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William Jeynes There are two schools of thought regarding how best to eliminate the achievement gap. The first group calls on society to focus its attention on eliminating “opportunity gaps,” arguing that this will lead to higher academic achievement among currently disadvantaged students. These opportunity gaps include factors such as being a member of a racial minority, […]
Maryellen MacDonald & Mark Seidenberg Calkins became a lightning rod because she represented the sheer intransigence of educators in the face of evidence that their methods for teaching reading were ineffective and ill-conceived. Calkins has now conceded that problems with her approach discussed in Emily Hanford’s Sold a Story were real. The problems were not small ones. Calkins […]
Emma Camp: A small but growing number of American schools are reducing or delaying access to advanced courses. Most often, these changes have been enacted in the name of reducing achievement gaps between demographic groups. However, rather than helping marginalized students, these policies deny educational opportunities for gifted students of all backgrounds. “Detracking” is an […]
Dave Cieslewicz: And, of course, all of the underlying reasons to send the school board a message about their priorities and their performance are still very much there. This is a district with some of the lowest test scores and some of the highest absenteeism rates in the state, a district where the racial achievement […]
Dave Cieslewicz And the racial achievement gap in Madison was far worse than the rest of the state. Statewide the gaps were 43% for English and 50% for math. About 60% of white students were proficient in English compared to 17% of Black students. About 64% of white students were proficient or better in math […]
IRG: Wisconsin’s 2024 test scores, out tomorrow, are inflated, biased, and unreliable. How they got that way is the subject of “Testing Our Patience: How Wisconsin Lowered Standards, Widened the Achievement Gap, and Busted Its State Exams,” the latest Institute for Reforming Government Center for Investigative Oversight (IRG CIO) report. The report and supporting materials […]
John Johnson: It is galling to hear a politician justify deliberately making test scores incomparable to previous years as a way to reduce “confusion.” More: Questions we will asking: Why changes were made? Why move to lower standards ? (Even @GovEvers disagrees with this) Why make it impossible to track data from previous years? And […]
Quinton Klabon: State test scores, out tomorrow, are inflated, biased, and unreliable. DPI knew achievement gaps for Black, low-income, and special-needs students would grow. Superintendent Underly criticized “nonsense going on with literacy” while Act 20 negotiations occurred. And So, why lower them? Because they were killing the vibes. Superintendent Underly wanted them changed in JANUARY […]
Lesley Muldoon: Four and a half years after the start of the pandemic, it’s time to raise the bar and stop making excuses for sagging achievement. Newly released data show that student growth in 2023-24 lagged behind pre-pandemic achievement levels in nearly every grade. That data follows the big declines in reading and math scores on the […]
Dave Cieslewicz: And, again, on that score school districts like Madison, which obsess over race, have made zero progress in closing the racial achievement gap. Why do liberals cling so tightly to a system that delivers no results? A color blind society was once, not so long ago, the liberal position on the matter. But […]
Dave Cieslewicz And the district’s argument in favor of what seems like madness? Enrollments may turn around some day. But that’s unlikely for two reasons. The first is that fertility rates are down and enrollment declines are an issue for districts all over the country. In addition, the COVID pandemic resulted in an increase in […]
Wall Street Journal: Massachusetts students are currently required to take an assessment during their sophomore year and meet thresholds for proficiency in math, English and science. Students who meet the minimum requirement are cleared for graduation. Those who don’t are assigned extra help and an “educational proficiency” plan to make sure they catch up by […]
mp3 audio | transcript. Corri Hess: Most school districts in the state now use a balanced literacy approach called “three-cueing,” that will now be illegal in all public and private schools. The change comes at a time when fewer than 40 percent of third graders were proficient in reading on the most recent Wisconsin Forward […]
Naomi Martin: In January, 10 months after embarking on the project, my reporting partner Mandy McLaren and I published our full series, “Lost in a World of Words.” It explored flawed reading instruction in Massachusetts and the harm it causes families. Among the facts we revealed: more than half of Massachusetts third graders don’t meet the […]
Will Flanders: It’s an unfortunate reality that demographic factors historically play a large role in student performance; any honest assessment of how schools and school sectors are performing must take those factors into account. Much of the reporting on school performance, though, ignores this reality. This report endeavors to incorporate these factors through rigorous statistical […]
