Chris Rickert:

Nicki Vander Meulen, who was elected to the board in 2017 and serves as the board’s clerk, said that in response to the union’s push, district administrators in a private “board briefing” Monday with her and another board member said acceding to the union’s demand would set a “bad precedent.”

“That’s virtually telling you how to vote,” she said.

Vander Meulen is not the first board member to question the legality of board briefings, which were instituted in 2013 by just-departed former superintendent Jennifer Cheatham and are held separately between one or two board members and administrators to go over items on upcoming agendas.

Former board member TJ Mertz stopped attending the meetings out of fear they could amount to the creation of “walking quorums,” which occur when members of a public body coordinate privately to take a certain action, thus rendering “the publicly held meeting a mere formality,” according to the state Department of Justice.

Madison has for decades spent far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 school districts. Yet, we’ve long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Mckenna Kohlenberg:

My concern stems from recent Board actions that I find concerning enough to warrant this stern message. As local press has noted (here too), the Board’s recent activities suggest a troublesome pattern of skirting, if not outright violating, open meetings and public records laws.

Wisconsin law requires school boards, like other local public bodies, to: a) hold their meetings publicly, hold them in reasonably accessible places, and open them to all citizens; b) have a quorum of members (usually a majority or more) before taking official actions; and c) precede each meeting with public notice, which includes to news outlets that have filed a written request for such notice.

There are narrow exemptions to the state’s open meetings laws. For example, if a school board is to vote on a motion related to considering an employee’s employment, they may be exempt and may move to convene in a closed session instead. Motions to convene in closed session can be adopted only if the body’s authority announces to those in attendance the nature of the business to be considered at such closed session (i.e. the reason the meeting should be exempt from the open meetings law); further, this information, in addition to the vote of each member of the body, must be recorded in the meeting’s records.

Two recent official actions by the Board leave me particularly wary. First, the hiring of an interim superintendent. Following Dr. Cheatham’s resignation announcement to the Board during a closed session meeting on May 6, the Board held five additional closed session meetings at which the hiring of her replacement was on the agenda.

Only after The Cap Times reported that the Board was seriously considering Nancy Hanks for the interim position did the Board hold two open “workshop” sessions, though no votes were officially taken during these sessions. And when local reporters submitted multiple open records requests related to the Board’s hiring process, including for its list of top choices and its list of all possible choices, MMSD legal counsel stated that no such records existed.

Further, in response to the reporters’ additional open records request for meeting minutes from five of the Board’s closed sessions spanning May 30 to June 17, the Board’s secretary stated that the minutes hadn’t been transcribed yet.

Second, and similarly unsettling, was the Board’s official action on July 22 — a vote — to fill the seat left vacant by Mary Burke with Savion Castro. The vote occurred during an open session workshop during which no public comment was permitted. The open session workshop immediately followed a closed session meeting (the posted agenda for the closed meeting stated its purpose was to address a teacher discipline matter).

I’ve heard local education experts, attorneys, and parents call the open workshop “choreographed” and “a performance.”

Did the Board really narrow the pool of applicants from 29 to 1 — unanimously — in a matter of 75 minutes? Or was the decision made ahead of time, during closed session meetings for which no records exist — or at least for which no records are publicly accessible, in violation of the closed session requirement that votes be kept as part of meeting records? Alternatively, and perhaps even more troublesome, was the decision the result of conversations tantamount to walking quorums?

So why hold open sessions at all? What purpose can they possibly serve you in making decisions, Board, if they’re not actually a forum for decision-making?

Related: Transparency, and Accountability, an Example: The MMSD Interim Superintendent Search Process by TJ Mertz.

Notes and links on the taxpayer supported Madison School Board’s Superintendent search expedition, and “what will be different, this time (2013)?”

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 school districts – between $18.5k and 20k per student, depending on the district documents reviewed.

Negassi Tesfamichael:

Some observers said the unique vacancy is a chance for a newcomer to serve.

“I would really love to see another black mother on the School Board,” said Sabrina Madison, the founder of the Progress Center for Black Women. “Especially a mom who has been advocating for her kid recently around some of these issues around race and equity.”

Though Madison said she hasn’t had any conversations with people who have said they’ll apply, she has been strategically and privately reaching out to parents of students in MMSD to encourage them to consider it.

Whoever is appointed by the board would serve until an election is held in April 2020 to select someone to finish the last year of Burke’s term, which ends in April 2021.

Notes and links: David Blaska, Kaleem Caire and Ed Hughes. Interestingly, Mr. Hughes was unopposed in his first three school board elections. Mr. Hughes voted against the proposed Madison Preparatory Academy IB Charter School.

Yet, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 school districts, we have long tolerated disastrous reading results:

“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”

Our most recent Superintendent – 2013: What will be different, this time? 2019: Jennifer Cheatham and the Madison Experience

Michael Cummins:

aybe kids are disrespecting their teachers because adults have taught them to. If, as Muldrow asserted during her campaign, the “theme” in Madison education is “how do we blame black children, how do we hurt black children, how do we get rid of black children, how do we not listen to black children,” then it makes perfect sense for black children to behave disrespectfully. You don’t sit and politely listen to someone who wants to hurt you because of your race.
Thing is, sitting and listening is an important part of learning. And far from being the enemy, MMSD teachers are essential to the long-term success of Madison’s children of color. While we can’t see into the minds of individual teachers, equity efforts occupy a prominent place in the district’s latest Strategic Framework, and are amply supported by plans, programs and money. And, unlike their students, MMSD teachers are subject to zero-tolerance disciplinary policies, especially when it comes to anything touching on race.
Verbalizing a racial slur, for instance, will get a teacher yanked from the classroom immediately, regardless of the context. To believe that MMSD tolerates racism in its classrooms, let alone promotes it, requires a narrow set of blinders.

Those who do believe that racism runs riot in MMSD have every right to share that viewpoint with the school board. If you have attended or seen video of a school board meeting lately, you know that that viewpoint is often expressed during public comment. It’s also expressed at inappropriate times, in the form of over-the-top, chaotic theatrics that intimidate those who disagree into silence. Lately, kids have been helping to throw meetings into chaos, having learned that intimidation is a legitimate means to an end.
All this serves to keep MMSD teachers and staff walking on eggshells. And if you think that a timid faculty is good for black students, think again. At a March 2018 board meeting, MMSD Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham discussed a 2012 study on the “failure to warn.” The study’s authors found that white teachers are sometimes reluctant to constructively criticize black students when academic or behavioral problems first emerge, for fear of being labeled racist. This cheats black students out of the opportunity to correct problems before they rise to punishable levels.

Of course grown-ups should encourage kids, through their words and deeds, to stand against injustice. But the style that many Madison equity activists have adopted is causing more injustice than it’s preventing. If we allow our teachers to be disempowered, and their classrooms thrown into chaos, then we have broken our promise to offer every child a sound basic education.

Notes and links

Logan Wroge:

In 2012, the School Board hired consultant Ray and Associates, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for $31,000 to assist in the search process to replace former Superintendent Dan Nerad.

But questions around a finalist’s background left some board members at the time saying they were not fully aware of controversial issues. That finalist withdrew shortly before a scheduled visit to the district, clearing the way for Cheatham’s hiring.

To fill the superintendent role on an interim basis, the School Board last month chose Jane Belmore, a former Madison assistant superintendent, who will start Aug. 1.

Cheatham will leave for a teaching position at Harvard University at the end of August.

Notes and links on recent Madison Superintendent searches.

2013: What will be different, this time?

“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”

Negassi Tesfamichael:

A familiar face will serve at the helm of the Madison Metropolitan School District for the upcoming school year. The Madison School Board on Friday named Jane Belmore, a retired MMSD teacher and administrator, to serve as the interim superintendent.

Belmore will take over once current Superintendent Jen Cheatham steps down at the end of August. Belmore will serve in the interim role until the board appoints a permanent superintendent, which she said will likely be in June 2020.

“I’m excited to be back,” Belmore said in an interview Friday. “As I’ve watched from afar, I think there’s a really strong leadership team here. They’ve got a great new strategic plan and framework that they’re working from. And I really just wanted to come in and be able to support the teachers and principals as they move forward and support the board as they start the process of searching for a new superintendent.”

Notes and links on Madison Superintendent searches

Jane Belmore notes and links

Andy Sheehan:

The hallways of the predominantly African American University Prep are lined with pennants and banners of colleges and universities — but the promise of a college education has gone mostly unfulfilled.

Students at the 6-12 public school in the Hill District have struggled academically, with less than 17% of its middle schoolers achieving proficiency in reading and none in math.

On top of that, the school has been the site of several melees that have required a police response. In fact, the school’s principal is currently on medical leave after being injured trying to break up one such fight.

“We have not been successful in turning this school around,” said school board member Sala Udin. “The administration has not been successful.”

Distressed over the performance of U Prep, the school board is set to vote Wednesday evening on a proposal to move the middle school students to Arsenal Middle School in Lawrenceville.

But Udin argues that the administration of Superintendent Anthony Hamlet must fix the school rather than close a large section of it.

“You need to do your job. Come up with a formula that works and make this school work,” Udin said.

Related: What will be different, this time?

Logan Wroge:

Three former elected officials are alleging Madison School Board President Gloria Reyes violated the body’s ethics policy when she voted in favor of a contract that would keep Madison police officers in the district’s high schools.

On Tuesday, former City Council members Andy Heidt, Brenda Konkel and Andy Olsen, who also served on the Dane County Board, sent a letter to the district calling on the School Board to vote again on the school resource officer, or SRO, contract. They claim that Reyes, a former Madison police officer and deputy city mayor, should not have been allowed to vote on it last week.

The letter, which was sent to the seven board members, Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham and the district’s legal counsel, claims that Reyes now works in the city’s Community Development Division.

Jeffrey Solochek:

“In the last two years, we have had very little conversation at our meetings about student achievement,” said Pasco County superintendent Kurt Browning, who assumes the leadership post in July. “We need to bring it back into balance.”

Browning noted the state has taken an increasing tough line with schools that do not meet academic expectations, as measured by annual exams. Lawmakers have removed the district-managed turnaround as an option for schools that persistently score poorly in the state grading and accountability system, he observed, while they also have eased the way for alternative models to open.

2013: WHAT WILL BE DIFFERENT, THIS TIME? 2019: JENNIFER CHEATHAM AND THE MADISON EXPERIENCE.

Jennifer Cheatham:

Dear Board Members:

As you know, we have already begun on boarding our three new board members who will be sworn in later this month. Congratulations to each of them!

I want to thank TJ, Dean and James for their service to the Board all these years. I appreciate you so much…your time, your thoughtful attention, and your guidance. We have accomplished a lot together during this time and there is much to be proud of.

And of course, there is always more work to be done! I am confident that the Board1 with the support of its newest members, will be able to build on your good work in the years to come.

As I mentioned in my last note to the Board, we are planning on something a little different for the April Regular meeting. We plan to have the meeting at a school1 with a reception beforehand, and a student performance. I’ll share more information with you during briefings this month.
Sincerely, Jen

Much more on Jennifer Cheatham, here.

Negassi Tesfamichael:

“It’s really difficult after all of these years to look and see no academic improvement in outcomes, and it’s not because people aren’t working hard or don’t have the right intentions or all of these things,” said board member Mary Burke. “But I’d like to hear we’re looking at how we reimagine the middle school (program). But the status quo for none of us is acceptable when we come to reading proficiencies or math proficiencies for students of color, and we need to look at our partnerships and also say the status quo is not enough.”

Burke, who does not plan to run for re-election when her term ends in 2021, said the board and district shouldn’t wait until the next renewal to find ways to improve and better track outcomes for students in Schools of Hope.

Superintendent Jen Cheatham and MMSD staff emphasized that programs like Schools of Hope give students a chance to build their social-emotional learning and non-cognitive skills through their interactions with tutors.

WHY ARE MADISON’S STUDENTS STRUGGLING TO READ?

It ain’t working so let’s do more of it.

David Blaska:

The school district lives and breathes identity politics because they teach it at UW-Madison and at all leading schools of education across the country. That includes Harvard, from which superintendent Jennifer Cheatham received her doctoral degree and at which she will grow future crops.

Even at a school as left-wing as UW-Madison, its school of education is radical left. Perhaps only the sociology department is more “woke.”

Four UW faculty members are the brains behind the Freedom, Inc. cadres who have been disrupting school board meetings these past two years. Freedom Inc.’s Bianca Gomez boasts that she hold’s a master’s degree in race and gender studies. They also staff MMSD’s TEEM Scholars Program.

The four faculty members operate what they call the “Mobilizing Youth Voices Project.” Its stated purpose:

Related on Madison’s long term, disastrous reading results

David Blaska:

Over the last few days since I voiced my concerns about the poor language being used towards adults by our children and youth in our public schools (and at several school board meetings). I have received mostly positive feedback. However, I have also read comments by people who feel my concern about our children’s poor use of language is overstated, misguided and disrespectful.

Worse, I was referred to as a man who practices “respectability politics” and a “Black leader” who has “turned his back” on Black children and who “can no longer hear this voice [of Black youth], can no longer hear the concerns of the masses, can no longer concern [myself] with Black, often low-income, and poor people because [they] are not speaking the way [I] want them to speak?”

It was interesting reading this from people who clearly know very little if anything about me or my work, but whose children have directly benefited from years of my advocacy, and from specific programs I created or pushed to have established. ….

Kaleem Caire:

“As a father of five, I would never let (or condone) my children, or any other young person (or adult), direct hurtful language like that at me or another person without speaking up and correcting them. To see adults clapping for that behavior tonight turned my stomach inside out. I had to get up and leave, and take the mic to say a few words before I left.

“People, what are we thinking and what are we doing? Too many children are cursing out teachers and staff every day in our public schools and we are letting it happen, and making excuses for many children who do it.

“And for those who don’t like what I am saying, you can be mad but you can’t call me racist, and you definitely can’t call me crazy. Many of our young people in our public schools are benefiting directly from my years of hard work, advocacy and programs that I personally fought for and led the creation of. To sit there and hear young people who represent a demographic that I have worked and fought very hard for, for more than 30 years, curse out other people who are trying to help them…it broke my heart and made my heart sink into my stomach.

“Mothers, fathers, educators and community members, we cannot allow this type of poor behavior to continue unabated. We need to tell our young people that attitudes and behaviors like this WILL NOT BE TOLERATED, PERIOD. It’s not good for our children and their future, and it’s not good for our community and our schools. WE CAN ADVOCATE WITH PASSION, RESPECTFULLY. Onward.”

David Blaska summarizes a recent Isthmus article:

Dylan Brogan is the news reporter of the year so far. The reporter for Madison’s Isthmus publication ripped the bandage off the happy face Jennifer Cheatham puts on Madison’s public schools. He took some hair with it.

Brogan conducted 30 hours of interviews with dozens of Madison educators since, oh, about the April 2 school board election.

For all that, there is nothing new in his May 16 exposé for the weekly Isthmus, “A Rotten Year; Madison teachers report from the classroom.”

The classrooms are in chaos, but we knew that.
Teacher morale is plummeting, but we knew that.
Central administration will throw any teacher under the bus if race is involved, but we knew that.
The densely bureaucratic Behavior Education Plan only greases the school-to-prison pipeline, but we knew that.
We said that teachers are tired of being hit, ignored, taunted, and humiliated. We said that principals have lost control of their schools and teachers of their classrooms. We said a handful of misbehaving students can wreck the learning environment for everyone. We said central administration is interested only in making the numbers work.

Endorsed by Madison’s liberal establishment

While spending far more than most, we have long tolerated disastrous reading results.

A majority of the Madison school board aborted the Madison Preparatory Academy IB charter school.

Much more, here

Judy Newman:

The report, conducted by Market Street Services, an Atlanta business consulting firm, updates the first Advance Now plan, presented in 2012, and many of its recommendations are similar: Develop a brand identity for the Madison region — identified as Dane, Columbia, Dodge, Jefferson, Rock and Sauk counties — and promote it; educate and train more students for STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) careers; promote a more diverse workforce; and create more centers of excellence.

As a companion to Advance Now 2.0 is a series of in-depth analyses conducted by MadREP and UW-Madison Extension over the past several years that explores each of the sectors determined to be the area’s main employment clusters: information and communication technology; bioscience; health care; agriculture, food and beverages; and advanced manufacturing.

In all, the reports comprise 900 pages of data and strategy, Jadin said.

They show the Madison region is strong in the technology, biotechnology and health-related industries.

Related: “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”.

Related: Superintendent Cheatham’s 2013 Madison Rotary Club speech and, again in 2019.

2013: “Plenty of resources”. Indeed, Madison taxpayers spend far more than most K-12 school Districts, now between $18k – 20k per student.

Dylan Brogan:

But the transfrmation has been a rocky one and disparities persist. Isthmus collected over 30 hours of interviews with dozens of Madison educators over the past two months. Teachers from three elementary schools, five middle schools and three high schools shared their experiences in the classroom. Most requested anonymity because of fears of retribution and were given pseudonyms.

Some teachers are frustrated by the changes they see: few consequences for disruptive and disrespectful behavior; a lack of trust from administrators; and concern that recent reforms aren’t actually helping kids of color. Others believe their colleagues need to embrace the cultural shift brought by Cheatham’s time as superintendent. They say that white teachers might need to feel uncomfortable in order to purge the schools of systemic racism.

Adding to the tension are several highly publicized incidents centering around race that have sparked renewed outrage over the achievement gap. The cumulative result is that many teachers feel stressed, unsupported and disrespected.

Jim Lister, a science teacher at Hamilton, has taught in the district for 29 years and is retiring in June. He didn’t witness the April 5 incident but says that navigating both the school bureaucracy and the sensitive issue of race can become a quagmire for many teachers.

“What’s new this year is that there’s a feeling of walking around on pins and needles for many teachers. You don’t know how an interaction with a kid is going to go or that the district will support you after the fact. What ends up happening is teachers do nothing,” says Lister. “If a kid says, ‘Fuck you’ to you six or seven times and there are no repercussions — it becomes pretty clear who is in charge.”

“She is more interested in seeming woke than supporting teachers. Downtown [administrators] just want to look a certain way and when they don’t, teachers get blamed,” Leah says. “There’s no recognition that the daily grind is just unmanageable. I suspect we will see another exodus of teachers at the end of this year. That’s at least what I’m hearing.

“Everything is being dumbed down to make the numbers look better. We’re being told that a kid that hasn’t shown up for a majority of classes needs to be given the opportunity to make up work and it’s my fault for not engaging that kid the right way,” says Rebecca, the longtime high school teacher. “So forget that that is asking a lot of teachers, we want to do the work to get students to achieve at a high level. But too often it’s a Band-Aid. We are giving kids Ds who are doing 30 percent of the work.”

Opps, from La Follette, says the scrutiny from administration is making it harder to be an effective teacher. When one of his students is found wandering the hallway he’s asked, “Why aren’t you engaging this kid?”

Related: “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”.

Related: Superintendent Cheatham’s 2013 Madison Rotary Club speech and, again in 2019.

2013: “Plenty of resources”. Indeed, Madison taxpayers spend far more than most K-12 school Districts, now between $18k – 20k per student.

Logan wroge:

Cheatham said she would prefer to know who will replace her by July 1 so that the person can attend a summer retreat with senior staff members planned for July and be around to prepare in August for the 2019-20 school year.

Cheatham, whose last day will be Aug. 30, has accepted a teaching position with Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. She became Madison’s superintendent in 2013, leaving an administrative role at the Chicago Public Schools.

Whoever the board selects as the interim leader, board member Cris Carusi said she would prefer the person is not interested in seeking the position on a permanent basis.

Monday’s meeting on hiring an interim superintendent was originally scheduled to be in closed session but was later opened to the public.

A handful of people called on the School Board to conduct a nationwide search for a new superintendent, with one East High School junior asking the board to engage with students on what they would like to see in a new superintendent.

Much more on recent Madison Superintendent searches, here

Logan Wroge:

Four years into a program designed to diversify the Madison School District’s teaching pool by encouraging students to enter the profession, Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham sees “the potential for real impact” from the couple dozen participants who have signed up.

The TEEM Scholars program, which stands for Tomorrow’s Educators for Equity in Madison, launched in 2015-16 with the aim to increase teacher diversity in Madison schools. Now, some students who signed on at inception are attending UW-Madison to pursue a career in education.

“I believe that the health of our school district, in some respects, will depend on the extent to which our current students want to become our future teachers,” Cheatham said.

Related: “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”

Capital Times Editorial:

Nor did the letter consider the slow public response from Cheatham.

We understand that board members may be disinclined to air personnel matters. But a full and meaningful response to students and staffers must recognize that concerns exist.

It also must acknowledge that East is not an outlier, as recent reports of incidents at La Follette High School make clear.

The message from the educators at East called for mandatory training for security personnel on sexual assault and rape culture. That would be a good first step.

A good second step would be for the board to embrace the wise counsel coming from students such as Memorial High School senior Kari Larson. “Many youth have already endured sexual abuse or rape by the time they are 12. Having the Rape Crisis Center come in during 10th-grade health classes is not enough,” explained Larson. “In addition, these presentations must be improved or extended to not only cover healthy relationships or consent as they do now, but also a detailed plan about how to get help at school if one has been sexually assaulted.”

Taking action, especially action that is informed by the ideas of students and teachers, confirms a commitment on the part of the board to setting standards and demanding accountability.

David Blaska:

Jennifer Cheatham will leave but nothing has changed. Madison elected, if anything, an even racialized school board, a school board content to evict its school resource police officers despite increasing disorder. Helzz bellz, the school board can’t even maintain order at its own meetings.

