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Search Results for: Madison Teachers

Madison Teachers Protest Larger Class Size

Channel3000:

Many of Madison’s elementary school teachers spoke out to the Madison Metropolitan School District’s Board of Education on Monday night.
Carrying brightly colored signs, the group protested the increased class size for gym, arts and computer classes. The larger related arts classes are known by some as “one and one-half classes,” WISC-TV reported.
District officials started the policy at the elementary level this year to save money.
Some teachers said their students, many of whom come from low-income backgrounds, are getting short-changed.
“I teach in a school with 46 percent or more kids on free or reduced lunch,” said Rhonda Schilling, a music teacher for Thoreau and Hamilton elementary schools. “Many of the kids come from really rough backgrounds, and those are the kids in particular that shine often in the arts. They need that contact time with their teacher.”

Madison Teachers Present Contract Proposal

Lee Sensenbrenner: In a departure from their usual procedure, the two sides are first considering all the changes in contract language put forward by Madison Teachers Inc. This proposal, covering such changes as whether teachers would gain free access to after-school events and intellectual property rights to the curriculums they design for the classroom, was […]

State examiner intervenes in a dispute between Southside Madison Elementary teachers and their former principal.

Abbey Machtig: In April 2024, staff members filed a complaint with the district about working conditions at the school. The complaint named Principal Candace Terrell and Assistant Principal Annabel Torres, saying regular bullying and poor safety practices led to an exodus of teachers from Southside that has negatively affected students. Parents overestimate student achievement, underestimate spending Related: Act […]

Madison Montessori teachers’ new union might be a Wisconsin first

By Natalie Yahr Teachers at three Madison Montessori schools have voted to be represented by a union, joining a short list of unionized child care workers in Wisconsin and becoming what may be the state’s first unionized private school teachers. The 12-3 vote included all eligible staff from the three schools operated by Toad Hill […]

“We also had to support teachers to actually use those because that is a lift” – interim Madison Superintendent

Abby Machtig; How do you plan to address the achievement gaps between students in Madison schools, specifically around literacy? We put brand new, high-quality standards-aligned materials in every single teacher’s classroom. We also had to support teachers to actually use those because that is a lift. … Do we always get it right the first […]

Madison School Board member calls for action on COVID-19 paid time off for teachers, staff

Elizabeth Beyer: Madison School Board member calls for action on COVID-19 paid time off for teachers, staff A Madison School Board member is calling for the full board to address a lack of access to COVID-19 sick leave for district teachers and staff during the next board meeting. As district policy stands, teachers and staff […]

Teachers to get priority for COVID-19 vaccine, Dane County Madison public health department says

Chris Rickert: While many public schools in Dane County began reopening in recent months to some in-person learning, and many private schools have been in-person since September, Madison public school students won’t begin returning to the classroom until March 9, when kindergartners go back. First- and second-graders are set to return March 16 and 4-year-old […]

Madison School District should improve communication between 4K, kindergarten teachers, report finds

Scott Girard: Better communication between 4-year-old kindergarten teachers and their 5-year-old kindergarten counterparts in the Madison Metropolitan School District could improve student outcomes in transitioning to kindergarten, a new report found. A Madison Education Partnership research brief released this month outlines some of the challenges facing teachers during student transitions from 4K to elementary school and offers […]

Madison School District requiring teachers to find child care while remote teaching

Scott Girard: Madison Metropolitan School District teachers will have to find child care for their children while teaching remotely, according to an email sent to staff Thursday night. Portions of the email from MMSD’s human resources department were sent to the Cap Times and shared on Facebook. Virtual learning is expected to begin April 6, […]

A rotten year Madison: teachers report from the classroom (2013 – “what will be different, this time?”)

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 […]

Madison School District plays the ‘long game’ in training students to become teachers

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 […]

Madison’s teachers union wins re-certification election

Negassi Tesfamichael: Propelled by an 80 percent turnout rate, Madison Teachers Inc. won its annual re-certification election Monday, according to results released by the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission. Most public sector unions in the state are required under Act 10 to participate in annual certification elections in order to retain their standing as labor representatives […]

A guide to greater Madison’s black history for teachers, students and parents

Michael Johnson : Here are some indicators on how the black community has influenced the Greater Madison region and Wisconsin for more than 175 years. Attached is a timeline created by the Cap Times, Madison 365, myself and leaders from the African-American community. One additional note: this is not a list of every black Madisonian […]

Not adding up: Madison’s diverse student body is not matched by its teachers

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 […]

For Madison parents and teachers, opinions split on Personalized Pathways program

Amber Walker: As the Madison Metropolitan School District begins to introduce its Personalized Pathways program to students, it continues to face questions from parents and teachers about the plan. As a new model for Madison’s four main high schools, pathways will be rolled out next fall. The program combines project-based learning with collaboration across multiple […]

Commentary on Madison’s Teachers Union and a State Supreme Court Election

Chris Rickert: In a brief speech last weekend at the shindig for John Matthews — who retired in January after 48 years as executive director of the Madison teachers union — Kloppenburg said she “couldn’t miss gathering with some of the best people in Wisconsin to honor the most amazing John Matthews.” Matthews is not […]

Washington Legislature OKs new budget with rare tuition cuts and pay raises for teachers; Seattle spends $14,716 per student, less than Madison

Joseph O’Sullivan & Katherine Long. The budget gives a 3 percent cost-of-living raise to K-12 employees over the next two years, plus an additional temporary 1.8 percent increase that expires in 2017. It proposes a slight increase in health-care benefits for K-12 employees, but not enough, the Washington Education Association said, to keep up with […]

Madison school officials, MTI say claims regarding union dues, teachers’ rights don’t belong in Act 10 lawsuit

Pat Schneider: The conservative legal group Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty has brought suit against Madison’s public schools through a plaintiff who does not have standing to bring the “scandalous” allegations of violations of teachers’ rights included in its complaint, school district officials claim in a court filing. Plaintiff David Blaska, a conservative blogger, […]

Madison School District proposes using screening test to predict teachers’ impact on student success

Molly Beck: The Madison School Board is considering spending $273,000 on a screening program its creators say can better predict whether prospective teachers will improve student achievement. The proposed three-year contract with Chicago-based TeacherMatch would provide the district with a system to track and recruit applicants, ask teacher candidates a timed series of questions and […]

Shanghai teachers flown to the UK for maths (Stopping in Madison?)

Sean Coughlan: Up to 60 Shanghai maths teachers are to be brought to England to raise standards, in an exchange arranged by the Department for Education. They will provide masterclasses in 30 “maths hubs”, which are planned as a network of centres of excellence. The Chinese city’s maths pupils have the highest international test results. […]

Consultant: Madison schools should use its mission to recruit minority teachers

Pat Schneider:

The Madison Metropolitan School District has an image problem with teachers of color, says a consultant who recommends using the district’s mission of creating an environment where all students thrive to recruit a more diverse workforce.
The number of minority teachers in the district, while growing, is not keeping pace with the growing proportion of minority students, consultant Monica Rosen told Madison School Board members Monday.
“You’ll never catch up at the rate you’re going. I think there needs to be something more aggressive,” said Rosen, a partner in the national firm Cross & Joftus.
The gap between the number of students of color and the number of teachers of color has been brought into sharp focus as the school district works to close a persistent academic achievement gap between students of color and their white classmates.
A leader in the African-American community in November filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, charging that the district was discriminating against people of color in its hiring.
And nearly all the school district personnel interviewed as part of Cross & Joftus’ review mentioned their own concerns about the lack of diversity among school district staff, Rosen reported.

