schoolinfosystem.org
Susan Lampert Smith: So kids, what did we learn from the Madison School Board’s decision Monday to reverse itself and not consolidate the half-empty Marquette and Lapham elementary schools? We learned that no doesn’t really mean no. We learned that, oops, maybe there is money after all. And most importantly, we learned that whoever yells […]
Deborah Ziff: The Madison School Board may reverse its decision to consolidate Lapham and Marquette elementary schools after a neighborhood group mobilized in opposition to the budget cut. The board is nearing the five votes needed to overturn its decision. Four of the seven board members — Carol Carstensen, Beth Moss, Johnny Winston Jr. and […]
Sue Arneson, Jason Delborne, Katie Griffiths, Anita Krasno, Dea Larsen Converse, Diane Milligan, Sich Slone, Grant Sovern, Lara Sutherlin: Dear School Board Members: A group of neighbors from the Marquette and Tenney-Lapham communities met this morning with Enis Ragland, Assistant to the Mayor. While we didn’t claim to represent any organizations, many of us have […]
Susan Troller: When newly elected Madison School Board members Maya Cole and Beth Moss went into Monday night’s crucial budget meeting, both intended to vote against closing schools, consistent with their campaign promises. But by the time the seven-member board patched together the various cuts, additions and compromises necessary to restore some programs and services […]
Susan Troller: Board members tussled over dozens of suggestions to try to find money to return various programs and services to the district that had been cut by the administration in an effort to balance the $339.6 million budget. The administration had originally proposed about $8 million in cuts, including $2 million from special education […]
Alan Borsuk: Much higher test scores and graduation rates, greatly improved attendance, reduced discipline problems and stronger parent involvement – the draft version of a grand plan for Milwaukee Public Schools sets specific, ambitious goals for major improvements over the next several years. The strategic plan is the product of extensive work by administrators, School […]
1. Kennedy Heights Community Center with the support of many other individuals and groups is organizing a walk from Kennedy Heights Community Center to Gompers Elementary School to raise awareness about the potential closings of Lindbergh Elementary School and Black Hawk middle school. Neighborhood Schools are a community resource for the children and families in […]
Board of Education Candidate Forum of March 27, 2007 was held in the cafeteria of Leopold School. The video of the meeting is 160MB, and 1 hour and 50 minutes long. Click on the image at left to watch the video. The video contains chapter headings which allow quick navigation to sections of the meeting. […]
Several articles on open records issues in schools: Meg Jones: School District loses 2 suits over lack of transparency Barry Hoerz was kicked out of a meeting of the Weyauwega-Fremont School Board in July. What’s unusual is that Hoerz was a member of the School Board, and he was told to leave because he was […]
The Madison School Board voted down the proposed Studio Charter School Monday night in a 4-2 vote (Against: Carstensen, Kobza, Silveira and Winston; For Mathiak and Robarts with Vang away). Sparks flew when Lucy Mathiak asked Nancy Donahue about their interaction with the attempts to talk with principals and teachers about the proposed charter school […]
The Madison Board of Education is faced with several great challenges over the next few months. One of the biggest is the announcement that Superintendent Art Rainwater will retire at the end of the June 2008. The board will be working with a consultant to assist in hiring the next superintendent. Another board challenge is […]
If you do, then your support of The Studio School charter school proposal is critical. Please let the school board know. Write letters. Email them [comments@madison.k12.wi.us]. Call them. Attend the meeting on January 22nd! I have heard from a board member that if the “pressure” to vote for opening this school in the fall isn’t […]
In a guest editorial in The Capital Times on January 10, 2007, MTI leader John Matthews explains that Madison school superintendent Art Rainwater unveiled his plan to resign at the end of 2007-08 to the teachers union leader long before he told the Madison Board of Education in an executive session on Monday, January 8, […]
