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Kayla Huynh One question on the ballot would ask voters for $100 million over the next four school years to increase spending on staff salaries and education programs. The second would ask for $507 million to renovate or replace seven aging elementary and middle schools. The two referendums would be “unprecedented in size and scope […]
John Schlifske: The recent news that Milwaukee Public Schools failed to file a required financial report to the state Department of Public Instruction, that its past reports were missing data or inaccurate, and that it might have to payback millions in funds to the state is just another proof point underscoring the need for substantial governance reform. This lays open two […]
Quinton Klabon: Alan Borsuk: Wisconsin’s kids need help learning to read, so let’s see more cooperation and an end to power maneuvers and partisanship. Enough. Enough. I’m fed up with partisanship, polarization and power maneuvers in the state Capitol that put adults and politics first and kids last. There have been many episodes of this […]
Dave Cieslewicz And even if power won’t listen, those of us who hear what Berliner hears appreciate his courage for saying it out loud. As a service to YSDA readers who might not take the time to read the entire lengthy piece, here are some of our favorite excerpts. It’s true NPR has always had […]
Danielle Duclos With low reading proficiency scores across the state, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin is exploring the causes and consequences of low literacy. This article is part of the By the Book series, which examines reading curriculum, instructional methods and solutions in K-12 education to answer the questions: Why do so many Wisconsin kids struggle to […]
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 […]
The taxpayer funded Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction’s early literacy review, as a result of Act 20. (Letter to Leaders). Letter to JFC Early Literacy Curriculum Comparison “At a Glance” ELCC Center for Collaborative Classroom Ratings American Reading Company (ARC) ELCC Ready 4 Reading Ratings Voyager Passport Intervention ELCC Into Reading Wilson Language Training CKLA […]
Abigail Leavins: Monica Santana Rosen, the CEO of the Alma Advisory Group, which consulted on the superintendent search, explained why the board thought it was important to provide a platform for students, in particular, to ask questions of the candidates, but she did not answer why additional panels were not made available to the public. […]
Rich Kremer: The Wisconsin Association of School Boards, the Wisconsin Educational Association Council teachers union and Wisconsin State Reading Association have registered against the bill. The Wisconsin Child Care Administrators Association and the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association have registered in support. Wisconsin Early Childhood Association Co-Director Paula Drew told legislators that while the organization “acknowledges […]
Nicola Woolcock: A University of Cambridge academic has suggested that a meritocracy would reduce the number of black Harvard professors to almost zero. Nathan Cofnas, an early career fellow at the faculty of philosophy, wants a “hereditarian revolution” and for a culture of “race realism” that acknowledges differences between ethnicities. However, in a blog he […]
Kayla Huynh: The Madison Metropolitan School District has named two former education administrators and one current administrator as finalists to be the next superintendent. Two of the finalists left their former jobs after facing criticism for their performance. The finalists are Mohammed Choudhury, the former state superintendent of schools at the Maryland Department of Education; […]
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 […]
IMPORTANT ACT 20 LITERACY UPDATE TODAY, council MAY soft-approve first batch of reading curriculum. (DPI and legislature must agree.) District/charter/voucher that pick them get partially reimbursed. If not, they pay for new Themselves. NOT recorded, so follow this thread! — Quinton Klabon (@GhaleonQ) January 12, 2024 Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004- —- Underly […]
James Lister: The Madison School Board needs to take a hard look at the lessons of the last 10 years. The general functioning and the overall management of the school district have been poor and unprofessional. If you call the central offices, you seldom get ahold of a person or get a call back. Teachers […]
Molly Beck: Gov. Tony Evers says he opposes abolishing the state’s oldest school voucher program through a lawsuit filed by some of the governor’s strongest supporters. Evers, a former state superintendent and public school educator, said eliminating the taxpayer-funded voucher system in Milwaukee could have “traumatic” effects on the nearly 30,000 students who attend more […]
Jonathan Zimmerman: It’s about Carole Hooven. Never heard of her? I didn’t think so. But Hooven’s story speaks volumes about the real problem at Harvard, and in American universities more broadly: the lack of academic freedom for diverse perspectives. We’ve heard the word diverse a lot since Gay stepped down because she was Harvard’s first African American […]
