schoolinfosystem.org
Burbio: One of the defining characteristics of in-person learning in 2020/21 was the difference in urban and non-urban learning plans. We took a look at the Top 50 metro areas and measured the in-person learning index for their city school district, and compared it to the rest of the country. The following chart is weighted […]
Ryan Lanier: In one of the most stunning examples of relief fund abuse, the Whitewater, Wis., school board voted to allocate 80 percent of its $2 million Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) grant toward the construction of synthetic turf fields for football, baseball, and softball. When asked why the funds should be used for athletic fields […]
Guy Marzorati and Vanessa Rancaño: San Francisco’s school board has spent the past year in the national spotlight, garnering the attention of pundits from Fox News to the New York Times editorial pages for its controversial decisions on distance learning, school renamings and admissions policies. The campaign to recall board members Alison Collins, Gabriela López and […]
Maribah Knight & Ken Armstrong: The police were at Hobgood because of that video. But they hadn’t come for the boys who threw punches. They were here for the children who looked on. The police in Murfreesboro, a fast-growing city about 30 miles southeast of Nashville, had secured juvenile petitions for 10 children in all […]
Eliza Shapiro: Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday he planned to overhaul New York City’s gifted and talented education system, a sea change for the nation’s largest public school system that may amount to the mayor’s most significant act in the waning months of his tenure. The mayor’s action attempts to address what the city has known […]
Michael Benjamin: We ask that question of any parent whose child attends a city Department of Education school and more broadly of families (especially urban ones) all across the nation. And not just elementary-school children, but even middle- and high-schoolers. Because all too many public schools not only fail to teach basic skills; they promote […]
Rick Hess: In schooling, proponents of even suspect pedagogies and practices tend to insist that their preferred approach is “evidence-based.” This seems to be the case, yet again, in the debates swirling around “anti-racist” education. I’ve encountered many claims I find unconvincing, especially when they’re advanced by impassioned advocates who don’t seem to have thought […]
Katherine Gorka: Others are engaging because of the content being taught. Whether it’s age-inappropriate sex education, critical race theory, or anti-American history, parents are seeing more of what their children are learning—thanks to COVID’s virtual learning—and they don’t like it. As a result, parents are organizing, speaking out, and pushing back, and they are having […]
Heather Knight: Siva Raj often receives gifts of thanks when he’s at farmers’ markets collecting signatures to qualify a recall effort of three San Francisco school board members for the ballot. Coffee, doughnuts, cookies, strawberries. “Everything!” he said with a laugh. But a new memo from a top Bay Area pollster outlining very grim unfavorable […]
Laura Testino: When former county school board member David Pickler, an advocate for the suburban school districts remaining separate, tells the story of the merger, he traces it back to the creation of each school system. Each was started around the same time, in the late 1860s after the Civil War. Memphis held more wealth […]
Mike Antonucci: What comes next? Federal and state governments are funneling unprecedented amounts of new money into public education, and the teachers unions have plenty of ideas on how to spend it.Watch a TV news segment or read an article about school reopenings and you’re bound to hear American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten […]
Brad Stulberg: You’ve probably heard of the 80/20 rule before: once you’ve learned or figured out the first 80 percent of something, the effort it will take to learn the last 20 percent might not be worth it—because the last 20 percent is almost always the hardest. The 80/20 rule, also called the Pareto principle, applies to both […]
Patrick Richardson: One Kansas City-area mom had to fight tooth and nail to get a mask exemption for her children, despite having paperwork showing disturbing changes in their vital signs after just one minute of putting on a mask. USD 229 Blue Valley officials rejected the results on a technicality, but a doctor says the […]
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 […]
John Tierney: “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul,” Nelson Mandela famously said, “than the way in which it treats its children.” By that standard, our society now has the soul of an abusive parent. The pandemic has turned American adults, or at least the ones who make the rules, into selfish […]
Corey DeAngelis and Patrick Wolf: We’ve heard the claim many times: Charters are a specialized form of schooling that might not be able to cater to the needs of large segments of the population, some people say. These critics claim that while public charter schools might be able to deliver good results by serving a few highly […]