Dave Cieslewicz: Anyone hoping for improvement in Madison’s public schools will need to keep waiting. Incumbent school board members Savion Castro and Maia Pearson will be reelected by default in April as no challengers showed up before the filing deadline yesterday. Sincere congratulations to Castro and Pearson. They’ve stepped up. They put their names on […]
Heather Mac Donald: For decades, progressives have attributed black students’ low academic skills to school underfunding. Attend any graduate education program or sit in on any legislative hearing, and you will hear that stingy white taxpayers deny majority-black schools the financial resources necessary to close the academic achievement gap. Americans are to imagine cash-starved inner-city […]
David Blaska: Here in Madison, the proponents of one-size-fits-all government monopoly schooling are rewriting history to cover their misdeeds. The occasion was the recent passing of barely remembered Daniel Nerad, superintendent of Madison public schools between 2008 and 2012. Capital Times publisher Paul Fanlund marvels that the same problems that beset Nerad a dozen years ago plague the […]
Sara Randazzo and Douglas Belkin School leaders in this college town just north of Chicago have been battling a sizable academic achievement gap between Black, Latino and white students for decades. So a few years ago, the school district decided to try something new at the high school: classrooms voluntarily separated by race. Nearly 200 Black and […]
Wall Street Journal: In San Francisco Monday morning, there’s going to be a demonstration on the steps of City Hall. That may not be surprising, given the protests breaking out all over the country. But the topic is, believe it or not, algebra. A grassroots alliance of parents, teachers and concerned citizens known as the […]
Quinton Klabon: 1 year and $1 BILLION in federal relief later, it’s still tragic. •6,000 fewer kids on college track•101,000 kids below grade level•Green Bay, Janesville stuck at pandemic low•Milwaukee Black kids not catching up Scott Girard: In the Madison Metropolitan School District, proficiency rates in both subjects are well above the state for white […]
Wall Street Journal: From pandemic learning loss to racial achievement gaps, many U.S. education ailments can be addressed by schools outside the traditional, union-dominated system. More evidence comes from a new report showing that the largest charter school network in the country helps students get into college, and then to get a degree. Students who […]
Jay Greene, Ph.D. and Madison Marino Two years ago, the Heritage Foundation Backgrounder “Equity Elementary”1 first examined the extent to which the idea that educational institutions should have Chief Diversity Officers (CDO) had spread from higher education into public school districts. At that time, Heritage reported that 39 percent of all school districts with at least 15,000 students […]
Brian Conrad: When I decided to read every word of California’s 1,000-page proposal to transform math education in public schools, I learned that even speculative and unproved ideas can end up as official instructional policy. In 2021, the state released a draft of the California Mathematics Framework, whose authors were promising to open up new […]
I'm glad the teachers union in Milwaukee has solved the problem of reading proficiency of less than 15% & massive racial achievement gaps. That must be the case if they can spend their time trying to prevent parents concerned about their kids education from holding a meeting. https://t.co/QBnaZQopkf — Will Flanders (@WillFlandersWI) August 22, 2023
Ed Pozzuoli: As public schools across Florida get ready to open, parents have greater choices and control than ever for their children. This state policy providing parents more and better educational choices started over 20 years ago and continues today. The focus on student achievement, as opposed to adult interests, has launched Florida students to […]
Scott Girard: Community members can now weigh in on the type of leader they’d like as the next Madison Metropolitan School District superintendent. The district’s website now includes a “leadership profile” survey that will help the Madison School Board and its consultant on the search, Alma Advisory Group, develop a job description for the position when it’s posted this […]
Carey Wright: Former State Superintendent of Education Dr. Carey Wright rebuts a recent column in the L.A. Times claiming Mississippi “gamed its national reading test scores.” Like educators in Mississippi and across the nation, I was shocked by the deeply cynical column in the Los Angeles Times about Mississippi’s well documented achievements in education over the past […]
George Will: Ian Rowe, a charter school advocate, notes thatsince the “nation’s report card” was first issued in 1992, in no year “has a majority of whitestudents been reading at grade level. The sad irony is that closing the black-white achievement gap would guarantee only educational mediocrity for all students.” Mysteriously (or perhaps not), California’s most recent […]
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 […]