Related: Superintendent Cheatham’s 2013 Madison Rotary Club speech and, again in 2019.

December, 2018: “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”

Chris Rickert:

Individually or in pairs, Madison School Board members spend hours each year in private “board briefings” with Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham, discussing matters soon to come before the full board for votes that must be held in public.

Cheatham instituted the briefings after she was hired in 2013, and district administrators and some board members defend the practice.

But recent guidance from the state attorney general’s office cautions that such small, private gatherings of public officials risk running afoul of the state open meetings law, a current board member and attorney called them “on the line” legally, and a former board member stopped participating in them because he believes the public and board members should be able to hear policy discussions involving members and administrators.

Related:

Madison has long spent far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 school districts, now around $20k per student.
What will be different, this time?

“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”

Naegassi Tesfamichael:

The School Board will also soon be the public face of a facilities referendum that MMSD is eyeing for the November 2020 election. The proposed facilities upgrades currently focus on East, La Follette, West and East high schools, which have an average age of 75 years old and have been identified as having significant deferred maintenance needs that have piled up over the years.

The price tag for the facilities plan is still unknown, but could range from $120 million to $280 million, according to plans presented to the School Board earlier this spring. The ask could be significant — in 2015, Madison voters authorized a $41 million school facility improvement plan that addressed needs across the district.

Pressure to pass a referendum of this size is on the district, as neighboring school districts have recently approved a slew of referendums for new schools and upgrades in the Middleton-Cross Plains, Verona Area and Sun Prairie school districts.

Students and parents from Madison West have been on a campaign of sorts to push the School Board to prioritize upgrades there. West is acknowledged as one of the most space-constrained high schools. The swimming pool lags behind current standards and has led to students developing health problems, according to several students who testified before the board.

Cheatham said the district is also attempting to look at facilities inequities, including identifying how to better serve areas that do not have a neighborhood school.

Though Vander Meulen said the board will have to manage its expectations for what it can accomplish this term, items such as improving facilities have to be prioritized.

“We can’t do everything all at once, but with some of the stuff happening at West right now with the tiles falling off the pool, we have to make sure nobody gets hurt,” Vander Meulen said.

The district plans to present an initial range of options for the referendum to the School Board in May. The School Board would need to authorize a referendum by May 2020 if it wanted to get the project on the November ballot.

“What we are looking at is a big, big project when you look at renovating four high schools that are all old,” Burke said. “We’re going to have to work to gather community support to get it passed … this almost could be a historic referendum in Madison.”

Madison has long spent far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 school districts – now around $20k per student.

This despite long term, disastrous reading results.

Negassi Tesfamichael:

Whether Mueller-Owens will be able to find a place in the community remains to be seen, as he has kept a low profile since media reports surfaced last month about the Feb. 13 incident and sparked a flurry of outrage in the community.

Mikiea Price, the girl’s mother, has said she believed Mueller-Owens snapped when he attempted to escort her daughter out of a classroom after she had repeatedly disrupted it.

“I have been in several situations where students have kicked me, spit on me, broke my ankle, and I still did not conduct myself in that kind of manner,” Price said when no criminal charges were filed against Mueller-Owens.

Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham penned an open letter to the Madison community in which she described the altercation as “especially horrific.”

“Jennifer Cheatham has known me ever since she came to Madison and has grown to respect me and trust me,” Mueller-Owens said. “She invited me to the White House with her because of the restorative work I’ve done in the district and my commitment to kids in this city.”

The irony of the incident is that Mueller-Owens served as a positive behavior coach. He traveled to Washington D.C. with Cheatham to attend a conference in 2015 at the White House to talk about reforming school discipline.

“E tu Brute? That’s how I felt. You’re going to stab me in the back, too, Ms. Cheatham?” Mueller-Owens said in response to the superintendent’s open letter.

Mueller-Owens and his attorney, Jordan Loeb, said MMSD’s handling of the incident and his employment with the district was unfair.

Related: Gangs and school
Violence forum

Kaleem Caire:

Our School District has an obligation to learn from these incidents and to ensure that our staff, students and parents have clear guidelines about how to address similar situations when they arise, and how they can also avoid such challenges as well.

After reading the police reports, it is clear to me that the student’s actions and behavior leading up to the confrontation was unacceptable. As a father, I would never support my children behaving that way in school, in the community, at home or anywhere. I am left wondering what MMSD and the child’s parents have done, or could have done, together, to proactively address the challenges this student might be having that led to her inappropriate conduct. At the same time, there are other ways Mr. Mueller-Owens could have handled this situation that would have avoided him putting his hands on the student.

No matter how we look at this, the incident has been a painful and unfortunate situation for everyone involved, and for our entire community as well. The worst thing we can do is avoid talking about this incident, or worse, fighting with each about who was right and who was wrong. Madison clearly has challenges. We have to address them, not avoid them.

David Blaska:

feel sorry for the lady, I really do. It’s tough to see someone’s closely held belief system come crashing down all around them.

Madison’s school superintendent broke down in tears today (03-20-19) addressing Madison Downtown Rotary.

God knows, Jennifer Cheatham has walked through the valley of disruption. Three of the last six monthly school board meetings have broken down in chaos — the school board and its administrators driven from the meeting auditorium by raucous social justice warriors wielding the race card. Again this Monday (03-18-19), school district leadership retreated behind closed doors. Main topic on the agenda (irony alert): the overly legalistic behavior education plan — a plan that is more cause than symptom.

The school board that can’t keep order at its own meetings? No wonder the school classrooms erupt in chaos. Then again, when you throw your specially trained “positive behavior coach” under the school bus when he tries to restore order, what do you expect? (Reaction to the Whitehorse middle school incident.)

Which must just tear at Dr. Cheatham’s heart because the lady lives and breathes identity politics, repents her white privilege, and focuses Madison’s taxpayer-supported education through the refractive prism of racial equity. As opposed to more productive goals such as personal responsibility and individual achievement.

More chaos at the school board:

Go figure. The Madison school board ONCE AGAIN retreats behind locked doors. Because it cannot keep order at its own meetings

To do what? To fine-tune its cadaverous Behavior Education Plan! Oh, the irony!

The school board can’t even control its own meetings! No wonder it cannot keep the classrooms from erupting in chaos. (More here.)

2013: What will be different, this time? Madison Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham’s Rotary Club talk.

December, 2018: “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”

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before::

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.

Negassi Tesfamichael:

In an open letter to the community released Thursday morning, Madison School District Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham acknowledged that the district “cannot be silent” on issues of racial justice.

The letter comes eight days after media reports surfaced regarding an alleged assault at Whitehorse Middle School. In that incident, which is still being investigated by the Madison Police Department, a white staff member allegedly pushed an 11-year-old girl and pulled her braids out. Rob Mueller-Owens, the staff member facing accusations in the Whitehorse incident, is a positive behavior support coach. He is currently on administrative leave and will not return to Whitehorse, according to MMSD.

Cheatham said in her letter that the incident at Whitehorse was “especially horrific” and said there was failure on part of the district regardless of what comes out of the police investigation.

The letter:

February 28, 2019

Dear Madison Community,

I have talked with enough people in Madison to know that racism is a problem in our community and has been for a long time. We are not immune to it. It is at times intentional and unintentional. It is everywhere, every day. It is within us and surrounds us. Any school district is a microcosm of the society we live in.

The polarization in our country today puts a tremendous amount of pressure on young people and the people who work in schools to somehow get it right, while the rest of society gets it wrong.

But as a school district that exists to protect children and cultivate the beauty and full worth of every single child, we must be held to the highest possible standard.

The series of racial slur incidents that have occurred this school year and caused harm to Black students, their families, and our community are indefensible. They run counter to our core values and our commitment to serving youth and families.

The most recent incident at Whitehorse Middle School was especially horrific. No matter what comes out of the police investigation, there was a failure on our part. We will review every fact to understand what happened so that we can take aggressive action.

If we are serious about our vision — that every school is a thriving school — we have to disrupt racism in all of its forms. We cannot be silent. We cannot perpetuate it. We must examine everything. In no way can we, as a community of educators, accommodate or make excuses for actions that hurt the very students we have dedicated our lives to help.

As the superintendent of this school district, as a leader for racial justice, as a mother, I know I’ve been charged with making changes that will disrupt this pattern, and even more, uplift the students we serve. I embrace that charge and will continue to do so.

For those who are demanding meaningful change, I want you to know that there are many inside this institution who are already actively engaged in making it, including our staff of color and white coconspirators. It is through their unwavering commitment and continual push for change that we have a clearer path forward, more momentum, and cause to move faster. There are a number of critical actions currently underway. Those include:

A new system for staff, students, and families to report incidents of racism or discrimination that will launch this spring

A full review of investigation and critical response protocols to ensure they are culturally responsive, grounded in restoration, and more transparent Revision and consistent application of the MMSD equity tool to ensure current and future HR policy and practice, as well as Board policy recommendations, are developed through a racial equity lens

A refresh of the School Improvement Planning process to ensure that race, rigor and relationships are central to school based decision making

A new required professional development series for all staff on racial identity, implicit bias, and racial inequity in the United States, along with a refined support and accountability system to monitor progress

We are also committed to working alongside our community and will hold several facilitated community meetings in the next two months dedicated to building trust and ensuring our collective actions support the students and families we serve.

Last fall, we reaffirmed, more strongly than ever before, our belief in the inherent brilliance, creativity and excellence of Black youth, families, and staff. We know that requires an equal commitment to confront the practices, policies, and people that stand in the way of Black Excellence shining through.

I promise this community that we are going to work hard to get it right. I know we will continue to be challenged. More issues will likely surface. And we will be relentless in our efforts. This is the work we signed up for. Most important, we will listen and learn in a way that models the best instincts of this community that we love.

In partnership,

/s/

Jennifer Cheatham
Superintendent

Related: Graduation rates and non reading in the Madison School District:

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at East, especially if you are black or Hispanic. But when 70 percent of your minority students earn diplomas and fewer than 20 percent of them are able to read at grade level, what does that high school diploma mean?

East ninth-graders who don’t know how to read might not want to go to school (because they don’t know how to read!) and thus might be chronically absent. They might not want to go to class (because they don’t know how to read!) and thus might engage in disruptive activities elsewhere. And they might not be able to keep up (because they don’t know how to read!) and thus might fail.

Rather than focus so heavily on attendance, behavior, and socioemotional learning, as described in the article, teachers and administrators should prioritize teaching students how to read. Students who know how to read are more likely to come to school, go to class, work hard, and have a meaningful and rewarding post-high school life.

David Blaska:

But nothing about holding parents and students responsible for their actions. Nothing about requiring children to obey their teacher. Nothing about parents’ responsibility to read to their children and instruct them to be good citizens. Nothing about maintaining civility at school board meetings.

What is more, Cheatham appears to have thrown that vice principal at Whitehorse middle school under the bus. Perhaps the superintendent is in a position to know the whole story. Perhaps she is yielding to the strongest voices.

“No matter what comes out of the police investigation, there was a failure on our part.”

In would be interesting to know exactly what was that failure?

Simpson Street Free Press:

Today, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction released high school graduation data for the 2017-2018 academic year. Madison Metropolitan School District’s 4-year grad rates declined for both black and white students — to 65.6% and 87.8%, respectively. According to the Wisconsin State Journal, district officials “are pleased with the trajectory of minority and low-income students graduating in four years, despite a drop in the graduation rate for black students last year.”

But is this positive trajectory really something to celebrate? Wisconsin students don’t have to pass a state assessment to graduate. And national research has, for some time, questioned the truth behind the numbers.

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?

SSFP first voiced concerns about the focus on grad rates in a special report this summer. Today’s news leaves us more troubled. Of course we want our students to graduate on time. But we want our graduates to be prepared for the rigors of college and career.

Like Dr. Cheatham, we are “unsatisfied.” We stand behind the district’s commitment to “prepare students not just to graduate but for what comes after high school.” We hope this includes squaring positive grad rate trajectories with a less positive reality: too many of our students–and way too many of our students of color– aren’t graduating with the skills they need to succeed in the 21st century.

Charts via Laurie Frost and Jeff Henriques.

Notes and links on the 2019 Madison School Board election, here.

“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”.

Chris Rickert:

Endorsements in this month’s School Board primary from the influential Madison teachers union include one for a candidate who sends her two children to the kind of charter school strongly opposed by the union.

Madison Teachers Inc. this week endorsed Ali Muldrow over David Blaska, Laila Borokhim and Albert Bryan for Seat 4; Cris Carusi over Kaleem Caire for Seat 3; and incumbent TJ Mertz and Ananda Mirilli over Amos Roe for Seat 5.

Muldrow was among a group of parents and other advocates for Isthmus Montessori Academy when it sought to become a district-authorized charter school in 2017, after first opening as a private school in 2012.

The School Board voted down that plan 4-3, and Isthmus Montessori Academy pursued and won a charter through the University of Wisconsin System Office of Educational Opportunity. It converted to a tuition-free, state-supported independent charter in 2018. Muldrow’s children continue to attend the school.

MTI executive director Doug Keillor said the decision to endorse Muldrow “was based on numerous factors important to Madison educators and was not dependent exclusively on the school that her children attend.”

Former Madison School Board member Ed Hughes:

“The notion that parents inherently know what school is best for their kids is an example of conservative magical thinking.”; “For whatever reason, parents as a group tend to undervalue the benefits of diversity in the public schools….”

Madison School Board candidate Kaleem Caire:

If we don’t reach our benchmarks in five years, they can shut us down”. There is no public school in Madison that has closed because only 7 to 9% of black children have been reading at grade level for the last 20 to 30 years”.

Much more on the 2019 Madison school board election, here (primary February 19, general April 2)

Laurie Frost and Jeff Henriques on Madison’s disastrous reading results:

Children who are not proficient readers by fourth grade are four times more likely to drop out of school. Additionally, two-thirds of them will end up in prison or on welfare.

Though these dismal trajectories are well known, Madison School District’s reading scores for minority students remain unconscionably low and flat. According to the most recent data from 2017-18, fewer than 9 percent of black and fewer than 20 percent of Hispanic fourth graders were reading proficiently. Year after year, we fail these students in the most basic of our responsibilities to them: teaching them how to read.

Much is known about the process of learning to read, but a huge gap is between that knowledge and what is practiced in our schools. The Madison School District needs a science-based literacy curriculum overseen by licensed reading professionals who understand the cognitive processes that underlie learning how to read.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

Routing around Madison’s non-diverse K-12 legacy governance model:

In March 2016, Cheatham said that it was her intent to make OEO “obsolete — that our schools will be serving students so well that there isn’t a need.”

Since then, the district has tried to keep tabs on any new charter proposals for Madison, going so far as to send former School Board member Ed Hughes to a September meeting of the Goodman Community Center board of directors to express the district’s opposition to another proposed charter school, Arbor Community School, which was looking to partner with the Goodman center.

Hughes gave the board a letter from Cheatham to UW System President Ray Cross that expressed the district’s dismay at allegedly being kept out of the loop on Arbor’s plans, pointed to alleged deficiencies in Arbor’s charter proposal, and asked that Arbor either be rejected or at least kept out of Madison.

Hughes also told the board that as a Goodman donor, he did not think other donors would look kindly on a Goodman partnership with Arbor.

Becky Steinhoff, Goodman executive director, later told the Wisconsin State Journal that Goodman was “experiencing a period of enormous change,” including the recent opening of a new building, and chose not to work with Arbor.

“I understand the climate and the polarizing topic of charters” in Madison, McCabe said, but he wasn’t concerned the district would attempt to thwart Milestone and he said it would “be a dream come true” if Milestone were one day folded into the district.

He said Community—Learning—Design has an application due to the state Feb. 22 for a federal planning grant.

2019 Madison school board election notes and links:

Seat 3

Kaleem Caire, 7856 Wood Reed Drive, Madison

Cristiana Carusi, 5709 Bittersweet Place

Skylar Croy, 502 N. Frances St., Madison

Seat 4

David Blaska, 5213 Loruth Terrace, Madison

Laila Borokhim, 2214 Monroe St., Madison

Albert Bryan, 4302 Hillcrest Drive, Madison

Ali Muldrow, 1966 East Main St., Madison

Seat 5

TJ Mertz, 1210 Gilson St., Madison

Ananda Mirilli, 1027 S. Sunnyvale Lane Unit A, Madison

Amos Roe, 5705 Crabapple Lane, Madison

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

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.

Sarah Manski and Ed Hughes “withdrew” from their respective races in recent elections. The timing, in both cases was unfortunate for voters, and other candidates.

Much more on the election (February 19 Primary and April 2 general):

Amos Roe, 2019 Madison School Board Candidate:

I have been teaching children ages 7-18 for about 35 years. Based on this experience, I think that the MMSD has lost its mind.

MMSD currently promotes an aggressive victimization mentality toward children of color. I think this serves as cover for its institutional hostility to opening up real educational alternatives. Two challengers in this year’s MMSD Board race for seats 4 and 5 are unwittingly buying into this game. MMSD kids are told, from the time that they first enter this system, that they are victims due to their skin color.

My own approach in working with children is the opposite. My first priority is to teach kids more self-confidence. It doesn’t matter what color of skin you have, or if you were born with a disability. If you view yourself as a victim, you become a victim. I think identity politics is child abuse on a mass scale. Proponents of identity politics want children to be reduced to the color of their skin. Not proud of who they are as individuals, who have taken initiative in the face of challenges and are overcoming them, but to view themselves primarily by their skin color. Intelligent kids know this is pandering. Growing up like this is profoundly demoralizing and exhausting. This is certainly not what Martin Luther King was about.

This racism offers remarkable levels of hypocrisy. Consider Sherman Middle School. For the last three years, Superintendent Jen Cheatham and the MMSD Board were perfectly happy to grind up what used to be a well-functioning school serving a large percentage of minority children, run by a beloved principal, into a hellhole of chaos, violence and disorder.

This was due to the hiring of a totally incompetent principal by our superintendent. Over 30 percent of the staff ended up leaving over the last three years, while our superintendent continued to coddle and excuse this principal, simply because her skin had the color she wanted. Children, with skin that had similar shades of the same color, were deemed expendable by her on a wholesale level. A veteran teacher of 16 years, beloved by her students and staff, finally blew the whistle when she resigned. That publicity forced the principal to also quit within a week. To understand the depth of this madness, you must read Karen Vieth’s “Why I’m Closing the Door on MMSD” and responding comments.

Much more on the 2019 Madison school board election, here (primary February 19, general April 2)

I’ve added the following audio recordings to the 2019 Madison School Board Candidate page.

WORT FM Candidate discussion 2.5.2019 Cris Carusi and Kaleem Caire [mp3 audio]

Mr. Caire: “If we don’t reach our benchmarks in five years, they can shut us down”. There is no public school in Madison that has closed because only 7 to 9% of black children have been reading at grade level for the last 20 to 30 years”.

Candidate Forum: 2.5.2019 [MP3 audio]

Thank you to those who’ve helped record and share these events.

Much more on the election (February 19 Primary and April 2 general):

Laurie Frost and Jeff Henriques on Madison’s disastrous reading results:

Children who are not proficient readers by fourth grade are four times more likely to drop out of school. Additionally, two-thirds of them will end up in prison or on welfare.

Though these dismal trajectories are well known, Madison School District’s reading scores for minority students remain unconscionably low and flat. According to the most recent data from 2017-18, fewer than 9 percent of black and fewer than 20 percent of Hispanic fourth graders were reading proficiently. Year after year, we fail these students in the most basic of our responsibilities to them: teaching them how to read.

Much is known about the process of learning to read, but a huge gap is between that knowledge and what is practiced in our schools. The Madison School District needs a science-based literacy curriculum overseen by licensed reading professionals who understand the cognitive processes that underlie learning how to read.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

Routing around Madison’s non-diverse K-12 legacy governance model:

In March 2016, Cheatham said that it was her intent to make OEO “obsolete — that our schools will be serving students so well that there isn’t a need.”

Since then, the district has tried to keep tabs on any new charter proposals for Madison, going so far as to send former School Board member Ed Hughes to a September meeting of the Goodman Community Center board of directors to express the district’s opposition to another proposed charter school, Arbor Community School, which was looking to partner with the Goodman center.

Hughes gave the board a letter from Cheatham to UW System President Ray Cross that expressed the district’s dismay at allegedly being kept out of the loop on Arbor’s plans, pointed to alleged deficiencies in Arbor’s charter proposal, and asked that Arbor either be rejected or at least kept out of Madison.

Hughes also told the board that as a Goodman donor, he did not think other donors would look kindly on a Goodman partnership with Arbor.

Becky Steinhoff, Goodman executive director, later told the Wisconsin State Journal that Goodman was “experiencing a period of enormous change,” including the recent opening of a new building, and chose not to work with Arbor.

“I understand the climate and the polarizing topic of charters” in Madison, McCabe said, but he wasn’t concerned the district would attempt to thwart Milestone and he said it would “be a dream come true” if Milestone were one day folded into the district.

He said Community—Learning—Design has an application due to the state Feb. 22 for a federal planning grant.

Much more on our 2019 school board election:

Seat 3

Kaleem Caire, 7856 Wood Reed Drive, Madison

Cristiana Carusi, 5709 Bittersweet Place

Skylar Croy, 502 N. Frances St., Madison

Seat 4

David Blaska, 5213 Loruth Terrace, Madison

Laila Borokhim, 2214 Monroe St., Madison

Albert Bryan, 4302 Hillcrest Drive, Madison

Ali Muldrow, 1966 East Main St., Madison

Seat 5

TJ Mertz, 1210 Gilson St., Madison

Ananda Mirilli, 1027 S. Sunnyvale Lane Unit A, Madison

Amos Roe, 5705 Crabapple Lane, Madison

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

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.