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 […]
Jonathan Chait: It is entirely possible that when we look back at the coronavirus pandemic decades from now, we may see the gravest catastrophe as a generation of schoolchildren whose formative years were irrevocably stunted. Even if the year and counting of public-school rollback has not done as much damage as the death toll itself, […]
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 […]
Doree Lowak: “But, unfortunately, teachers who opted [to work remotely] still aren’t coming in, so kids go in to learn on Zoom while wearing a mask,” she said, referring to the teachers who received permission in September to be remote for the whole year. “They could have a math teacher ‘watching’ the class while the […]
Stacey Lennox: Congrats to Stanford Law and Policy Lab. They have identified the problem but are pursuing an epic failure with their solution. It seems the top-tier school has finally figured out that tying children to failing schools by their zip codes systematically oppresses black and brown children. President Trump knew that when he called school […]
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 […]
Empower Wisconsin: An email from MTI faculty representatives urged teachers to report to the district before 8 a.m. last Thursday that they had COVID-19 symptoms. “I’m sure we all feel exhausted, or have consistent headaches, not really feeling our usual energetic selves. Are you picking up what I’m putting down here?” the email states. “We need them […]
Perry Stein: After a month of in-person learning for about 20 percent of D.C. public school students, demand is growing for expanded access to classroom instruction for the fourth term of the academic year, which begins in late April. City officials have said that they will leave such decisions up to individual schools, but principals […]
WILL: Attorneys at the Liberty Justice Center and Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) are warning Madison Teachers Inc. that they face legal repercussions if they move forward with an illegal sick out on Monday. “Madison Teachers, Inc. leaders are asking their members to falsely call-in sick in order to shut down in-person learning,” said Daniel Suhr, […]
Heather Knight: The fight over reopening San Francisco’s public schools will take a dramatic, heated turn on Wednesday as the city becomes the first in the state — and possibly the entire country — to sue its own school district to force classroom doors open. City Attorney Dennis Herrera, with the blessing of Mayor London […]
Chrissy Clark: Democrats are taking the side of the Chicago Teachers Union as it vows to strike. City leadership ordered teachers to return to classroom learning and the ongoing feud is highlighting the burgeoning divide between teacher unions — who wish to keep schools closed — and school administrators — who wish to safely reopen […]
Jill Tucker: San Francisco’s elite academic public high school would no longer admit students based on top grades and test scores, and instead use a random lottery system for admission, if the school board approves a measure fast-tracked for a vote. The controversial proposal will head to the school board during a special meeting Tuesday, […]
Shannon Whitworth: School choice is the vehicle which will drive our nation’s poorest and most violent neighborhoods into peace and prosperity, which is why we celebrate this week as National School Choice Week. And the pandemic has only highlighted this by placing a devastating burden on already financially disadvantaged, inner-city families, particularly Black families, with many parents […]
Wall Street Journal: The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) this weekend vetoed Joe Biden’s plan to reopen schools during his first 100 days by voting to continue remote learning indefinitely. The union is taking kids hostage to extract more money from Congress with no guarantee that it will release them if it does. Chicago’s Board of […]
Nader Issa: Chicago Teachers Union members have voted to defy Chicago Public Schools’ reopening plans and continue working from home Monday because of health and safety concerns. City officials had said in recent days they would view the collective refusal of in-person work as a strike, but in response to Sunday’s vote results said they […]
President-Elect Biden: President-elect Biden is calling on Congress to provide $170 billion — supplemented by additional state and local relief resources — for K-12 schools and institutions of higher education. These resources will help schools serve all students, no matter where they are learning, and help achieve President-elect Biden’s goal to open the majority of […]
Emily Zanotti: Members of the Chicago Teachers Union refused to return to classrooms Monday, even though Chicago Public Schools officially reopened to some in-classroom learning. Now, the city says teachers who called in sick without an excuse will be considered “absent without leave” for each day they refuse to turn up and may not be […]
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 […]