Emily Hanford notes the “surge in legislative activity” amidst our long term, disastrous reading results [link]. via NAEP 4th grade results 1992-2022. Longtime SIS readers may recall a few of these articles, bookmarking our times, so to speak: 2004: [Link] “In 2003, 80% of Wisconsin fourth graders scored proficient or advanced on the WCKE in […]
Noah Smith: The results were highly disappointing — Black and Latino kids’ math skills did not improve, and the achievement gap widened, thanks to richer White and Asian families hiring private tutors to teach their kids algebra. This incident — whose results are sad but entirely predictable — highlights how some Americans think we can […]
Removing algebra and dumbing down public schools to win political points results in worse outcomes Virtue signal policies like removing honors classes and algebra result in a bigger achievement gap than before https://t.co/xrTYTUWIJg pic.twitter.com/vrLVE2Njp6 — Garry Tan 陈嘉兴 (@garrytan) April 24, 2023 Related: Madison, one size fits all – English 10 and the effort to […]
Robert Pondisco: A remarkable long-term study by University of Virginia researchers led by David Grissmer demonstrates unusually robust and beneficial effects on reading achievement among students in schools that teach E.D. Hirsch’s Core Knowledge sequence. The working paper offers compelling evidence to support what many of us have long believed: Hirsch has been right all along about […]
Dave cieslewicz: Anybody who serves as Madison Schools Superintendent deserves our thanks. I’ve always thought that it’s the toughest job in Madison, even tougher than being mayor. Yesterday Carlton Jenkins announced his retirement effective at the end of July, after only three years on the job. Let’s thank him for his service and wish him […]
Wisconsin Reads: Literacy is essential to developing self-worth and becoming successful in all aspects of life including family, education, work, and community service. Varied levels of awareness, understanding, and action have contributed to long-standing myths about reading and growing challenges that impact every Wisconsinite. Educational attainment is a barrier to self-sustaining wages for dropouts and […]
Scott Girard: West math teacher Sigrid Murphy said that even more recently, in the 2020-21 school year, “30% of the students in geometry at West identified as white while 72% of the students in geometry honors identified as white.” The school’s overall enrollment that year was about 52% white students. “Within the (West) math department, […]
Will Flanders: Recently, results from the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) have caused shockwaves around the country. At least partially-related to teachers’ union-led shutdowns that kept schools closed well past when it was reasonable to do so,[i] decades of progress in scores were erased over the course of three years.[ii] Despite declining scores across the […]
Leah Triedler: But in a statement after the speech, Republican Sen. Alberta Darling, chair of the Senate Education Committee, said Wisconsin students’ poor performance stems from Gov. Tony Evers “refusing to reform education in Wisconsin” despite Republican efforts, including a literacy bill Evers vetoed twice. Darling said Underly is following in his footsteps. “The DPI Secretary […]
Vladimir Kogan: It is impossible to overstate the devastating impact that the Covid-19 pandemic has had on the education of America’s children. Over the past year, a growing body of evidence has produced something rare in education research — a consensus. These studies show that the disruption to schooling caused unprecedented learning shortfalls — worse […]
Lasherica Thornton: If approved, Black students would get the funding starting the 2023-24 school year for being the lowest performing in English and math. Black students would continue to benefit from the funding until they reach the threshold of the highest performing student group. But if during that time, another student group slips to the […]
Chester Finn: How can state and national policymakers and education leaders gauge the academic setbacks that young Americans suffered due to Covid-forced school shutdowns? How can they see whether achievement gaps between groups of students are widening or narrowing? How can we tell whether eighth graders in Missouri do better or worse in math or […]
Sean Phillip Cotter: Boston Public Schools, which has narrowed its ostensibly nationwide superintendent search down to one current and one recent former BPS administrator, is beset on all sides by poor student outcomes, yawning socioeconomic achievement gaps, reports of increased violence in and around school buildings, declining enrollment and snarled student transportation strategies. The commissioner […]
Benjamin Yount: “As proficiency has plummeted under his tenure, Governor Evers is forced to point to outdated data to back up his claims that he has been an effective leader on education,” Will Flanders with the Wisconsin Institute of Law and Liberty told The Center Square. Flanders added that Gov. Evers’ approach to public schools […]
Mary Kay Linge The sabotage is ongoing,” another parent said — recalling that Vasconcelos previously made waves for suggesting that AP tests “reflect systemic racism” and tried to scale back LaGuardia’s AP offerings. Draft schedules circulating among the faculty show the instructional day being shaved down by nearly two hours for the Fall 2022 semester. While 10 periods would […]