Sarah Manski and Ed Hughes “withdrew” from their respective races in recent elections. The timing, in both cases was unfortunate for voters, and other candidates.

Avi Wolfman-Arent:

The small parent rebellion forming in one of Pennsylvania’s wealthiest school districts began at a Starbucks in suburban Chester County.

Over coffee, three moms — Kate Mayer, Jamie Lynch, and Wendy Brooks — swapped stories about how their kids struggled to read as they moved through the Tredyffrin/Easttown school district, located about 30 minutes west of Philadelphia on the Main Line.

They decided to start a local awareness campaign, beginning with an event where they passed out flyers and donuts to teachers. It seemed as benign as a bake sale.

That was a little less than two years ago.

Today, their group, “Everyone Reads T/E,” pushes a more subversive idea: that their acclaimed district doesn’t know how to teach reading. They’ve rallied a growing group of parents around this notion, and joined a national effort.

Laurie Frost and Jeff Henriques on Madison’s disastrous reading results:

Children who are not proficient readers by fourth grade are four times more likely to drop out of school. Additionally, two-thirds of them will end up in prison or on welfare.

Though these dismal trajectories are well known, Madison School District’s reading scores for minority students remain unconscionably low and flat. According to the most recent data from 2017-18, fewer than 9 percent of black and fewer than 20 percent of Hispanic fourth graders were reading proficiently. Year after year, we fail these students in the most basic of our responsibilities to them: teaching them how to read.

Much is known about the process of learning to read, but a huge gap is between that knowledge and what is practiced in our schools. The Madison School District needs a science-based literacy curriculum overseen by licensed reading professionals who understand the cognitive processes that underlie learning how to read.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

Routing around Madison’s non-diverse K-12 legacy governance model:

In March 2016, Cheatham said that it was her intent to make OEO “obsolete — that our schools will be serving students so well that there isn’t a need.”

Since then, the district has tried to keep tabs on any new charter proposals for Madison, going so far as to send former School Board member Ed Hughes to a September meeting of the Goodman Community Center board of directors to express the district’s opposition to another proposed charter school, Arbor Community School, which was looking to partner with the Goodman center.

Hughes gave the board a letter from Cheatham to UW System President Ray Cross that expressed the district’s dismay at allegedly being kept out of the loop on Arbor’s plans, pointed to alleged deficiencies in Arbor’s charter proposal, and asked that Arbor either be rejected or at least kept out of Madison.

Hughes also told the board that as a Goodman donor, he did not think other donors would look kindly on a Goodman partnership with Arbor.

Becky Steinhoff, Goodman executive director, later told the Wisconsin State Journal that Goodman was “experiencing a period of enormous change,” including the recent opening of a new building, and chose not to work with Arbor.

“I understand the climate and the polarizing topic of charters” in Madison, McCabe said, but he wasn’t concerned the district would attempt to thwart Milestone and he said it would “be a dream come true” if Milestone were one day folded into the district.

He said Community—Learning—Design has an application due to the state Feb. 22 for a federal planning grant.

Much more on our 2019 school board election:

Seat 3

Kaleem Caire, 7856 Wood Reed Drive, Madison

Cristiana Carusi, 5709 Bittersweet Place

Skylar Croy, 502 N. Frances St., Madison

Seat 4

David Blaska, 5213 Loruth Terrace, Madison

Laila Borokhim, 2214 Monroe St., Madison

Albert Bryan, 4302 Hillcrest Drive, Madison

Ali Muldrow, 1966 East Main St., Madison

Seat 5

TJ Mertz, 1210 Gilson St., Madison

Ananda Mirilli, 1027 S. Sunnyvale Lane Unit A, Madison

Amos Roe, 5705 Crabapple Lane, Madison

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

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.

Sarah Manski and Ed Hughes “withdrew” from their respective races in recent elections. The timing, in both cases was unfortunate for voters, and other candidates.

Negassi Tesfamichael:

MTI cited Carusi’s opposition to voucher and independent charter schools in its endorsement.

“Carusi is opposed to vouchers and independent charter schools and strongly believes that we need to continuously work to improve our public schools, rather than support alternatives,” MTI’s endorsement said.

Caire’s One City Schools, which expanded from One City Early Learning Center, is one of the state’s first 4K and kindergarten charter options authorized by the University of Wisconsin’s Office of Educational Opportunity.

Caire said in his MTI questionnaire that he supports public charter schools “but only those that have produced higher levels of student outcomes and attainment, or that (are) designed to meet a particular need that traditional public schools either struggle with or do not offer.”

Laurie Frost and Jeff Henriques on Madison’s disastrous reading results:

Children who are not proficient readers by fourth grade are four times more likely to drop out of school. Additionally, two-thirds of them will end up in prison or on welfare.

Though these dismal trajectories are well known, Madison School District’s reading scores for minority students remain unconscionably low and flat. According to the most recent data from 2017-18, fewer than 9 percent of black and fewer than 20 percent of Hispanic fourth graders were reading proficiently. Year after year, we fail these students in the most basic of our responsibilities to them: teaching them how to read.

Much is known about the process of learning to read, but a huge gap is between that knowledge and what is practiced in our schools. The Madison School District needs a science-based literacy curriculum overseen by licensed reading professionals who understand the cognitive processes that underlie learning how to read.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

Routing around Madison’s non-diverse K-12 legacy governance model:

In March 2016, Cheatham said that it was her intent to make OEO “obsolete — that our schools will be serving students so well that there isn’t a need.”

Since then, the district has tried to keep tabs on any new charter proposals for Madison, going so far as to send former School Board member Ed Hughes to a September meeting of the Goodman Community Center board of directors to express the district’s opposition to another proposed charter school, Arbor Community School, which was looking to partner with the Goodman center.

Hughes gave the board a letter from Cheatham to UW System President Ray Cross that expressed the district’s dismay at allegedly being kept out of the loop on Arbor’s plans, pointed to alleged deficiencies in Arbor’s charter proposal, and asked that Arbor either be rejected or at least kept out of Madison.

Hughes also told the board that as a Goodman donor, he did not think other donors would look kindly on a Goodman partnership with Arbor.

Becky Steinhoff, Goodman executive director, later told the Wisconsin State Journal that Goodman was “experiencing a period of enormous change,” including the recent opening of a new building, and chose not to work with Arbor.

“I understand the climate and the polarizing topic of charters” in Madison, McCabe said, but he wasn’t concerned the district would attempt to thwart Milestone and he said it would “be a dream come true” if Milestone were one day folded into the district.

He said Community—Learning—Design has an application due to the state Feb. 22 for a federal planning grant.

Much more on our 2019 school board election:

Seat 3

Kaleem Caire, 7856 Wood Reed Drive, Madison

Cristiana Carusi, 5709 Bittersweet Place

Skylar Croy, 502 N. Frances St., Madison

Seat 4

David Blaska, 5213 Loruth Terrace, Madison

Laila Borokhim, 2214 Monroe St., Madison

Albert Bryan, 4302 Hillcrest Drive, Madison

Ali Muldrow, 1966 East Main St., Madison

Seat 5

TJ Mertz, 1210 Gilson St., Madison

Ananda Mirilli, 1027 S. Sunnyvale Lane Unit A, Madison

Amos Roe, 5705 Crabapple Lane, Madison

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

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.

Sarah Manski and Ed Hughes “withdrew” from their respective races in recent elections. The timing, in both cases was unfortunate for voters, and other candidates.

Erin Hinrichs:

“Minnesota has a state of emergency regarding literacy. I’m very disappointed with where we’re at right now with the persistent reading success gap between white students and students of color,” he said Wednesday. “We are not making adequate progress, and the future of tens of thousands of our students is seriously at risk if we don’t address this.”

Third-grade reading skills are a critical benchmark for students’ future success. By the end of third grade, they should have the literacy skills they need to transition from learning to read to reading to learn.
Yet according to the latest state assessments, only 56 percent of fourth-graders tested proficient in reading. That number has remained relatively flat for years. Broken down by race and special status, the proficiency rates are even more alarming: Minnesota now has the widest gap in reading scores between white and nonwhite students in the nation. Only 32 percent of black fourth-graders and 34 percent of Hispanic fourth-graders are proficient in reading, compared to 66 percent of white fourth-graders.

Laurie Frost and Jeff Henriques on Madison’s disastrous reading results:

Children who are not proficient readers by fourth grade are four times more likely to drop out of school. Additionally, two-thirds of them will end up in prison or on welfare.

Though these dismal trajectories are well known, Madison School District’s reading scores for minority students remain unconscionably low and flat. According to the most recent data from 2017-18, fewer than 9 percent of black and fewer than 20 percent of Hispanic fourth graders were reading proficiently. Year after year, we fail these students in the most basic of our responsibilities to them: teaching them how to read.

Much is known about the process of learning to read, but a huge gap is between that knowledge and what is practiced in our schools. The Madison School District needs a science-based literacy curriculum overseen by licensed reading professionals who understand the cognitive processes that underlie learning how to read.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

Routing around Madison’s non-diverse K-12 legacy governance model:

In March 2016, Cheatham said that it was her intent to make OEO “obsolete — that our schools will be serving students so well that there isn’t a need.”

Since then, the district has tried to keep tabs on any new charter proposals for Madison, going so far as to send former School Board member Ed Hughes to a September meeting of the Goodman Community Center board of directors to express the district’s opposition to another proposed charter school, Arbor Community School, which was looking to partner with the Goodman center.

Hughes gave the board a letter from Cheatham to UW System President Ray Cross that expressed the district’s dismay at allegedly being kept out of the loop on Arbor’s plans, pointed to alleged deficiencies in Arbor’s charter proposal, and asked that Arbor either be rejected or at least kept out of Madison.

Hughes also told the board that as a Goodman donor, he did not think other donors would look kindly on a Goodman partnership with Arbor.

Becky Steinhoff, Goodman executive director, later told the Wisconsin State Journal that Goodman was “experiencing a period of enormous change,” including the recent opening of a new building, and chose not to work with Arbor.

“I understand the climate and the polarizing topic of charters” in Madison, McCabe said, but he wasn’t concerned the district would attempt to thwart Milestone and he said it would “be a dream come true” if Milestone were one day folded into the district.

He said Community—Learning—Design has an application due to the state Feb. 22 for a federal planning grant.

Much more on our 2019 school board election:

Seat 3

Kaleem Caire, 7856 Wood Reed Drive, Madison

Cristiana Carusi, 5709 Bittersweet Place

Skylar Croy, 502 N. Frances St., Madison

Seat 4

David Blaska, 5213 Loruth Terrace, Madison

Laila Borokhim, 2214 Monroe St., Madison

Albert Bryan, 4302 Hillcrest Drive, Madison

Ali Muldrow, 1966 East Main St., Madison

Seat 5

TJ Mertz, 1210 Gilson St., Madison

Ananda Mirilli, 1027 S. Sunnyvale Lane Unit A, Madison

Amos Roe, 5705 Crabapple Lane, Madison

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

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.

Sarah Manski and Ed Hughes “withdrew” from their respective races in recent elections. The timing, in both cases was unfortunate for voters, and other candidates.

Chris Rickert:

According to emails released to the State Journal under the state’s open records law, Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham on Sept. 10 asked her chief of staff, Ricardo Jara, and other front-office officials whether Arbor was “worth trying to stop? Or change somehow? If so, how?”

Cheatham expressed the district’s opposition to the school in a letter to Cross on Sept. 24 that points to alleged deficiencies in Arbor’s application, and accuses OEO of not sharing information with the district about the school.

“I am writing you to formally request that the OEO immediately terminate contract negotiations with (Arbor Community School) or, at the very least, require that this school not be located in the City of Madison,” she wrote.

That same day, former Madison School Board member Ed Hughes took Cheatham’s letter to a board of directors meeting of the Goodman Community Center, where Arbor was then trying to secure space.

More, from Negassi Tesfamichael.

Laurie Frost and Jeff Henriques on Madison’s disastrous reading results:

Children who are not proficient readers by fourth grade are four times more likely to drop out of school. Additionally, two-thirds of them will end up in prison or on welfare.

Though these dismal trajectories are well known, Madison School District’s reading scores for minority students remain unconscionably low and flat. According to the most recent data from 2017-18, fewer than 9 percent of black and fewer than 20 percent of Hispanic fourth graders were reading proficiently. Year after year, we fail these students in the most basic of our responsibilities to them: teaching them how to read.

Much is known about the process of learning to read, but a huge gap is between that knowledge and what is practiced in our schools. The Madison School District needs a science-based literacy curriculum overseen by licensed reading professionals who understand the cognitive processes that underlie learning how to read.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

Routing around Madison’s non-diverse K-12 legacy governance model:

In March 2016, Cheatham said that it was her intent to make OEO “obsolete — that our schools will be serving students so well that there isn’t a need.”

Since then, the district has tried to keep tabs on any new charter proposals for Madison, going so far as to send former School Board member Ed Hughes to a September meeting of the Goodman Community Center board of directors to express the district’s opposition to another proposed charter school, Arbor Community School, which was looking to partner with the Goodman center.

Hughes gave the board a letter from Cheatham to UW System President Ray Cross that expressed the district’s dismay at allegedly being kept out of the loop on Arbor’s plans, pointed to alleged deficiencies in Arbor’s charter proposal, and asked that Arbor either be rejected or at least kept out of Madison.

Hughes also told the board that as a Goodman donor, he did not think other donors would look kindly on a Goodman partnership with Arbor.

Becky Steinhoff, Goodman executive director, later told the Wisconsin State Journal that Goodman was “experiencing a period of enormous change,” including the recent opening of a new building, and chose not to work with Arbor.

“I understand the climate and the polarizing topic of charters” in Madison, McCabe said, but he wasn’t concerned the district would attempt to thwart Milestone and he said it would “be a dream come true” if Milestone were one day folded into the district.

He said Community—Learning—Design has an application due to the state Feb. 22 for a federal planning grant.

Much more on our 2019 school board election:

Seat 3

Kaleem Caire, 7856 Wood Reed Drive, Madison

Cristiana Carusi, 5709 Bittersweet Place

Skylar Croy, 502 N. Frances St., Madison

Seat 4

David Blaska, 5213 Loruth Terrace, Madison

Laila Borokhim, 2214 Monroe St., Madison

Albert Bryan, 4302 Hillcrest Drive, Madison

Ali Muldrow, 1966 East Main St., Madison

Seat 5

TJ Mertz, 1210 Gilson St., Madison

Ananda Mirilli, 1027 S. Sunnyvale Lane Unit A, Madison

Amos Roe, 5705 Crabapple Lane, Madison

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

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.

Sarah Manski and Ed Hughes “withdrew” from their respective races in recent elections. The timing, in both cases was unfortunate for voters, and other candidates.

A majority of the Madison School Board aborted the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School.

Christopher Osher:

But districts are free to use their READ Act per-pupil funds on whatever curriculum they want, even on interventions researchers have found ineffective.

“Typically, as with any education policy, we’re only given so much authority on what we can tell districts to do and what we monitor for,” Colsman said in an interview with The Colorado Sun.

The state spends $3 million annually through the READ Act to provide diagnostic software school districts can use to assess student reading levels, but not all districts use it. Data shows the state’s software is used on fewer than half of the students in the state. The reading proficiency of most of the young students in Colorado is determined through other diagnostic tools never subjected to quality reviews by the state.

Meanwhile, state tracking of READ Act student performance shows that only 6 percent of children identified with a significant reading deficiency in kindergarten were reading at their grade level by third grade.

“All of us are looking for a way to get better results for kids because we can’t wait a generation for this,” Colsman said.

Half of state districts see worsening rates for significant deficiencies

Nearly half of the state’s 178 school districts saw the rate of students with significant reading deficiencies worsen since the READ Act program was put in place, according to a review of state data.

Commerce City’s Adams County 14 school district, home to 7,500 students, received more than $3 million in per-pupil READ Act funding to tackle significant reading deficiencies from 2012 through 2018, but reading problems there have worsened over same period.

In 2014, slightly more than 18 percent of the district’s kindergarten through third-grade students had a significant reading deficiency, according to state records. By 2018, that rate had more than doubled to nearly 40 percent.

New administrators at the district, forced by the Colorado Board of Education in November to hire an outside management consultant, said they’ve discovered the reading curriculum they were using was ineffective and not suited to the district’s heavily bilingual student population. They’ve since switched curriculum and are putting in place a summer school program devoted solely to reading instruction.

“Over the past 19 years we’ve had a high turnover in teachers and administrators,” said Jeanette Patterson, who was hired as the district’s executive director of curriculum and instruction last summer. “We’ve had to do a lot of training and retraining and retraining. That leads to inconsistency in the literacy block at the elementary school level.”

Laurie Frost and Jeff Henriques on Madison’s disastrous reading results:

Children who are not proficient readers by fourth grade are four times more likely to drop out of school. Additionally, two-thirds of them will end up in prison or on welfare.

Though these dismal trajectories are well known, Madison School District’s reading scores for minority students remain unconscionably low and flat. According to the most recent data from 2017-18, fewer than 9 percent of black and fewer than 20 percent of Hispanic fourth graders were reading proficiently. Year after year, we fail these students in the most basic of our responsibilities to them: teaching them how to read.

Much is known about the process of learning to read, but a huge gap is between that knowledge and what is practiced in our schools. The Madison School District needs a science-based literacy curriculum overseen by licensed reading professionals who understand the cognitive processes that underlie learning how to read.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

Routing around Madison’s non-diverse K-12 legacy governance model:

In March 2016, Cheatham said that it was her intent to make OEO “obsolete — that our schools will be serving students so well that there isn’t a need.”

Since then, the district has tried to keep tabs on any new charter proposals for Madison, going so far as to send former School Board member Ed Hughes to a September meeting of the Goodman Community Center board of directors to express the district’s opposition to another proposed charter school, Arbor Community School, which was looking to partner with the Goodman center.

Hughes gave the board a letter from Cheatham to UW System President Ray Cross that expressed the district’s dismay at allegedly being kept out of the loop on Arbor’s plans, pointed to alleged deficiencies in Arbor’s charter proposal, and asked that Arbor either be rejected or at least kept out of Madison.

Hughes also told the board that as a Goodman donor, he did not think other donors would look kindly on a Goodman partnership with Arbor.

Becky Steinhoff, Goodman executive director, later told the Wisconsin State Journal that Goodman was “experiencing a period of enormous change,” including the recent opening of a new building, and chose not to work with Arbor.

“I understand the climate and the polarizing topic of charters” in Madison, McCabe said, but he wasn’t concerned the district would attempt to thwart Milestone and he said it would “be a dream come true” if Milestone were one day folded into the district.

He said Community—Learning—Design has an application due to the state Feb. 22 for a federal planning grant.

Much more on our 2019 school board election:

Seat 3

Kaleem Caire, 7856 Wood Reed Drive, Madison

Cristiana Carusi, 5709 Bittersweet Place

Skylar Croy, 502 N. Frances St., Madison

Seat 4

David Blaska, 5213 Loruth Terrace, Madison

Laila Borokhim, 2214 Monroe St., Madison

Albert Bryan, 4302 Hillcrest Drive, Madison

Ali Muldrow, 1966 East Main St., Madison

Seat 5

TJ Mertz, 1210 Gilson St., Madison

Ananda Mirilli, 1027 S. Sunnyvale Lane Unit A, Madison

Amos Roe, 5705 Crabapple Lane, Madison

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

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.

Sarah Manski and Ed Hughes “withdrew” from their respective races in recent elections. The timing, in both cases was unfortunate for voters, and other candidates.

Negassi Tesfamichael:

With the Madison School Board primary election less than a month away, a crowded field of nine candidates will make their case to voters in the coming weeks, starting with a forum on Feb. 5.

Here’s a closer look at how candidates are making their case to voters.

Seat 3

Kaleem Caire, an education activist and founder of One City Schools, is calling for a focus on early childhood education. One City Schools, which he heads, is one of Wisconsin’s first 4K and kindergarten charter options authorized by the University of Wisconsin’s Office of Educational Opportunity.

Caire is running nearly eight years after the School Board rejected his proposal for another charter school, Madison Preparatory Academy.

“I would like to see stronger partnerships between MMSD and Madison’s early childhood education community that provide a sensible continuum of learning, growth and development opportunities for children from birth to age 5,” Caire wrote in a questionnaire distributed by Madison Teachers Inc.

Laurie Frost and Jeff Henriques on Madison’s disastrous reading results:

Children who are not proficient readers by fourth grade are four times more likely to drop out of school. Additionally, two-thirds of them will end up in prison or on welfare.

Though these dismal trajectories are well known, Madison School District’s reading scores for minority students remain unconscionably low and flat. According to the most recent data from 2017-18, fewer than 9 percent of black and fewer than 20 percent of Hispanic fourth graders were reading proficiently. Year after year, we fail these students in the most basic of our responsibilities to them: teaching them how to read.

Much is known about the process of learning to read, but a huge gap is between that knowledge and what is practiced in our schools. The Madison School District needs a science-based literacy curriculum overseen by licensed reading professionals who understand the cognitive processes that underlie learning how to read.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

Routing around Madison’s non-diverse K-12 legacy governance model:

In March 2016, Cheatham said that it was her intent to make OEO “obsolete — that our schools will be serving students so well that there isn’t a need.”

