these skeptics tend, […]
Richelle Wilson: Recent test scores show that only about half of Wisconsin students are proficient in reading. Those numbers are even more stark for Native American students. In 2022, only 5 percent of Native third graders in Brown County were reading at grade level. “To find out that 95 percent of our children were struggling — […]
Quinton Klabon: Is the Mississippi Miracle in reading real? Yeah! If anyone ever debunks it, it will not be people who cannot read a ranking chart. “To their credit, when I reached out to the authors about this mistake, they acknowledged it and reached out to get it fixed before publication.” Kelsey Piper: All right, […]
Developed by Barb Novak, PhD Director, Office of Literacy: School and District level data (.xlsx). Act 20 annual reporting. —— Chris Rickert: Nearly 44% of Madison School District 4K through third graders scored below the 25th percentile on an early literacy screener required under a 2023 state law, the state Department of Public Instruction reported Monday, […]
Chris Rickert: Folger explained the delay in getting to Elvehjem and Lindbergh by saying that the process last school year to pick a name for the former Southside Elementary — now Lori Mann Carey Elementary — took longer than expected. “We are now on track to start the process for two schools this year,” he […]
Noah Smith: Rice’s article is very long and has many more details about how and why public education quality has collapsed in America. The basic story is that the education reform movement spearheaded by George W. Bush, which focused on improving test scores, collapsed in the mid-2010s. After that, public schools across the country began […]
Joanne Jacobs summary: The most selective schools — San Jose State, San Diego State, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Cal Poly Pomona, Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach State — are not included. Cal State schools have higher graduation rates than community colleges. But students who wouldn’t apply if they had to fill out an […]
Megan McArdle: UC San Diego report shows students are not prepared for college, especially in math. Progressive educators watered down curriculums, gutted gifted and talented programs, and weakened admissions standards for honors classes and magnet schools. Colleges dropped standardized testing requirements, in part because that made it easier to diversify their student body. None of […]
Garry Trudeau arrives (finally) in 2025…. —— Did taxpayer funded Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Underly Juice Test Scores for Reelection? ——- Only 31% of 4th graders in Wisconsin read at grade level, which is worse than Mississippi. ——- Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average (now > $25,000 per student) K-12 tax & spending practices. This, despite long […]
Quinton Klabon: ——- Poverty explains 50% of Forward Exam scores and 36% of ACT. So, control for poverty, and you can accurately rate and rank schools! best: Wauzeka-Steuben (small), Fond Du Lac (medium), Sheboygan/Janesville (big) ——- large districts’ Forward: Sheboygan: mid 4Janesville: mid 4Elmbrook: high 3Waukesha: mid 3Middleton: mid 3Wausau: mid 3Eau Claire: mid 3Appleton: […]
By Jim Bender & Patrick McIlheran Accused of gutting academic standards, manipulating report cards, slacking on fiscal oversight and bungling oversight of sexual misconduct among teachers, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction is facing a crisis of confidence — and new questions about whether it is capable of handling myriad key functions. The latest blow […]
Bowtied Bull: “Many people die at twenty five and aren’t buried until they are seventy five” – Benjamin Franklin Conceptually, this is still true today. The vast majority of people can’t see beyond one task in front of them. They don’t have a structure of vision of what decades are supposed to look like. They […]
Charles T. Clotfelter, Helen F. Ladd & Jacob L. Vigdor Education researchers and policy makers agree that teachers differ in terms of quality and that quality matters for student achievement. Despite prodigious amounts of research, however, debate still persists about the causal relationship between specific teacher credentials and student achievement. In this paper, we use […]
Erin Gretzinger: Asked by the Cap Times this month about the school district’s progress on fulfilling the requirements, district officials said 703 teachers had enrolled in the training as of the 2025-26 school year. Out of those enrolled, about 524 educators — or 75% — had completed the training. The district said 25 teachers hadn’t […]
Sir John Glubb: Education undergoes the same gradual transformation. No longer do schools aim at producing brave patriots ready to serve their country. Parents and students alike seek the educational qualifications which will command the highest salaries. The Arab moralist, Ghazali (1058-1111), complains in these very same words of the lowering of objectives in the […]
Karen Vaites: Getting rid of public gifted education programs will accelerate the enrollment crisis hitting American public schools When Zohran Mamdani came out in favor of eliminating New York City’s gifted and talented program in the earliest grades, it represented the latest chapter in an ongoing debate about gifted and selective schooling options in our nation’s largest […]
Institute For Reforming Government “DPI’s state report cards say rich districts are worth the property taxes, even when they aren’t, and poor districts meet expectations, even when they don’t. Meanwhile, DPI underrates many of Wisconsin’s best districts,” said Quinton Klabon, Senior Research Director at the Institute for Reforming Government. “Parents should not have to play a guessing […]
Danielle DuClos: After Evers dropped the 2017 rule changes while serving as state superintendent, neither his successor, Carolyn Stanford Taylor, nor the current state superintendent, Jill Underly, promulgated similar measures. Underly says the Department of Public Instruction is now working on two related rules, though. Facing pressure from critics after the Cap Times investigation, Underly […]
Kayla Huynh: The state Legislature’s bipartisan audit committee on Nov. 5 ordered a review into the Department of Public Instruction’s process for removing, suspending or restricting educator licenses. The audit comes as State Superintendent Jill Underly has received criticism for her department’s handling of grooming and sexual misconduct allegations against licensed school staff. The Legislative Audit Bureau will examine the […]