Perry Stein and Laura Meckler: Hours before the mayor was to make an announcement, she said she needed more time. The city spent the next five months trying to bring students and teachers back to classrooms. A combination of mismanagement by the mayor and her aides and intransigence from the District’s teachers union combined to […]
Josh Verges: New state guidance that will enable Minnesota’s youngest learners to head back to school next month is getting cheers from urban districts, jeers from rural schools and a mixed response from teachers. Within hours of Gov. Tim Walz’s announcement Wednesday that elementary schools soon can operate at full capacity, even as coronavirus case […]
Robbie Whelan: Superintendent Jonathan Cooper this summer helped write a fall reopening plan for his southwestern Ohio school district with a rule based on the state’s policy: Any student potentially exposed to Covid-19 in Mason City Schools had to quarantine for two weeks, no exceptions. This fall, he began rethinking it. A growing body of […]
Sarah & Ben Jedd: On March 15, when the Madison Metropolitan School District shuttered buildings and sent students home, Dane County had eight cases of COVID-19. On Dec. 17, when MMSD superintendent Carlton Jenkins hosted a forum via Zoom to discuss reopening our schools, the county had over 3,000 positive cases this month alone. Nevertheless, […]
Heather MacDonald: The United States is being torn apart by an idea: that racism defines America. The death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer in late May 2020 catapulted this claim into national prominence; riots and the desecration of national symbols followed. Now, activists and their media allies are marshaling […]
Walter Williams: Several years ago, Project Baltimore began an investigation of Baltimore’s school system. What it found was an utter disgrace. In 19 of Baltimore’s 39 high schools, out of 3,804 students, only 14 of them, or less than 1%, were proficient in math. In 13 of Baltimore’s high schools, not a single student scored proficient in math. In […]
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 […]
Adam Rogan: The City of Racine is still banning schools from having students and teachers in their buildings within city limits through Jan. 15, despite a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision last week that put the local order closing schools on pause. The legal reason the city is citing for continuing to enforce school closures is […]
A 0.28% covid positive test rate in New York City schools during the last six weeks—a ????? of the 3% rate in the city in general. It would’ve been so reasonable and right (and politically painless!) for @NYCMayor to keep the schools open. Crazy. pic.twitter.com/MXGsvQzSCI — Kurt Andersen (@KBAndersen) November 29, 2020 Related: Catholic schools will […]
Racine Journal Times: It’s one thing when an individual school district, such as Racine or Kenosha Unified, decide that they are going to go virtual. It’s another thing for the Racine health department to step in and rule that all schools, including private schools, in its jurisdiction must also shut their doors. Yet that is […]
Administration slides: 1) Call to order 2) Approval of minutes dated Nov. 5, 2020 3) Review Charge Statement/Purpose & Timeline 4) Update of responses to questions & comments 5) What we heard from last meeting? a) Successful Implementation of RJ Practices & MMSD- Critical Response Teams 6) Partnering with Law Enforcement- Flow and Guidance 7) […]
The Economist: NEW YORK CITY’S schools may be closing, but the pupils at Success Academies, a network of charter schools which has placed all of its 20,000 pupils in remote learning, will still be wearing their uniform (vivid, pumpkin-orange shirts with navy trousers) every day of the week. Unlike traditional public schools in the city, […]
Kate King and Charles Passy: New York City’s decision to switch back to fully remote learning in its public schools sent parents scrambling for backup. Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered schools to temporarily end in-person instruction beginning Thursday due to rising coronavirus cases in the city. Companies that provide learning pods and tutoring services say […]
Jessica Chasmar: CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Thursday slammed the closures of New York City schools amid the uptick in coronavirus cases, saying the decision is being based on “fear and not enough fact.” During a discussion with Dr. Anthony Fauci on his show Thursday night, Mr. Cuomo, who is the brother of New York Gov. […]
Caitlin Sievers: Some schools are considering fighting it. The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, a conservative nonprofit law firm based in Milwaukee, says it’s illegal. But the City of Racine is standing by its Health Department’s most recent COVID-19 order that requires all private and public K-12 school buildings within the jurisdiction of its […]
Samantha West: Jordan Meulemans’ weekday routine used to begin at 6:30 a.m., when she would wake up and get ready for school. But for the past month, the De Pere High School junior’s days have looked starkly different. Meulemans rolls out of bed around 7:30 a.m., puts on some sweats, wakes her little sister, eats breakfast and […]
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.