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: Madison school board members Savion Castro and Maia Pearson are seeking re-election in April. They are thoroughly Woke. Get 100 signatures to get on the ballot. Nomination papers are not due until January 3. The forms candidates need can be found here even though, strangely, the city’s website has not been updated! Blaska’s […]
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 […]
John Sailer: A search committee seeking a professor of military history rejected one applicant “because his diversity statement demonstrated poor understanding of diversity and inclusion issues.” Another committee noted that an applicant to be a professor of nuclear physics could understand the plight of minorities in academia because he was married to “an immigrant in […]
Will Flanders and Noah Diekemper Annually, when Wisconsin’s new school report cards are released, we learn that Wisconsin’s schools must all be located in Lake Wobegone, where everyone is above average. School districts like Beloit (14.1% proficiency in reading) and Milwaukee (11.5% proficiency in math) are somehow not judged to be deserving of a ranking […]
Corrinne Hess: The proposed bill, authored by Sen. Mary Felzkowski, R-Irma, and state Rep. Jeff Mursau, R-Crivitz, extends that exception to applicants for all licenses that require the FORT exam. Felzkowski and Mursau did not respond to requests for comment. Lawmakers, DPI and the Wisconsin Association of School Boards say the change is necessary to […]
Recently, @bangstad and Julie Underwood had an oped in the @WiStateJournal attempting to justify their lawsuit to end #SchoolChoice in WI. Like most of what has been released in this effort, it is full of half-truths and at-best misunderstandings of school choice. A 🧵 — Will Flanders (@WillFlandersWI) November 7, 2023 Underly and our long term […]
Daniel Bice: Back in 2021, Democratic operative Sachin Chheda played a major role in helping Jill Underly get elected state school superintendent. Now Underly appears to be returning the favor. Underly announced Monday that she is hiring Chheda to a $138,000-per-year job at the Department of Public Instruction, which Underly oversees. Chheda started his new job on Monday as […]
Ed Treleven: Madison East High School student who was arrested at school last week was charged Tuesday with bringing what police described as a loaded “ghost gun” to school in his backpack. A criminal complaint charged Marquise M. Johnson, 17, with possession of a firearm on school grounds, resisting police and causing substantial bodily harm […]
Tim Donahue: What is an “A,” anyway? Does it mean that a 16 year-old recognizes 96 percent of the allusions in “The Bluest Eye”? Or that she could tell you 95 percent of the reasons the Teapot Dome Scandal was so important? Or, just that she made it to most classes? Does it come from […]
David Blaska: Once every blue moon, the Head Groundskeeper does what he says he is going to do. Posing as average citizen “David Blaska,” he sat in with eight other citizens at one of three roundtables coordinated 10-04-23 by the headhunters hired by the Madison public school district to find yet another a new superintendent. […]
David Blaska: Jill Underly is Wisconsin’s superintendent of public instruction. The position is elected for four years on the Spring non-partisan ballot along with city alders and circuit court judges. We are one of only 12 states to elect them. One of Jill Underly’s predecessors was Tony Evers, now governor of Wisconsin. A Democrat. If […]
Dave Cieslewicz: Despite being the fastest growing large community in Wisconsin the Madison public school system is losing students. Last year the district lost almost 900 students. Why? In a story in Isthmus last week long-time school board member Nicki Vander Meulen mused on the causes for the loss of market share to private schools […]
Act 20: Beginning with the accountability report published for the 2024-25 school year, for a school district other than a union high school district and for each school that offers grade 3 in that school district, the percentage of pupils reading at grade level by the end of 3rd grade. Section 8 . 115.39 of […]
James Freeman: The best way to prevent politicians and bureaucrats from ever again inflicting on American kids the learning losses, social isolation and staggering financial burden of the Covid lockdowns is to ensure a just reckoning for the destruction they caused. Perhaps this is beginning to happen. John Fensterwald reports in the Bakersfield Californian: This […]
Nicholas Kelly: Education was a big winner of a bipartisan agreement in the recently enacted state budget. Public schools will receive an increase of more than $1 billion. Per pupil spending for Wisconsin’s private school choice programs will grow by $2,000 to $3,000 per student. Even after these historic funding increases, state payments to schools in the […]