Alan Borsuk: In documents made available in advance of a School Board committee meeting Tuesday, MPS administrators said, “MPS strongly believes that parents should be given the opportunity to choose single-sex schools for their children if they believe that these schools will help their children.” Specific schools are not spelled out in the resolution to […]
Carla Rivera: By the end of the day one thing was clear: Parents, teachers and community organizations want an equal say in determining how the district will be remade. illaraigosa acknowledged as much in his opening remarks to the group of 100 or so people, who represented church groups, businesses, human services agencies, city and […]
Too busy to continue the farewell and the urge to share information remains. This is from the October School News a publication of the WASB. Linked here. Excerpt: SN: Gov. Doyle, in the 2005-07 state budget, you provided more than $700 million for K-12 schools and restored two-thirds funding in the second year of the […]
I emailed this message to the Madison School Board: A policy change has recently been implemented in the MMSD regarding whether students can receive high school credit for courses offered by the MMSD that they take elsewhere (e.g.’s, via correspondence through UW-Extension, Stanford’s EPGY, and Northwestern’s Letterlinks programs, attendance at UW or MATC, summer programs […]
On Monday, August 21 the Human Resources Committee of the Madison School Board will have its first meeting at 7:00 p.m. in Room 103 of the Doyle Administration Building (545 West Dayton Street). Following a goal-setting meeting of the Board on June 19, the committee will address a number of important issues, beginning with alternative […]
Via a Johnny Winston, Jr. email: Welcome to the week of July 3rd edition of the Madison school boards Progress Report. I hope everyone is enjoying the summer First, upcoming business…On Monday July 10th several committees of the board are meeting: Partnerships at 5 p.m.; Finance & Operations at 6 p.m.; Communications at 7 p.m. […]
Board member stirs controversy Baraboo News Republic Thursday May 25, 2006 By Christina Beam BARABOO – New Baraboo School Board member Kevin Bartol (kbartol@baraboo.k12.wi.us) stirred up some controversy at his second meeting Monday night when he suggested district policy be amended so that only teachable students be enrolled in Baraboo’s public schools. “There are some […]
Amy Hetzner: The Waukesha School District already operates four charter schools. In addition to the two proposed schools discussed at Wednesday’s meeting, La Casa de Esperanza has expressed interest in opening a charter school as well. Under Wisconsin law, however, charter schools outside Milwaukee and Racine have to get the approval of their local school […]
Will the Madison district sink or swim? April 4th elections could prove pivotal At the end of an especially divisive Madison school board meeting, Annette Montegomery took to the microphone and laid bare her frustrations with the seven elected citizens who govern Madison schools. “I don’t understand why it takes so long to get anything […]
This is very long, and the link may require a password so I’ve posted the entire article on the continued page. TJM http://www.tcrecord.org/PrintContent.asp?ContentID=11566 Standards, Accountability, and School Reform by Linda Darling-Hammond — 2004 The standards-based reform movement has led to increased emphasis on tests, coupled with rewards and sanctions, as the basis for “accountability” systems. […]
This is not meant as a suggestion that MMSD should take this approach but I do think that we should be aware of what similar districts are considering and doing. See also: http://www.evanstonroundtable.com/roundtable022206/schools.html TJM Schools consider Afrocentric curriculum Evanston-Skokie district’s proposal targets achievement gap between blacks and whites By Lolly Bowean, Tribune staff reporter. Freelance […]
Thanks for the link to the minutes of the October 31 meeting in the other thread. I found the document fascinating, and am posting it here (with the portion of the meeting devoted to expungement deleted for length reasons) for those who are following the equity task force. The discussion leading up to the charge […]
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 school politics make for some strange bedfellows. Take the case of the Feb. 21 primary race for the School Board, in which three candidates are vying for the seat left open by incumbent Bill Keys’ decision not to seek re-election. The marketing manager of a Madison-based biotechnology giant has been endorsed by the powerful […]