Corey DeAngelis and Neal McCluskey: State policymakers should • enact universal education savings accounts; • allow any students who so desire to enroll in virtual charter schools up to a school’s capacity to serve them, and allow their public education dollars to follow them to such schools; and • let schools and districts determine whether students […]
Anna North: America’s largest school district, New York City, brought some 300,000 students back for in-person learning on Tuesday, even as Covid-19 rates in the city began to tick up. Meanwhile, schools in Miami announced a return to fully in-person learning this month, after a disastrous rollout of online education earlier in the fall. Then […]
Chris Rickert: Amid a national conversation on policing and race, Dane County school districts are taking a closer look at the work officers do in their schools but so far have not gone as far as the Madison School District and removed them entirely. Of the 16 districts completely or predominantly within the county, 12 […]
Hannah Stoll: I was supposed to go back to class next week, but the public school I attend won’t open even for remote learning for three weeks. Its classrooms will be shut for at least another two months. My twin sister and younger brother, who attend a Jewish school in a Boston suburb, are going […]
Joy Pullman: Prominent Democrat politicians have started making huge concessions on reopening schools. Back in May, Democrats pounced after President Trump supported reopening. Despite the data finding precisely the opposite, it quickly became the Democrat-media complex line that opening schools this fall would be preposterously dangerous to children and teachers. In July, when New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled a […]
Joan Vennochi: Can this superintendent be saved? As she marks her first anniversary as head of Boston Public Schools, Brenda Cassellius is getting a lesson in the local version of “trauma-informed teaching.” This learning strategy is supposed to take trauma into account and help students get past it. But here, it means a superintendent is […]
Kmjn.org A list of four-year universities in the United States who’ve announced that their fall 2020 undergraduate classes will be taught all or almost all online, sorted by date of announcement. There’s variation within the plans in the list. Some are exclusively online, while others plan to have a limited number of in-person courses, e.g. […]
Meg Jones: Wisconsin Lutheran High School Conference teachers and students who expected to walk in their school buildings and finally return to classes next month protested on Sunday a City of Milwaukee Health Department directive that all schools will start with virtual learning. The group of around 100 parents, teachers and students walked to Milwaukee Mayor […]
Melinda Anderson: Racial inequality in Baltimore’s public schools is in part the byproduct of long-standing neglect. In a system in which eight out of 10 students are black, broken heaters forced students to learn in frigid temperatures this past winter. Black children in Baltimore’s education system face systemic disadvantages: They’re suspended at much higher rates […]
Nassim Nicholas Taleb Background : “IQ” is a stale test meant to measure mental capacity but in fact mostly measures extreme unintelligence (learning difficulties), as well as, to a lesser extent (with a lot of noise), a form of intelligence, stripped of 2nd order effects — how good someone is at taking some type of exams designed by unsophisticated […]
Johnny Diaz: Nina Lavezzo-Stecopoulos and the co-editor of their high school newspaper, The Little Hawk, were talking to students in November about what they disliked about Iowa City High School when she sensed something was off. “That day I had a lot of good conversations about wrongful suspensions and racism” by the staff members who […]
Jeremy Thiesfeldt: How can cursive help? Studies show the value of cursive writing on student brains and learning: Cursive writing stimulates brain synapses and synchronicity between the right and left hemispheres in a way that printing does not. Cursive writing builds neural pathways and integrates multisensory learning, which is a key component for struggling readers. […]
Chris von Csefalvay: In early March, British leaders planned to take a laissez-faire approach to the spread of the coronavirus. Officials would pursue “herd immunity,” allowing as many people in non-vulnerable categories to catch the virus in the hope that eventually it would stop spreading. But on March 16, a report from the Imperial College […]
Kevin Tampone: Gov. Andrew Cuomo suggested today that remote learning could become a permanent part of life for New York students, even after the coronavirus pandemic ends. “The old model of everybody goes and sits in a classroom and the teacher is in front of that classroom and teaches that class and you do that […]
Rod Dreher: The real lesson from Mintz’s experience is that her parents need to get her out of that school and into either a well-disciplined private school, or some kind of homeschooling, perhaps online. Many years ago, after my wife began homeschooling our kids, my sister, who was a (very good) public school teacher, expressed […]
Marguerite Rosa: School system leaders and Congress are engaged in what could be seen as a game of chicken. Superintendents from 62 big urban districts signed a Council of the Great City Schools letter to congressional leaders saying schools need a $200 billion federal bailout to avert a “catastrophe” with “profound” consequences for the nation. […]