Madison Superintendent: Teachers Must Get on Board with Tech Plan

Pat Schneider:

“When a teacher tells me they want to opt out of using technology because of their lack of comfort, it means students are not getting access to tools that have become an essential part of life, certainly of work life,” Cheatham told school board members Monday. “I don’t think that’s fair. I don’t think that’s okay. We need to demand that all students have access to technology they will be expected to use when they go on to college and career.”
Cheatham’s remarks came at the end of a meeting where school board members heard an outline of her district technology plan, which calls for a one-to-one ratio of devices to students and teachers by the 2018-2019 school year.
“It’s scary. We’re asking people to think differently about the profession,” Cheatham said, recalling resistance to the daily use of email by some teachers when that technology emerged. “But an adult’s comfort level shouldn’t be something that stops us from doing the right thing for kids.”

It may well be time to simply let teachers buy their own equipment via a stipend.

K-12 Governance Post Act 10: Kenosha teachers union is decertified; Madison Appears to Continue the Status Quo

Erin Richards:

The union representing Kenosha teachers has been decertified and may not bargain base wages with the district.
Because unions are limited in what they can do even if they are certified, the new status of Kenosha’s teachers union — just like the decertification of many other teachers unions in the state that did not or could not pursue the steps necessary to maintain certification in the new era of Act 10 — may be a moral blow more than anything else.
Teachers in Milwaukee and Janesville met the state’s Aug. 30 deadline to apply for recertification, a state agency representative says. Peter Davis, general counsel for the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission, said the Milwaukee and Janesville districts will hold recertification votes in November.
To continue as the recognized bargaining unit in the district, 51% of the union’s eligible membership must vote in favor of recertification, according to the controversial Act 10 legislation passed in 2011.
With contracts that were in place through the end of June, teachers in the three large southeastern Wisconsin districts were protected the longest from the new legislation, which limits collective bargaining, requires unions to hold annual votes to be recognized as official entities, and mandates that teachers and other public employees pay more out-of-pocket for their health care and retirement costs.
…..
“It seems like the majority of our affiliates in the state aren’t seeking recertification, so I don’t think the KEA is an outlier or unique in this,” Brey said.
She added that certification gives the union scant power over a limited number of issues they’d like a voice in.
Sheronda Glass, the director of business services in Kenosha, said it’s a new experience for the district to be under Act 10.

Terry Flores

Contrary to some published media reports, however, the union did not vote to decertify.
In fact, no such election was ever held, according to KEA Executive Director Joe Kiriaki, who responded to a report from the Conservative Badger blog, which published an article by Milwaukee radio talk show host Mark Belling, who said he had learned that just 37 percent of the teachers had voted to reauthorize the union.
In a prepared statement, Kiriaki criticized the district for “promoting untrue information” to Belling.
Union chose to focus on other issues
Kiriaki said the union opted not to “jump through the hoops,” such as the recertification requirement, created by Act 10, the state’s relatively new law on collective bargaining.
The law, among other things required the annual re-certification of unions if they want to serve as bargaining representatives for teachers and other public workers. It also prohibits most public employees from negotiating all but base wages, limiting them to the rate of inflation.
Kiriaki cited a ruling by a Dane County Circuit Court judge on the constitutionality of Act 10, saying he believed it would be upheld.

Interestingly, Madison School District & Madison Teachers to Commence Bargaining. Far more important, in my view is addressing Madison’s long standing, disastrous reading results.
In my view, the unions that wish to serve their membership effectively going forward would be much better off addressing new opportunities, including charters, virtual, and dual enrollment services. The Minneapolis Teachers Union can authorize charters, for example.
Much more on Act 10, here.
A conversation with retired WEAC executive Director Morris Andrews.
The Frederick Taylor inspired, agrarian K-12 model is changing, albeit at a glacial pace. Madison lags in many areas, from advanced opportunities to governance diversity, dual enrollment and online opportunities. Yet we spend double the national average per student, funded by ongoing property tax increases.
An elected official recently remarked to me that “it’s as if Madison schools have been stuck in a bubble for the past 40 years”.

Madison School Forest a teachers’ educational tool

Jeffrey Davis:

In the literary world, forests have often been the symbol of menace.
Think of how many times someone has uttered “we’re not out of the woods yet.”
But a forest is a great place to begin one’s outdoors education and apply science, math, reading and writing.
And the Madison Metropolitan School District is playing a role.
Several retired MMSD teachers recently spoke of alerting newer teachers to take advantage of the opportunity to introduce children to the Madison School Forest, a 307-acre woods the district owns southwest of Verona in Wisconsin’s Driftless Area. It is also known as the Jackson School Forest after naturalist Joseph “Bud” Jackson.

The school forest is a gem.

Madison School Board Candidate & advocate TJ Mertz talks about Madison Prep, teachers and school ‘reform’

Pat Schneider:

Capital Times: What’s the most important issue facing the Madison Metropolitan School District today?
TJ Mertz: Trust. There’s a lot of distrust in the community on all sides — between community and the school district, within the school district between administration and classroom staff, between the board of education and the administration. If we’re going to have effective initiatives on the achievement gap, it requires trust.
CT: What can be done about that lack of trust?
TM: The district should be honest about what it can and can’t do, what is working and what isn’t working. It needs to be more open in decision-making and should be more transparent, welcoming and inclusive. There’s some collaborative work going on that’s good, but community leaders need to be more honest, too. If you are bringing in John Legend and Howard Fuller and Geoffrey Canada and say they have the answer, you’re lying to the audience. Look at how they are achieving their “success.” It’s being achieved largely through attrition, and even with that the test scores aren’t that good. Let’s talk about state school finance reform. Let’s not talk about firing teachers — every bit of research shows that as a tool for school improvement, it doesn’t work. People should stop looking for miracles. Hard work, incrementalism — it isn’t sexy — but that is what works.
CT: It was the Urban League of Greater Madison that brought Legend, Fuller and Canada to town recently for a fundraiser and education conference. You were strongly opposed to Urban League CEO Kaleem Caire’s Madison Prep proposal for a charter school aimed at students of color. Why?
TM: The proposed programs of that school did not target the kids who are being failed by the district. Ask anyone who knows curriculum if the international baccalaureate is a way to address students who are grades behind, and they’ll laugh. But that was what he was selling — so who was he targeting? Students below proficiency were the ones used in the PR campaign, which made it harder for them and a lot of other people to work with the school district. It was a bait-and-switch.

Parents, teachers, public offer ideas for ways to increase security at Madison schools

Matthew DeFour:

The Madison School District is considering ways to increase school security in response to the mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school last week, though arming more school officials is not among them.
In the wake of the massacre, parents, teachers and members of the public have offered dozens of safety suggestions to the district, security coordinator Luis Yudice said Friday.
They include making it easier for teachers to secure their classrooms, training principals to deal with an armed intruder and reviewing the policy of having schools serve as polling places.