Ricardo Cano, Nanette Asimov Teachers at San Francisco’s Lowell High School gave freshman students significantly more D and F grades this past fall, the first semester after the school board eliminated the merit-based admissions it had relied on for decades. The lower grades, while expected by many, are likely to become part of a fervid […]
Will Flanders: Here are the biggest findings: Students in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program continue to outperform their public-school peers. Proficiency rates in private choice schools were 4.6% higher in English/Language Arts (ELA) and 4.5% higher in math on average than proficiency rates in traditional public schools in Milwaukee. Charter school students in Milwaukee continue […]
Dana Goldstein: How Professor Calkins ended up influencing tens of millions of children is, in one sense, the story of education in America. Unlike many developed countries, the United States lacks a national curriculum or teacher-training standards. Local policies change constantly, as governors, school boards, mayors and superintendents flow in and out of jobs. Amid […]
Jonathan Chait: Over the last decade, evidence has grown increasingly strong that public charter schools create better educational outcomes, especially for low-income, minority students in cities. The question hovering over the Biden administration has been whether it will encourage and work to improve charter schools, as the Obama administration did, or instead try to smother them, as teachers unions […]
Beth Hawkins: As four-fifths of the district’s federal COVID recovery funds are taken up by the new teacher contract and to keep educators on the payroll despite dramatic enrollment losses, Graff’s successor will have to find a bare-bones solution to dire learning losses. In some populations, more than 90% of children are now behind, but […]
William Jacobson: The federal bureaucracy is being weaponized against parent concerned about the racialization and sexualization of K-12 education, particularly in the younger grades. Merrick Garland, dancing to the tune of the National School Board Association, portrayed parents protesting as domestic threats, and organized law enforcement at every level to coordinate strategies against them. I wrote at […]
David Blaska: Were they just hoping problem would go away? Now the Madison school board is developing a committee to study school safety. NOW? Today? Five months after a widespread brawl at East high school induced one-third of the student body to shelter at home for safety? Two years after defunding school resource police officers? And all the […]
Heather Knight: San Francisco public school officials and board members talk a lot about kids like Royal Holyfield, an 11-year-old Black boy in fifth grade at a Tenderloin elementary school. They talk a lot about equity. They talk a lot about narrowing the persistent achievement gap between Black kids and their white and Asian peers. […]
C Bradley Thompson In the first two essays in this series on the relationship between government and the education of children (“How the Redneck Intellectual Discovered Educational Freedom—and How You Can, Too” and “The New Abolitionism: A Manifesto for a Movement”), I established, first, how and why the principle of “Separation of School and State” […]
Channel3000: The district couldn’t provide any examples of history that would be taught differently. Jackson instead says teachers will use more perspectives when covering a topic. 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. 2004 notes. Mandates, closed schools and Dane […]
Wisconsin State Journal Commentary Two other seats on the board are mostly uncontested. Nichelle Nichols, a former Madison School District administrator whom we’ve endorsed in the past for School Board, will do a fine job filling Seat 5. For Seat 4, incumbent Ali Muldrow is the only name on the ballot, with conservative agitator David Blaska making a […]
“Heinrich has exercised the powers of a dictatorship in Dane County for 2 years.” — Justice Pat Roggensack during today’s argument. https://t.co/53oA4zbjrz — Dan Lennington (@DanLennington) March 9, 2022 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. 2004 notes. Mandates, closed […]
Pat Schneider (2018), dives into a look at the aborted Madison Preparatory Academy IB charter school proposal (2011). The book includes several recommendations to improve information exchange around controversial public policies. Talk about the most important. The most important thing is that we all do our own individual work of understanding our own biases. We […]
Scott Girard The mixed recommendation would cost approximately $4 million for its curricular materials, while the single-vendor option would cost approximately $3.2 million, according to the presentation. Board members did not generally make their preferences clear Monday. “It’s really important that we understand the impact that we’ll be making in this investment and understand how […]
Jason Riley: Making an enemy of testing and grades is barking up the wrong tree. The test isn’t the cause of these disparities. It’s merely a measure of reality. Eliminating the test will only obscure the learning gap, not erase it. Moreover, lowering standards ultimately harms all groups. Schools that admit less-prepared students won’t want […]