Since then, the district has tried to keep tabs on any new charter proposals for Madison, going so far as to send former School Board member Ed Hughes to a September meeting of the Goodman Community Center board of directors to express the district’s opposition to another proposed charter school, Arbor Community School, which was looking to partner with the Goodman center.

Hughes gave the board a letter from Cheatham to UW System President Ray Cross that expressed the district’s dismay at allegedly being kept out of the loop on Arbor’s plans, pointed to alleged deficiencies in Arbor’s charter proposal, and asked that Arbor either be rejected or at least kept out of Madison.

Hughes also told the board that as a Goodman donor, he did not think other donors would look kindly on a Goodman partnership with Arbor.

Becky Steinhoff, Goodman executive director, later told the Wisconsin State Journal that Goodman was “experiencing a period of enormous change,” including the recent opening of a new building, and chose not to work with Arbor.

“I understand the climate and the polarizing topic of charters” in Madison, McCabe said, but he wasn’t concerned the district would attempt to thwart Milestone and he said it would “be a dream come true” if Milestone were one day folded into the district.

He said Community—Learning—Design has an application due to the state Feb. 22 for a federal planning grant.

Much more on our 2019 school board election:

Seat 3

Kaleem Caire, 7856 Wood Reed Drive, Madison

Cristiana Carusi, 5709 Bittersweet Place

Skylar Croy, 502 N. Frances St., Madison

Seat 4

David Blaska, 5213 Loruth Terrace, Madison

Laila Borokhim, 2214 Monroe St., Madison

Albert Bryan, 4302 Hillcrest Drive, Madison

Ali Muldrow, 1966 East Main St., Madison

Seat 5

TJ Mertz, 1210 Gilson St., Madison

Ananda Mirilli, 1027 S. Sunnyvale Lane Unit A, Madison

Amos Roe, 5705 Crabapple Lane, Madison

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

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.

Sarah Manski and Ed Hughes “withdrew” from their respective races in recent elections. The timing, in both cases was unfortunate for voters, and other candidates.

Negassi Tesfamichael:

Nearly all current candidates for the Madison School Board have started to make their case to voters and potential endorsers as the primary election heats up. That included answering questions from Madison Teachers Inc., the city’s teachers’ union.

Nine candidates are running for three seats on the seven-person School Board. MTI executive director Doug Keillor said candidates had to send in answers to the questionnaire by Jan. 11. On Wednesday, School Board candidates interviewed with the political action arm of MTI, which is comprised of 13 people who guide the union’s endorsement process during each election cycle.

Candidate Amos Roe, who is running for Seat 5, was the only current candidate who did not submit a questionnaire. Keillor said they reached out to Roe multiple times but did not receive a response. Skylar Croy, who withdrew from the race but whose name will still appear on the Feb. 19 ballot, also did not submit a questionnaire or interview with MTI.

Laurie Frost and Jeff Henriques on Madison’s disastrous reading results:

Children who are not proficient readers by fourth grade are four times more likely to drop out of school. Additionally, two-thirds of them will end up in prison or on welfare.

Though these dismal trajectories are well known, Madison School District’s reading scores for minority students remain unconscionably low and flat. According to the most recent data from 2017-18, fewer than 9 percent of black and fewer than 20 percent of Hispanic fourth graders were reading proficiently. Year after year, we fail these students in the most basic of our responsibilities to them: teaching them how to read.

Much is known about the process of learning to read, but a huge gap is between that knowledge and what is practiced in our schools. The Madison School District needs a science-based literacy curriculum overseen by licensed reading professionals who understand the cognitive processes that underlie learning how to read.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

Routing around Madison’s non-diverse K-12 legacy governance model:

In March 2016, Cheatham said that it was her intent to make OEO “obsolete — that our schools will be serving students so well that there isn’t a need.”

Since then, the district has tried to keep tabs on any new charter proposals for Madison, going so far as to send former School Board member Ed Hughes to a September meeting of the Goodman Community Center board of directors to express the district’s opposition to another proposed charter school, Arbor Community School, which was looking to partner with the Goodman center.

Hughes gave the board a letter from Cheatham to UW System President Ray Cross that expressed the district’s dismay at allegedly being kept out of the loop on Arbor’s plans, pointed to alleged deficiencies in Arbor’s charter proposal, and asked that Arbor either be rejected or at least kept out of Madison.

Hughes also told the board that as a Goodman donor, he did not think other donors would look kindly on a Goodman partnership with Arbor.

Becky Steinhoff, Goodman executive director, later told the Wisconsin State Journal that Goodman was “experiencing a period of enormous change,” including the recent opening of a new building, and chose not to work with Arbor.

“I understand the climate and the polarizing topic of charters” in Madison, McCabe said, but he wasn’t concerned the district would attempt to thwart Milestone and he said it would “be a dream come true” if Milestone were one day folded into the district.

He said Community—Learning—Design has an application due to the state Feb. 22 for a federal planning grant.

Much more on our 2019 school board election:

Seat 3

Kaleem Caire, 7856 Wood Reed Drive, Madison

Cristiana Carusi, 5709 Bittersweet Place

Skylar Croy, 502 N. Frances St., Madison

Seat 4

David Blaska, 5213 Loruth Terrace, Madison

Laila Borokhim, 2214 Monroe St., Madison

Albert Bryan, 4302 Hillcrest Drive, Madison

Ali Muldrow, 1966 East Main St., Madison

Seat 5

TJ Mertz, 1210 Gilson St., Madison

Ananda Mirilli, 1027 S. Sunnyvale Lane Unit A, Madison

Amos Roe, 5705 Crabapple Lane, Madison

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

Sarah Manski and Ed Hughes “withdrew” from their respective races in recent elections. The timing, in both cases was unfortunate for voters, and other candidates.

Laurie Frost and Heff Henriques:

Children who are not proficient readers by fourth grade are four times more likely to drop out of school. Additionally, two-thirds of them will end up in prison or on welfare.

Though these dismal trajectories are well known, Madison School District’s reading scores for minority students remain unconscionably low and flat. According to the most recent data from 2017-18, fewer than 9 percent of black and fewer than 20 percent of Hispanic fourth graders were reading proficiently. Year after year, we fail these students in the most basic of our responsibilities to them: teaching them how to read.

Much is known about the process of learning to read, but a huge gap is between that knowledge and what is practiced in our schools. The Madison School District needs a science-based literacy curriculum overseen by licensed reading professionals who understand the cognitive processes that underlie learning how to read.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

Routing around Madison’s non-diverse K-12 legacy governance model:

In March 2016, Cheatham said that it was her intent to make OEO “obsolete — that our schools will be serving students so well that there isn’t a need.”

Since then, the district has tried to keep tabs on any new charter proposals for Madison, going so far as to send former School Board member Ed Hughes to a September meeting of the Goodman Community Center board of directors to express the district’s opposition to another proposed charter school, Arbor Community School, which was looking to partner with the Goodman center.

Hughes gave the board a letter from Cheatham to UW System President Ray Cross that expressed the district’s dismay at allegedly being kept out of the loop on Arbor’s plans, pointed to alleged deficiencies in Arbor’s charter proposal, and asked that Arbor either be rejected or at least kept out of Madison.

Hughes also told the board that as a Goodman donor, he did not think other donors would look kindly on a Goodman partnership with Arbor.

Becky Steinhoff, Goodman executive director, later told the Wisconsin State Journal that Goodman was “experiencing a period of enormous change,” including the recent opening of a new building, and chose not to work with Arbor.

“I understand the climate and the polarizing topic of charters” in Madison, McCabe said, but he wasn’t concerned the district would attempt to thwart Milestone and he said it would “be a dream come true” if Milestone were one day folded into the district.

He said Community—Learning—Design has an application due to the state Feb. 22 for a federal planning grant.

Much more on our 2019 school board election:

Seat 3

Kaleem Caire, 7856 Wood Reed Drive, Madison

Cristiana Carusi, 5709 Bittersweet Place

Skylar Croy, 502 N. Frances St., Madison

Seat 4

David Blaska, 5213 Loruth Terrace, Madison

Laila Borokhim, 2214 Monroe St., Madison

Albert Bryan, 4302 Hillcrest Drive, Madison

Ali Muldrow, 1966 East Main St., Madison

Seat 5

TJ Mertz, 1210 Gilson St., Madison

Ananda Mirilli, 1027 S. Sunnyvale Lane Unit A, Madison

Amos Roe, 5705 Crabapple Lane, Madison

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

Sarah Manski and Ed Hughes “withdrew” from their respective races in recent elections. The timing, in both cases was unfortunate for voters, and other candidates.

Negassi Tesfamichael m:

Why are all of the Madison School Board seats at-large?

The answer lies in state law.

Tucked into a section of state statutes about how school boards and districts are organized is a requirement that applies directly to MMSD. The requirement says that unified school districts — such as MMSD — “that encompass a city with a population greater than 150,000 but less than 500,000 shall be elected at large to numbered seats.”

Madison, whose population is just over 252,000, is the only Wisconsin city the requirement applies to.

The state statute was introduced as part of a bill in 1984 under a Democratic Legislature and Gov. Tony Earl. According to state Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison, who served as Senate president at the time, he worked with former state Rep. David Clarenbach on an earlier bill that failed to pass both chambers but made its way under the larger 1984 bill Act 484.

Nan Brien, who served on the School Board in the 1980s, said Madison had an entirely at-large system before the state statute was put in place. Former School Board member and former state Rep. Rebecca Young spearheaded efforts to get the state statute put in place, according to Brien.

“There was a sense of, if everyone was in one general race, that it simply would come down to name recognition,” Risser said of the previous structure.

Under the old at-large structure, if three seats were up for an election, everyone would run against everyone else for those three seats. The top three finishers would be elected.

“People wanted to facilitate the opportunity for an individual to challenge a candidate based on that candidate’s position,” Brien said of the School Board before the numbered seats were introduced. “The idea was that the change in structure would become more policy driven instead of just having people who decided they wanted to be on the School Board just for the heck of it.”

A 1973 report from the Wisconsin Legislative Council, which was submitted as the Legislature considered having numbered seats for some School Boards around the state, backs Brien’s assertion.

2019 Madison School Board Candidates, notes and links:

Seat 3

Kaleem Caire, 7856 Wood Reed Drive, Madison

Cristiana Carusi, 5709 Bittersweet Place

Skylar Croy, 502 N. Frances St., Madison

Seat 4

David Blaska, 5213 Loruth Terrace, Madison

Laila Borokhim, 2214 Monroe St., Madison

Albert Bryan, 4302 Hillcrest Drive, Madison

Ali Muldrow, 1966 East Main St., Madison

Seat 5

TJ Mertz, 1210 Gilson St., Madison

Ananda Mirilli, 1027 S. Sunnyvale Lane Unit A, Madison

Amos Roe, 5705 Crabapple Lane, Madison

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

Neil Heinen:

There is so much to like about One City’s structure and operation, starting with founder, President and CEO Kaleem Caire. Caire’s bedrock passion for education has always been part of what hasn’t always been a straight-line career path. But all of the elements of his business, civic, nonprofit and activist education ventures have come together at One City as an exceptionally well-run, financially sound, academically rigorous place for kids and families.

His support team is strong, his board is smart, engaged and strategically composed most notably of parent leaders from One City’s enrollment. He has built important relationships with both University of Wisconsin–Madison’s School of Education and Edgewood College with some of the most respected faculty and researchers from both institutions actively participating in One City’s programming, operation and evaluation of results. He attracted one of Madison’s most talented educators, Nuestro Mundo Community School founder Bryan Grau, as One City principal of the senior preschool and as the founding principal of One City’s planned elementary school. Teachers seem excited to work at One City. And Caire is building an impressive group of supportive civic leaders. Most importantly, and tellingly, Caire has a smart, collaborative and mutually supporting relationship with MMSD Superintendent Jen Cheatham. That says something about both of them.

As hot a word as innovation has become in the world and 21st century economy, it has not always been embraced by the education sector in the United States, at least not in the public education sector. One City is what innovative education looks like. The UW–Madison-born Families and Schools Together, or FAST, Program is part of the family support component of One City’s mission, and FAST founder, Dr. Lynn McDonald, is on the board. The schools employ the Expeditionary Learning curriculum of active, purposeful learning. And it is the first school in the country to offer the AnjiPlay learning model developed in China. The model was created by an educator who has welcomed One City’s use of site-specific environments, unique materials and integrated technology to enhance learning and cognitive development. Eventually One City will be where other interested U.S. educators come to learn about AnjiPlay.

After some serious reflection, Caire and the board of One City have decided to add an elementary school rather than just grow the preschools. That’s going to require a new building and more funding for operations. There will be a capital campaign in the spring. One City’s potential is unlimited. It is already part of the answer to the achievement gap, to the disparities uncovered in the Race to Equity report and in the critical need to ensure all of our kids are ready to succeed in order to make Madison the city we all want it to be.

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School.

The Grade:

There are two main reasons why Eliza Shapiro’s New York Times piece, Why Black Parents Are Turning to Afrocentric Schools, is this week’s best.

The first is that it’s a really well-written piece of journalism. The second is that it addresses an important and previously under-covered topic: parents of color interested in alternatives to integrated schools.

Focused on a half-dozen or so Afrocentric schools in central Brooklyn, the piece describes a surge of African-American families choosing schools “explicitly designed for black children” rather than pursuing the elusive goal of an integrated but still supportive school environment.

“For the last few years,” Shapiro writes, “NYC’s integration debate has largely revolved around the hopes and anxieties of white parents.” Indeed, it has. By and large, the presumption has been that parents of color prioritize integration as much as or more than anyone else. But, as Shapiro’s piece notes, that’s not entirely the case. It never has been.

Even where it’s been achieved, integrated schools have not been an unmitigated success for students of color. Negative experiences with integrated schools is one factor motivating these families. Much-publicized resistance from white families to integration is another.

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

Chris Rickert:

The questionnaire also includes several questions about teachers’ ability to have a say in their compensation and working conditions, and asks whether the candidates “support the reinstatement of collective bargaining rights for all public employees (currently prohibited by Act 10)?”

Act 10 is the controversial 2011 law passed by Republicans that stripped most collective bargaining rights from most public-sector employees. MTI mounted a failed legal challenge to the law.

“School staff experienced a reduction in take home pay after Act 10 was passed and salary increases have not kept pace with the cost-of-living,” one question states. “The District is experiencing increasing difficulties in attracting and retaining qualified employees. If elected to the Board of Education, what is your plan to increase pay for school staff?”

Much more on Act 10, here.

Madison Teachers, Inc.

2019 Madison School Board Candidates, notes and links:

Seat 3

Kaleem Caire, 7856 Wood Reed Drive, Madison

Cristiana Carusi, 5709 Bittersweet Place

Skylar Croy, 502 N. Frances St., Madison

Seat 4

David Blaska, 5213 Loruth Terrace, Madison

Laila Borokhim, 2214 Monroe St., Madison

Albert Bryan, 4302 Hillcrest Drive, Madison

Ali Muldrow, 1966 East Main St., Madison

Seat 5

TJ Mertz, 1210 Gilson St., Madison

Ananda Mirilli, 1027 S. Sunnyvale Lane Unit A, Madison

Amos Roe, 5705 Crabapple Lane, Madison

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

Chris Rickert:

In March 2016, Cheatham said that it was her intent to make OEO “obsolete — that our schools will be serving students so well that there isn’t a need.”

Since then, the district has tried to keep tabs on any new charter proposals for Madison, going so far as to send former School Board member Ed Hughes to a September meeting of the Goodman Community Center board of directors to express the district’s opposition to another proposed charter school, Arbor Community School, which was looking to partner with the Goodman center.

Hughes gave the board a letter from Cheatham to UW System President Ray Cross that expressed the district’s dismay at allegedly being kept out of the loop on Arbor’s plans, pointed to alleged deficiencies in Arbor’s charter proposal, and asked that Arbor either be rejected or at least kept out of Madison.

Hughes also told the board that as a Goodman donor, he did not think other donors would look kindly on a Goodman partnership with Arbor.

Becky Steinhoff, Goodman executive director, later told the Wisconsin State Journal that Goodman was “experiencing a period of enormous change,” including the recent opening of a new building, and chose not to work with Arbor.

“I understand the climate and the polarizing topic of charters” in Madison, McCabe said, but he wasn’t concerned the district would attempt to thwart Milestone and he said it would “be a dream come true” if Milestone were one day folded into the district.

He said Community—Learning—Design has an application due to the state Feb. 22 for a federal planning grant.

Much more on our 2019 school board election:

Seat 3

Kaleem Caire, 7856 Wood Reed Drive, Madison

Cristiana Carusi, 5709 Bittersweet Place

Skylar Croy, 502 N. Frances St., Madison

Seat 4

David Blaska, 5213 Loruth Terrace, Madison

Laila Borokhim, 2214 Monroe St., Madison

Albert Bryan, 4302 Hillcrest Drive, Madison

Ali Muldrow, 1966 East Main St., Madison

Seat 5

TJ Mertz, 1210 Gilson St., Madison

Ananda Mirilli, 1027 S. Sunnyvale Lane Unit A, Madison

Amos Roe, 5705 Crabapple Lane, Madison

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

Sarah Manski and Ed Hughes “withdrew” from their respective races in recent elections. The timing, in both cases was unfortunate for voters, and other candidates.

Negassi Tesfamichael:

Madison School Board candidate Skylar Croy said in an interview with the Cap Times Friday that he would suspend his campaign and withdraw from the Seat 3 race, citing personal reasons.

Because Croy turned in his verified nomination signatures on Wednesday to the city clerk’s office, the third-year University of Wisconsin law student’s name will still appear on the ballot during the Feb. 19 primary election.

“Once you turn in signatures and they’re all proper, you’re on the ballot and can’t withdraw,” Eric Christiansen, an official at the City Clerk’s office said. He noted that even if a candidate died after their nomination signatures were turned in, their name would still appear on the ballot.

Croy serves in the Army National Guard and worked as an engineer before entering law school. Croy, 26, told the Cap Times on Wednesday that he was excited to have a chance to bring a younger voice to the seven-seat School Board.

His parents worked in schools, which Croy said helped developed his interest in education issues.

Much more on our 2019 school board election:

Seat 3

Kaleem Caire, 7856 Wood Reed Drive, Madison

Cristiana Carusi, 5709 Bittersweet Place

Skylar Croy, 502 N. Frances St., Madison

Seat 4

David Blaska, 5213 Loruth Terrace, Madison

Laila Borokhim, 2214 Monroe St., Madison

Albert Bryan, 4302 Hillcrest Drive, Madison

Ali Muldrow, 1966 East Main St., Madison

Seat 5

TJ Mertz, 1210 Gilson St., Madison

Ananda Mirilli, 1027 S. Sunnyvale Lane Unit A, Madison

Amos Roe, 5705 Crabapple Lane, Madison

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

Sarah Manski and Ed Hughes “withdrew” from their respective races in recent elections. The timing, in both cases was unfortunate for voters, and other candidates.

Merrilee Pickett:

I attended a Madison City Council police oversight committee meeting and was surprised that I was one of only a handful of citizens in attendance. The others in attendance were the usual people who are quoted in the local media, and who evidently have great influence over members of the City Council.

Was the poor attendance because of the location or the time of the meetings? Are Madison residents apathetic about police issues? Or is it because the majority of residents (black, white, brown and members of the LGBT community) think the Madison Police Department is run well and well-staffed? Are they generally very supportive of a fine police department?

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

Seat 3

Kaleem Caire, 7856 Wood Reed Drive, Madison

Cristiana Carusi, 5709 Bittersweet Place

Skylar Croy, 502 N. Frances St., Madison

Seat 4

David Blaska, 5213 Loruth Terrace, Madison

Laila Borokhim, 2214 Monroe St., Madison

Albert Bryan, 4302 Hillcrest Drive, Madison

Ali Muldrow, 1966 East Main St., Madison

Seat 5

TJ Mertz, 1210 Gilson St., Madison

Ananda Mirilli, 1027 S. Sunnyvale Lane Unit A, Madison

Amos Roe, 5705 Crabapple Lane, Madison

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

Gary L. Kriewald:

It appears we are headed toward a School Board election that promises something new: a candidate whose voice will do more than add sound and fury to the liberal echo chamber that is Madison politics.

David Blaska has the background, experience and most importantly the courage to expose the abuses and neglect of those in charge of our schools.

Having been shouted down and bullied at several meetings of the Madison School Board over the past several months, Blaska is uniquely qualified to expose the pusillanimous hand-wringing that passes for decision-making by those who shape educational policy in this city. He has seen firsthand how a small cadre of vocal extremists, called Freedom Inc., have cowed the current School Board with their unique brand of cop-hating venom.

When ordinary citizens are afraid to attend meetings for fear of being harassed by a mob of fanatical ideologues, we are witnessing a system that has shamelessly abandoned its mandate.

If elected, Blaska may be a lone voice crying in the wilderness, but at least it will be a voice unafraid of speaking truth to power.

Gary L. Kriewald, Madison

Chris Rickert:

It starts with safety and discipline,” said Blaska, who on his blog has been sharply critical of the district’s deliberations over whether to continue stationing Madison police officers in the high schools.

Despite raucous protests by the activist group Freedom Inc., a committee of the board recommended on Sept. 26 that the police officers, called educational resource officers, or EROs, remain in the schools. Protests against EROs by the same group shut down a School Board meeting on Oct. 29 to approve the budget. It was approved two days later in a special meeting.