Related, via a kind reader’s email:

From: Sara Paton
Date: December 19, 2012 3:20:35 PM CST
To:
Subject: Important Message from Principal Holmes
Reply-To: Sara Paton
Madison Metropolitan School District
The following letter was sent as an email to all students during 8th hour today. Please read:
December 19, 2012
Dear West Students,
There have been several concerns raised about safety and security at West High School over the past few days as it relates to 12/21/12. Safety concerns have included rumors about:
-Bomb Threats
-School closings on 12/21/12
-Comments made by West High students
Administration, security, and police have spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week speaking with students, staff, and parents regarding the concerns that have been raised. All of the information collected has been thoroughly investigated, and we as an administrative team, security staff and police are confident that the concerns raised do not pose a safety risk for the students and staff of West High.
In light of the recent tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary, tensions are high across the country and threats are more likely to be viewed as potentially dangerous. We want you to be aware that we are taking the concerns very seriously and are taking the necessary precautions to be sure we are safe. Unfortunately, information has been misinterpreted and taken out of context through multiple social media such as Facebook and Twitter. This has created a great deal of anxiety and fear in our school community. Again, we have found no substance to the rumors and no threat to school safety.
In conclusion, we know some students are frightened and some students have been blamed. It is critical at this time that we as the West High community work together to dispel rumors, ensure school safety and create a positive school culture.
Below are some suggestions on steps to take in the event important information comes to your attention:
-Continue to let trusted adults know when you are concerned about safety or someone else’s behavior.
-Be kind and patient with each other. This is a tough time for our school and our country.
-Make healthy decisions for yourself with your parents guidance.
It is up to all of us to be good stewards of our school and work together to protect one another.
Ed Holmes, Principal
Madison West

In Madison, poorer schools get less-experienced teachers; A Comparison of Randall & Sandburgs MAP Results

Matthew DeFour:

Randall Elementary School has one of the lowest poverty rates and some of the highest test scores in Madison. It also has the most experienced teaching staff in the district.
By contrast, Sandburg Elementary has one of the higher poverty rates and some of the lowest test scores. It also has the least experienced teaching staff.
Across the district, schools with higher concentrations of poverty are more likely to have teachers with less experience, according to a State Journal analysis of Madison School District data.
Experts say that while more experience doesn’t guarantee higher quality, teachers often need five to 10 years to reach their peak effectiveness.
“To consistently and disproportionately give the kids who need the most help people who aren’t at their best yet just disadvantages them,” said Sarah Almy, director of teacher quality for the Education Trust, a Washington, D.C.,-based group that advocates for raising student achievement.

I quickly compiled the following charts (PDF version) from the 2011-2012 Madison School District’s MAP (Measurement of Academic Progress) math and reading results for Randall and Sandburg Elementary along with the District-wide results.

I added Randall, Sandburg’s and the Madison school district’s 3rd Friday, 2011 enrollment to the charts via the green rectangles. For example, the report states that 30 Sandburg 3rd grader’s took the MAP assessment while the District’s enrollment counts report 44 students in that class.

Recruiting More Black Teachers Should be a Madison School District Goal

The Wisconsin State Journal:

Howard, who supported Madison Prep, also favors launching pilots to test new approaches to helping struggling students.
“The assumption is that everything is working,” he said, “and it’s not.”
The district should boost efforts to involve more parents in their children’s educations, though that’s not easy.
At the same time, the district needs to pay for a backlog of school maintenance projects without balancing the district budget on the backs of struggling homeowners. Madison is already a high-spending district, so more and more money isn’t the solution.
The school administration’s plan has some merit but mostly stays the course. And more of the same won’t cut it.
The best path now is to recruit more black teachers, try even harder to engage parents, and seek innovation.

Related: Madison Schools Administration has “introduced more than 18 programs and initiatives for elementary teachers since 2009” and the Madison School District’s strategic plan update.

Madison Schools Administration has “introduced more than 18 programs and initiatives for elementary teachers since 2009”

Solidarity Newsletter by Madison Teachers, Inc. (PDF):

MTI President Kerry Motoviloff addressed the Board of Education at its May 21 general meeting. At issue is the District’s plan to introduce more new programs into elementary teachers’ literacy curriculum, including Mondo and 3 new assessments. At the same time, elementary teachers are being told that they will be losing release days for the administration of K-2 testing.
Motoviloff listed more than 13 current K-5 assessments, explaining to Board members that each assessment comes with a set of non-comparable data or scores. She noted that the District has introduced more than 18 programs and initiatives for elementary teachers since 2009.
Motoviloff stressed that all teachers are concerned about the achievement gap, and that the District needs to walk its own talk relative to ensuring fidelity in the curriculum process. She challenged the District to prioritize essentials, instead of swamping teachers with initiatives while reducing teachers’ time to implement the curriculum with fidelity, and emphasized the need to include time not only for assessments, but also time for teachers to analyze and plan. She also urged the District to stop pitting professional development against planning/prep time.

Related:

• Standards based report cards
• 60% to 42%: Madison School District’s Reading Recovery Effectiveness Lags “National Average”: Administration seeks to continue its use
• MTEL (Massachusetts Tests for Educator Licensure) 90 coming to Wisconsin

I’ve long suggested that the District should get out of the curriculum/program creation business and focus on hiring the best teachers. Like it or not, Oconomowoc is changing the game by focusing efforts and increasing teacher pay. Madison, given our high per student spending and incredible community and academic resources, should be delivering world class results for all students.
I don’t see how more than 18 programs and initiatives can be implemented successfully in just a few years. I’m glad MTI President Kerry Motoviloff raised this important issue. Will the proposed “achievement gap plan” add, replace or eliminate programs and spending?
Meanwhile, Superintendent Dan Nerad’s Madison tenure, which began in 2008, appears to be quickly coming to an end.

Madison (MI) School District teachers call 10% pay cut illegal, threaten lawsuit

Lori Higgins:

Teachers in the Madison School District said the Board of Education there violated the law by imposing a 10% pay cut last week that is retroactive to the beginning of the current school year.
Bobby Robinson, president of the Madison Education Association, which represents 77 teachers and other professional employees, said the union plans to file a lawsuit Monday.
He cited a May ruling in a case that said employers can’t apply a pay cut retroactively.
Robinson said he raised those issues with the district administration after the board took action Monday, but paychecks teachers received Friday reflected the deduction. District and board leaders could not be reached Friday.
“They ignored it,” Robinson said.

Teachers Union & (Madison) School Board Elections

Matthew DeFour:

A Madison Teachers Inc. endorsement hasn’t always guaranteed victory for Madison School Board candidates.
But this year, with union members mobilized by Gov. Scott Walker’s collective bargaining changes, the upcoming recall elections, a divisive debate over a charter school proposal the union opposed and a looming rewrite of employee work rules, the endorsement could be influential.
“It will be very hard for someone not endorsed by the teachers union to win,” said former School Board member Ruth Robarts, who won re-election in 2004 despite MTI labeling her “Public Enemy No. 1.”
Robarts is one of four candidates in 13 contested races over the past decade who defeated MTI-backed candidates.
This year the union endorsed incumbent Arlene Silveira over Nichelle Nichols, an executive at the Urban League of Greater Madison, which proposed the charter school plan.
The union also endorsed Michael Flores, who gained attention during Capitol protests last year, over Mary Burke for an open seat being vacated by Lucy Mathiak.