The Falk Elementary School PTO [map] would like to extend an invitation for you and the members of your school and community to join us for our February PTO meeting. On Tuesday February 14 from 6:30-8:00pm the Falk PTO will be hosting a School Board Candidate Forum for the community to meet the candidates running […]
Point 5 in the Madison Metropolitan School District’s Philosophy of Education says: We believe that students, parents, school personnel, members of the BOARD, and the general public share the responsibility for the total educational program of the School District. We believe that this responsibility requires cooperation, effort, and dedication if the youth of the school […]
By Susan Troller, The Capital Times, January 31, 2006 Madison voters may be looking at another referendum on school building this spring to address overcrowding issues, but the School Board appears split in its support of taking the issue to the voters. School Board President Carol Carstensen has recommended that the administration prepare language that […]
An agenda item has been added to tomorrow night’s School Board meeting – Administrator Contracts. The board meeting begins following a 5 p.m. executive session. Meeting location is in Lincoln Elementary School, 909 Sequoia Trail. I hope the State of WI legal requirements regarding this class of employee contract is presented. Does MMSD meet / […]
Madison United for Academic Excellence [www site] held a Madison School Board candidate forum Tuesday evening, January 17, 2006. Maya Cole, Michael Kelly, Lucy Mathiak and Arlene Silveira participated (election website). Candidate statements and questions appear below:
An administrative report recommending changes the middle school curriculum district-wide that was due in late December is now expected some time in January. Shwaw Vang, chair of the Performance and Achievement Committee of the MMSD school board, held a second meeting on the expected report on December 19. According to minutes of the November meeting […]
This is an open response to Mary Battaglia and Larry Winkler’s posts on the data showing rising numbers of low income and minority students in the Madison Metropolitan School District. I tend to agree with Larry Winkler’s take that the “low income” and “minority” data is more of a diversion from the larger discussion of […]
Original URL: http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/dec05/375354.asp No tide of cash from virtual schools Online efforts aren’t the big revenue source many had foreseen By AMY HETZNER, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ahetzner@journalsentinel.com Posted: Dec. 4, 2005 With a contract to open the first statewide virtual high school before them, the mood of the members of the Waukesha School Board at […]
This week is the official start of the spring campaign season, and three local parents are launching bids for Madison’s board of education. Arlene Silveira, 47, the president of Cherokee middle school’s parent-teacher organization, and Maya Cole, 42, an active member of the parent-teacher group at Franklin-Randall, are seeking the open seat being vacated by […]
Following up on my 10/12/2005 Open Records request regarding closed discussions (particularly the terms) of the Madison School District’s purchase of land for a new elementary school on the far west side, I recently filed the following open records complaint with District Attorney Brian Blanchard: Background: Bill Lueders Lawrie Kobza Marisue Horton Ruth Robarts
In her posting, “Westside Land Purchase – was public if you were interested“, Marisue Horton suggests that I, as chair of the Madison School Board’s Legislative Committee “start making recommendations for change. Start changing the process instead of sitting around and bitching about it.” I am not suggesting that we need new processes. Like Lawrie […]
On October 31, the Human Resources Committee of the Madison Board of Education reviewed a memo from Juan Jose Lopez, the chair of the committee. According to the memo, the Board developed goals for the 2005-06 evaluation of the superintendent during its recent closed sessions to evaluate his performance between 2002 and now. If so, […]
I delivered the following statement to the MMSD Long Range Planning Committee on July 11: Back on October 18, 2004, I spoke to the Long Range Planning Committee at a meeting at Leopold School. I suggested that “the Long Range Planning Committee take the time to think beyond an April referendum on a new school” […]
