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2023 Madison School Board election, Christine Gomez-Schmidt bows out
In her message to constituents, Gomez Schmidt listed a series of district accomplishments in her three years on the board, including navigating the pandemic, adopting new K-5 reading curriculums, investing in the “science of reading” and seeing the community approve a record referendum.
“I am grateful that this experience has challenged me in how I think about achievement, disparities, privilege, and opportunity,” she wrote, coming one day after a vote on standalone honors classes. “My sincere hope is that we can collectively find ways to continue to have necessary and challenging discussions with respect for one another. Our children deserve to see us model how to collaborate and build consensus to solve complex problems.”
Thanking her supporters for the opportunity to serve in the role, Gomez Schmidt also looked forward, writing that the district “must decide what we expect from, and for, our public schools,” which face “significant” challenges.
“Declining enrollment, disparities in achievement, staff recruitment and retention, needed investment in our aging facilities, and a clear, multi-year strategic plan are a few of these,” she wrote. “Yet we have a Governor dedicated to education, incredibly strong support for public schools in Madison and Fitchburg, and a developing vision for the future.
The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.
No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?
Christina Gomez Schmidt wins close Madison School Board contest; Nicki Vander Meulen reelected
As a member of the School Board, Gomez Schmidt, 48, is looking to prioritize the selection of a new, research-based reading curriculum for elementary students, building trust in the district with families, improving accountability and transparency, and effectively managing the budget.
The 32-year-old Pearson had made finding ways to expand 4-year-old kindergarten to a full-day program a pillar of her campaign, along with prioritizing teacher autonomy in the classroom and growing district partnerships with nonprofits and businesses.
Last week, it was announced Matthew Gutierrez would no longer be taking the Madison superintendent position, but instead is staying on as head of his suburban San Antonio school district.
It’s unclear whether Gomez Schmidt — who will be sworn in April 27 — will have a say on who replaces Gutierrez to become the School District’s next leader as the board still needs to weigh its options and come up with a timeline for moving forward.
The board met Monday night in closed session to discuss the superintendent situation, and a news conference on the topic is scheduled for Tuesday.
Additionally, the winners will likely decide on two November ballot asks of taxpayers — tentatively a $317 million facilities referendum and a $33 million operating referendum — which was planned to be voted on later this month.
A disappointed Strong said over the phone Monday night that “the voters have spoken and it is what it is,” while adding his congratulations to Vander Meulen. He cited the starting, stopping and restarting of his campaign due to a health issue in January along with the COVID-19 pandemic as challenges for his campaign, limiting his opportunities to canvass.
He said he still believes each of the comprehensive high schools should have a school resource officer and he hopes to see how he can help lower the disparities in out-of-school suspensions for black students, an issue he talked about often during his campaign.
“I’m going to continue my efforts with that and see what I can do to help to reduce those disparities and just make sure that all of our kids are getting a good, quality education,” he said.
Notes, links and commentary on Madison’s planned 2020 tax and spending increase referendum plans.
“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.
In addition, Madison recently expanded its least diverse schools.
Christina Gomez Schmidt and Wayne Strong for Madison School Board
With a pandemic closing schools, protesters disrupting board meetings and a new superintendent starting June 1, the Madison School District needs stability and experience.
That’s what Christina Gomez Schmidt, seeking Seat 6, and Wayne Strong, running for Seat 7, will provide on the Madison School Board.
The Wisconsin State Journal editorial board endorses Gomez Schmidt and Strong in the April 7 election.
Our editorial board last week interviewed by teleconference the four candidates in the two competitive School Board races.
Gomez Schmidt and Strong highlighted deep involvement in the district and community. They would focus intently on improving reading skills, particularly for struggling students, which is key to closing achievement gaps.
Much more on the 2020 taxpayer supported spring 2020 Madison School Board election, here.
A realignment of the Madison School District’s vision, strategy and investment is needed to avoid even larger future deficits.
An essential duty of any school board is to help plan and approve the annual district budget. Like most budgets, household or business, the goal of a school district budget is to match revenue with expenses to produce a balanced budget. This goal ensures that school districts are managing local, state and federal taxpayer funds to operate public education in a responsible and sustainable way.
The Madison School District’s budget approved on Monday for next school year is neither balanced nor sustainable.
In providing maximum wage increases (8% plus an average 2% increase for experience and advanced degrees), over $26 million is added to every future budget. Increasing hourly custodial wages, unexpectedly changing health insurers and a new transportation contract added millions more.
For two years, the School Board has discussed the looming fiscal cliff once federal pandemic funding for education ends. Yet this budget makes the fiscal cliff even higher against the advice of the district’s own financial experts. One-time funding (the last year of federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund money as well as the district’s fund balance) is used to cover the operating deficit created. Expenses cannot sustainably continue to outpace revenues.
People are also reading…
As a result, significant cuts will be needed to balance the next budget cycle. This will most likely affect schools, classrooms and students directly.