Rory Linnane St. Augustine Preparatory Academy unveiled a new $49 million elementary school on Milwaukee’s south side Tuesday, showcasing a major expansion as school leaders also discussed plans for a new north-side branch on the former Cardinal Stritch campus. About 730 students in kindergarten through fourth grade are expected to start school this week in the new […]
The fight for #SchoolChoice in Wisconsin is not over. Today Minoqua Brewing Co announced an effort to take away educational options for tens of thousands of low-income families. pic.twitter.com/vSl4wT46BR — Will Flanders (@WillFlandersWI) August 20, 2023 notes and links on Minocqua Brewing. “Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at […]
Sara Randazzo & Scott Calvert: In the race to fix a nationwide reading crisis that worsened during the pandemic, more states are threatening to make students repeat third grade to help them catch up. Tennessee, Michigan and North Carolina are among at least 16 states that have tried in recent years to use reading tests […]
EXPLICIT: Osseo parent reads from an explicit book available in Osseo district libraries and is stopped by the school board chair, saying that last time something like that was read, the “language was offensive to some.” pic.twitter.com/W3Cr7E2kOZ — Alpha News (@AlphaNewsMN) July 26, 2023 Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004– “Well, it’s kind of too […]
To say that teachers weren’t involved in discussions as we worked through the process is untrue. I also personally met with @WSRAliteracy. At that meeting, a light was shined on why we are in this reading crisis. https://t.co/w6tZfArOUx — John Jagler (@JohnJagler) July 19, 2023 I am pleased to announce the Right to Read Act […]
I review Rufo’s new book. The fact that the education system was taken over by bloodthirsty communists is known, but rarely stressed enough. No one else has been as effective in fighting back. His book is a call to action. https://t.co/SfqoQmMJuz — Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) July 17, 2023 “Well, it’s kind of too bad that […]
Amanda Geduld: When high school teacher Rachel King welcomed a new cohort of 10th graders to her classroom in the fall of 2021, she made a discovery: a number of her students had never completed their coursework from the previous year. At the time, the 36-year-old taught English at The Urban Assembly Institute of Math […]
Edward Luce: If Rome’s oligarchs could have travelled to the future, they might have learned a trick or two from the US Ivy League. It is hard to think of a better system of elite perpetuation than that practised by America’s top universities. Last week the US Supreme Court ended affirmative action in US higher […]
Olivia Herken: Madison had some of the worst reading gaps in Dane County. Only 10% of Black students in grades 3 through 8 scored proficient or higher in ELA, and only 21% of Hispanic students, compared to 45% of their white counterparts. Other Dane County schools had similar disparities. In Middleton, 20% of Black children […]
Leah Barkoukis Despite the myriad problems plaguing San Francisco, the city is devoting precious resources to a reparations committee tasked with determining how to address the “legacy of slavery.” This, despite the fact that not a single living SF taxpayer owned slaves, nor were any of them enslaved. And some of the recommendations are staggering—we’re […]
Helen Andrews: Over the weekend, a village in Lancashire celebrated the 80th anniversary of “the Battle of Bamber Bridge.” There was a dramatic reenactment as well as live musical entertainment, a history walk, and an academic symposium in collaboration with the U.S. embassy. In the American press, the anniversary was marked by long feature articles […]
Justice Clarence Thomas blasts Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s arguments in his concurrence: KBJ “locks blacks into a seemingly perpetual inferior caste. Such a view is irrational; it is an insult to individual achievement and cancerous to young minds seeking to push through… pic.twitter.com/c3fUQPWETP — Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) June 29, 2023 This graph is widely shown, […]
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 […]
Samuel A. Alito Jr. ProPublica has leveled two charges against me: first, that I should have recused in matters in which an entity connected with Paul Singer was a party and, second, that I was obligated to list certain items as gifts on my 2008 Financial Disclose Report. Neither charge is valid. Recusal. I had […]
School Choice Under Attack: Minocqua Brewing Company’s $1 million Super PAC just announced plans to file a new lawsuit to eliminate school choice in Wisconsin – citing the new liberal Supreme Court majority. Permalink here: https://t.co/9BTEyAv7da pic.twitter.com/AC4pJVaT3s — Dan Lennington (@DanLennington) June 20, 2023 Related: WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators (2010) “Well, it’s […]
There was a lot of good news for #SchoolChoice in WI yesterday, but it was disconcerting to see that some remain either grossly misinformed on the issue or are intentionally misleading. One of the worst offenders was @RepKristina, who made claimed the program is racist (1/x). pic.twitter.com/OrrC3sEHxx — Will Flanders (@WillFlandersWI) June 15, 2023 School […]