Little solid evidence is available to gauge whether the federal government’s multibillion-dollar Reading First initiative is having an effect on student achievement, but many states are reporting anecdotally that they are seeing benefits for their schools. Among those benefits are extensive professional development in practices deemed to be research-based, extra instructional resources, and ongoing support […]
Well-reported story on the realities of school choice in Milwaukee. Vouchers are the lifeblood of religious schools in Milwaukee and religion permeates instruction. http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jun05/333800.asp
Click to watch this event The Madison Board of Education’s Long Range Planning Committee met on the 6th. Arlene Silveira and Beth Zurbuchen lead along with many others spoke about the failed referenda and next steps. Results and background here. Arlene and Beth were prominent members of Madison Cares, a group that spent heavily in […]
Madison East High School parents, staff, and community members have been working since the beginning of 2005 to create an advocacy and support organization for this key East side school. The group was named at the June 2 meeting: EAST HIGH UNITED A parent-teacher-staff-student-community organization The organization meets as a whole in the East High […]
The current music education upheaval at Sherman Middle School is about what Madison values for our children’s education, such as academic music education during the school day and who makes those decisions. It is not about money, because teacher allocations will be needed to teach the 8th hour same as during the school day. Making […]
The May 2, 2005 Madison School Board meeting included a statement & discussion from a parent whose child was denied open enrollment in the Wisconsin Virtual Academy. 9MB Video. More on open enrollment: Clusty | Google
Please share this information with others who may be interested in helping to create a revitalized PTO at East. March 30, 2005 UPDATE ON EFFORTS TO BUILD AN EAST HIGH SCHOOL PTO ______________________________________________________ Upcoming meetings: Thursday, April 14 Thursday, May 12 All meetings are held at East High School and begin at 7 p.m., with […]
I believe that our community strongly supports high quality schools. I know that the state and federal governments do not provide sufficient funding for the programs that we want. I am willing to pay higher property taxes to make up the difference when necessary. However, before I commit to higher taxes, I must have a […]
The following was passed along by Kristin Meyer who attended the Northside candidates forum. Kristin asked the candidates about their position on supporting TAG services/support during ongoing budgetary shortfalls, and summarizes below the responses from each candidate. She reports that there was also a statement related to how the TAG program has already taken cuts […]
Believe it or not, I am a pretty regular reader of the schoolinforsystems website. I find it to be an excellent opportunity to read about other viewpoints and opinions that I dont hear about in newspapers, radio, television and other media outlets. While I dont always agree with everything that a prospective writer is saying, […]
In an editorial in today’s Capital Times, School Board unity is identified as a key factor before deciding on going to a referendum. I couldn’t agree more with this editorial. At this point in their deliberations, MMSD’s School Board is not ready to make a decision to go to referendum(s), because they have more work […]
Madison School Board Candidate, Parent and activist Lawrence Winkler forwarded a letter to Board President Bill Keys regarding Madison School’s budget process if cuts must be made for the 2005-2006 School Year. Winkler provides some useful background information and offers a suggestion to move forward with an improved decision making process. Click below to read […]
On October 11, the administration will recommend to the Long Range Planning Committee of the Madison School Board that the district go to referendum on April 5, 2005 seeking funds for construction of a second elementary school building on the grounds of Leopold Elementary School. The new school would house kindergarten through second grade and […]
“Whenever you have a reform that has been successful in some places and then it�s scaled up quickly, with a lot of people who only understand it superficially, there�s a lot of danger that some people will do it poorly and that the idea will go down in flames,” said Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor of education at Stanford University who is an expert in small-school design.