An average 10% salary increase for Madison School District teachers and staff is an incredible boost for each individual staff member. This was another difficult school year, and everyone is challenged by the rising costs of inflation. Staffing shortages continue, and the pressure to address this reality is understandable.
Yet it is the responsibility of the board to consider how this increase affects future budgets in a system with over 4,000 employees and significant challenges ahead. These challenges include continued declining enrollment, guaranteed increases to health care insurance costs, and significant investments needed in instruction, strategic equity projects, maintenance for aging buildings and meeting the district’s 2040 renewable energy goals.
School districts face compounding budget challenges when enrollment declines, costs increase, students need greater support to learn, and cuts to spending are politically unpopular. All of these factors mean less funding, greater expenses, and pressure to not make changes to staffing or programs. A realignment of the Madison School District’s vision, strategy and investment is needed to avoid even larger future deficits.
We can lament the lack of adequate state investment for public education. We should collectively continue to advocate for stronger investment in our public schools. This year’s state budget provides a welcome increase in funding. But no matter what funding levels exist, every school district must still balance its budget as a primary responsibility to its local communities and to future students.
Budgets reflect priorities. Staff are a priority. But we have to acknowledge that the decision to overextend the budget to address one priority will likely limit the district’s future ability to address other priorities where investment is needed.
This should give every district stakeholder pause as we approach that fiscal cliff.
Gomez Schmidt served on the Madison School Board from 2020-2023. She is executive director of the nonprofit Galin Scholars.
“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”
The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.
When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?
Merit and the 2023 Madison School Board election
Badri Lankella wants to serve his community.
Right now, the computer engineer working with the state Department of Natural Resources believes the best way he can do that is running for Seat 6 on the Madison School Board.
“Every issue, I look at the details,” Lankella said. “I’m going to talk to everyone. I’m the collaborator, I’m going to talk to teachers, I’m going to talk to the union, I’m going to talk to the administration.”
Lankella faces challenger Blair Feltham in the April 4 election to succeed Christina Gomez Schmidt, who decided not to run for reelectionafter her first term on the board. Nicki Vander Meulen is running unopposed for a third term in Seat 7.
The election comes at a key time for the Madison Metropolitan School District. Whoever wins will be part of choosing the next superintendent and making difficult budgetary decisions amid the ongoing staffing shortage.
“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”
The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.
No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?
Madison Behavior Education Plan Meeting
The Madison School District’s much discussed “Behavior Education Plan” seems worth a deeper dive. A Tuesday evening District presentation [slides / survey: 1.1MB PDF] – mostly a discussion – offers a substantive lens into our increasingly challenged K-12 system.
Approximately 25 people attended this event, including some district employees. 2020 Madison School Board Candidates Chris Gomez-Schmidt, Maia Pearson and Wayne Strong attended the meeting.
My interest is seeing what, if any substantive efforts are underway to address our long term, disastrous reading results.
Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results [Video]:
I am currently the reading interventionist teacher at West High School.
I’ve been there for 4 years. Previous to that I’ve been in the school district as a regular ed teacher for about 20 years. I started in the early 90s.
I have (a) question I want to ask you guys. What district-wide systems are in place as we use our map data to monitor the reading student achievement?
Student by student, not school by school but also school by school and provide support for the school the teachers and the students that need it.
And especially to help students who score in the bottom percentiles who will need an intervention which is significantly different than differentiation.
I was (a) TAG coordinator (talent and gifted coordinator) for 4 years at Hamilton and I have extensive background with the talent and gifted and differentiation training.
( and teaching of teachers). Now I’m in interventionist and they are significantly different we need interventions to serve the lowest scoring kids that we have.
Here’s my data from this year and this is why I’m here:
Of the 65 students plus or minus it kind of changes this year 24 of them are regular ed students.
Another way to say they don’t have an IEP so there is no excuse for that reading intervention in (that group).
12 of those 24 have been enrolled in Madison School since Pre-K kindergarten or kindergarden. 12 students have been in Madison Schools.
They have High attendance. They have been in the same (you know) feeder school they have not had high mobility. There is no excuse for 12 of my students to be reading at the first second or third grade level and that’s where they’re at and I’m angry and I’m not the only one that’s angry.
The teachers are angry because we are being held accountable for things that we didn’t do at the high school level. Of those 24 students, 21 of them have been enrolled in Madison for four or more years.
Of those 24 students one is Caucasian the rest of them identify as some other ethnic group.
I am tired of the district playing what I called whack-a-mole, (in) another words a problem happens at Cherokee boom we bop it down and we we fix it temporarily and then something at Sherman or something at Toki or something at Faulk and we bop it down and its quiet for awhile but it has not been fixed on a system-wide level and that’s what has to change.
Thank you very much.