Blaska also criticized the district’s Behavior Education Plan as “too bureaucratic” and the “product of too many administrators and too many meetings.” The plan — which was rolled out in 2014 and runs to 77 pages for elementary schools and 82 pages for middle and high schools — is largely an attempt to move away from “zero tolerance” policies and reduce the disproportionately high number of students of color who are expelled or suspended. It is undergoing revisions this year.

He said he would try to get the BEP down to about eight pages while giving teachers and administrators more discretion over how they handle student behavior in their schools.

Incumbent Dean Loumos, who chaired the ERO committee, said he was “not at all” vulnerable to criticism about the way he has handled security issues.

Negassi Tesfamichael:

Blaska has frequently criticized members of Freedom Inc., the local social justice advocacy group that has spoken out at recent School Board meetings against the use of educational resource officers in the city’s four comprehensive high schools.

Protests that broke out during the public comment period at the School Board’s October meeting led to a vote to adjourn the meeting early. Blaska has lamented that some do not feel safe attending School Board meetings because of the “far-left mob.”

Blaska in recent blog posts has called on Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne to prosecute the the protesters who shut down the October meeting.

Notes and links:

Dean Loumos

Cris Carusi

David Blaska

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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

2013: What will be different, this time?

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.

Chris Rickert:

Meanwhile, in a sign of how the Madison district is responding to subsequent charter applications, former Madison School Board member Ed Hughes said he went before the Goodman Community Center’s board on the district’s behalf on Sept. 24 to express the district’s opposition to another proposed non-district charter school, Arbor Community School, which was looking to partner with the Goodman center.

Arbor has not entered contract negotiations with OEO yet, according to incoming OEO director Latoya Holiday, but has been approved for a charter contingent on finding a location. Goodman executive director Becky Steinhoff said the school first approached the center in early summer about using space there and possible other, later collaborations.

Hughes said he delivered a letter from Madison superintendent Jennifer Cheatham that expressed the district’s dismay at allegedly being kept out of the loop on Arbor’s plans, and told the board that as a Goodman donor, he did not think other donors would look kindly on a Goodman partnership with Arbor.

In the letter to UW System president Ray Cross, which is dated Sept. 24, Cheatham points to alleged deficiencies in Arbor’s application, and accuses OEO of not sharing information with the district about the proposed school.

“I am writing you to formally request that the OEO immediately terminate contract negotiations with (Arbor Community School) or, at the very least, require that this school not be located in the City of Madison,” she writes.

Steinhoff said partnering with a charter school such as Arbor would likely be controversial in Madison but that even in the absence of the district’s opposition to the school and Hughes’ appearance before the board, the board “probably” would not have authorized further discussions with Arbor.

Fascinating.

Negassi Tesfamichael:

Mertz said he will look to highlight his record during the campaign, and also talk about building trust and accountability in the Madison Metropolitan School District.

“In order for us to provide our students the education they deserve, we need to work to repair the breakdowns of trust we see manifested in the divisions within our schools, within our community, and between too many of our families and our schools,” Mertz said. “We need to respect each other, assume the best intentions, and work together with honesty and hope.”

Notes and links:

TJ Mertz

Ed Hughes

A majority (including Mr. Hughes) of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School (2011).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 School Districts.

Compare Madison, WI high school graduation rates and academic achievement data.

The Madison School District’s “Strategic Framework”.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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.

Ed Hughes (2005): Madison Teachers union and the school board.

2006: “They’re all Rich White Kids, and ] 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.

Steven Elbow:

To make their point, the couple traced reading and math proficiency rates for the class of 2017 through the years, finding that the black and Hispanic cohorts saw little if any improvements between grades three to 11 and trailed white students by as many as 50 percentage points.

“Both of these things suggest to us that the district’s efforts to educate our minority students have failed (for whatever reason or reasons),” they wrote. “Nevertheless, we are finding ways to give these students high school diplomas. But what good is a high school diploma to a young person if they cannot read or do math?”

They’re calling for more resources, especially in younger grades, like reading specialists to oversee literacy programming, and reading specialists to run intervention programs in the middle and high schools.

“Further, we need to hold those people and other school staff accountable for improving literacy in their student body — i.e., for increasing the percentage of students (in every demographic group) in their school who are reading at grade level,” they wrote.

In the Isthmus article, Henriques and Frost also accused the district of whitewashing data.

“We have long been frustrated by the way the district selectively compiles, analyzes, and shares student data with the community,” they wrote, adding, “For too many district administrators and school board members over the 20+ years we have been paying attention, making the district look good has been more important than thoroughgoing honesty about how our students are doing.”

Cheatham bristled at the criticism, maintaining that the district publicly posts all data, both favorable and unfavorable, and that there’s nothing wrong with publicizing good results.

“We’ll never hide our progress,” she said, “and it’s important to recognize the progress we have made, which is substantial.”

Madison has long spent far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 school districts, now around $20k per student.

Yet, we have long tolerated disastrous reading results.

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before:

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.

More.

2006: They’re all Rich White Kids, and they’ll do just fine, NOT!”

2013: “Plenty of Resources“.

“What’s different, this time?”

2017: Adult employment.

2018: Seeing the Forest: Unpacking the Relationship Between Madison School District (WI) Graduation Rates and Student Achievement

Negassi Tesfamichael:

Principals at O’Keeffe Middle and Marquette Elementary schools are facing criticism after a Code Red drill — a procedure designed to help students and staff prepare for threats such as a school shooting — was not conducted in accordance with Madison School District guidelines.

At both O’Keeffe and Marquette, teachers and students did not know a drill was taking place when it happened on Oct. 17, according to Liz Merfeld, the district’s communications coordinator.

Unannounced drills are counter to guidelines that say participants should be notified of a drill before it begins. As a result, some students and teachers thought it was an active threat situation.

Jodi Vander Molen, whose daughter is a third-grade student at Marquette, penned a letter to the principals of both schools, the School Board and Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham criticizing the drill. It was signed by 26 parents and community members.

“Creating a false sense of trauma in staff and students for the sake of ‘making it seem real’ or in order to have people ‘take it seriously’ is wholly counterproductive and extremely irresponsible from a basic trauma-informed perspective,” the letter stated.

Jenny Peek:

Just three months ago, the school community was roiling over a blog post penned by teacher Karen Vieth about Sherman and its former principal, Kristin Foreman.

“I am leaving this district, because I cannot serve the children I love in the current climate,” Vieth wrote. “I have never seen a building as deeply in crisis as Sherman Middle School, yet my cries for help went unanswered for three years. I saw ‘Band Aid’ fixes and many more promises. I saw a principal being given chance after chance and three years of her being coddled and coached with no substantive change.”

The post spread like wildfire on social media. Parents, former students and teachers added fuel to the fire by sharing personal experiences and commentary on what they referred to as a school in crisis. Criticisms ranged from a lack of visibility to high turnover rates to blatant disrespect toward staff.

One Sherman teacher, who asked to remain anonymous, tells Isthmus that Foreman provided “little to no true leadership.”

Heather Banschbach, the mother of a sixth and eighth grader at Sherman, agrees that there were problems at the school. While Sherman didn’t have a formal PTO in the past two years, she says there was an informal parent group that met throughout Foreman’s tenure. Parents frequently vented to the group and Banschbach has about 100 emails from parents raising concerns about the school administration.

“I had a few families who had never been directly involved with the school come to me and ask for help advocating for their kids,” Banschbach writes in an email. “I can’t list all of the issues that came up. I just remember the big ones that were consistent were safety, staff morale, communication, policies, lack of parent involvement/input, and the overall culture of the school being toxic.”

In response to Vieth’s post, Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham called the incident a “public shaming of a principal of color.”

“We do not believe this type and tenor of dialogue represents who we are or how we want to solve problems in MMSD. While we fully embrace the feedback, it is important that our words and actions align with our core values of belonging, inclusion and racial equity,” Cheatham wrote.

Much more on Sherman middle school, here.

Kelly Meyerhofer:

The Madison School District’s new long-term plan looks vaguely similar to its predecessor, a strategic framework produced in 2013. Two of three overarching goals share similar language.

The third goal, however, stands out from its 2013 counterpart by explicitly vowing to do better for African-American students.

Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham said she attended nearly 100 meetings over the past year, receiving input from more than 2,000 students, staff, parents and community members.

“Meeting after meeting, it was crystal clear to me that this is what our community wants,” she said. “We believe at this state we need to hold ourselves accountable to more ambitious goals” for African-American youth.

The district released a 20-page report Tuesday, outlining three goals officials hope to meet by adopting a variety of strategies and meeting a host of benchmarks in the coming years.

Locally, the Simpson Street Free Press has covered the office of civil rights investigation into the Madison school District.

I’ve not seen substantive mention of this in the traditional media.

Madison, despite spending more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

2006: they’re all rich white kids and they will do just fine, not!

Small Learning communities.

English 10

Talented and gifted lawsuit

Amber Walker:

Critics were also concerned about Madison Prep’s operating costs — totaling $11,000 per student — and its reliance on non-union staff in the wake of Wisconsin’s Act 10, a state law that severely limited collective bargaining rights of teachers and other state employees which passed early in 2011.

Caire said despite the challenges, building Madison Prep would have been an opportunity for the district to respond to the longstanding concerns of African-American parents for better educational outcomes for their children.

“How could (the Madison School Board) question us like that? (They) hadn’t gotten this thing right in two to three decades,” Caire said.

“Black kids were not getting what they needed. Black community members felt that and it’s real,” he said. “White community members said we were trying to tell them that their system doesn’t support black kids… a whole lot of it was about that.”

In December 2011, hundreds of people on both sides of the Madison Prep debate crowded the auditorium at Madison Memorial High School to appeal to the Madison School Board. Ultimately, the Board voted 5-2 against the charter proposal.

“It actually made me feel like Madison was no longer my home, going through that,” Caire said. “A lot of friends I had, to this day, after that experience don’t hang out with me like they used to. I miss that… unfortunately, there were some casualties with that whole episode.”

Ed Hughes, former Madison School Board president who was one of the two members who voted in favor of Madison Prep [Incorrect], agreed.

“It was an eye-opening experience for me. I had been on the board for a few years, but there was not previously an issue like that, one that highlighted the school district’s failure to educate children of color,” Hughes said.

“It took someone like (Caire) to come in, request the data, put it out, and say, ‘The school district is failing in some really significant ways and no one is doing anything about it.’ It is a real credit to him that he got people talking about the issue and starting to focus on it.”

Current Madison School Board member T.J. Mertz is an instructor at Edgewood College who blogs extensively about K-12 education issues in the city. Before joining the board, Mertz voiced his concerns about Madison Prep’s funding structure and pedagogical approach in his blog.

In an interview with the Cap Times, Mertz acknowledged the Madison Prep debate illuminated MMSD’s shortcomings in serving low income, African-American students, but it bolstered the rift between black families and the district.

“I think the campaign around Madison Prep shed more heat than light on the issues. It certainly called attention to it, but also created difficulties in district and community members working together,” Mertz said.

“I implored him, ‘Don’t make it harder for African-American families to work with the school district,’” Mertz said regarding a conversation he had with Caire early on in the Madison Prep charter process.

Correction: Mr. Hughes voted against Madison Prep, along with Beth Moss, Mary Passman, Arlene Silveira and Maya Cole.

Lucy Mathiak and James Howard voted for it.

Much more on the 2011 Madison School Board’s rejection of Madison prep, here.

Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham: “without; being held accountable to district standards”. Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Finally, Madison spends far more than $11k per student….

Madison School District Administration (4.7MB PDF):

Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham:

In the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD), we have a common vision. We want every school to be a thriving school that ensures every student graduates ready for college, career, and community.

Thanks to our community’s support, we are in a sound financial position to make our vision a reality. Despite uncertainly on state and national fronts, we are able to remain focused on our daily work to ensure every child is academically challenged in a safe and supportive environment.

Through the efforts outlined in our Strategic Framework, we have built positive momentum and made gap-narrowing
progress over the past five years. Our budget this year builds on this momentum and aligns with the vision, goals and core values of our next Strategic Framework which will launch in the fall of 2018.

In this budget, you’ll see several strategic investments that are specifically aimed at accelerating results for youth of color and youth whose families are low income. These strategies include the Early College STEM Academy at Madison College’s South Campus which focuses on getting more youth of color and women in STEM fields, better support and options for youth re-engagement with a specific focus on those high school students who are most at risk of not graduating, and an increased investment in Community Schools which aims to strengthen family partnership in high needs schools located in high needs neighborhoods.

We’re also making investments in our educators, through steady staffing levels, a stable employee benefits plan, increased overall compensation and additional targeted investments in compensation. You’ll see investments in favorable class sizes aligned with a newly adopted class size policy that help our teachers build strong relationships and meet students’ individual needs.

Finally, you’ll see investments in a new safety and security plan aimed at making sure our buildings are both welcoming and secure.

Ultimately, we know that our budget is a statement of our priorities. Together with our teachers, families, staff and community, we are working hard to eliminate gaps in opportunity and raise achievement for all. We thank the community for supporting us, making this work possible and believing in our staff and students.

Annual Madison School District Financial Audits:

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

Madison School District Budget details

Chris Rickert:

Foreman, who did not respond to requests for comment, says in a letter to Sherman staff earlier this week that she will be making “some key changes in my leadership approach” in the coming school year, which she coins the “year of renewal.” Among them are meeting with teachers union officials to discuss more regular communication, and being more accessible to staff and families and more visible in the building.

In her statement, Cheatham said district officials take feedback from Sherman staff and parents seriously and met with them last semester to “understand the concerns and to create a plan to address them.

“We also understand that, for some, this progress has not been fast enough,” she said.

Related: Madison teacher Karen Vieth.

Sherman Middle School.

Amber Walker:

Reese’s experience raises broader questions about what information is shared between MMSD and the Dane County Juvenile Court when it comes to youth in their care. While the district insists it was an isolated incident, juvenile court staff, like Smedema and her supervisor, Suzanne Stute, said collecting statements from school staff is a routine part of their work.

The case also illuminates communication issues and a lack of standardized procedures between MMSD and Dane County Juvenile Court employees. Such communication happens on an ad-hoc basis and varies from school-to-school, largely unmonitored by the district’s central office. A task force of both groups of employees has been working to correct this, and Madison schools Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham proposed adding $120,000 to next year’s budget to establish an office dedicated to court-involved and other “at-risk” youth.

After spending over a week in the Dane County Juvenile Detention Center, Reese’s son was ready to go.

“I want to go home,” he wailed as the court commissioner ruled to extend his stay for the second time, in an audio recording of a custody hearing reviewed by the Cap Times. The Cap Times is not identifying the student by name because juvenile court records are sealed.

The county’s Juvenile Court uses custody hearings to determine the best environment for a child before a delinquency hearing or trial. Custody hearings usually happen within 24 hours of a child’s apprehension by authorities. Options typically include secure detention, non-secure shelter, or returning home with a parent or other stable adult. If a child is not released after the initial hearing, they can request follow-up hearings. Custody hearings are not used to determine a child’s innocence or guilt when accused of a delinquent act.

Shortly before the commissioner made his decision in late February, the student’s public defender argued that he’d been doing well in his classes during detention, and both parents were committed to helping him stay in school and out of trouble.

Despite the student’s and his parents’ request for monitored release, Assistant District Attorney Andrew Miller and Melissa Tanner, a Dane County social worker assigned to the student, did not think it was the best option. Along with concerns about the student running away again, Tanner and Miller spoke about their perception of his experience at West.

When asked by the court commissioner whether or not they believed the student should be released from custody that day, both mentioned Pryor’s letter as a reason to think twice.

“I haven’t gotten confirmation about how West would feel about him coming back, but we do have this letter that was submitted to the court about their concern,” Tanner told the court.

“I strongly believe that if he stays at West or any of the large MMSD schools, his behavior will not change and he will progress to even more serious behaviors,” said Miller, reading a line from Pryor’s letter to the court.

“Returning (to West) is not a sure thing, it is by no means certain,” Miller told the commissioner.

An impressive piece of local journalism…

Gangs and School Violence Forum

They’re all rich white kids and they’ll do just fine – Not!

Andrew Waity, Karen Vieth, Andrew Mayhall, Cari Falk, Kira Fobbs, Jessica Hotz, Michael Jones, Kerry Motoviloff, and Peter Opps:

Superintendent Cheatham,

We saw the article in the Wisconsin State Journal on Monday, March 26th and found the tone of your quotes in the article disturbing and provocative. We have heard similar concerns from MTI membership.

The primary concerns center around the impression given that MMSD staff is not engaging in proactive work around student behavior, and are engaging in actions that fail to “warn” students before more serious behaviors occur. The article on the front page appeared to place blame on educators in schools.

The reality is that MTI members, leaders and staff have been calling for more interventions, more support and more accountability for student behaviors at the lower tiers. The call for changes to the current climate in our schools is resounding across MMSD. We know that you have heard this as well in your visits to schools. The idea that staff is not intervening with students out of fear or for other reasons is a willing and political deflection of responsibility from administrators (primarily non-school based) onto teachers and other staff in our schools. Our data and other measures of climate are a product of many factors that include a sense of frustration around a lack of consistently effective supports for our staff and students around behavior education.

We fully recognize a need to change outcomes for our students and the need to engage in work that reduces disparities around achievement and discipline. The way to do this is to develop systems that increase shared accountability and maximize supports at the individual student and classroom level. Engaging in shared leadership that includes staff, students, families, community and administration is critical, and that level of collaboration doesn’t currently exist here.

If the WSJ article represented your sentiments inaccurately then you should clarify to MMSD staff and the public. Your words do matter a great deal to your staff. We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

MTI Board of Directors

Andrew Waity, Karen Vieth, Andrew Mayhall, Cari Falk, Kira Fobbs, Jessica Hotz, Michael Jones, Kerry Motoviloff, and Peter Opps

Related:

Gangs and school violence forum.

Madison Teachers, Inc

Madison’s long term, disastrous reading results.

Madison spends nearly $20,000 per student, far more than most K-12 Districts.

And, the comics have weighed in:

by Alan Talaga and John Lyons.

Karen Rivedal:

A tendency by staff to let the small stuff slide — perhaps due to fears of appearing racist — is only contributing to bigger disciplinary problems down the line in Madison public high schools, Superintendent Jen Cheatham said.

As the Madison School District grapples with a rise in suspensions, fights and classroom disruption that officials say is caused disproportionately by minority students, this “failure to warn,” she said, can be the first step on a slippery slope of escalating bad behavior that ultimately harms misbehaving students as much as anyone else.

“We’ve got this issue of students being able to kind of get away with some of the small things and then all of a sudden they escalate into things that will result in suspendable behaviors,” Cheatham said. “I hear everyone (citing concerns about) the bigger behaviors, the students who desperately need our intervention. But we also have to figure out how to address the smaller behaviors.”

Related:

Gangs and school violence forum.

Madison spends more than most, now nearly $20,000 per student.

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Karen Rivedal:

DPI’s data showed 73 percent of African-American students graduated on track from Madison public high schools last spring, compared with 59 percent who did the same in spring 2016. That’s by far the highest single rate and year-over-year jump posted for black students over the past five years in the district, with rates of 54 percent, 56 percent and 59 percent from 2012-13 to 2014-15.

But district officials were unable to say, for instance, where last year’s increase was more heavily weighted — in the district’s main high schools or in the alternative programs — or whether the rise was distributed proportionately across programs and schools.

“We still need to dig into that,” said Andrew Statz, the district’s chief accountability officer, noting the district typically gets graduation numbers from the state later in the year and releases its own detailed report in May.

Cheatham also pointed to the district’s six-year graduation rate for black students, which has risen more steadily over the past five years, from 72 percent in 2012-13 to 77 percent in 2016-17, with a high of 79 percent in 2015-16.

“We have been on a positive trajectory when it comes to graduation rates for the last several years,” she said. “The most positive part of our trajectory has been in the six-year rate, and because of that I wasn’t surprised to see the four-year rate is starting to see that similar uptick.

Logan Wroge:

The Madison School Board adopted a $393 million operating budget for the 2017-18 school year Monday.

Board members voted unanimously on a budget that will increase the tax bill on the median value Madison home of $263,000 by $24.48. The budget relies on a $297 million tax levy, an increase of 3.52 percent compared to the last school year’s levy amount.

Board members added $1.6 million to the budget Monday evening: $1 million for special-education staffing and $600,000 for building maintenance.

Madison has long spent far more than most, despite long term, disastrous reading results.

Amber Walker:

“We made some (strategic choices) that we were going to invest more in teachers and shift the balance from SEAs,” she said. “I wonder if that is the pain we may be experiencing and hearing about in the district.”

Cheatham told the board that the special education team has a process for evaluating staffing needs in classrooms beyond the beginning of the year and a reserve of money is available to hire more staff. Cheatham suggested that the board wait until its November conversation around staffing to make those decisions.

“My concern is we have one week before the levy has to get established,” she said. “We agreed as a group that we were going to take a big step back and (assess) what are our goals when it comes to staffing… inclusive of special education.

Amber Walker:

Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham said the stories about shortages were “hard to hear” after the district continued investment in staffing.

“We made some (strategic choices) that we were going to invest more in teachers and shift the balance from SEAs,” she said. “I wonder if that is the pain we may be experiencing and hearing about in the district.”

Cheatham told the board that the special education team has a process for evaluating staffing needs in classrooms beyond the beginning of the year and a reserve of money is available to hire more staff. Cheatham suggested that the board wait until its November conversation around staffing to make those decisions.