Don Severson sent this email over the weekend regarding Monday’s BOE meeting (5.17.2004) : Please join me (Don Severson) in a MMSD Board of Education watch Monday evening, May 17 at about 6:00 p.m. The agenda is copied below. The Board will start discussing amendments to the 04-05 budget proposed by Supt. Rainwater sometime by […]
Kayla Huynh Among the changes are lower scoring standards for each performance level and different labels categorizing students. In an interview with CBS 58, state Superintendent Jill Underly said students “appeared to be doing worse than they really were” under the previous system. Madison Metropolitan School District leaders this month offered the School Board a sneak […]
Josh Koehn:
Abbey Machtig: Rebecca Greco, a librarian who worked at the school when Terrell was hired, said she does not recall any engagement with staff prior to the hiring of Terrell as principal. Greco also served on the site-based leadership team but now works as a librarian in a different school district. She said the district […]
Abbey Machtig: The district administered a survey and held a series of input meetings earlier this year, which indicated mixed opinions from the public on referendums for this fall. That was before the School Board voted to place the questions on the ballot, and before the district shared the exact dollar amounts of the proposals and the […]
Erik Bernhardsson CIA produced a fantastic book during the peak of World War 2 called Simple Sabotage. It laid out various ways for infiltrators to ruin productivity of a company. Some of the advice is timeless, for instance the section about “General interference with Organizations and Production”: I guess I’ve always been fascinated with how well […]
Rory Linnane: Milwaukee Public Schools could be docked between $35 million and $50 million in state aid for the next school year due to previous accounting errors by the district, according to initial estimates that the state Department of Public Instruction provided to the Journal Sentinel on Thursday afternoon. An exact, reliable figure for the […]
Rory Linnane: Milwaukee School Board members could fire Superintendent Keith Posley or take other disciplinary action against him at a meeting Monday night, according to a meeting noticeupdated Friday evening, days after board members found out MPS had failed to submit key financial reports to state officials. According to the meeting notice, board members could discuss […]
MMAC The school district’s non-compliance with federal and state statutes should have been disclosed to the Milwaukee taxpayers, the majority of whom are working families, before they were asked to increase the district’s budget by more than a quarter-billion dollars annually in April. It would have changed the narrative and forced the electorate to think […]
Maddie Hanna We have seen success in the classroom with what teachers are using,” Ashwina Mosakowski, the district’s director of elementary teaching, learning, and innovation, told the school board in January, explaining why the district continues to use Units of Study — a reading program that experts say is deeply flawed. ‘A disservice to all students’ […]
Abbey Machtig So far, feedback on the referendums has been mixed, with some residents supporting funding operational costs and smaller building renovations. But district administrators said others were unsure about the feasibility and cost of a 20-year referendum. About 60% of survey respondents said supporting the district to invest in a 20-year facilities referendum was either a […]
Abbey Machtig In his first news conference in Madison since being named the public schools’ new superintendent, Joe Gothard vowed to be an engaged leader and said he wasn’t afraid to make changes. “I think that we’ve got to be very deliberate. I think we’ve got to be very open with our community around where […]
Jenny Warner: Last week, Wisconsin’s expert Early Literacy Curriculum Council recommended the highest-quality list we have seen from any state. Then @WisconsinDPI tried to overrule them, for no sound reason. More. The nine-member Early Literacy Curriculum Council reviewed and recommended four curriculums. The council includes six members chosen by the Republican majority leaders of the […]
Dave Cieslewicz You can blame Gov. Tony Evers and the majority of his appointments to the UW Board of Regents. The grand compromise that Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman negotiated with Vos was a great deal for the UW. Vos has been withholding inflationary pay increases for UW employees, approval of a much needed […]
Josh Koehn Two San Francisco supervisors will miss key meetings this week to attend a taxpayer-funded junket in Japan to learn how an institute in the country teaches math. The details of that word salad of a sentence might seem a bit mystifying for those who realize: Adding a bit more complexity to the situation, […]
Elizabeth Heubeck: In an era where humans have managed to create an artificial intelligence toolsophisticated enough to churn out an essay on Shakespeare, it seems unlikely that there would still be ambiguity about how best to teach kids how to read. But the “reading wars” continue to incite differences of opinion in various forums, from school […]