Teacher union influence can extend far beyond local school board elections. The influence process can be quite sophisticated and encompasses local and state elections along with the legal system. Teachers are certainly not the only groups to pull different levers, but a complete understanding of the K-12 governance model requires an awareness of the players (it is also useful to consider the “schw­er­punkt“, that is “creating a result around a central theme”). The following links are well worth reading:

• WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
• Arbitrator Rules in Favor of MTI vs WEAC over legal fees
• Sparks fly over Wisconsin budget’s labor-related provisions:
  

  To make matters more dire, the long-term legislative proposal specifically exempts school district arbitrations from the requirement that arbitrators consider and give the greatest weight to revenue limits and local economic conditions. While arbitrators would continue to give these two factors paramount consideration when deciding cases for all other local governments, the importance of fiscal limits and local economic conditions would be specifically diminished for school district arbitration.

• Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman in a 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).

Matt DeFour’s article failed to include a critical quote: “The school district election is just one piece in the larger chess match”.

(Madison) Teachers’ seniority rules not related to students’ success

Chris Rickert:

Teachers union seniority rules, though, appear less benign.
Joshua Cowen, a University of Kentucky assistant professor of public policy and administration, said there’s “indirect evidence” on “whether unions’ emphasis on seniority hinders academic achievement.”
Specifically, teachers don’t appear to get any better after three years on the job or after getting a master’s degree.
“What this means is that school districts are spending a good deal of money to reward teachers for characteristics that are not really related to student success,” he said.

Related: Madison Prep supporters revamping proposal to overcome district objections; Seniority Changes

Matthews, however, said MTI opposes the types of changes Madison Prep would seek, such as eliminating a provision that grants senior teachers priority for new job openings in the district.
“Those are rights people have,” Matthews said. “It gets us right back to why there was so much reaction to what Gov. Walker did last year.”

Arlene Silveira & Michael Flores Madison Teachers, Inc. Candidate Q & A

Question 23 has implications for the future of our public schools, along with the proposed Madison Preparatory Academy IB charter school:

Given Act 10’s negative Impact on Collective Bargaining Agreements, will you introduce and vote for a motion to adopt the Collective Bargaining Agreements (182 page PDF Document) negotiated between MTI and The Madison Metropolitan School District as MMSD policy?

Both Silveira and Flores answered Yes.

Madison School District agrees to release teachers’ sick notes

Steve Verburg:

The Madison School District has agreed to terms for releasing more than 1,000 sick notes submitted by teachers who missed work in February during mass protests over collective bargaining.
The district will remove the teachers’ names and other identifying information from the notes, under an agreement reached Monday with the Wisconsin State Journal, which requested the records under the state’s Open Records Law.
“It’s essentially what we asked for in May,” State Journal Editor John Smalley said Tuesday. “It was never our intention to publish any names or individual situations, but to look at the collective situation of all of these sick notes and how the district as an institution handled it.”
School Board President James Howard said the agreement protects teachers while complying with the newspaper’s needs and a Nov. 21 court ruling ordering the district to turn over the notes. The newspaper sued the district for the records after the district denied requests for them.

Jack Craver:

Many friends of mine are upset with the legal battle the Wisconsin State Journal waged to obtain the 1,000 sick notes Madison teachers used to get off work during the union protests in February. My own radio host and boss, Kurt Baron, referred to the paper as the “Wisconsin State Urinal” in describing his decision to no longer have the paper as his home page online. Some called into the show and promised to cancel their subscriptions.
Teachers should have a right to individual privacy over their medical records. We shouldn’t know whether John Q. cited herpes or hemorrhoids on his doctor’s note.
I am less sympathetic, however, to the teachers’ right to collective privacy. As long as their names are redacted, the public has the right to know if 273 teachers cited malaria and 345 claimed to suffer from ebola.
Unfortunately the recent ruling will violate individual privacy by allowing the State Journal to see the names of the teachers on the sick notes.

Cost for union teachers could be game changer for Madison Prep deal

Nathan Comp:

A new analysis (PDF) by the Madison school district shows that the budget submitted by the Urban League of Greater Madison for a pair of sex-segregated charter schools could potentially cost the district an additional $13 million over the schools’ first five years.
The new numbers came as a shock to Urban League president Kaleem Caire, who says that Madison Prep may pull out of a tentative agreement with Madison Teachers, Inc., that would require Madison Prep to hire mostly union staff.
“It’s become clear to us that the most reasonable path to ensure the success of these kids is as a non-instrumentality,” says Caire. “Others on our board want to look at a couple of other options, so we’re looking at those before we make that final determination.”
One of those options would be to scale back the program, including the proposed longer school days and extended school year.

Much more on the proposed Madison Preparatory IB charter school, here.

Madison schools resolves planning time dispute with teachers union

Matthew DeFour:

The Madison School District has reached an agreement with its teachers union over changes to planning time — a resolution Superintendent Dan Nerad said fits within the bounds of the state’s new collective bargaining law.
An earlier proposal prompted hundreds of teachers to protest at a School Board meeting in May and Madison Teachers Inc. executive director John Matthews to threaten a job action if the matter wasn’t resolved.
The issue relates to changes in the district’s 2011-13 collective bargaining agreement with MTI, which was approved in March before the state’s collective bargaining law took effect.
In the past, disagreements over contract language were often resolved through memorandums of understanding (MOUs). But once the collective bargaining law took effect June 29, districts that approved contracts after Feb. 1 couldn’t modify them through MOUs, or else they would be
Read more: http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/education/local_schools/article_82b5f386-b25e-11e0-873a-001cc4c03286.html#ixzz1SblqTZYo

Newspaper’s lawsuit seeks sick notes for Madison school teachers during protest

Matthew DeFour:

The Madison School District failed to follow state law when it denied the Wisconsin State Journal access to more than 1,000 sick notes submitted by teachers who didn’t show up for work in February, according to a lawsuit filed by the newspaper Thursday.
The lawsuit, filed in Dane County District Court, asks the court to force the district to release the notes under the state’s open records law, which requires government agencies to release public documents in most circumstances.
The lawsuit says the sick notes are public records because the public has a special interest in knowing how governments discipline employees, who are ultimately responsible to the public.
“We can’t know if things were dealt with appropriately if we can’t see the underlying documents on which decisions were made,” said April Rockstead Barker, the newspaper’s lawyer.
Dylan Pauly, a School District lawyer, declined comment until she had a chance to review the lawsuit.

Madison (OH) teachers wear black to show frustration over negotiations

Bryan Bullock:

A group of Madison teachers, dressed in black, shared a message with the district’s school board Wednesday: Let’s get this contract dispute settled.
It’s been 10 months since the bargaining agreement expired for the Madison Local Schools Education Association, a union representing teachers.
The union and the district have locked horns on terms of a new contract. The school board rejected a fact finder’s report in March, which the teachers union voted to accept, and the process continues to stall.