“My concern is we have one week before the levy has to get established,” she said. “We agreed as a group that we were going to take a big step back and (assess) what are our goals when it comes to staffing… inclusive of special education.

Related links:

The Madison School District’s recent spending history

A District Administration 2017-2018 budget summary (PDF).

Enrollment history.

25,239 students were enrolled in the taxpayer supported Madison School District during 2016-2017. We plan to spend roughly $19,598 per student during the 2017-2018 school year.

This is far more than most K-12 organizations, and despite our long term, disastrous reading results.

Chris Rickert:

Like the rest of the board, both also voted to approve the 304-page employee handbook that replaced union contracts beginning in summer 2016.

District legal counsel Dylan Pauly pointed to two board policies that include provisions related to managing conflicts of interest among board members.

One says board members should “avoid conflicts of interest and the appearance of conflicts of interest,” including those set forth in a state law that prohibits “any official action substantially affecting a matter in which the official, a member of his or her immediate family, or an organization with which the official is associated has a substantial financial interest.”

In such cases the board member should refrain from participating in discussions about or voting on such matters in work groups and regular board meetings, and can even choose to leave the room, according to the policy.

Pauly told me Tuesday that she was “not going to address any specific issue or question regarding conflicts of interest for any particular board member.” (She wouldn’t say if it’s district taxpayers, the media or this particular member of the media who can’t get an opinion on the behavior of taxpayer-paid, publicly elected board members from the taxpayer-paid lawyer for the school district.)

But two years ago she pointed to a 1997 opinion from the old state Ethics Board as reason why board members with close personal relations employed by the school district can vote, in some capacity, on policies that affect those close personal relations.

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Preparatory IB Charter School and the more recent Montessori pseudo Charter School.

This, despite spending more than most, now nearly $20,0000 per student and tolerating long term, disastrous reading results.

An emphasis on adult employment, and what’s different this time.

Karen Rivedal:

But Cheatham urged the board not to see it as an us-vs-them proposition, noting the charter school and its students would be fully part of the district if the contract was approved. The district also should “honor and value” grass-roots proposals that come from the community, she said, especially one like this promising to help the district address its achievement gaps for students of color.

“Many of us see the hope and opportunity there, even if the impact is small,” she said. “We think it’s worth it.”

Burke noted the projected cost per student would be around $9,000, which would rank it on the low side for elementary schools in the district, and Howard made an impassioned plea to his fellow board members to approve the contract to explore whether doing things differently results in better outcomes for minority students.

“It’s all about access,” he said. “All the data around kids of color shows we have not gotten it right. Every one of us has a part of getting it wrong for students of colors.”

“We owe it to our community of color here in Madison to give this a shot, to learn from it,” Burke agreed.

Links:

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Preporatory Academy IB Charter School.

Madison spends more than most, now nearly $20,000 per student, while tolerating long term, disastrous reading results.

Paul Fanlund:

For example? “If you’re looking for the simplest examples, we weren’t consistently teaching students the fundamentals of reading in the earliest grades. We weren’t teaching phonics consistently in the early grades, and then you wonder why students aren’t attaining the skills, the basic skills … the foundational skills of reading. We still have some more work to do in that area, but boy, we have come a long way.”

With her background in California schools before she held senior-level jobs in the gigantic Chicago school district, one wonders whether a successful 45-year-old administrator might find appeal in returning to lead a big urban district. When she was hired, Cheatham talked about being here for the long haul. She still does.

She says she is excited that her son, Theo, is starting elementary school at Crestwood this fall and adds: “I am more committed and invested than ever. Like I said, I think we had this foundation-building phase that we’re going to be bringing to a close and I’m really excited about what comes next. I think we’re poised to do so much and especially for students who need and deserve more, students of color in particular.

“When I signed up I told the board that I was walking in the door thinking that I was here for a good 10 years, or as long as you guys will keep me, and I serve the community, and so that commitment remains, so I’m not planning on going anywhere.”

Notes and links:

“Plenty of resources“, now nearly $20k/student.

Madison’s long-term, disastrous reading results.

Jennifer Cheatham. Previous Superintendents.

A majority of the Madison school board rejected the proposed Madison preparatory IB charter school.

Phonics.

Amber Walker:

MMSD also implemented new interviewing practices that assess not only a potential teacher’s knowledge in her content area, but her culturally responsive practices, including setting high and clear expectations for all students, acknowledging all students and connecting to students’ lives and cultural identity.

Hargrove-Krieghoff said the new competency and performance measures were a “game changer” for the district.

“We designed our overall set of competencies with those things in mind,” Hargrove-Krieghoff said.

In an emailed statement to the Cap Times, Cheatham reiterated her commitment to diversifying the district’s teaching staff.

“It is important to us as a district to have a staff that represents the diversity of our student population. It is common sense that students will benefit from interacting with and learning from teachers who look like them at school, and research supports it,” she said. “The benefits for African-American students to have even one African-American teacher in elementary school are long-lasting.”

Although Cheatham’s administration aims to increase the number of teachers of color in the district overall, some teachers are worried that change is not happening fast enough, particularly for African-American students.

Amber Walker:

“It always feels like we are starting over instead of building. Where do you feel we are at in terms of preparing our kids now who are in K-5?” he said.

“It seems as though the pool (for advanced learners) will shrink if we haven’t prepared them early on.”

Cheatham pointed to the academic growth of elementary school students and the use of universal assessments that test all kids for advanced learning in second and fifth grades. She agreed with Howard’s sentiments, but believed developing accountability plans for individual schools will help the district better showcase progress.

“I do feel like we have made progress, but we are having a hard time capturing the progress,” she said. “The school-based plan seems like a small thing, but it does feel like an essential missing piece that has made it hard for us to measure where we are and capture our growth.”

Related:

TAG complaint

English 10

High School Redesign

Small Learning Communities

“They’re all rich white kids and they will do just fine, not!”

Madison’s long-term disastrous reading results.

Neil Heinen:

We were sold on the Madison School District’s Personalized Pathways program when Superintendent Jen Cheatham first proposed it.

But if any additional persuasion was needed we direct your attention to the news that both UW-Madison and Edgewood College have joined Madison College as partners in the program to get high school students thinking about college and career possibilities earlier and more strategically.

Cheatham’s Strategic Framework, of which Personalized Pathways is a piece, has community collaboration as a fundamental component.

As Edgewood College President Scott Flanagan points out, partnership and community are core values of Edgewood’s, and similar shared values exist at Madison College and UW.

Much more on Personalized Pathways: SIS and DDG.

Madison’s disastrous reading results continue to be job 1.

Karen Rivedal:

Employees of the Madison School District will have one fewer health insurance provider to choose from, requiring just over 1,000 employees to find a new primary care doctor.

But the estimated $3 million the district will save from dropping Unity, its highest-cost provider, will help bankroll increased compensation for the district’s roughly 4,000 employees, while covering any additional premium costs the new state budget may require them to pay.

The changes, which Superintendent Jen Cheatham recommended last month in her budget proposal for next school year, were approved in a special board meeting Monday and will take effect July 1. Members will vote on the full budget June 26.

Officials said early action on the insurance portion of the budget plan and some of its compensation provisions was important to ease teacher recruitment and to ensure a smooth transition for employees forced to switch coverage to GHC or Dean, the remaining providers.

“We need to educate (employees), allow time to complete enrollment paperwork, transition care and allow sufficient time for the insurance carrier to process the applications and send out insurance cards,” Deirdre Hargrove-Krieghoff, executive director of human resources, said in briefing documents for board members. “This all would need to happen prior to the ‘go-live’ date (of July 1).”

Healthcare costs have long been a significant budget and governance issue for our $18,000/student K-12 institution.

Amber Walker:

The board eliminated the third provider to bring health care costs down across the board, and starting July 1, employees will pay 12 percent of their health care premiums.

The vote was 4-1 to eliminate Unity. Nicki Vander Meulen voted against the measure citing the need for more time to make the decision. Board members Anna Moffitt and TJ Mertz recused themselves since their spouses are district employees and covered by the plan.

The HMO restructuring will save MMSD $3 million each year in HMO costs and the increased employee contributions frees up $4.5 million.

Although district employees will pay more out of pocket for their health insurance, MMSD said it will protect take-home pay by reinvesting the money it saves into across-the-board salary increases.

Assistant superintendent of business Mike Barry said most employees will see a pay bump and no employee should lose money as a result of the changes.

MMSD’s budget also calls for a $15 hourly minimum wage for employees who currently make less than that, increasing summer school pay from $16 to $25/hour for MMSD employees, and increasing beginning teacher pay to $41,096. The Madison School Board also approved those budget items at Monday’s meeting.

Related: Most of Aetna’s revenue now comes from government programs; by Bob Herman:

Here’s a nugget that encapsulates the health insurance industry, despite all the noise surrounding the future of the Affordable Care Act: In the first quarter of this year, Aetna collected more premium revenue from government programs (namely Medicare and Medicaid) than it did from commercial insurance for the first time ever.

Why this matters: Most people get their health coverage from their employer, and that historically has been the bread and butter of the insurance industry. But the aging population and expansion of Medicaid managed care means insurers are investing more time and money in the lower-margin (but still lucrative) government programs. Aetna, in particular, has invested heavily in Medicare Advantage.

Abigail Becker:

The state of education in Madison is stuck.

For the past eight to 10 years, data and test scores have consistently shown disparities between black and white students that are closely linked to socioeconomic divides.

The achievement gap—a disparity in test scores between the performance of students in groups broken down by race, ethnicity, gender and socioeconomic status—is moving forward little by little in Madison but not for enough students.

Madison schools are showing there are more students who are proficient in reading and math, according to a second annual school district report released July 27, although a significant racial achievement gap remains.

“Everything we do in our district is aimed at raising student achievement for all and addressing the gaps in opportunity that we believe lead to gaps in student achievement,” Cheatham said at a press conference held in Elvehjem Elementary School’s library. “We want to be a model for what a successful thriving public school district looks like, and together I believe we’re well on our way.”

Karen Rivedahl:

“The best thing my office can do is increase access to educational opportunities and increase equity,” he said. “The worst thing it can do is create fights for fights’ sake.”

Independent charter schools, while funded by state taxpayers, operate outside most traditional public school rules in a way that supporters say make them more effective and perhaps better able to address long-standing challenges, such as raising test scores for low-income and minority students.

Detractors counter they are a financial drain on the public school system with no guaranteed ability to offer students any better education.

The Madison School District, which already has the power to authorize independent charter schools but so far has not done so, remains in the detractors’ ranks.

“Gary knows how I feel about his office — that I think it’s unnecessary, that our board, like any school board, ought to be making decisions about how to serve students,” Cheatham said. “Our goal is to make that office obsolete

Much more on Gary Bennett, here.

Madison has continued to support non diverse K-12 governance despite long term, disastrous reading results and spending more than most, now around $18,000 per student.

A majority of the Madison school board rejected the proposed Madison preparatory academy IB charter school and the studio school.

Laurie Frost and Jeff Henriques, via a kind email:

Dear Superintendent Cheatham and Members of the Madison School Board:

We are writing as an update to our Public Appearance at the December 12 Board meeting. You may recall that at that meeting, we expressed serious concerns about how the District analyzes and shares student data. For many years, it has seemed to us that the District reports data more with an eye towards making itself look good than to genuinely meeting children’s educational needs. As social scientists with more than two decades of involvement with the Madison schools, we have long been frustrated by those priorities.

Our frustration was stirred up again last week when we read the newly released MMSD 2017 Mid- Year Review, so much so that we felt called upon to examine a specific section of the report more closely. What follows is expressly not a critique of the MMSD elementary school in question, its staff, or its students. What follows is solely a critique of what goes on in the Doyle Building.

MMSD 2017 Mid-Year Review and Van Hise Elementary School’s “Special Sauce”

Near the end of the MMSD 2017 Mid-Year Review, there is an excited update on the “extraordinary [student] growth” happening at Van Hise Elementary School:

Principal Keeler added, “It’s been a fantastic year, it continues to get stronger.”

We got curious about the numbers included in this update — in part because they are some of the few numbers to be found in the 2017 Mid-Year Review — and decided to take a closer look. All additional numbers used in the analysis that follows were taken from the MMSD website.
As you know, Van Hise is a K-through-5th grade elementary school on Madison’s near west side. In 2015-16, it enrolled 395 students, 5% (20) of whom were African American and 9% (36) of whom received special education services. (Note: These percentages are some of the lowest in the District.) For purposes of explication, let’s say half of each of those groups were in grades K-2 and half were in grades 3-5. That makes 10 African American and 18 special education students in grades three-through-five.

The Mid-Year Review states that in 2015-16, an extraordinary 70% of Van Hise’s African American third-through-fifth grade students were proficient or advanced (in something — why not say what?). But 70% of 10 students is only 7 students. That’s not very many.

The Mid-Year Review also states that in 2015-16, an equally extraordinary 50% of Van Hise’s third- through-fifth grade special education students scored proficient (in something). But again, 50% of 18 students is only 9 students.

To complete the demographic picture, it is important to note that Van Hise is the MMSD elementary school with the lowest rate of poverty; in 2015-16, only 18% of its students were eligible for Free/Reduced Lunch. (Note: The Districtwide average is 50%).

We would argue that this additional information and analysis puts the Van Hise Elementary School update into its proper context … and makes the numbers reported far less surprising
and “extraordinary.”

The additional information also makes the Van Hise “special sauce” – whatever it is they are doing in the school to achieve their “extraordinary” results with African American and special education students – far less relevant for the District’s other elementary schools, schools with significantly higher percentages of African American, low income, and special education students.

In terms of its demographic profile, Van Hise is arguably the most privileged elementary school in Madison. Perhaps, then, its “special sauce” is nothing more than the time-worn recipe of racial, socioeconomic, and other forms of political advantage.

But be that as it may, it is not our main point. Our main objective here has been to provide a clear- cut example of how the MMSD cherry picks its examples and “manages” its data presentation for public relations purposes.

We believe the overarching drive to make the District look good in its glossy reports is a misguided use of District resources and stands as an ongoing obstacle to genuine academic progress for our most disadvantaged and vulnerable students.

The Appendices attached to this report consist of a table and several graphs that expand upon the foregoing text. We hope you will take the time to study them. (When you look at Appendices E and F, you may find yourselves wondering, as we did, what’s going on at Lindbergh Elementary School, where the African American students are performing much better than one would expect, given their demographics? Similarly, you may wonder what’s going on at Randall Elementary School, where the African American students are performing much worse than one would expect?)
Please feel free to contact us with any questions you may have about this analysis. As School Board members, you cannot work effectively on behalf of our community’s children unless you understand the District’s data. We are happy to help you achieve that understanding.

Respectfully,

Laurie Frost, Ph.D.
Jeff Henriques, Ph.D.

APPENDICES
Appendix A: MMSD Elementary School Demographics (2015-16)

Appendix B: Percentage of All Students Scoring Proficient/Advanced on Spring 2016 MAP Testing as a Function of the School’s Poverty Level

Appendix C: Percentage of All Students Scoring Proficient/Advanced on Spring 2016 MAP Testing as a Function of the School’s African American Student Enrollment

Appendix D: Percentage of All Students Scoring Proficient/Advanced on Spring 2016 MAP Testing as a Function of the School’s Special Education Student Enrollment

Appendix E: Percentage of African American Students Scoring Proficient/Advanced on Spring 2016 MAP Testing as a Function of the School’s Poverty Level

Appendix F: Percentage of African American Students Scoring Proficient/Advanced on Spring 2016 MAP Testing as a Function of the School’s African American Student Enrollment

Appendix G: Percentage of Special Education Students Scoring Proficient/Advanced on Spring 2016 MAP Testing as a Function of the School’s Poverty Level

Appendix H: Percentage of Special Education Students Scoring Proficient/Advanced on Spring 2016 MAP Testing as a Function of the School’s Special Education Enrollment

Note:

Appendices B through H utilize Spring 2016 MAP data for MMSD third-through-fifth grade students only. The scores for each school are simple averages of the percentages of students scoring proficient or advanced in reading or math across those three grades. We freely acknowledge that these calculations lack some precision; however, given the data we have access to, they are the best we could do.

Source: https://public.tableau.com/profile/bo.mccready#!/vizhome/MAPResults2015- 16/MAPResultsWithSchool

PDF Version.

The Madison School District’s 2016 “Mid Year Review“.

Madison expanded its least diverse schools, including Van Hise, via a recent tax increase referendum.

2005 (!) When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before.

Madison School District Administration:

We’re halfway through the school year and have some exciting updates to share with you. In this mid-year review, we’ll start by revisiting our vision for all Madison students (you can hear Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham describe that here), catch up with the graduates featured in our 2015-16 Annual Report, hear about progress on our efforts to diversify our workforce, get an inside look at how schools are building on last school year’s growth and more.

Superintendent Cheatham recently sat down with Madison Magazine to talk about the district’s progress in this fourth year of our Strategic Framework. Read the Q&A.

Data (!) on Van Hise’s “special sauce”.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Much more on the candidates, here: Seat 6 and Seat 7.

Nostalgic visitors might find past school board election links and videos of interest.

I’m glad that we’re blessed with choice. I’m also glad that several candidates mentioned our abundance of resources (we spend far more than most) and our longstanding disastrous reading results.

I appreciated seat 6 candidate Cris Carusi’s statement that she does not support relaxing teacher standards and Matt Andrzejewski’s comment on phonics and the District’s long term, disastrous reading results.

……

I was somewhat surprised to read current Madison Superintendent Cheatham’s words (I assume that she wrote this…) lamenting this or that:

It is absurd to me that some policymakers believe that the solution is simply to give parents “choice” — or in other words, drain more and more resources from public schools.

My key question to our legislators is this: What is your agenda for helping our public schools better serve the vast majority of students in the United States and in Wisconsin? How can you help us do more of what we know works in education?

What can you do to help us address gaps in students’ health and well-being, making it possible for every child to attend school daily and be fully attentive and ready to learn? Even if our academic strategies are perfect, if a child is not ready to learn, we won’t see better results. We have to find ways for our system to ensure those needs are met so that children are ready to excel.

Here in Madison, we are embracing the community school model. Community schools take our support of students and families to the next level through power sharing and integration of coordinated services into schools, where our students and families are every day.

Madison has “plenty of resources” (18k/student budget background), yet our long term disastrous reading issues continue…. I am surprised that the Superintendent, in light of these issues, spent time focusing on state and national rhetoric, rather than the real issues we face.

2013: Superintendent Cheatham: “What’s different, this time?” More, here.

2015: “Reverting to the mean“.

Nearly 12 years ago, on then Superintendent Rainwater’s achievement gap rhetoric.

Amber Walker’s event summary

Jennifer Cheatham:

With a contested race for state superintendent of public instruction and a legislative session that is swinging into gear, much is at stake for public education in Wisconsin.

One of the fundamental issues at the center of the debate is the potential expansion of “school choice,” which is the term used to describe using public school funds to expand independent charter schools, school vouchers, and a more recent phenomenon called “education savings accounts.”

The way “choice” works is that state lawmakers force public school districts to pay for vouchers for private schools or the creation of charter schools that have no accountability or connection to our local districts.

In other words, even if the state provides us with more aid, which some have promised, it is then drained from our public schools and given to independent charters and private schools on the back end.

This is the thing. Over 50 million students are served in K-12 public schools in the United States. In comparison, 5 million are served in private or independent charter schools. Public education is paramount to the success of our students, our communities and our country.

As a public school superintendent and longtime educator, I am exhausted by the oversimplification of the problem and the potential solutions. That’s because the persistent correlation between socioeconomic status and educational achievement in our country is real. And race, structural racism in particular, is the driving force behind it.

It is absurd to me that some policymakers believe that the solution is simply to give parents “choice” — or in other words, drain more and more resources from public schools.

My key question to our legislators is this: What is your agenda for helping our public schools better serve the vast majority of students in the United States and in Wisconsin? How can you help us do more of what we know works in education?

What can you do to help us address gaps in students’ health and well-being, making it possible for every child to attend school daily and be fully attentive and ready to learn? Even if our academic strategies are perfect, if a child is not ready to learn, we won’t see better results. We have to find ways for our system to ensure those needs are met so that children are ready to excel.

Here in Madison, we are embracing the community school model. Community schools take our support of students and families to the next level through power sharing and integration of coordinated services into schools, where our students and families are every day.

What can you do to help us personalize the educational experience for students? Our students deserve unique educational opportunities that build on their strengths and interests and help them meaningfully explore future college and career options so that they can be successful at each stage of their education and graduate ready for today’s world and today’s economy.

We are doing that locally — through the implementation of our technology integration plan and through the establishment of personalized pathways to graduation at the high school level.

Unfortunately, Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results. This, despite “plenty of resources“.

Related: Jennifer Cheatham on “what’s different, this time?“.

Doug Erickson:

The Madison School Board is poised to vote Monday on whether to create its first public Montessori charter school, a decision that appears to hinge on the level of risk board members are willing to accept.

The district’s charter review committee says it cannot recommend approval of the proposal from Isthmus Montessori Academy because the plan falls short in key areas. But the board could decide the shortcomings are fixable and not major enough to derail the effort.

Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham has raised another possibility. If board members want to go forward with the proposal, she is recommending that implementation be delayed until the 2018-19 school year. That would provide more time to address remaining issues.

Melissa Droessler, a co-founder of the Montessori school, said delaying implementation by a year would be disappointing but not a deal-breaker, as long as the district kept negotiating in good faith.

Isthmus Montessori Academy (IMA), 1402 Pankratz St., is a private, nonprofit school founded in 2012 that wants to become part of the district. It is attempting to do that through the district’s charter application process, which was revised last year to be more rigorous.