Strong towns: In this sense, Kansas City, Missouri is no different than most communities in the United States and Canada. In the last 70 years, the physical size of Kansas City has quadrupled while the population has remained relatively stable. (Put another way, every resident of Kansas City is on the hook for maintaining four […]
Heather MacDonald: As American unemployment mounted by the millions in March and April, the dance of the college diversity deans kept up its usual brisk pace. On April 1, Harvard University announced that its acting associate dean for inclusion and belonging was moving on to Denison University. But the Harvard associate deanship will not be […]
Alexandra Deligiorgi: Poststructuralist relativism, following the Nietzschean critique of Western rationalism, denounces the quest for truth as a quest to legitimize various claims on the level of universal human value, by covering up the indirect coercion of their discourse or imagery. Using perspectivism as an argument against philosophical grounding of various patterns and schemes, post-modern […]
Scott Girard: The referenda, as discussed earlier in March by the board, would ask voters to approve $317 million in capital expenses and $33 million for operating costs, phased in over four years. The capital referendum would fund renovations for the four comprehensive high schools, help the district build a new elementary school on the […]
Paul Vallas: Ensuring that all schools have the capacity to provide high-quality remote instruction need not be financially prohibitive. Even financially strapped school systems have options. Schools can secure needed curriculum and instructional materials through subscriptions and by using online materials. By leasing the technology, a district can create and maintain a comprehensive, technologically supported […]
The Economist: New york city is famous for its diversity. Yet the 1.1m pupils in the city, who are mostly non-white, attend some of the most segregated schools in the country. They are even more segregated than schools in some southern cities such as Atlanta. Complacency has reigned for decades. But a school district in […]
Rachel Anne Barr: Pornography has existed throughout recorded history, transforming with the introduction of each new medium. Hundreds of sexually explicit frescoes and sculptures were found in the Mount Vesuvius ruins of Pompeii. Since the advent of the internet, porn use has skyrocketed to dizzying heights. Pornhub, the world’s largest free porn site, received over 33.5 […]
Jonathan Siddharth: And there’s another reason, also technology-driven, why boundaryless teams are possible now — the democratization of education for software engineers. Almost every university that matters now allows exclusively online education. You can attend Stanford from Nigeria or Oxford from El Salvador. The smartest companies have expanded their recruiting pool to the planet; institutions […]
Raahul: Proud dropouts sometimes swear by online courses, because the project-based learning that they provide is hands-on, and also representative of the how the real world is going to be. On the other hand, proud academics sometimes like to brag about equations and theorems that are really not relevant, but still sound academically enlightening. I’ve […]
Jason Riley: To say that many liberal elites have all but given up on educating low-income minorities might seem like an overstatement. But when you consider the state of public education in our inner cities, and the priorities of those in charge, it’s hard to draw any other conclusion. After Labor Day, New York City’s […]
Trisha Powell Crain: One surprising finding in the school-level spending numbers was that spending is actually higher in schools with higher levels of poverty, generally speaking, even after federal dollars—which are typically higher at schools with more students in poverty—are removed. “You can’t draw many conclusions,” said Alabama Superintendent Eric Mackey directly from the spending […]
Irina Dumitrescu: I have forgotten how to read. It isn’t the first time. I have forgotten before and I will forget again. In other words, I am still learning how to read. “Read,” like “love” or “think,” has a thousand meanings pressed into one deceptively elementary verb. We use it in a way that tends […]
mp3 audio – Machine Transcript follows [Better transcript, via a kind reader PDF]: I’m Carousel Baird and we have a fabulous and exciting show lined up today. Such a fabulous guy sitting right across from me right here in the studio. Is Madison metropolitan school district current superintendent? She still here in charge of all […]
Qian Zhecheng: These days, Xu Li doesn’t worry whenever her elderly father takes off on one of his frequent solo trips to Europe. Although the native of provincial capital Hefei speaks little English and has Chinese so heavily infused by his city’s local patois that other Chinese cannot always understand him, Xu trusts that, in […]
Matthew Ladner: Among the report’s highlights: The great majority of students are not learning on, or even near, grade level. With rare exception, teachers are demoralized and feel unsupported. Most parents feel shut out of their children’s education. Principals find it very difficult to demonstrate leadership. Many school buildings are deteriorating across the city, and […]
Kelsey Piper: A conquering army wants to take a major city but doesn’t want troops to get bogged down in door-to-door fighting as they fan out across the urban area. Instead, it sends in a flock of thousands of small drones, with simple instructions: Shoot everyone holding a weapon. A few hours later, the city […]