Madison School District reaches tentative contract agreement with teachers’ union

Matthew DeFour:

The Madison School District has reached a tentative agreement with all of its unions for an extension of their collective bargaining agreement through mid-2013.
Superintendent Dan Nerad said the agreement includes a 50 percent employee contribution to the pension plan. It also includes a five percentage point increase in employees’ health insurance premiums, and the elimination of a more expensive health insurance option in the second year.
Salaries would be frozen at current levels, though employees could still receive raises for longevity and educational credits.
The district said the deal results in savings of about $23 million for the district over the two-year contract.
The agreement includes no amnesty or pay for teachers who missed four days last month protesting Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to strip public employee collective bargaining rights. Walker’s signing of the bill Friday prompted the district and MTI to reach an agreement quickly

Channel3000:

A two-year tentative contract agreement has been reached between the Madison Metropolitan School District and the Madison Teachers Union for five bargaining units: teachers, substitute teachers, educational and special educational assistants, supportive educational employees and school security assistants.
District administrators, with the guidance of the Board of Education, and Madison Teacher Inc. reps negotiated from 9 a.m. Friday until 3 a.m. Saturday when the tentative agreements were completed.
Under details of the contract, workers would contribute 50 percent of the total money that’s being contribution to pension plans. That figure according to district officials, is believed to be very close to the 12 percent overall contribution that the budget repair bill was calling for. The overall savings to the district would be $11 million.

David Blaska

I present Blaska’s Red Badge of Courage award to the Madison Area Technical College Board. Its part-time teachers union would rather sue than settle until Gov. Scott Walker acted. Then it withdrew the lawsuit and asked the board for terms. No dice. “Times have changed,” said MATC’s attorney.
The Madison school board showed a rudimentary backbone when it settled a contract, rather hastily, with a newly nervous Madison teachers union.
The school board got $23 million of concessions over the next two years. Wages are frozen at current levels. Of course, the automatic pay track system remains, which rewards longevity.

NBC 15

The Madison Metropolitan School District and Madison Teachers, Inc. have reached tentative contract agreements for five bargaining units: teachers, substitute teachers, educational and special educational assistants, supportive educational employees, and school security assistants.
District administrators, with the guidance of the Board of Education, and MTI reps negotiated from 9:00 a.m. Friday until 3:00 a.m. Saturday when the tentative agreements were completed.
The Board of Education held a Special Meeting today at 2:00 p.m. and ratified the five collective bargaining agreements. The five MTI units must also ratify before the contracts take effect.
Summary of the agreements:

Madison Superintendent Nerad calls on teachers to return to classroom

Gena Kittner:

Madison School District superintendent Dan Nerad called on teachers late Thursday to end their protest and return to the classroom.
“These job actions need to end,” Nerad said in an e-mail to families of students. “I want to assure you that we continue to examine our options to more quickly move back to normal school days.”
Madison schools are closed Friday for a third straight day. Nerad also apologized for the closures.
On Thursday, state and Madison teachers union leaders urged their members to report to the Capitol on Friday and Saturday for continued protests against Gov. Scott Walker’s collective bargaining proposal.
“Even though the Madison School District can only react to the group decisions of our teachers, I apologize to you for not being able to provide learning for the last three days to your students,” Nerad said.

Related: Judge denies Madison School District request to stop teacher sick-out and “Who Runs the Madison Schools?”

Know Your Madisonian: Mike Lipp on the teachers’ union, educating and coaching sports in Madison

Ken Singletary:

Mike Lipp is athletic director at Madison’s West High School. Previously, he was a science teacher at the school for 20 years, and coached swimming, soccer and baseball. He also was a science teacher in DeForest for 15 years.
Lipp, 59, this month began a one-year term as president of the teacher unit of Madison Teachers Inc., the union that represents teachers, related professionals and school support personnel. His grandmother and father-in-law were union members and he was in the United Auto Workers during a summer when he was a graduate student.
In your personal finances, what would you do if your expenses exceeded your revenue?
That happens in several levels, when you get a mortgage or when you get a car loan. I have never bought a car with cash. … Personally, you can operate in the red but governments have to operate in the black. It’s a funny system.

Madison Area schools face a big task in hiring and keeping minority teachers

Gayle Worland:

Madison has never had many black teachers, and now it faces another challenge in providing diverse role models for its students: a wave of black baby boomers nearing retirement.
Nearly 27 percent of the public school district’s African-American teachers, social workers, counselors and other front-line classroom professionals are at or over the district’s minimum retirement age of 55.
Henry Hawkins, an art teacher at Jefferson Middle School, has no plans to retire soon, but the 66-year-old who began teaching in the late 1960s sees the problem: As he’s watched his students become more and more diverse, the diversity among his colleagues has lagged.
“Part of the cycle is for students to be able to identify. It’s important in a sense to see oneself,” Hawkins said.

What happens to Madison’s bad teachers?

Lynn Welch:

It’s absurd to believe anyone wants ineffective teachers in any classroom.
So when President Barack Obama, in a speech last fall at Madison’s Wright Middle School, called for “moving bad teachers out of the classroom, once they’ve been given an opportunity to do it right,” the remark drew enormous applause. Such a pledge is integral to the president’s commitment to strengthen public education.
But this part of Obama’s Race to the Top agenda for schools has occasioned much nervousness. Educators and policymakers, school boards and school communities have questions and genuine concern about what it means. What, exactly, is a bad teacher, and how, specifically, do you go about removing him or her from a classroom?
Many other questions follow. Do we have a “bad teacher” problem in Madison? Does the current evaluation system allow Madison to employ teachers who don’t make the grade? Is our system broken and does it need Obama’s fix?
A look into the issue reveals a system that is far from perfect or transparent. But Madison school board President Arlene Silveira agrees it’s an issue that must be addressed.

Latest issue of MMSD Today: Madison School District teachers experts in system of math instruction

Dawn Stiegert @ The Madison Metropolitan School District:

The national mathematics conference on Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) had a strong Madison School District presence, with teachers there as presenters and attendees.
MMSD teachers involved with the Expanding Math Knowledge grant had the opportunity to attend the conference this summer in San Diego. EMK was a two-year grant funded by the WI Dept. of Public Instruction. The MMSD Dept. of Teaching and Learning collaborated with the UW-Madison College of Education to provide continued and expanded math education for approximately 40 teachers in grades 3-5.

Madison Marquette Elementary teacher named one of two Wisconsin elementary school teachers of the year

Patricia Simms:

A veteran fourth-grade teacher at Marquette Elementary School was named one of two Wisconsin elementary school teachers of the year today.
State officials surprised Maureen McGilligan-Bentin, who has been teaching 37 years, with the award in a cafeteria full of cheering and clapping students and colleagues.
She will receive $3,000 from U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl’s education foundation and will be competing for a national teaching award throughout the year.
McGilligan-Bentin, 60, lives in Madison, holds an education degree from UW-Madison and was a former professional dancer.