Madison School Board candidate forums begin this weekend, continue throughout March
Voters will have several opportunities this month to hear from candidates for Madison School Board beginning this weekend.
The East Side Progressives will hold a forum Sunday, March 8, at Lake Edge Lutheran Church, 4032 Monona Drive. It’s the first of four forums currently planned for the month before the Tuesday, April 7, election.
In the two contested races, Wayne Strong is challenging incumbent Nicki Vander Meulen for Seat 6 and newcomers Chris Gomez Schmidt and Maia Pearson are facing off to take over Seat 7 from Kate Toews, who is not running for re-election. Savion Castro is running unopposed for a one-year term in Seat 2, to which he was appointed last summer after Mary Burke resigned from the board.
[Pearson, Gomez Schmidt advance to general election for Madison School Board Seat 6]
Each of the elections is at large, so any eligible voter can vote for all of the seats on the ballot.
The March 8 forum, which begins at 3 p.m., will feature candidates talking about their vision for meeting the district’s challenges followed by a “speed dating” format offering the chance to meet each candidate in a small-group setting, according to the Facebook event. All five candidates plan to attend.
March 17, the Cap Times will host a forum with questions asked of the five candidates by education reporter Scott Girard and Simpson Street Free Press managing editor Taylor Kilgore. That forum will begin at 7 p.m. in the East High School auditorium, 2222 E. Washington Ave.
On November 7, Superintendent Art Rainwater made his annual report to the Board of Education on progress toward meeting the district’s student achievement goal in reading. As he did last fall, the superintendent made some interesting claims about the district’s success in closing the academic achievement gap “based on race”.
According to Mr. Rainwater, the place to look for evidence of a closing achievement gap is the comparison of the percentage of African American third graders who score at the lowest level of performance on statewide tests and the percentage of other racial groups scoring at that level. He says that, after accounting for income differences, there is no gap associated with race at the lowest level of achievement in reading. He made the same claim last year, telling the Wisconsin State Journal on September 24, 2004, “for those kids for whom an ability to read would prevent them from being successful, we’ve reduced that percentage very substantially, and basically, for all practical purposes, closed the gap”. Last Monday, he stated that the gap between percentages scoring at the lowest level “is the original gap” that the board set out to close.
Unfortunately, that is not the achievement gap that the board aimed to close.
2006: “They’re all Rich White Kids, and they’ll do just fine, NOT!”
2009: An emphasis on adult employment.
2013: What will be different, this time?
Madison Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham, 2015:
Shortly after the office was proposed, Cheatham said non-district-authorized charter schools have “no consistent record of improving education for children, but they do drain resources from public schools, without any control in our local community or school board.”
“Rather than invest in what we know works in education, this proposal puts resources in strategies with mixed results at the expense of our public school students,” she said in May 2015
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, lead by Governor Elect, Tony Evers, has waived Massachusetts’ style elementary teacher content knowledge requirements for thousands of teachers.
Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.
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.
Advanced learning opportunities and Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district
Why is this a problem? Earlier this year, the Wisconsin State Journal editorial board highlighted a concerning outflux of students from the Madison Metropolitan School District. Safety concerns might be partly to blame. But a glaring absence of consistent academic challenge in the typical school day no doubt contributes. Despite common knowledge of this lack of rigor, misconceptions over equity issues have limited progress in this area for decades. This has resulted in little action to address significant disparities at the highest levels of achievement.
In 2016, MMSD signed an agreement with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to resolve a two-year formal compliance review. This investigation focused on racial disparities in advanced coursework enrollment in MMSD high schools. The agreement requires the district to take steps to increase both access to and preparation for advanced coursework for black and Latino students. The OCR has said this must include boosting participation in any foundational courses that prepare students to be successful at an advanced level in high school.
2006: “They’re all Rich White Kids, and they’ll do just fine, NOT!”
Madison School District Responds to Civil Rights Investigation
Jim Bradshaw of the Office for Civil Rights’ Washington D.C. office confirmed in an email that “the process is ongoing.”
Greg Jones, president of the NAACP says it is important to know “what the district has done to comply with their agreement with Office for Civil Rights.”
“Given the urgency of education outcomes in Dane County, the local NAACP branch will monitor the agreement as it relates to our mission. The NAACP thinks it is very important to keep the public informed,” Jones said.
Chris Gomez Schmidt a local education advocate with the Madison Partnership for Advanced Learning, agrees with Jones.
“The Office for Civil Rights resolution and the work being done to meet these requirements should be part of the community conversation and our work on closing achievement gaps. More can be done to make this a transparent process.”
“The importance of this Civil Rights resolution process cannot be emphasized enough,” Gomez-Schmidt says. “This work cannot continue to fly under the radar if Madison is truly interested in closing achievement gaps,”
An Advanced Learning Advisory Committee required to comply with the Resolution Agreement has met several times but questions remain about what is being accomplished. Only five parents attended the committee’s most recent meeting on May 23, 2018.