Libby Sobic and Will Flanders #1 – Wisconsin is 8th in Education Nationwide Governor Evers made the claim during his state of the state that Wisconsin’s “education system” has moved from 18th to 8th in the nation during his administration, and gave the credit to increased spending in public schools. His claim appears to come from a report […]
David Blaska: Critical race theory denialists trot out the same university professors who promote CRT to confirm that mom and dad are unwitting pawns of the Republican Borg (as the WI State Journal did.) It’s like asking Putin what day he plans to invade. CNN asked a Columbia University professor to put San Francisco voters under […]
Washington Post Editorial: Announcing his selection of Aimee Rogstad Guidera as education secretary, Mr. Youngkin cited her work in “advocating for innovation and choice, data-driven reform, and high standards.” Ms. Guidera is a national expert on the use of data in education policy. She headed up the Guidera Strategy consulting firm and is the founder and former […]
Joe Barrett: Chicago Public Schools canceled classes Wednesday after the teachers union voted late Tuesday to stop providing in-person instruction, citing the latest spike in Covid-19 that has sent cases to record levels in the city. City leaders called the vote by the Chicago Teachers Union an illegal job action and said teachers who didn’t […]
Will Flanders: The decision to remain closed is likely to have long term consequences for the nation. Standardized test scores fell dramatically this year, even after accounting for the huge number of students who didn’t participate in testing. In the Spring, WILL estimated an economic cost to the state of more than $7 billion over the lifetime […]
Boaz Barak, Edith Cohen, Adrian Mims and Jelani Nelson: We write to express our alarm over recent trends in K-12 mathematics education in the United States. All of us have first-hand experience of the role that clear mathematical thinking has played in advancing information technology and American economic competitiveness. We all also share the urgent […]
Joanne Jacobs: San Francisco hoped to close achievement gaps by adopting a new, detracked math curriculum that delays algebra till 9th grade, writes Joe Hong on CalMatters. Results are mixed, at best. California’s proposed new math frameworkrecommends all districts follow San Francisco’s policies, citing the reforms as a success story, writes Hong. It’s complicated. Fewer students are […]
Alex Nester: A top Democratic economist says the rise of “antiracist” math curricula is a national security threat. Larry Summers, a Harvard economist who led the National Economic Council under former president Barack Obama, shared a letter on Monday signed by almost 600 academics that condemns the rise of woke math initiatives in K-12 schools. The letter […]
Wall Street Journal: The last few years have seen a proliferation of “open letters” by academics in politics and the humanities in favor of progressive causes. The hard sciences are different, and when mathematicians, physicists and engineers speak up to defend the integrity of their fields, Americans should pay attention. The latest example is a […]
Will Flanders: The News: The recent release of Wisconsin’s state report cards for individual districts and schools proved, once again, that the current composition of the report card is not doing enough to reveal the true state of education and academic performance in Wisconsin’s schools. A new policy brief from the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) […]
Elizabeth Beyer: The new priority area, target group outcomes, replaced closing achievement gaps. The new priority area, DPI said, sheds additional light on students in schools with low test scores. The measure was designed to help focus support on the learners who need it most, while also improving outcomes for all students, according to DPI. “I […]
Wisconsin State Journal: But the open seat on the Madison School Board was created when the board president retired after being taunted in foul ways outside her private home. Can you blame her? A school board member in Beaver Dam similarly resigned this fall, citing safety concerns for his family. Madison’s schools were closed most […]
Mitchell Schmidt: However, committee chair Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt, R-Fond du Lac, challenged critics of the bill, including DPI, to come forward with a proposal to address reading readiness. “I’ve got to tell you, I’m getting tired of this. The current way we teach reading in the state of Wisconsin, almost across the entire board, that […]
NY Times: An analysis by N.W.E.A., a nonprofit that provides academic assessments, for example, found that Latino third graders scored 17 percentile points lower in math in the spring of 2021, compared to the typical achievements of Latino third graders in the spring of 2019. The decline was 15 percentile points for Black students and […]
Shannon Whitworth: School Choice advocates across the nation were given a gem of an opportunity this past year to prove the value of their programs when teachers unions refused to return teachers to classrooms when it was demonstrably safe to do so. In fact, across 30 states nearly 50 school choice bills were introduced this […]