Congratulations!

Schools of Hope teachers recognized for narrowing racial achievement gap among Madison students

Sandy Cullen:

Madison teachers who participate in the Schools of Hope tutoring program were recognized Tuesday for their role in narrowing the racial achievement gap among students over the last 10 years.
“That’s what school districts around the country are trying to do, and Madison is accomplishing it,” First Lady Jessica Doyle told more than 50 elementary school teachers treated to the first outdoor reception of the season at the governor’s residence overlooking Lake Mendota on National Teacher Appreciation Day.
“Because of you and that extra energy you put in,” Doyle said, “more students can succeed and this whole community can be living with hope.”

John Matthews has run Madison’s teachers union for 40 years. Is it time for a change?

Jason Shephard:

But while Matthews laments the failures of government to improve teaching and learning, he glosses over his own pivotal role in local educational leadership. That role includes standing in the way of programs like 4-year-old kindergarten that could help the district meet its educational objectives.
Beginning in the next few weeks, a school board made up mostly of rookies will begin to address the challenges ahead. A new superintendent starting July 1 — Daniel Nerad, formerly top dog in Green Bay — inspires hope of new solutions to nagging problems. But the third pillar of power is John Matthews. He’s been around the longest and arguably knows the most.
Already, Matthews has cemented his legacy from building a strong, tough union. But now, some are wondering if Matthews will also leave behind a legacy of obstructing key educational change.

Clusty Search: John Matthews.

A UW-Madison education prof seeks middle school science teachers to participate in a professional development project.
Improving science teaching with hypertext support

Researcher: Sadhana Puntambekar
Email puntambekar@education.wisc.edu
Phone: (608) 262-0829
Link to site: www.compassproject.net/info
News context:
Science Magazine: The World of Undergraduate Education
Previous participants include:
Contacts:
Kelly Francour: kfrancou@marinette.k12.wi.us
Dana Gnesdilow: gnesdilow@wisc.edu
Hands-on science lab activities provide students with engaging ways to learn. But sometimes students don’t fully learn the concepts behind what they’re doing.
A hypertext computer environment being developed and field tested gives students graphical ways to practice learning and relating science concepts like ‘force’ and ‘energy,’ for example.
The program, called CoMPASS, helps ensure that hands-on construction activities leads to student understanding of the underlying deep science principles and phenomena.
UW-Madison education professor Sadhana Puntambekar points out that reading, writing, and communicating are an essential part of science instruction.
Research has pointed out the important role of language in science. Yet informational text is seldom used to complement hands-on activities in science classrooms.
This CoMPASS computer environment gives students a graphical, interactive, hypertext ‘concept map’ to help students visualize concepts and their relations. Navigating these ‘concept maps’ helps student make connections between abstract concepts, and to select text resources based on the relatedness of the documents to each other.
Eighth-grade students using the CoMPASS ‘concept maps’ performed better on essay question requiring depth. On a concept mapping test, students using CoMPASS made richer connections between concepts in their own maps (6th and 8th grades)
The CoMPASS environment helps teachers, too. It gives them another way to observe how well students learn.
The system is being used in inquiry-based curriculum units in sixth and eighth grade science classes. To date, CoMPASS has been used by over 1000 students in sixth and eighth grades in Wisconsin and Connecticut.

Madison Literary Club Talk: Examinations for Teachers Past and Present

2.1MB PDF First, a disclaimer. I am far from an expert on most of the topics which will be illustrated by questions. One of my aims in giving this talk is to let others know about a serious problem which exists beyond the problem of mathematical knowledge of teachers. I have written about the problem […]

Want to know whether the Madison schools get a good health insurance deal for teachers? Forget it.

Most of the $37M that the Madison school district will spend this year for employee health insurance goes to the cost for covering our teachers and their families. That’s about 10% of the total annual budget. I support high quality health insurance for all of our employees. As a school board member, I also have […]

Madison: $664,000,000 for 26,374 full-time students

Gavin Escott The budget represents an increase of $51.8 million over the previous year and comes after the 2024 operating referendum created a “financial foundation for the future,” Superintendent Joe Gothard said in a letter. The district intends to spend $566.2 million on operations from revenues of $557.4 million, a 3.79% and 5.94% increase, respectively. […]

Madison k-12 Administrator Pay Increase Practices……

Chris Rickert: “I will say from general experience and observation that most districts interact with the certified and non-certified group independently,” he said, “but approach annual increases for all employees with an eye toward relative fairness and equity — keeping staff at similar standing in the regional market for like employee groups.” Dan Rossmiller, executive […]

Just last month, the Madison School Board voted to add another $1.2 million to a budget that was already $9 million beyond available revenue.

Chris Gomez-Schmidt (former Madison School Board member) A recent Wisconsin Policy Forum report projects a 20% increase in school property taxes this December, a $883 increase on the average home, driven by the two 2024 referendums and declining state aid. For a city that prides itself on deliberate work to address affordability, this tax increase […]

An interview with Madison’s Taxpayer Funded K-12 Superintendent

Kayla Huynh: Even with additional funding from the referendum, the Madison school district will also rely on $22.4 million in one-time funds this year to balance its budget. Undernext year’s proposed budget, the school district would spend $9.5 million more than it receives in revenue, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum, a nonpartisan, indendent research group […]

Notes on Madison’s stagnant/declining k-12 student count amidst population growth

Chris Rickert: Are you a Madison parent who has enrolled your child in a school outside the Madison School District? The Wisconsin State Journal is looking to speak with Madison parents about their decision to use the state’s open enrollment program to enroll their students in other school districts, such as Monona Grove, Sun Prairie […]

How the Teachers Union Broke Public Education

Alex Gutentag: On May 17, the Oakland, California, teachers union ended a two-week strike—the union’s third strike in five years. The district offered a substantial salary increase for teachers before the strike even began, but negotiations remained deadlocked for days over the union’s other demands. The Oakland Education Association (OEA) put forward several “common good” proposals that included drought-resistant […]

Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability

Dave Cieslewicz: But the district is not holding itself accountable where it matters: student performance. For whatever reason, Madison taxpayers have never demanded that the school board set goals for the results of all that investment. Last November voters overwhelmingly approved two referendums, totaling $607 million, the largest increase in MMSD history. And they did […]

notes on Madison’s 20.2% Property Tax increase (assessments are up 9.1%); 25k per student

Chris Rickert: About $478 million, or 20.2% more than last year. It’s a percentage increase that “is more than twice as large as the previous record for the district in our data going back to 1994,” according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum.  The increase is being driven by several factors, according […]

“Average homeowners would see a more than $833 increase in property taxes under the Madison school district’s proposed budget”

Kayla Huynh: Last year, during the Madison Metropolitan School District’s campaign for two referendums, the district estimated property taxes would increase by about $1,000 for the average homeowner. Voters in November approved the combined $607 million in school referendums, hiking property taxes to fund school building upgrades and day-to-day operating costs.  Approval of the $100 […]

“Doing what, exactly, district officials won’t say” – Madison

Chris Rickert: More than seven months after the principal and assistant principal of a Madison elementary school were removed from their positions amid multiple complaints from parents and staff, the two remain on the district’s payroll. Doing what, exactly, district officials won’t say. Candace Terrell and Annabel Torres remain listed in the district’s online employee […]