Michael Cuna & Elaine Shen: Despite dramatically expanded access to selective U.S. colleges, first-generation students persistently trail continuing-generation peers in GPA, internship attainment, and early-career outcomes. We identify a key mechanism: the hidden curriculum unwritten strategies like cold-emailing alumni or strategically engaging faculty essential for success yet unknown and costly to discover without guidance. Leveraging […]
Vance Ginn: Note from Adam: There is growing momentum to limit or repeal state and local property taxes, which poses an interesting dilemma for libertarians and fiscal conservatives. Advocates see property taxes as relatively efficient, transparent, and minimally distortionary, while critics argue they fuel government growth, undermine secure property rights, and make housing more expensive. The […]
Danielle DuClos: State legislators called both hearings this week in response to reporting by the Cap Times that uncovered hundreds of sexual misconduct and grooming investigations conducted by the department from 2018 through 2023. In a joint statement, the audit commitee’s co-chairs — Sen. Eric Wimberger, R-Oconto, and Rep. Robert Wittke, R-Caledonia — said Underly and the department “failed […]
Corrinne Hess: Wisconsin State Superintendent Jill Underly announced several changes on Tuesday to strengthen student safety amid criticism of her agency’s handling of accusations of sexual misconduct by educators. Underly also announced DPI would create a new online database to expand DPI’s existing pubic license look-up tool so the public can see teacher licenses that […]
Mark Treinen: I’ve been doing journalism a long time and don’t recall a public official ever demanding a “public correction” of an entire story, and then proposing a bunch of fixes to the exact problems highlighted in the @CapTimes story. Jon Styf: DPI Superintendent Jill Underly appeared in front of the Senate Committee on Education […]
Colleston Morgan, Jr. Good points in the full piece. IMO, there’s a throughline from the Des Moines debacle to @DrJillUnderly’s @WisconsinDPI teacher misconduct mess: an overreliance on broken licensure systems, substituting bureaucratic credentials as a proxy for educator quality & effectiveness. The Des Moines superintendent episode wasn’t an immigration story – it was a story […]
Chad Aldeman: So which schools help students get started on the right path? Last year, we set out to find the school districts that were doing the best job of teaching kids how to read. Now, we are expanding that search to individual schools — and have found 2,158 where third-grade reading scores are much higher than […]
Quinton Klabon: We are near all-time highs in percentage of publicly funded students. And people can object to vouchers if they want. But we have the fewest -number- of publicly funded students since 1995. We can afford it! More. Did taxpayer funded Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Underly Juice Test Scores for Reelection? ——- Only 31% of […]
Maggie Macintosh: Human rights investigators have found that parents of struggling readers across Manitoba are being forced to take on “a full-time job” of advocacy so their children can become literate in local public schools. The Manitoba Human Rights Commission released the long-awaited findings of its probe into literacy 101 education on Thursday — the […]
Office of Literacy, Office of the State Superintendent, Barb Novak: Reporting for Wis. Stat. §§ 115.39(4)(g) Administrators and Educators DPI is required to report (for the 2023 – 24 and 2024 – 25 school years), the number of individuals who completed the mandatory professional development training under 2023 Wisconsin Act 20, section 27 (2), which […]
Karen Vaites: This week, the Massachusetts House passed legislation that would give its department of education – known as DESE – the right to mandate use of state-approved curriculum. A similar bill failed last year, yet Massachusetts outcomes have continued to slide: In October, the Boston Globe proclaimed a “Northern Nosedive” in reading scores, and finally, Massachusetts leaders are willing to touch a […]
Ray Mendez: We devote this blog to Mr. Ray Mendez, parent of a Madison public school student to Superintendent Joe Gothard and the school board: The head-stomping at Madison Westwas not a “fight.” It was a near-fatal attack. Madison Police arrested three teens; two are accused of first-degree reckless injury and battery, and a third faces battery and […]
Gina Raimondo She also added that “a lesson we can learn from China is that they invest in the talent… whereas we don’t have an effective workforce system in this country, we incentivize attendance… we send everyone to college [and] people don’t have skills for jobs. China is incredibly intentional… There is a lot we […]
1636 Forum: “Students know that an ‘A’ can be awarded . . . for anything from outstanding work to reasonably satisfactory work. It’s a farce,” said a faculty member. “We are terrified of the A-,” one student admitted. Another added, “I think the current grading system is working very well.” These are among the many […]
Erin Gretzinger: … with additional spending focused on the district’s priorities like expanding 4K options and boosting staffing, which went up by nearly 60 full-time equivalent positions. About 81% of the district’s budget goes toward staff compensation and benefits. The district’s total tax revenue will increase by a little over 20% this year, due in part to two referendums approved […]
Corrinne Hess: While most are focusing on the Gov race with the Marquette Law School Poll, this jumps out at me (Education reporter): For the first time, a majority, 57%, say they would be inclined to vote against a referendum to increase taxes for schools in their community. ——- Will Flanders: The @mulaw poll showed […]
David Blaska Everything progressives believe about K-12 education is wrong. It’s minority students who suffer most. So says The Atlantic magazine — hardly a MAGA outlet. “America is Sliding Toward Illiteracy,” its headline warns. “Declining standards and low expectations are destroying American education.” Bad enough State schools superintendent Jill Underly cooked the books to paper over Wisconsin’s declining test scores. The […]
Corey A. DeAngelis Failure gets rewarded when it comes to government unions. Look no further than Stacy Davis Gates, the president of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). She was just unanimouslyelected to lead the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT). Her promotion comes despite a track record of presiding over educational disasters in Chicago, where student outcomes […]