Peter Anderson: The Capital Times editorializes, “Madison has a great public schools system” and Board President “Ali Muldrow, is a dynamic leader “who will move Madison schools in the right direction” — sentiments reminiscent of the acclaim it offered former Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham, whose policies Muldrow seems poised to continue. But is it really great? […]
Libby Sobic and Will Flanders: Without fail, each state budget cycle always results in cries from the public school establishment that “we need more money in public schools!” Governor Evers continues this status quo assertion with his 2021-23 budget proposal for massive increases in spending for K12 education (about $1.7 billion). These declarations are often made […]
James Wigderson: The governor’s proposed state budget included an assault on school choice, three assaults actually, as Will Flanders of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) pointed out. The budget included an enrollment cap on all private school voucher programs, eliminating the charter school authorizer Office of Educational Opportunity, and a requirement that […]
The Capital Times: Madison has a great public schools system that faces great challenges. A year of pandemic-required distance learning made existing vulnerabilities and inequities all the more serious. Now, as the COVID-19 threat is easing, and as the schools are reopening, it is impossible to avoid the evidence of the work that must be […]
Robert Chappell : Muldrow and Castro both said the moment reflects a new commitment in the school district. “Our community is coming together to prioritize Black children and to reconcile a history in which black children have been harmed by this district and this community and this country, and then denied education effectively,” she said. […]
John Roach: I worked with Caire when he headed the Urban League of Greater Madison and on his effort to launch Madison Prep, the earnest but quixotic attempt to address Madison’s embarrassing racial achievement gap. The failure to launch that school was a bitter blow. And the gap has remained unchanged. Madison Prep failed because […]
Institute for Reforming Government, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, Wisconsin, Federation for Children School Choice, Wisconsin Action ExcelinEd in Action, Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, The John K. MacIver Institute for Public Policy Badger Institute, FreedomWorks and Building Education for Students Together: Dear Governor Evers, Speaker Vos, Majority Leader LeMahieu, and State Superintendent Stanford Taylor, […]
Benjamin Yount: There are new numbers to go along with claims that online classes are leaving school kids in Wisconsin behind. Milwaukee Public Schools on Wednesday said just over 30% of high school students failed the fall semester. Data from Milwaukee schools showed 30.3% of MPS high schoolers failed last fall, compared to 18.8% in […]
Shannon Whitworth: Miguel Cardona’s confirmation this month as President Biden’s secretary of education has left the nation’s school choice advocates wary but hopeful. Certainly, they appreciate the fact that Biden decided against elevating a number of teachers union executives to the position. In fact, after Cardona put in a good word for Connecticut’s charter schools and was […]
Logan Wroge: With a $14 million donation from American Girl founder and philanthropist Pleasant Rowland, One City Schools announced plans on Tuesday to purchase an office building in Monona that will become a new home for the fast-growing independent charter school. One City will use the donation to buy a 157,000-square-foot office building on the […]
Alan Borsuk: This means her children have been learning virtually for a year now while she has been teaching in person. As a generalization, most suburban schools have been open for in-person education, in some cases for the whole school year, in some cases since around mid-year. Also as a generalization – and almost no one disputes this – in-person […]
Shannon Whitworth: Let us not forget that prior to the pandemic panic, Wisconsin already had the largest achievement gapbetween white and Black children in the nation. This gap will only get worse as schools across the state continue with in-person instruction while MPS students struggle to connect virtually, and in many ways educate themselves. Inner-city students […]
Benjamin Yount: The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty is releasing a new study that puts the cost for keeping schools closed last spring at over $7 billion. Will Flanders, research director at WILL, said the number comes from study after study that shows less time in the classroom as well as a widening achievement […]
ARMAND A. FUSCO, ED.D.: As the newly appointed Literacy Task Force begins its quest to unravel why 20 years of efforts to improve reading were mired in a whirlpool of disastrous reading results to determine what went wrong (so that past mistakes are not repeated) there are critical lessons for learning from the Reading Champion. […]
Jonathan Chait: In the dozen years since Barack Obama undertook the most dramatic education reform in half a century — prodding local governments to measure how they serve their poorest students and to create alternatives, especially charter schools, for those who lack decent neighborhood options — two unexpected things have happened. The first is that […]