Notes on a Madison Choice School

Kayla Huynh Lighthouse is now home to the largest number of voucher students in Madison. A majority of the school’s students identify as Hispanic or Black, and nearly all are from low-income households. The school’s website says, “We are facing unprecedented demand with 150 children on our waitlist as of fall 2024.”   Lighthouse and other private voucher schools have […]

2025 Chicago Teachers Union Elections

Patrick Dent: It was 2019 when Jesse Sharkey won reelection to lead the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). A political activist who masquerades as a classroom educator, Sharkey overcame Members First’s slate at the close of the polls. Sharkey’s return to lead the CTU extended the iron grip of the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators (CORE) over […]

Notes on Madison’s 4K program and achievement

Chris Rickert: District Director of Early Learning Culleen Witthuhn pointed to a number of reasons for why it saw the increase last year but not in the first two school years the district offered full-day 4K at some sites. ——— Madison Education Partnership: “professional development and evidence-based curricula in 4K Literacy” – Recommendations for the […]

Expanding 4k in Madison….

Kayla Huynh: The district will reduce the number of half-day classes held at its elementary schools, according to district figures. The district is instead adding half-day programs at four day care sites, including Here We Grow, the Red Caboose, the Playing Field and Pequeños Traviesos, according to Folger.  Green said Stephens Elementary is offering four new […]

“we have NOT hired more teachers. We hired support and administrators”

Quinton Klabon: WHY are school districts going to REFERENDUM? DPI just revealed a huge part of the explanation.Since 2020, schools added 2,140.79 staff!Unfortunately, —— Additionally, districts actually –added– staff in the years after Act 10. ——- “An emphasis on adult employment”

Madison schools might change the calculation of student GPAs.

Kayla Huynh: The Madison Metropolitan School District has long calculated high schoolers’ GPAs on a 4.0 scale. A weighted system would take into consideration the difficulty of coursework, assigning higher value to grade points for Advanced Placement or honors classes. Students, parents and staff have shown interest in switching to weighted grades, according to district […]

Many students from closing Denver schools headed for higher-rated schools next year (Madison builds!)

Melanie Asmar Palmer is one of 10 Denver schools that will close or partially close at the end of the school year due to declining enrollment, mostly driven by lower birth rates and gentrification. But Denver Public Schools took a different approach to finding new schools for displaced students in this latest round of closures. Instead of […]

Father of Madison Cherokee middle school student charged in attack on school employee

Chris Rickert The father of a Cherokee Heights Middle School student is facing a felony battery charge for allegedly attacking a security assistant at the Near West Side Madison school. According to a criminal complaint filed Monday: The 44-year-old Madison man went to the school just after 5 p.m. Wednesday along with his son and […]

Madison East High’s Revived Booster club

Kayla Huynh When Becca Schwei volunteered to help organize a volleyball tournament for East High School last fall, she was surprised to learn the school lacked a booster club. The club had disbanded after the COVID-19 pandemic put organized sports on pause, leaving East High as the only Madison high school without an active booster. […]

“For over 60 years, Madison has been implementing programs to close the achievement gap, yet the data shows we’re still facing a crisis”

Summary The report highlights sobering 2024 statistics: only 5.8% of Black 11th-graders in Madison—22 out of 310 students—were prepared for college-level reading and writing, compared to 27% of Black students nationally and 10.3% statewide. In math, just 7.1% of Madison’s Black 11th-graders were college-ready, lagging behind 8% nationally and 6.4% across Wisconsin. Wisconsin ranks last […]

April 1, 2025 Madison School Board Election Candidate Interviews (2 unopposed!)

Simpson Street Free Press SSFP student reporters and local journalists interview candidates for this year’s school board race. If you missed our forum, now’s your chance to catch up! Stay informed and get to know who’s on the ballot. —— The taxpayer funded Madison School District long used Reading Recovery… The data clearly indicate that being able to […]

“Grades” and the taxpayer funded Madison school District

Chris Rickert: It’s also laid bare what could be an inequity in the new guaranteed-admission regime because most Dane County public high schools also don’t weigh their grades for difficulty — meaning that, in theory, students who get straight A’s in all regular-level classes could have a better chance at getting in to UW than […]

Madison hires a taxpayer funded “sustainability manager”

Lucas Robinson: That’s a massive infrastructure undertaking ahead, and aligning those buildings with the district’s climate change and sustainability goals will be a big part of their development. To coordinate the sustainability component of those projects, the district has hired Bryanna Krekeler to be its first-ever sustainability manager. Krekeler is a Madison native whose work […]

Madison Taxpayer funded K-12 Governance and $pending notes

Lucas Robinson: At last Monday’s School Board meeting, Madison Teachers Inc. President Michael Jones called the referendums a “bait and switch.” “I should have known better than to trust a district that spent the equivalent of multiple educators’ annual salary on school logos and rebranding that no one asked for,” Jones told the board, referring […]

Litigation, “balanced literacy” and our long term, disastrous reading results (Madison?)

Joshua Dunn For several decades, the high priestess of the balanced literacy movement has been Lucy Calkins of Columbia University, who directed the now-defunct Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. Calkins once estimated that her Units of Study reading curriculum had been adopted by as many as one in four U.S. elementary schools. Irene Fountas […]

Notes on Wisconsin Teachers

Quinton Klabon summary NEW DPI 2023 TEACHER REPORT —— Underly: “I support Eliminating the Foundations of Reading (FORT)” Teacher Test

Meanwhile: taxpayer funded Madison Governance renames schools

Anna Hansen: Now that Southside Elementary has its long-awaited new name, the Madison School District is eyeing its next re-christenings. While district officials draft the necessary paperwork and place their orders for the new Lori Mann Carey Elementary signage, Conrad A. Elvehjem and Charles Lindbergh Elementary Schools are on deck for renaming during the 2025-2026 […]

In Madison, students are 72% behind grade level in reading and 84% behind in math

Kayla Huynh But Wisconsin students remain behind years after the public health emergency disrupted learning, according to a national study on academic recovery this month.  The average Wisconsin student is over a third of a grade level behind in math and half of a grade level behind in reading compared with pre-pandemic levels, according to results […]

US K-12 Tax and spending priorities: Only 47.5% of people in the public school system are actually teachers

Heritage From 1950 to today, there’s been a 100% increase in the number of students in public schools, a 243% increase in the number of teachers, and a 709% increase in the number of non-teaching staff, which are largely administrative positions. Only 47.5% of people in the public school system are actually teachers. “An emphasis […]

ongoing: the fate of choice schools in Madison

Kayla Huynh: The McKenzie Foundation and the Boys & Girls Club will instead develop workforce programs for the school district “that combine academic rigor and workforce development,” McKenzie said in the statement.  “By leveraging each organization’s unique strengths and resources, we can better serve students and provide them with the skills they need to succeed,” […]

The Predatory Dynamic in Madison Schools

Dave Cieslewicz: If you ever wonder what people mean when they use the phrase “word salad”, here’s what they mean: “There is a predatory dynamic of coming into a district like ours and saying that you are going to resolve something as deep-rooted as racialized inequity through a school that pairs young people with professional […]