MD Kittle: The Baraboo School District held focus groups as part of a “Racism as a Public Health Issue” initiative that was exclusively for black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) middle schoolers, offering the minority students in attendance a $100 gift card plus a pizza party. According to records obtained by The Wisconsin Daily […]
Center for Research on Education Outcomes: Our third installment: This study examines the academic progress of students enrolled in charter schools compared with the progress of students enrolled in traditional public schools (TPS). How charter school students learned over time Fifteen years of student performance can provide insights into how schools, school operators, K–12 academic […]
Tom Loveless: In February, 2023 Bari Weiss produced a podcast, “Why 65% of Fourth Graders Can’t Really Read” and Nicholas Kristof, New York Times columnist, wrote “Two-Thirds of Kids Struggle to Read, and We Know How to Fix It.” Both headlines are misleading. The 65% and two-thirds figures are referring to the percentage of 4th graders who scored […]
Attack on “Balanced Literacy” Is Attack on Professional Teachers, Research https://t.co/O4h4E0ZIxo via @plthomasEdD — Paul Thomas (@plthomasEdD) June 11, 2023 Madison, long tolerating disastrous reading results, embraced “balanced literacy”. “Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to […]
Jason Bedrick and Corey DeAngelis That $900 million is barely 2% of total Arizona state spending of $80.5 billion in 2022. Arizona public schools spend about $14,000 per pupil, or $1.4 billion for 100,000 students. If the department’s enrollment projection is reached, school choice would serve roughly 8% of Arizona’s students for 6% of the […]
Wisconsin State Journal: It’s not just LeMonds’ staff that has struggled to work with him. LeMonds physically blocked a WMTV-TV (Ch. 15) news reporter from posing a question to Superintendent Carlton Jenkins at a public event — even grabbing and pushing down her hand and microphone, as video of the incident shows. He allegedly called […]
Nicholas Kristof visits flyover country: Mississippi’s success has no single origin moment, but one turning point was arguably when Jim Barksdale decided to retire in the state. A former C.E.O. of Netscape, he had grown up in Mississippi but was humiliated by its history of racism and underperformance. “My home state was always held in […]
James Vaznis: Boston Public Schools spends more per student than any other large school district in the country, according to the latest figures from the US Census Bureau, a new distinction that reflects how BPS’s budget keeps growing even as student enrollment continues to decline. The city’s highest-in-the-nation cost, of $31,397 per student during the 2020-21 school year, represented […]
Human Varieties: In our manuscript, titled “Reply to Warne,” we present average eduPGS and NIH Toolbox composite scores from the ABCD study, categorized by ethnic and religious groups. In our analyses, we used unweighted means instead of sample weighted scores, since we were only interested in the correlation between mean eduPGS and cognitive ability. However, […]
Long-Term Impacts of Reading Recovery through 3rd and 4th Grade: A Regression Discontinuity Study https://t.co/Ci34QiBvl9 “the long-term impact of Reading Recovery on students’ reading/ELA test scores in 3rd and 4th grades is statistically significant & substantially negative” — Paul Bruno (@Paul__Bruno) May 24, 2023 the report. Let's make a list of Reading Recovery-based product/program names […]
Wisconsin coalition for education freedom: Wisconsin Watch has released its third article in a series attempting to discredit the great work choice programs do in Wisconsin. Their latest article misrepresents admission policies of choice schools while ignoring the fact that public schools often engage in admission practices that would be illegal for schools participating in […]
I wonder if your average Wisconsinite knows how much better Mississippi’s students are doing than Wisconsin’s. READING White: 0.5 years ahead Black: 2.0 ahead Latin: 1.0 ahead MATHEMATICS White: tied Black: 2.0 ahead Latin: 1.5 ahead Not insulting him; I wouldn’t have guessed! https://t.co/TOT3CtG3WG — Quinton Klabon (@GhaleonQ) May 12, 2023 “More than 30 states […]
WILL Political Contributions of Wisconsin Teachers and Education Reform “Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.” The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you […]
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 […]
📖HUGE Wisconsin reading update📖 A bill’s coming that will do bold, Mississippi-style reforms to save Wisconsin’s kids! But some pieces aren’t funded, colleges have no compliance consequences, and low-scoring 3rd graders can pass. Do you think that it’ll work? Videos below! pic.twitter.com/gmJtmNsoHK — Quinton Klabon (@GhaleonQ) April 25, 2023 “Well, it’s kind of too bad […]