For a research project 1.Which belief, currently deemed true by scientific consensus, is most important for teachers & faculty at schools of ed to know? 2.Which belief, currently deemed false by scientific consensus, is nevertheless often believed by Ts & faculty at schls of ed? — Daniel Willingham (@DTWillingham) December 15, 2020 2010: When A […]
Scott Girard: “The problem was we could not get the teachers to commit to the coaching.” Since their small success, not much has changed in the district’s overall results for teaching young students how to read. Ladson-Billings called the ongoing struggles “frustrating,” citing an inability to distinguish between what’s important and what’s a priority in […]
.@MMSDschools and @UWMadEducation announce a 14-member early literacy task force focused on analyzing approaches to teaching reading “toward the goals of improving reading outcomes and reducing achievement gaps.” More details at a 1 p.m. press availability. Members: pic.twitter.com/mPDoVmDrTF — Scott Girard (@sgirard9) December 14, 2020 Yet, deja vu all around Madison’s long term, disastrous reading […]
Jack Schneider and Jennifer C. Berkshire: Together, led by federal policy elites, Republicans and Democrats espoused the logic of markets in the public sphere, expanding school choice through publicly funded charter schools. Competition, both sides agreed, would strengthen schools. And the introduction of charters, this contingent believed, would empower parents as consumers by even further […]
Gloria Reyes: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 1, 2020 Madison School Board President Gloria Reyes Will Not Seek Re-election Statement by Gloria Reyes I am announcing today that I will not seek re-election to the Madison School Board. This has been a difficult decision. I’ve made it after much consideration, consultation with my family, and as […]
Robby Soave: One school district in Washington state has evidently decided that Asians no longer qualify as persons of color. In their latest equity report, administrators at North Thurston Public Schools—which oversees some 16,000 students—lumped Asians in with whites and measured their academic achievements against “students of color,” a category that includes “Black, Latinx, Native […]
Will Flanders: The results for the 2019 administration of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have just been released. The NAEP is given to samples of students around the country on a biannual basis and provides the best method for comparing performance among students in different states. Unfortunately for Wisconsin, the story is yet another riff […]
Madison LaFollette High School Saturday, 17 October 2020. 2020 Madison School District Tax & Spending Increase Referendum: David Blaska: Another election is approaching, which means the Madison school district has its hands out for more money. Time to do like Sister Mary Rosaria and slap that hand with a steel-edge ruler! The Madison Metropolitan School […]
Hi, I’m cap tines K-12 education reporter Scott Gerard. Today. Our cap times IDFs panel will discuss how will COVID-19 change K-12 education. I’m lucky to have three wonderful panelists with me to help answer that question. Marilee McKenzie is a teacher at Middleton’s Clark street community school, where she has worked since the school was in its planning stages.
She’s in her [00:03:00] 11th year of teaching. Dr. Gloria Ladson billings is a nationally recognized education expert who was a U w Madison faculty member for more than 26 years, including as a professor in the departments of curriculum and instruction, educational policy studies and educational leadership and policy analysis.
She is also the current president of the national Academy of education. Finally dr. Carlton Jenkins is the new superintendent of the Madison metropolitan school district. He started the districts top job in August, coming from the Robbinsdale school district in Minnesota, where he worked for the past five years, Jenkins began his career in the Madison area.
Having worked in Beloit and at Memorial high school in early 1990s before moving to various districts around the country. Thank you all so much for being here. Mary Lee, I’m going to start with you. You’ve been working with students directly throughout this pandemic. How has it gone? Both in the spring when changes were very sudden, and then this fall with a summer to reflect and [00:04:00] plan, it’s been interesting for sure.
Um, overall, I would say the it’s been hard. There has been nothing about this have been like, ah, It’s really, it makes my life easy. It’s been really challenging. And at the same time, the amount of growth and learning that we’ve been able to do as staff has been incredible. And I think about how teachers have moved from face-to-face to online to then planning for.
Amber Walker and Negassi Tesfamichael: “We were glad to see you attempt to rebuild trust with parents on your very first day on the job. MMSD cannot afford to lose any more trust from its parents, students or teachers.” For the past decade, Wisconsin schools have consistently placed first or second in the nation for […]