Aborting another independent Madison Charter School

Abbey Machtig: “I do think that there is a fundamental misalignment in terms of how the school would fit into our more broad district plans and misunderstanding of services that we already provide,” board member Savion Castro said Wednesday. It’s a familiar approach, given the district has fought other proposed charter schools in the past.  Documents show […]

$pending more Madison taxpayer funds amidst declining achievement

Dave Cieslewicz But the scores are even worse in Madison where students are 84% behind on math and 72% behind on reading. We did, in fact, keep schools closed for too long, but that doesn’t explain the Madison results because hundreds of school districts kept their schools closed as long as Madison did and they’ve […]

“achievement” and the well funded Madison school district

Abbey Machtig Madison students are 72% behind comparable 2019 numbers in reading and 84% behind in math, according to the report. “education recovery scorecard” —— Madison per student spending ranges from $22,633 to $29,827 depending on the number used (!) —— Parents overestimate student achievement, underestimate spending Related: Act 10 Did taxpayer funded Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Underly Juice […]

Mississippi, Louisiana and Madison Reading Result Commentary

Kaleem Caire: Mississippi is now #1 in reading among Black children while Wisconsin is #41 among all 41 states reporting scores for Black children. We have a lot more money in our state than they do in Mississippi. In Madison, we have even more. What is up with this? Our public school advocates need to […]

“outcome: teachers union revolt, no improvement until Aug. 2026 finish”

Quinton Klabon: This broke my heart last night. original plan: start LETRS reading retraining Sep. 2024, finish Jul. 2026 attempted plan: get paid over summer, evenings, or weekends, finish Aug. 2025 —— If you look at Milwaukee especially, you’ll see an entire school district crumbling. —— Parents overestimate student achievement, underestimate spending Related: Act 10 Did taxpayer funded […]

notes on madison’s taxpayer funded superintendent

Abbey Machtig Gothard’s starting salary is $299,000, according to his contract with the district. He also gets at least a 2% pay increase each year of the contract, along with $25,000 each year in retirement contributions to a 403(b) account. As superintendent, Gothard will lead the district through the design and construction of 10 new school buildings […]

Lying to Parents, Teachers & taxpayers – Wisconsin DPI

WILL: The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a nationally representative sample of schools throughout the country that allows for an apples-to-apples comparison of students in each state, and some cities. Early this morning, the 2024 NAEP results were released. Not surprisingly, they paint a dim picture of student performance since the pandemic, both […]

Notes on the Madison LaFollette High School Museum

Kayla Huynh: Mary Erickson fondly remembers attending La Follette High School in the 1960s.  Over the years, she held onto her high school memorabilia: The pins she received as a cheerleader rooting on the Lancers, the hand-written essays her teachers graded with A’s, the photos she captured for the yearbook and the prom dresses her […]

notes on teacher licensing and the taxpayer funded Madison School District

Kayla Huynh: Over 10% of the Madison school district’s teachers are relying on one-year emergency licenses to work in classrooms, according to figures obtained by the Cap Times under state open records laws. A majority of the Madison Metropolitan School District’s nearly 300 emergency licensed educators were teaching classes in bilingual education, English as a […]

Another Madison independent charter school Proposal…

Abbey Machtig: During an initial conversation, some Madison School Board members said they wanted to avoid creating competition with the district’s technical education and youth apprenticeship opportunities. McKenzie told the Wisconsin State Journal via email he is still pursuing a charter agreement with the UW Office of Educational Opportunity. The final application to UW is […]

Madison’s FastBridge Assessment Population

Via my public records request: Attached please find documents responsive to your public records request dated December 4, 2024. The attached reports were/are used by MMSD for tracking completion totals of FastBridge assessments during the fall of 2024. This is the closest existing artifact that we have that approximates what you asked for. Below is […]

Notes on three (out of 7) Madison School Board Seats on the April , 2025 ballot

Kayla Huynh: “What sets me apart is being able to analyze data and derive meaningful conclusions from it. That is what I do day in and day out in my profession,” Wagner said. “We need a better framework for reviewing policy and programming so that we can be confident that the things we will need […]

Act 10, litigation and the taxpayer funded Madison School District

Abbey Machtig The union representing Madison School District teachers and staff is demanding to bargain with district officials following Monday’s court ruling that would restore collective bargaining rights for Wisconsin teachers and other public employees. “We have returned to a pre-Act 10 collective bargaining environment, and we are therefore entitled to collectively bargain over terms […]

“Traditional Math: and effective strategy that teachers feel guilty using“

Barry Garelick and JR Wilson: From the foreword by Paul A. Kirschner, Emeritus Professor of Educational Psychology – Open University of the Netherlands; Guest Professor – Thomas More University of Applied Sciences “This book will, hopefully, provide an arsenal of tools and techniques to break through this downward spiral in teaching and learning math. First off, it […]

A Report on Reading Recovery (Madison used this for some time)

Nathaniel Hansford, Scott A. Dueker, Kathryn Garforth, Jill D. Grande, Joshua King & Sky McGlynn: Reading Recovery(RR) is a constructivist reading intervention used to provide tier 3 instruction to struggling readers in the first grade. The program has been previously evaluated and found effective by Evidence for ESSA (John Hopkins University), What Works Clearing House […]

Madison Schools Keep Failing

Dave Cieslewicz To quote a Wisconsin State Journal story on test scores that were released yesterday: “The four specific categories used to calculate the district’s overall achievement score all declined in comparison with last year’s school report card. Graduate rates fell slightly, while chronic absenteeism, or the percentage of students that miss at least 10% of school, […]

Notes on Madison’s successful fall 2024 tax & $pending increase referendum

By Keegan Kyle and Brandon Raygo Voters all across the communities and neighborhoods in the Madison Metropolitan School District widely supported the district’s two referendums this month that will raise property taxes for decades. (more) But in the affluent village of Maple Bluff, on the eastern shore of Lake Mendota, voters expressed more aversion to hiking taxes […]

notes on a proposed Madison charter high school

Kayla Huynh: “If they don’t go to college, they should be able to walk right into a well-paid career. The No. 1 thing is to really work with these kids to help them find a career that they will enjoy,” McKenzie said. “These are all things that are directed at attacking the cycle of poverty.”  […]

“These new standards mean that eighth-grade teachers will not need to have taken English, French, geography, history or math at the university level”

via Anna Stokke: Distressing changes Re: Teachers need subject expertise (Think Tank, Nov. 12) I’m writing, as a parent and as an educator, in support of my colleague Anna Stokke’s Monday op-ed. Having spent two decades teaching post-secondary students in Manitoba, I am distressed, to say the least, to hear about the revisions to Manitoba’s […]

“in which she insisted teachers shouldn’t take math”

Anna Stokke In answer to Martha Koch’s opinion piece, “absolutely,” and I say that as a scientist with 40 years of experience in the biology of behaviour, but the crackpot ideas of self-described “researchers” that have held sway for the last 30 years with respect to influencing educational policy are the least reliable basis for […]