Ray Carter: An announcement that the state of Oklahoma has an “ongoing partnership” with PragerU to provide supplemental materials for history lessons in state schools has caused some officials and groups on the political left to have a social-media meltdown. But many parents and teachers working on the front lines welcomed the news. The website for PragerU […]
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 […]
Ali Swenson: Moms for Liberty, a “parental rights” group that has sought to take over school boards in multiple states, is looking to expand those efforts across the country and to other education posts in 2024 and beyond. The effort is setting up a clash with teachers unions and others on the left who view […]
Scott Girard In total, the 2023-24 preliminary budget spends $581 million. The board will vote on a final budget in October after enrollment is finalized. The budget includes a deficit of $15 million for this year, but $11.5 million in ongoing costs are covered by one-time federal COVID-19 relief money that won’t be available next fall […]
Jessica Grose: The number of school-age children in America is declining. At least one reason is the fallingbirthrate after the Great Recession. And declining university enrollment based on a lower school-age population — which has been described as a “demographic cliff” — is something that some colleges are already grappling with. K-12 public school systems […]
Alliance for education Waukesha: The School District of Waukesha is doing harm to the students, but it’s not as simple as the School Board blaming pride flags, or disaffected teachers blaming the Superintendent. The system itself is a cancer that has metastasized and crept into every classroom across this massive district, and we know it’s […]
Scott Girard But the board also took a big leap of faith, one that will likely require the help of the Madison community, once again, with another operating referendum in fall 2024. It could be the third straight presidential election in which the Madison Metropolitan School District asks voters for more spending authority above state […]
Tyler O’Neil: The Southern Poverty Law Center, which brands mainstream conservative and Christian organizations as “hate groups,” placing them on a map with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan, added a slew of parental rights organizations to that “hate map” for 2022 and labeled them “antigovernment groups.” “Schools, especially, have been on the receiving end […]
Scott Girard: Madison School board members indicated interest in the longer of two search timelines presented to them Monday by consultant Alma Advisory Group. Alma CEO Monica Santana Rosen spoke to the board at a meeting for the first time since board members chose the firmfrom a field of three finalists to lead the search process, paying $95,000 for […]
Scott Girard; The encouragement comes as the union and the Madison Metropolitan School District disagree over a proposed wage increase in next year’s budget, among other items. Hundreds of MTI members and supporters showed up to the April School Board meeting, where the 2023-24 budget proposal was made public, to demand an 8% increase in base wages and […]
Scott Girard: By Monday night, Thomas Jefferson Middle School could have a new name. The Madison School Board will hold its regular monthly meeting beginning at 6 p.m. Monday with a vote on renaming the school on its agenda — 364 days after the process began with then-principal Sue Abplanalp making a renaming request to the […]
Fuzzy Slippers: Journalist Asra Q. Nomani has taken the lead in reporting the latest round of outrages perpetrated by Fairfax County public schools in Virginia. Virginia’s public schools are notorious for their woke racism and allegedly hiding instances of rape and sexual assault in their schools. Nomani broke the story that top administrators at Thomas Jefferson High […]
APM reports: This discussion guide, created by a teacher, invites educators, parents, community members and kids to have a conversation about the podcast. By Margaret Goldberg and Emily Hanford You’ve listened to Sold a Story and now you have questions, thoughts, things you want to talk about. Maybe you want to organize a listening party, […]
Landon Mion: Loudoun County Superintendent Scott Ziegler was fired by the school board Tuesday night in response to a grand jury report on the district’s handling of two sexual assaults committed by the same student. The Northern Virginia district drew national attention last year after a father accused it at a school board meeting of covering up […]
Scott Girard: The Madison Metropolitan School District can expect its recent enrollment losses to continue, according to new projections. The School Board discussed projections from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Applied Population Lab Monday during an Instruction Work Group meeting. The reason for the drop is a mix of declining birth rates and increasing rates of […]