Under the new process, if an applicant receives a “fails to meet expectations” rating in even one of 15 areas, the district’s charter review committee will not recommend it. The IMA proposal fails to meet the district’s expectations in four areas, including in its approach to budgeting, staffing and measuring academic growth.

However, School Board President James Howard questioned the rubric used by the district to evaluate applications, saying it “seems to be subjective” and that perhaps the threshold is too high.

Related: a majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory Academy IB Charter School.

Last October, Madison Superintendent Jen Cheatham signed a resolution agreement with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights regarding OCR’s compliance review of access to advanced coursework by Hispanic and African-American students in the District. The resolution agreement was presented at the December 5, 2016 Instruction Workgroup meeting (agenda item 6.1):
http://www.boarddocs.com/wi/mmsd/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=AFL2QH731563

The description of the resolution agreement by Dylan Pauly & Jen Cheatham starts around 2 (h) 16 (m)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaW0YclXc8c&feature=em-share_video_user

The OCR resolution agreement was included on the agenda (item 9.3) of the December 12, 2016 full board meeting as part of the Instruction Workgroup “report out” without discussion.

When OCR does a compliance review, it issues a resolution letter to the subject institution which describes OCR’s review and OCR’s findings. The resolution agreement (signed by the institution) then sets forth what the institution agrees to do to address the issues in the resolution letter.

Adele Rapport (PDF), via a kind reader:

According to the Superintendent, the District did not have a unified cuniculum prior to the 2013-201 4 school year. The Distiict recently reported to OCR that it is implementing “a multi-year, multi-phased plan to engage in course alignment. The end result will be courses that share a common course plan, common titles and course descriptions in the high school course guides, syllabi using common templates and common end-of-course summative assessments.” As summarized below. the District’s cum~nt approach to AL services is the product of several programs and initiatives as well as a recently concJuded audit by WDPI.

In 2008 The District received a $5.3 million Smaller Learning Communities grant from the Department. With these funds the District began, in its words, “to rethink and reconceptualize the high school experience.” As a result of this process, the Distri<.:t in October 2010 announced the "Dual Pathways Plan," with goals that included aligning the curriculum among all four high schools: closing the achievement gap between white students and students of color: and remedying what the District concedes was unequal access for students to advanced courses. The District proposed we meet these goals by implementing two different pathways for high school students: a "preparatory pathway" and an "accelerated pathway". In March, 2011, The WDPI concluded an investigation of the District's TAG program by determining that the District had failed to comply with four State of Wisconsin requirements for TAG programs: (1) establish a TAG plan and hire a TAG coordinator: (2) identify TAG students in multiple domain areas, including intellectual, academic, creative. leadership and the arts: (3) provide access to TAG programming without cost and allow parents to participate in identification and programming. The District subsequently adopted and implemented a corrective action plan to address findings of WDPI's audit. On February 6, 2015, WDPI concluded monitoring the implementation of the District's corrective action plan, finding the District in compliance with all relevant statutory requirements for TAG programs in Wisconsin. Also in 2011, in response to unfavorable feedback from parents and community members regarding the Dual Pathways proposal, the District modified the proposal and enacted a more modest series of reforms focusing on curriculum alignment. The District began to scale back its use of prerequisites for advanced high school courses, implementing a system of "recommended skills and experiences." The District also increased its advanced course offerings for the ninth and tenth grade, and expanded its assessment of elementary and middle school students for advanced kaming opportunities by broadening its reliance on qualitative factors like teacher recommendations. ...... The District offers honors ond AP courses to provide enriched academic opportunities for students. The District does not offer an International Baccalaureate program. Students can take honors courses at the middle school level, and both honors and AP courses at the high school level. None of the high schools offers weighted grades or credits for honors or AP courses. The District's offoring of honors and AP courses varies among schools, and neither the alternative high school (Shabazz City High School) nor the non-traditional high school (Innovative and Alternative Education) which focuses on expeliential learning, offers such courses. The District offored 13 different AP courses in multiple sections during the 2013-14 school year and 24 different AP courses during the 2015-16 school year. Recognizing that its AP course offerings vary across its four high schools, the District recently completed a three-year plan for course vetting and course alignment that includes AP coursework. Pursuant to this plan, the District plans to standardize across all four high schools AP courses that do not have prerequisites. In addition, the Dist1ict's Director of CuITiculum and Instruction said the District has the goal to have a standard set of AP courses across all four high schools: the schools will not necessarily offer all of the same courses, but the AP courses each offers will be drawn from the same set of AP courses. The District will gauge student interest in AP courses in deciding where to offer the courses. However, the District will ensure that core AP courses such as Physics and English will be offered at all four high schools. The AL Direclor noted that a first step in offering higher level math courses at all high schools is to ensure that Algebra 1 is the same at all school. The Director of Curriculum and Management confirmed that the District is realigning the math curriculum. ...... The magnitude of the racial disparity in AP enrollment is worse for math and science AP courses. There were only 18 math and 17 science AP enrollments by African-American students, a rate of 1.2 math and 1.1 science AP enrollments per 100 African-American students. There were only 44 math and 38 science AP enrollments by Hispanic students, a rate of 3.9 math and 3.3 science AP enrollments per 100 Hispanic students. By comparison, there were 526.5 math and 368 science AP enrollments by white students, a rate of 14.9 math and 10.4 science AP enrollments per 100 white students. Thus, in the 2013-14 school year, enrollments by white students in AP math and AP science courses were 12.4 and 9.5 times greater respectively, than enrollments by African-American students, and 3.8 and 3.2 times greater, respectively, than enrollmentw by Hispanic students. ...... Further the data provided by the District show that there was underepresentation of African American and Hispanic students in AP courses at each high school in the District. During the 2013-2014 school year, the disparity between African-American students' participation and all other students' participation was statistically significant in 12 of 15 AP courses offered at East High School, 5 of 13 courses at LaFollette High School, 13 of 17 courses at Memorial High School and 9 of 14 courses at West High School. The disparity between Hispanic student enrollment and all other students' enrollment was statistically significant in 2 of 15 AP courses offered at East High SchooL 0 of 13 courses at LaFollette High School. 6 of 17 courses at Memorial High School and 8 of 14 courses at West High School. In addition. African-American students underrepresentation in AP math ws statistically significant in all 12 of the AP math offerings that were offered at every District high school (in the three courses of Calculus AB, Calculus BC and Statistics) and Hispanic students underrepresentation in AP math was statistically significant in 3 of the same 12 AP math offerings. As for participation in AP science, African-American students' underrepresentation was statistically significant in 8 of 12 offerings of AP science (in the three courses of Physics C, Chemistry, Biology and Environmental Science), and Hispanic students' underrepresentation was statistically significant in 3 of the same 12 AP science offerings.

Related:

TAG Complaint

Small Learning Communities English 10

Connected Math

Discovery Math

Reading Recovery

Math Forum Math Task Force

2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end of the year, the achievement gap will be closed…and not before

Madison’s Long Term, Disastrous Reading Results.

Doug Erickson:

A small, environmental-themed charter school in Madison with a substandard academic record is facing heightened School Board scrutiny as its charter comes up for renewal.

Badger Rock Middle School, 501 E. Badger Road, opened in 2011 amid great enthusiasm for its emphasis on urban agriculture, environmental sustainability and project-based learning. Last month, though, it landed in the “fails to meet expectations” category on the latest round of state-issued report cards.

The school’s overall accountability score, which takes into account such things as test scores, student academic progress and college and career readiness, was the lowest of the 45 district schools that received ratings.

Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham this week called Badger Rock an “under-performing” school but said it “has incredible potential to be an excellent school.” She said she is leaning toward recommending a charter renewal of three years. That’s less than the five-year contract sought by school leaders, but the recommendation still should be seen as a vote of “confidence and hope,” Cheatham said.

The School Board is expected to vote on the issue Monday. Wright Middle School, the district’s oldest charter school, also is to be up for discussion the same night, but for a very different reason. Its leaders say they want to drop the school’s charter status.

The designation no longer makes sense for them, they say, as Wright has operated for many years as a traditional district school. The change in designation would have little effect on day-to-day school operations, district officials said.
Badger Rock

A charter school is a publicly funded school that does not have to adhere to many of the state laws governing traditional public schools. The intent is to foster innovation and experimentation and to give students more choices.

Madison has three charter schools. In addition to Badger Rock and Wright, there’s the dual-language Nuestro Mundo Community School. Each is an “instrumentality” of the district, meaning the district authorizes the school, employs the staff and retains ultimate authority.

Madison’s K-12 world lacks governance diversity. Many cities, including Minneapolis, offer families diverse school options.

Wright developed from the largely aborted “Madison Middle School 2000” project.

A majority of the Madison School Board rejected the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School several years ago.

Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham (PDF):

BRMS was founded to empower its students to thrive as citizens, entrepreneurs, leaders, collaborators, and innovators, working to restore the natural world and to better the cultural environment while creating just, nourishing, and sustainable communities. Today, BRMS embraces this through an urban agriculture lens and a philosophy of participatory, place-based learning through real-life, inquiry-driven projects designed by students and teachers emphasizing social change within the local community. Currently, there are 75 students attending BRMS (36% Hispanic, 25% African American, 17% bi- or multiracial, 17% white, 37% ELL, 27% SPED, and 75% low-income).

On October 24th, BRMS submitted their charter renewal application. Upon receipt, the MMSD Charter Review Committee scored the application using the publically available renewal rubric. Ultimately, BRMS was found to have areas that did not meet expectations. In early November, the MMSD Chief of Staff met with school leadership and governing council members to share the feedback and next steps for resubmission.

On Number 17th, BRMS resubmitted their charter renewal application based on the feedback given on the original submission. The Charter Review Committee scored the final applications again. Summary conclusions are below.

Much more on Badger Rock Middle School.

Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham (PDF):

Wright was founded to successfully educate all students with the knowledge, skills, and confidence required to participate fully in an evolving global society. The school was created to be a pioneer in the use of thematic integrated and multi-cultural curricula as a way of connecting with the lives of its students. Today, Wright’s focus is on resiliency, rigor through collaboration, social action, self-efficacy and community. They aim to demonstrate how innovations can accelerate student outcomes. 223 students currently attend Wright (50% Hispanic, 23% African American, 9% bi- or multiracial, 54% ELL, 19% SPED, and 87% low-income).

On October 24th, Wright submitted their charter renewal application. Upon receipt, the MMSD Charter Review Committee scored the application using the publically available renewal rubric. Ultimately, Wright was found to have areas that did not meet expectations. In early November, the MMSD Chief of Staff met with school leadership and governing council members to share the feedback and next steps for resubmission.

On Number 17th, Wright resubmitted their charter renewal application based on the feedback given on the original submission. The Charter Review Committee scored the final applications again. Summary conclusions are below.

Much more on Wright Middle School, here.

Related: Madison Middle School 2000.

The Madison School District is considering another property tax increase referendum for the upcoming November election.

We’ve long spent more than most districts (“plenty of resources”), despite challenging academic outcomes. I thought it might be useful to revisit the choices homeowners and parents make. I’ve compared two properties, one in Middleton (2015 assessment: $257,500.00) and the other in Madison (2015 assessment slightly less: $249,300.00).

A Middleton parent/homeowner pays less over the years, with the difference growing significantly in recent times (note that my example Madison property features a 3.2% lower assessed value).

Tap to view a larger version of these images.

It is useful to review the assumptions in the District’s limited 2017-2019 budget disclosure document (lacks total spending….) 900K PDF. Related memo and proposed language.

Wisconsin redistributed taxpayer K-12 (and higher ed) spending: 2004-2014. Details below:

Tap for a larger version. Excel or Numbers versions.

Madison Schools’ 2013-2014 budget, charts, documents, links, background and missing numbers:

Where have all the students gone?

In closing, I’ve found that full budget information is much easier to find and review from Boston (spends more, but has lots of student choice) and Long Beach (spends quite a bit less per student, but offers more student choice).

Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham mentioned Boston and Long Beach as urban districts that have narrowed the achievement gap. Both districts offer a variety of school governance models, which is quite different than Madison’s long-time “one size fits all approach”.

SIS:

In 2013, Madison Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham said “What will be different, this time“? The Superintendent further cited Long Beach and Boston as beacons in her Rotary speech. However, based on recently released 2015-2016 budget slides (PDF) and Molly Beck’s summary, it appears that the same service, status quo governance model continues, unabated.

2013, SIS

“The thing about Madison that’s kind of exciting is there’s plenty of work to do and plenty of resources with which to do it,” Mitchell said. “It’s kind of a sweet spot for Jen. Whether she stays will depend on how committed the district is to continuing the work she does.”

The District seeks increased tax & spending authority soon, perhaps in November. Ideally, a complete budget picture – with related outcome changes over time – would be easy to find and understand. Unfortunately, that is not currently the case. Boston publishes a handy 2 page summary (pdf).

Abigail Becker:

For example, early elementary black students overall increased reading proficiency and growth with a 10 percent increase in reading proficiency for third grade in two years, according to the report.

“In our community, we can choose to reinforce these patterns by inaction, by not testing our assumptions, by not testing our assumptions about students and families and by not examining the long-held institutional ways of working that keep those systems in place,” Cheatham said, “or we could choose to disrupt these patterns.”

Abigail Becker:

The district’s next steps are to expand intensive support on literacy and adolescent development to the district’s highest-need middle schools, according to the report. It will also continue planning for the implementation of the Personalized Pathways program, a new model of curriculum where students are able to make real-world connections to their education by taking classes clustered in a thematic structure.

Related: Madison’s long term, disastrous reading results.

David Blaska:

You want local control? The ultimate local control pushes decision-making down to the family kitchen table. The Republican state government gave the UW System authority to create charter schools that are independent of the school district. This is something that the Madison School District asked for, however unknowingly, when it denied Madison Urban League’s proposed Madison Prep charter school.

Under this UW aegis, the state per-pupil stipend follows the student to the independent charter school.

One bright spot: Madison schools Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham appears to get it. “My intent is to make [the independent charters] obsolete — that our schools will be serving students so well that there isn’t a need.” (Quoted here.)

Doug Erickson:

Madison has so many organizations that want to do good for the community and that offer programming; the problem is that the coordination is really hard,” Sloan said. “That will be the real benefit of this: coordination that’s focused and centralized.”

Mendota Principal Carlettra Stanford said the school currently does not offer programming on weekends or past 5:30 p.m. on weeknights.

“That’s why this is such an exciting opportunity for us,” she said, noting that the North Side has a particularly difficult year ahead as the Oscar Mayer plant winds down and closes.

A $300,000 grant paid over three years from the Madison Community Foundation initiated the planning process last year. The two selected schools are expected to roll out the concept this fall.

Madison, spending more than $17k per student annually, has added numerous programs (complexity) over the decades. yet, it has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Any number of programs have been added over the years, including “small learning communities” and the somewhat recent “achievement gap plan”. None, despite spending ever larger amounts of taxpayer funds, has addressed the basics, particularly reading.

“What’s different this time?“, July, 2013. That’s incoming Madison Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham. Indeed!

Chris Rickert:

Another change has to do with teacher quality, which Cheatham described as “the single most important in-school factor for improving student achievement.”

in the Madison public schools, teacher quality has long played second fiddle to teacher seniority and teacher credential-attainment in determining which teachers get raises, laid off, retained and sought-after transfers. And there’s little evidence that teacher seniority, after about five years on the job, and an advanced teaching degree are linked to higher student achievement.

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending more than $17k per student annually.

Wisconsin State Journal Editorial:

Cheatham has the right attitude on “repurposing” school resources within existing spending levels. She wants to add three more employees to focus on student academic and career planning, for example. That should help more struggling students graduate. She also wants to advance the district’s technology plan.

Cheatham is proposing $2.1 million in new spending for key priorities. She plans to offset that expense through savings in the district’s central office.

“Rather than continually looking for more funding — kind of piling on each year, adding cost — we’re very strategically looking for the highest and best use of our dollars for the coming year,” Cheatham said.

Sounds good.

Despite the Legislature’s strict limits on public schools, Madison needs to set strong priorities with the money it has.

Madison, at $17,000+ per student spends far more than most government school districts. Columbus, Mississippi spends $6,602 per student….

Madison School District Administration (PDF):

1. In 2014-15, 3,660 students were identified as advanced learners in grades K-8, accounting for about 19% of all K-8 students.

2. The demographic diversity of the students identified as advanced learners increased from 2013-14 to 2014-15 by race/ethnicity, income, and English Language Learner (ELL) status.

3. Advanced learners exhibit higher attendance rates, lower incidence of negative behavior, and higher proficiency rates than their peers, as well as higher MAP growth rates.

Superintendent Cheatham’s related memorandum (PDF).

Background: The “Talented & Gifted” Complaint.

One size fits all classes: English 10.

Past attempts to reduce high school curricular choices.

Madison’s long term, disastrous reading results.

Dave Baskerville:

Madison will elect three School Board members in the spring. Our school taxes are set to rise 4.9 percent to accommodate a $504 million budget. A very well qualified and able superintendent is in place and will in several ways make the schools better.

So what’s missing? Simply no mention or concern by the educational community and citizens that our kids’ classroom achievements can ever come close to matching those of the rest of the First (and emerging) World.

Students age 15 in the United States rank 36th in math, 27th in science and 21st in reading, according to a worldwide assessment by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The “best and brightest” students in America are dead last versus their counterparts in a composite of those subjects among 30 countries.

Though no direct comparisons are available because we don’t administer the same test as most of the advanced world, our Madison kids likely are faring even worse.

Somehow we have convinced ourselves that rigorous academic achievement is not possible or necessary for social justice, individual self-esteem or the ability of our future science, technology, engineering, math and blue-collar workers to compete with the global workforce. We seem to think Wisconsin having average wages below Georgia is OK, and that 70 percent of Madison Area Technical College matriculants needing remedial reading is acceptable.

The aspirations of our black leaders are being dumbed down from a highly goal-oriented, disciplined and innovative preparatory school for boys to a goal of more “neighborhood schools.” Madison is seeking a few improvements in discipline and the achievement gap — as if that’s enough.

I would rather challenge our “progressive” Madison School Board to go back to the real progressive goals of “Fighting” Bob La Follette. We need real social and economic advancement for the “common man.” We need a challenging and sustainable 20-year goal that citizens can understand and monitor. The goal should be to raise the scores of our non-special education students to the top 10 globally in critical subjects.

Though no other school district has set radical and accountable long-term goals, I believe Madison Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham is up to planning and executing it. It also would likely be the only way to keep a leader of Cheatham’s caliber in Madison.

Baskerville, of Madison, is an international business consultant. To learn more about his efforts to set high international goals for local schools: www.StretchTargets.org.

Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham (PDF):

Issue: The charter contracts for Badger Rock Middle School (BRMS) and James C. Wright Middle School (Wright) expire on June 30, 2016. Per respective contracts, the Board is required to make a decision whether or not to renew Wright’s contract at least six months before the contract’s expiration and BRMS’ contract at least three months before the contract’s expiration. As a result, the Board discussed both charter schools’ performance and future plans on December 7, 2015 to support final action to renew the contracts at the Regular Meeting on December 14, 2015.

Background: In November 2013, MMSD adopted a new charter school renewal process that requires charter schools and their governing bodies to prepare an evidence-based report detailing the implementation, efficacy and plan for the future term across six domains 1) Purpose and Vision, 2) Governance, 3) Teacher and Learning, 4) Operations, 5) Fiscal Management, 6) Legal Compliance. Given that the process was successful in supporting the Board’s renewal of Nuestro Mundo’s charter, we implemented the same process to support the renewal of BRMS and Wright. On February 12, information about the timeline for review and action by the Board was shared via the Weekly Update. In June and September, MMSD administration met with school leadership and governing council members to share the timeline and process for completing the term reports. Schools submitted first drafts of their term reports which were then reviewed by MMSD administration in October. Thereafter, MMSD administration provided feedback to support schools’ refinement of their reports. The final reports were then used to create executive summaries for the Board of Education to support final recommendations on renewal of the charter contracts. On December 4, per request of a Board member, the full term reports were shared with the Board.

If the Board approves the motion to renew contracts for BRMS and Wright, the contracts for each school will be revised to reflect clear expectations we have for improvement over the upcoming year (see detail in Analysis section below). There will also be certain modification we will need to make to reflect changes in state laws since the contracts were last negotiated, including changes to governance structures. The contracts will come back to the Board prior to the required April 1 finalization date. We anticipate providing ample time to the Board for review and consideration.

Much more on Wright Middle School (Originally conceived as “Madison Middle School 2000“) and Badger Rock Middle School.

Madison School District slides: Badger Rock Middle School:

Student Achievement
The first goal in the district’s Strategic Framework is for every student to be on-track to graduate as measured by key milestones which include proficiency and growth in literacy and mathematics as measured by MAP. Badger Rock showed positive trends in the percent of students meeting growth targets from 2012-2015, increasing annually in nearly all subgroups and is above the national average for growth. Overall proficiency, however, has seen a decrease over the last several years with the exception of a significant increase for students with disabilities. Note that some significant changes in proficiency and growth trends in certain subgroups may result from small numbers of students in those groups, an example being the change in reading proficiency for multiracial students.

While the results in MAP math growth vary, the percentage of students meeting growth targets is still far above the national average. While we have seen some incremental improvement overall in math proficiency, we’ve seen a decline in proficiency levels for African America students.