Joshua Benton: “Should journalists learn to code?” is an old question that has always had only unsatisfying answers. (That was true even back before it became a useful heuristic for identifying Twitter jackasses.) Some should! Some shouldn’t! Helpful, right? One way the question gets derailed involves what, exactly, the question-asker means by “code.” It’s unlikely […]
Violet Moller: The city of Toledo was an important center of learning during the tenth and eleventh centuries, and when the Christians took over in 1085, the transfer of power was peaceful. As a result, even though the majority of the Muslim elite emigrated south, their culture was preserved, libraries were protected and the various […]
Negassi Tesfamichael: Under a newly proposed contract between the city and the Madison Metropolitan School District, MMSD has the ability to move away from having an officer in each of the city’s four high schools starting in the 2020-21 school year. Under the new language in the contract, MMSD would have until Sept. 15 to […]
Chris Arnade: I wasn’t in the mood to listen to anyone, especially other bankers, other academics, and the educated experts who were my neighbors. I hadn’t been for a few years. In 2008, the financial crisis had consumed the country and my life, sending Citibank, the company I worked for, into a tailspin stopped only […]
Douglas Belkin, Jennifer Levitz and Melissa Korn: At Scarsdale High School north of New York City, one in five students is eligible for extra time or another accommodation such as a separate room for taking the SAT or ACT college entrance exam. At Weston High School in Connecticut, it is one in four. At Newton […]
Ni Dandan: For once, the kindergarten classroom in Dongguan is quiet. Around the room, 28 young children nap on small single beds. When their teachers gently wake them in the early afternoon, Duan Yiyang stretches, removes his eye mask, and exchanges his pajamas for his orange school uniform. Like most of his peers here, 5-year-old […]
2013: What will be different, this time? Incoming Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham’s Madison Rotary Talk. December, 2018: “The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic” 2005: When all third graders read at grade level or beyond by the end […]
Allysia Finley: Monroe College is a higher-education success story. Believe it or not, progressives want to shut it down. Founded in 1933, it focuses on practical learning: There are no seminars on intersectionality or cultural appropriation, no rock-climbing walls, organic vegetable gardens or ethnic theme houses. In other respects, Monroe is similar to other small […]
Jenny Peek: As for charter schools, Blaska says the more the better. “Competition is what made America great,” he says. “My whole pitch is to bring Madison schools back to their former excellence status and we’ve gone the opposite way. We have parents voting with their feet.” Muldrow supports charter schools — like Nuestro Mundo […]
Tyler Cowen: America’s latest academic scandal has something for anyone who resents or is offended by elitist universities and wealthy celebrities, which is almost everyone. And though their wrongdoing seems obvious, the deeper lessons are mostly about our own hypocrisy — and the rather unflattering view too many Americans hold of higher education. On Tuesday […]
Negassi Tesfamichael: MTI cited Carusi’s opposition to voucher and independent charter schools in its endorsement. “Carusi is opposed to vouchers and independent charter schools and strongly believes that we need to continuously work to improve our public schools, rather than support alternatives,” MTI’s endorsement said. Caire’s One City Schools, which expanded from One City Early […]
Chris Rickert: According to emails released to the State Journal under the state’s open records law, Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham on Sept. 10 asked her chief of staff, Ricardo Jara, and other front-office officials whether Arbor was “worth trying to stop? Or change somehow? If so, how?” Cheatham expressed the district’s opposition to the school in […]
Negassi Tesfamichael: With the Madison School Board primary election less than a month away, a crowded field of nine candidates will make their case to voters in the coming weeks, starting with a forum on Feb. 5. Here’s a closer look at how candidates are making their case to voters. Seat 3 Kaleem Caire, an […]
Negassi Tesfamichael: Nearly all current candidates for the Madison School Board have started to make their case to voters and potential endorsers as the primary election heats up. That included answering questions from Madison Teachers Inc., the city’s teachers’ union. Nine candidates are running for three seats on the seven-person School Board. MTI executive director […]
Negassi Tesfamichael m: Why are all of the Madison School Board seats at-large? The answer lies in state law. Tucked into a section of state statutes about how school boards and districts are organized is a requirement that applies directly to MMSD. The requirement says that unified school districts — such as MMSD — “that […]
Neil Heinen: There is so much to like about One City’s structure and operation, starting with founder, President and CEO Kaleem Caire. Caire’s bedrock passion for education has always been part of what hasn’t always been a straight-line career path. But all of the elements of his business, civic, nonprofit and activist education ventures have […]
Former Madison School Board Member Ed Hughes: It turns out that this isn’t true. Explaining why gets a bit complicated, but here goes. Mr. Hughes voted against the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School. Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results, despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 school districts. Madison Wisconsin High […]