Scott Girard: The Madison School Board’s closed session meeting to discuss the appeal of fired principal Jeffrey Copeland Tuesday lasted just over 15 minutes without a decision. “I can’t explain that,” board member Nicki Vander Meulen said, leaving around 5:16 p.m. and declining further comment. Other board members who left shortly after also declined to comment and […]
Mary Chastain: Over 400 people attended Wednesday’s school board meeting. More than 40 of the people who spoke to the board showed support for Cusato: “My uncle Daren is standing up for what is right, even though he is standing by himself. I am thoroughly embarrassed that South Side School District has taken this arbitrary stance […]
Dan Barry: But they were also chastened. They hadn’t attended the town meeting. They hadn’t fulfilled their democratic obligation. They hadn’t kept informed about the Free State movement. To some observers, they had gotten what they deserved. “I was practically kicking myself in the ass for not being there,” Mr. Spiker said. “I guess I […]
Jeff Hoffman Our leaders must remember that education doesn’t begin with some isolated bureaucrat’s hidden agenda or union boss in Washington (in our case, across the river). It doesn’t even begin with state or local officials – like a General Assembly in Richmond who can’t even pass a state budget. It begins with the parents! […]
Elizabeth Beyer: Jones told the board that 67 staff members are leaving this year, but the district is only hiring 10 new staff. Prior to the meeting, Jones noted that school districts of all sizes across Wisconsin are offering base wage increases to their teachers that are near or at 4.7% to keep in line […]
MacIver News Wisconsin public school teachers got a crash course in “A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements” during a professional development meeting in February. The Department of Public Instruction (DPI) conducts monthly webinars to provide Wisconsin’s public school teachers with advanced training on critical race theory (CRT). CRT is a highly-controversial, divisive, race-based […]
Abigail Cartus and Justin Feldman: Of the numerous political battles sparked by the coronavirus pandemic, some of the most bitterly contested have taken place over K-12 education. Schools have been a site of decisive struggles over the norms, values, and policies of the U.S. response to the public health crisis. While teachers collectively fought for […]
Clara Jeffery: But let’s review the array of irritants. Remote learning: Against every other issue I’m about to name, some of which were on a slow boil before the pandemic, you need to understand that SF schools stayed closed until the fall of 2021, longer than most districts in America. Now: SF takes the pandemic damn […]
Chester Finn Monday’s Washington Post featured a long, front-page article by the estimable Laura Meckler titled “Public schools facing a crisis of epic proportions.” In it, she skillfully summarized a laundry list of current woes facing traditional public education: The scores are down and violence is up. Parents are screaming at school boards, and children are crying […]
Cori Petersen: “I want to see parents more involved with the board of education,” said Scarlett Johnson who leads the Mequon-Thiensville parents group and is seeking election to the school board. “And I want to see less ideology in the classroom.” National School Choice Week is a celebration of parents using publicly funded vouchers to […]
Chuck Ross: Two dozen Republican senators are calling on Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona to explain his role in soliciting a letter from the National School Boards Association that compared school parents to domestic terrorists. An email released this week showed that an association official told a colleague that Cardona asked the group to write the Sept. 29 letter […]
Matt Taibbi: In preparation for today’s forthcoming story, A Culture War in Four Acts: Loudoun County, Virginia. Part Two: ‘The Incident,’ TK News sent Freedom of Information requests to the county on several questions. Concerned with the issue of when the controversial “Equity Collaborative” was hired, we asked for “procurement or purchasing process documents, stakeholder emails and communique […]
Open Record: It’s a FOX6 investigation that sparked change before it even went to air. Thousands of tax dollars poured into a school program — but was it for the kids or a school leader’s relationship? In this episode of Open Record, FOX6 Investigator Amanda St. Hilaire explains how she came upon AVID and the […]
Joanne Jacobs: Public school enrollment fell 3 percent last year and it’s down again this year in major cities, writes Chad Aldeman, policy director of Georgetown’s Edunomics Lab. Fadumo D. Kahin, right, dressed her family in Highwood Hills Elementary’s school color — orange — to protest the school’s possible closure at an Oct. 28 St. […]
Joanne Jacobs: The pandemic has accelerated a push to ease grading and homework policies, writes Washington Post columnist Jay Mathews. “Schools have stuck to an outdated system that relies heavily on students’ compliance — completing homework, behaving in class, meeting deadlines and correctly answering questions on a one-time test — as a proxy for learning, rather than measuring […]