Looking at the data in a different way, the BRMS Governance Council compared fall to spring growth targets for BRMS students to MMSD middle schools overall. This comparison showed BRMS students outpacing MMSD middle school students each year in meeting math growth targets 2012-2015 as well as in meeting reading growth targets in 2014-2015.

Additionally, BRMS students have shown growth from year to year, outpacing MMSD middle school students in math growth target spring to spring 2012-2015 and in reading growth target spring to spring for 2014-2015.

and Wright Middle School:

Student Achievement
The first goal in the district’s Strategic Framework is for every student to be on-track to graduate as measured by key milestones which include proficiency and growth in literacy and mathematics as measured by MAP. While Wright showed some decline in the percent of students meeting MAP reading growth targets from 2012-2015, they are still above the national average and for almost all student groups. While improvement in reading proficiency has been incremental overall, there has been a more positive trajectory for African American students, which is a focus group for the school.

The trends in MAP math growth 2012-2015 varied but the school is above the national average and for most student groups. Trends for MAP proficiency across subgroups did not change significantly from 2012-2015; it is mostly flat or slightly down.

Wright examined students’ academic progress in comparison to the national average MAP reading RIT score. Graph 1 shows that overall and in all but one racial/ethnic groups for the past three years, an increasing percentage of Wright students outpace the national average MAP reading RIT score.

Graph 2 shows that overall and among economically disadvantaged students, an increasing percentage of Wright students outpace the national average for the past three years. Sixteen percent (16%) of Wright’s ELL students have met or surpassed the national average MAP RIT score in the last two years, while Wright’s students with identified disabilities showed a decrease (from 7% to 5%) in the percentage of students at or above the national average MAP RIT score.

Madison’s “charter” schools operate within the constraints of the legacy government schools. Unlike other districts, Madison has not offered significant governance model diversity, nor parental choice within the District. Perhaps that will change one day, given its long term, disastrous reading results.

The rejected Madison Preparatory Academy IB Charter School would have operated independently, that is outside of the governance and teacher union contract requirements.

Jason Joyce:

“Students in the alternative program have their classes on the third floor, separate from the elementary students,” said Rachel Strauch Nelson in an email. “I would note that we have already been considering other possible locations for these programs as our district works to strengthen our alternative program options.”

Strauch Nelson added that “interaction with the elementary students is very limited.”

At 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Madison Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham sent an email to all district parents under the subject “Safe Schools.” The complete email reads:

Dear MMSD community,

As we read about disturbing events of violence across the country, we recognize that there can be cause for concern about day to day safety. I want to reassure you that safety is a top priority in our district.

At each of our schools, we have strong safety protocols in place, we continuously train our staff and review these procedures, and we work very closely with the Madison police to keep our school communities safe. We also continuously strive to have good communication between staff, parents and students and community members.

I say this, in part, because you may have heard about an incident in which a high school age student brought a firearm to a school today. Unlike other incidents we have seen around the country, the student made no threats and indicated that he did not intend any harm to anyone at school. Our district staff and police responded immediately, recovered the firearm and took the student into custody.

While this situation is very different than incidents we’ve heard about throughout the country, it is a good example of why we have strong safety protocols in place. Our staff followed those protocols very well to ensure the safety of our students and staff.

Whenever there are safety incidents in our schools, we work hard to communicate with you quickly and ensure that you have up to date information.

That is important because we also recognize that parents have the most important role in providing comfort and reassurance to their children when they express concern about events around the country. As parents, our role is to remain calm, explore with them what they know, and what they are worried about, and to provide reassurance and routine. This is also the role of our educators in schools. If your child is having difficulty or needs support, please seek support from your school’s student services staff or principal.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me or your school principal.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Cheatham

Superintendent

Related: Gangs and School Violence Forum, and

Police calls to Madison Hogh Schools Schools: 1996-2006

Doug Ericsson:

The financial ramifications are significant. A school district gaining a student receives a share of the student’s home district’s state aid to help pay for educating that student. The Madison School District will lose about $6.5 million in state aid this school year because of open enrollment, the report said.

“Obviously, I am not pleased,” said Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham. “I want Madison to be the first choice for families. That’s what we’re working on.”

She said that while the report is disappointing, it will motivate her and others to work harder.

Overall, the district’s enrollment this school year is 25,231 in grades K-12, down 0.3 percent, or 74 students. There are an additional 1,778 students enrolled in 4-year-old kindergarten.

Much more on Madison’s $454,414,941.93 2015-2016 budget and open enrollment, (about $17K per student!).

Despite spending far more than most K-12 government schools, Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

More, here.

Doug Erickson:

Responding to public feedback, Madison school officials said Monday they have taken Thoreau Elementary School off the table for now as a potential site for a Spanish dual language immersion program.

Additionally, Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham said her administration will recommend delaying the start of a Spanish dual language immersion program at Falk Elementary School until the 2017-18 school year.

Doug Ericsson:

This year, she exceeded expectations in her relations with the board, her management of the district’s budget and operations, her management of the district’s talent pool, and her relations with the community and schools. She “met expectations” in instructional leadership and in the district’s organizational climate and culture.

According to the board, highlights this past year included passage of a $41 million referendum in April; a smooth and transparent budget process that was “the best most board members have experienced”; increased diversity and quality of central office leadership staff; and strong community support for the district.

The board identified numerous areas where it said it hopes to see growth. Those include strides in hiring a more diverse school-based staff; more grassroots community engagement; more clarity in advance on what items require a board vote; more focus on students with disabilities; more open communication between schools and the administration; and better planning, implementation and response to major changes.

In the latter category, the board mentioned the district’s behavior education plan as an example of an initiative where the implementation could have gone smoother.

“Overall, you have exceeded our expectations,” the board wrote. “You are a strong leader that brings a unique skill set, understanding that long-term systemic change requires strong support for our staff and their engagement in the change process. We want to thank you for your leadership.”

Much more on Jennifer Cheatham, here.

Jason Meisner and Juan Perez Jr.:

The 23-count indictment alleges that almost immediately after Mayor Rahm Emanuel installed her as public schools chief in 2012, Byrd-Bennett began scheming with Gary Solomon and Thomas Vranas, co-owners of SUPES Academy, to secure the contracts to train principals and school administrators.

In return, Byrd-Bennett was promised a “signing bonus” of more than $250,000 and a job at SUPES once she stepped down as the public schools CEO, the indictment charges. She also was given meals and tickets to sporting events and expected to be reimbursed for a holiday party she hosted for CPS personnel, according to the charges.

Current Madison Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham’s previous position was with the Chicago Public Schools.

Wisconsin’s stürm and drang over “Act 10” is somewhat manifested in Madison. Madison’s government schools are the only Wisconsin District, via extensive litigation, to still have a collective bargaining agreement with a teacher union, in this case, Madison Teachers, Inc.

The Madison School Board and Administration are working with the local teachers union on a new “Handbook”. The handbook will replace the collective bargaining agreement. Maneuvering over the terms of this very large document illuminates posturing and power structure(s) in our local government schools.

Madison Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham wrote recently (September 17, 2015 PDF):

The Oversight group was able to come to agreement on all of the handbook language with the exception of one item, job transfer in the support units. Pursuant to the handbook development process, this item was presented to me for review and recommendation to the Board. My preliminary recommendation is as follows:

Job Transfer for all support units
(See Pages 151, 181, 197, 240, 261)

Superintendent Recommendation
That the language in the Handbook with regard to transfer state as follows: Vacancies shall first be filled by employees in surplus. The District has the right to determine and select the most qualified applicant for any position. The term applicant refers to both internal and external candidates for the position.

The District retains the right to determine the job qualifications needed for any vacant position. Minimum qualifications shall be established by the District and equally applied to all persons.

Rationale/Employee Concern

Rationale:
It is essential that the District has the ability to hire the most qualified candidate for any vacant position—whether an internal candidate or an external candidate. This language is currently used for transfers in the teacher unit. Thus, it creates consistency across employee groups.
By providing the District with the flexibility of considering both internal and external candidates simultaneously the District can ensure that it is hiring the most qualified individual for any vacant position. It also gives the District opportunities to diversify the workforce by expanding the pool of applicants under consideration. This change would come with a commitment to provide stronger development opportunities for internal candidates who seek pathways to promotion.

Employee Concern:
The existing promotional system already grants a high degree of latitude in selecting candidates, including hiring from the outside where there are not qualified or interested internal applicants. It also helps to develop a cadre of dedicated, career-focused employees.

September 24, 2015 Memo to the Madison government schools board of education from Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham:

To: Board of Education
From: Jennifer Cheatham, Superintendent of Schools
RE: Update to Handbook following Operations Work Group

The Operations Work Group met on Monday September 21, 2015. Members of the Oversight Group for development of the Employee Handbook presented the draft Employee Handbook to the Board. There was one item on which the Oversight Group was unable to reach agreement, the hiring process for the support units. Pursuant to the handbook development process, this item was presented to me for review and recommendation to the Board. There was discussion around this item during the meeting and, the Board requested that members of the Oversight Group meet again in an attempt to reach consensus.

Per the Board’s direction, District and employee representatives on the Oversight Group came together to work on coming to consensus on the one remaining item in the Handbook. The group had a productive dialog and concluded that with more time, the group would be able to work together to resolve this issue. Given that the Handbook does not go into effect until July1, 2016, the group agreed to leave the issue regarding the hiring process for the support units unresolved at this point and to include in the Handbook the phrase “To Be Determined” in the applicable sections. As such, there is no longer an open item. When you vote on the Handbook on Monday, the section on the “Selection Process” in the various addenda for the applicable support units will state “To Be Determined” with an agreement on the part of the Oversight Group to continue to meet and develop final language that the Board will approve before the Handbook takes effect in the 2016-17 school year.

Current Collective Bargaining Agreement (160 page PDF) Wordcloud:

Proposed Employee Handbook (304 Page PDF – 9.21.2015 slide presentation) Wordcloud:

Background:

1. The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty has filed suit to vacate the Madison government schools collective bargaining agreement with Madison Teachers, Inc.

2. Attorney Lester Pines has spent considerable time litigating Act 10 on behalf of Madison Teachers, Inc. – with some success.

3. The collective bargaining agreement has been used to prevent the development of non-Madison Government school models, such as independent charter, virtual and voucher organizations. This one size fits all approach was manifested by the rejection [Kaleem Caire letter] of the proposed Madison Preparatory Academy IB charter school.

4. Yet, Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending more than $15,000 per student annually. See also “What’s different, this time?”

5. Comparing Madison, Long Beach and Boston government school teacher union contracts. Current Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham has cited Boston and Long Beach government schools as Districts that have narrowed the achievement gap. Both government districts offer a variety of school governance models, which is quite different than Madison’s long-time “one size fits all approach”.

6. Nearby Oconomowoc is paying fewer teachers more.

7. Minneapolis teacher union approved to authorize charter schools.

8. Madison Teachers, Inc. commentary on the proposed handbook (Notes and links). Wordcloud:

9. A rather astonishing quote:

“The notion that parents inherently know what school is best for their kids is an example of conservative magical thinking.”; “For whatever reason, parents as a group tend to undervalue the benefits of diversity in the public schools….”

– Madison School Board member Ed Hughes.

10. 1,570,000 for four senators – WEAC.

11. Then Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman’s 2009 speech to the Madison Rotary Club:

“Beware of legacy practices (most of what we do every day is the maintenance of the status quo), @12:40 minutes into the talk – the very public institutions intended for student learning has become focused instead on adult employment. I say that as an employee. Adult practices and attitudes have become embedded in organizational culture governed by strict regulations and union contracts that dictate most of what occurs inside schools today. Any impetus to change direction or structure is met with swift and stiff resistance. It’s as if we are stuck in a time warp keeping a 19th century school model on life support in an attempt to meet 21st century demands.” Zimman went on to discuss the Wisconsin DPI’s vigorous enforcement of teacher licensing practices and provided some unfortunate math & science teacher examples (including the “impossibility” of meeting the demand for such teachers (about 14 minutes)). He further cited exploding teacher salary, benefit and retiree costs eating instructional dollars (“Similar to GM”; “worry” about the children given this situation).

Schwerpunkt via wikipedia.

WORT-FM

How is the school year going? What about the behavior improvement plan, community schools, teacher diversity, racial equity, test scores, white flight, and school voucher schools? Today Carousel Bayrd talks with Madison Metropolitan School District Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Cheatham today to discuss the upcoming year and her vision for the future.

Annysa Johnson:

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos’ special Task Force on Urban Education will hold the first in a series of public hearings — this one on teacher recruitment, retention and training — at 1 p.m. Tuesday at the State Capitol, Room 412.

The panel will take testimony from the public after hearing from invited individuals and organizations. They include Jennifer Cheatham, superintendent of the Madison Metropolitan School District; University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross; the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction; Teach for America; the Leadership for Educational Equity; and Pablo Muirhead, coordinator of teacher education for Milwaukee Area Technical College.

Vos created the task force in August to address numerous issues affecting urban schools, including retention and training, poor academic performance among some students and low graduation rates. Public school advocates have criticized the panel, saying it is dominated by Republicans with little or no experience with urban schools and, in some cases, have received significant campaign contributions from voucher- and charter-school proponents.

Task force Chairman, Rep. Jessie Rodriguez (R-Franklin), who worked previously for Hispanics for School Choice, said those concerns had not come up in her discussions with educators and lawmakers.

Related: Madison’s long term, disastrous reading results.

Dave Dleozier:

Elementary schools in the district saw an almost 10 point gain over two years in literacy and math.

“Our high school graduation rate continues to move in the right direction almost across the board for every student group,” MMSD Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham said. “In addition, there are pockets of accelerated results. When it comes to graduation rates, for example the four-year graduation rate for African-American students at La Follette High School increased to 75 percent, a 10 percent point gain.”

Elvehjem Elementary School is symbolic of the improvements seen throughout the district. The school has seen improvements in MAP reading proficiency for grades three through five from 40 percent to 46 percent. For African-American students that number increased from 12 percent to 25 percent. Reading proficiency for special education students improved from 12 percent to 21 percent.

Wheeler Report (PDF):

For this reason, many of us were initially encouraged when you indicated that you would defund Wisconsin’s participation in the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) via your proposed 2015-2017 biennial budget. We hoped for substantive movement, at long last, on an issue that affects most children, parents, and teachers in Wisconsin. However, as we read the actual budget language, we became troubled. Despite the defunding of SBAC, nothing in the budget language prohibits the selection or implementation of another Common Core-aligned assessment. Nor does it propose any fiscal plan for the creation or adoption of non- Common Core standards.
As it turns out, we were right to be skeptical.

On April 23rd, the Wisconsin Department of Administration (DoA) issued a Request for Bids (RFB) to replace the SBAC assessments that your proposed budget would ostensibly defund. The RFB was so vague as to which academic standards bidders should use to construct the new assessments that it took two rounds of questions to pin down a definitive answer. On June 5th the truth was irrefutably revealed: For mathematics and English Language Arts (ELA), the State of Wisconsin is telling bidders to write assessments based on the Common Core. Even then, there was clearly an effort to make it difficult to get to the truth. The links provided to the math and ELA standards did not directly contain the standards. Bidders and interested citizens, such as us, had to chase a rabbit trail of links and pages finally to arrive at PDF documents that contained the standards—clearly labeled as Common Core.

March, 2014

More than 100 superintendents and school board members packed a Senate chamber Thursday in opposition to a bill that could derail the transition to new educational standards in Wisconsin.

At issue are the Common Core State Standards, a set of expectations for English and math instruction that most states have adopted and have been implementing for three years.

The debate came as lawmakers hustled to push through — or push aside — a host of measures, with the end of the legislative session in sight. Committees on Thursday approved bills to rewrite election rules and provide more oversight of the deaths of suspects in police custody, while a Senate leader declared a bill to limit so-called living wage rules is dead in his house.

But the hot issue of the day was Common Core.

Many Republican lawmakers fear the standards didn’t get enough input and review when they were written and adopted in 2010. They’re proposing a state standards board that could repeal Common Core and write its own standards.

Superintendents at the Senate Education Committee hearing acknowledged the Common Core standards were not perfect and that they could use more time and resources to implement them. But they argued a new committee would just politicize the process while failing to improve outcomes for students.

“(Common Core) is the basis we need to be able to make local adjustments,” said Jennifer Cheatham, superintendent of the Madison Metropolitan School District.

The Madison School District continues to grow its K-12 monoculture, despite long term disastrous reading results.

Mitch Henck:

Gee, Kaleem Caire and other black community leaders fought for Madison Prep. It was a proposed charter school aimed at serving young males, mostly black and Hispanic, to be taught predominantly by teachers of color for more effective role modeling.

Berg and several white conservatives in Madison, along with moderate John Roach, supported Madison Prep. It was voted down by white progressives, 5-2.

In 1983, white progressives voted for the Midvale/Lincoln and Randall/Franklin pairing plan 4-3. Berg joined conservative Nancy Harper and board president Salter in opposing the busing plan.

Gee says poor performance and bad behavior can be related to children of color feeling lost in an unfamiliar environment. That can lead to children “working” the teachers or pushing the envelope more than what would happen if teachers of color and similar culture could relate to parents and command more respect in class.

As reported in this paper last Sunday, Gee spoke to Madison School Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham and other school officials about his ideas to close the achievement gap. “They didn’t run out of the room,” Gee said.

It’s not clear if Madison’s education establishment will budge on Gee’s ideas, which include recruiting more parent leaders and working with employers to train young entrepreneurs.

Possible de-regulation of Wisconsin charter school authorizations has lead to a bit of rhetoric on the state of Madison’s schools, their ability to compete and whether the District’s long term, disastrous reading results are being addressed. We begin with Chris Rickert:

Madison school officials not eager to cede control of ‘progress’:

Still, Department of Public Instruction student achievement data suggest independent charter schools overseen by UW-Milwaukee since 1999 provide better educations than Milwaukee public schools.

And if the UW System gets the authority to create a new office for approving charter schools in Madison, it wouldn’t be the first time a local or state government function was usurped by unelected and allegedly unaccountable people at higher levels of government who are aiming to eliminate injustice. U.S. presidents sent federal authorities to the South during the civil rights era. Appointed state and federal judges have been asked to overturn local and state abortion-related ordinances and laws. Last year, a federal judge struck down Wisconsin’s voter-approved gay marriage ban.

The injustice in the Madison School District is, of course, its decades-long failure to close achievement gaps between white students and students of color and between middle class and poor students.

Cheatham told this newspaper that “we are making progress on behalf of all children.”

Apparently, the district feels it should be the only educational organization in Madison with the opportunity to make such progress.

That’s because control over education might be as high a priority for the district as improving education.

David Blaska:

It is a worthy debate, for there is little doubt that the full school board, its superintendent, its teachers union, the Democratic Party, Mayor Soglin, and probably the majority of Madisonians share Ed’s sentiments. For the festive rest of us, the white lab coats at the Blaska Policy Research Werkes have developed an alternative Top Ten, dedicated to the late Larry “Bud” Melman.

1) Attack the motives of your adversaries. “What’s tougher is buying into [the] interpretation that the Joint Finance Committee Republicans are the good guys here, struggling mightily to do what’s right for our kids,” Ed Hughes says. “My much different interpretation is that the Joint Finance proposal is simply another cynical attack on our neighborhood public schools and is motivated both by animus for Madison and by an unseemly obsession with privatizing public education, particularly in the urban areas of our state.”

Unseemly! Particularly in urban Milwaukee, where the public school district as a whole has received a failing grade from the Department of Public Instruction, and in Madison, with a yawning chasm between black and white student achievement.

2) Nobody asked our permission. Ed complains that nobody consulted MMSD about its “strategies for enhancing student achievement, promising practices, charter school philosophy, or anything else.” Um, sometimes results speak louder than pretty words on paper, Ed.

Madison School Board Member Ed Hughes:

So we have two contrasting interpretations of the proposal. As it happens, I am right and Rickert is wrong. To help Rickert see the error of his ways, here’s a Letterman-like list of the top ten reasons why the Joint Finance proposal to establish a so-called “Office of Educational Opportunity” within the office of the UW System President is a cynical ploy to stuff Madison with charter schools for the sake of having more charter schools rather than a noble effort to combat injustice:

Mr. Hughes, in 2005:

This points up one of the frustrating aspects of trying to follow school issues in Madison: the recurring feeling that a quoted speaker – and it can be someone from the administration, or MTI, or the occasional school board member – believes that the audience for an assertion is composed entirely of idiots.

Finally, then Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman, in 2009:

Zimman’s talk ranged far and wide. He discussed Wisconsin’s K-12 funding formula (it is important to remember that school spending increases annually (from 1987 to 2005, spending grew by 5.10% annually in Wisconsin and 5.25% in the Madison School District), though perhaps not in areas some would prefer.

“Beware of legacy practices (most of what we do every day is the maintenance of the status quo), @12:40 minutes into the talk – the very public institutions intended for student learning has become focused instead on adult employment. I say that as an employee. Adult practices and attitudes have become embedded in organizational culture governed by strict regulations and union contracts that dictate most of what occurs inside schools today. Any impetus to change direction or structure is met with swift and stiff resistance. It’s as if we are stuck in a time warp keeping a 19th century school model on life support in an attempt to meet 21st century demands.” Zimman went on to discuss the Wisconsin DPI’s vigorous enforcement of teacher licensing practices and provided some unfortunate math & science teacher examples (including the “impossibility” of meeting the demand for such teachers (about 14 minutes)). He further cited exploding teacher salary, benefit and retiree costs eating instructional dollars (“Similar to GM”; “worry” about the children given this situation).

Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results.