👎🏼why Wisconsin’s kids can’t read👎🏼 I’m incredibly disappointed to see Kenosha @kusd, Wisconsin’s 3rd-largest district, explicitly push back against @ehanford‘s SOLD A STORY podcast and mainstream news’ attention to PHONICS. (Kenosha ranks 403rd on 2022 Wisconsin report cards.) pic.twitter.com/Ln52kLcsrV — Quinton Klabon (@GhaleonQ) April 24, 2023 Reading proficiency of Wisconsin students has been generally stagnant for […]
DRAKE BENTLEY: In her letter, Underly stated, “Whether you realize it or not, you are, under the guise of protection, causing undue harm to students and staff. However, this damage is reversible. It is paramount that you change course now.” Underly requested that the administration reverse the policy to “foster inclusive environments,” saying the controversial […]
Robert Zimmerman This is a followup on a March 2023 blacklist column. Though the school district had previously welcomed the Good News Clubs, a Christian afterschool program run by the Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF), to use school facilities for meetings, in 2021 school district officials blacklisted it without explanation, and then stonewalled CEF officials as well as […]
Scott Girard: Two months after announcing his retirement, outgoing Madison Superintendent Carlton Jenkins has been named a finalist for the top job in a Tennessee school district. Chalkbeat Tennessee, an education news website, reported Saturday that Jenkins is among three finalists to be the next Memphis-Shelby County Schools superintendent. The School Board there, however, was […]
Jenny Peek: The hope is that the new curriculum will improve dismal reading scores across the district. According to the 2021-2022 State Report Card, prepared by the Department of Instruction, only 39.5% of K-12 students in Madison schools were proficient or advanced in reading that school year. The district’s Black students fare worse. In 2021-2022 […]
Rory Linnane: The political action committee of the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association, the union for MPS staff, first gave about $11,000 directly to candidates’ campaigns in January: $5,000 to Zombor, and nearly $1,500 each to Hart, Herndon, O’Halloran and Siemsen. In March, the group spent another $41,422 on postcards and digital ads for Zombor, $22,000 […]
Julia Silverman: After weeks of furious, behind-the-scenes negotiations, Gov. Tina Kotek has thrown her weight — and a proposal to spend upwards of $100 million – behind a bill that aims to overhaul how Oregon’s youngest students are taught to read. The effort, dubbed the Early Literacy Success Initiative, is up for a pivotal hearing in […]
If you’re still thinking about who to vote for in the Madison School Board election, @ssfp_news had me, @oherken and @telldylan join its students to ask the candidates some questions in a forum last Thursday evening. Watch it here: https://t.co/jgbiL3X989 — Scott Girard (@sgirard9) March 27, 2023 “Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve […]
Stuart Kyle Duncan Stanford Law School’s website touts its “collegial culture” in which “collaboration and the open exchange of ideas are essential to life and learning.” Then there’s the culture I experienced when I visited Stanford last week. I had been invited by the student chapter of the Federalist Society to discuss the U.S. Court of Appeals […]
Transcript: $pending, K-12 Governance, Ed Schools and Reading Outcomes [00:00:00] Senator Duey Stroebel: Actually looking at, uh, US census data, all funds, all sources. Um, Wisconsin’s at about $13,000 and Mississippi is about $9,200. So there’s significant that’s per the US census data, all funds, all sources. So pretty clear there. I think it’s, uh, […]
Video mp3 Audio Transcript Additional testimony: Kymyona Burk Instructional Coach Kyle Thayse DPI 3 Minute Summary by Senator Duey Stroebel 2021’s AB446 was mentioned. 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” My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans […]
Kaleem Caire, via email: February 28, 2023 Dear One City Parents, This is an important time for One City Schools and for education across the state of Wisconsin. Over the next several months our legislature and governor will be engaging with one another and individuals and organizations from across the state to inform what will […]
Wisconsin Senate (and Assembly) Committee on Education: Department of Public Instruction Laura Adams -Policy Initiatives Advisor for the State Superintendent Duy Nguyen – Assistant Superintendent for the Division of Academic Excellence Tom McCarthy – Executive Director for the Office of the State Superintendent ExcelinEd Dr. Kymyona Burk – Senior Policy Fellow University of Wisconsin–Madison Mark […]
Thompson Center Summit on Early Literacy Event Archive: Over one third of Wisconsin students are unable to read at grade level and our state’s Black children have the lowest reading scores in the nation. Reading below grade level brings both short term and long term challenges, from a lower chance of graduating high school to […]
Laura Hancock: His budget proposal contains $162 million over the next two years to get the science of reading instructional approach into all of Ohio’s public schools. At the same time, Ohio State University has been an epicenter of the approach to reading instruction that DeWine wants to get away from – known as “balanced […]
Walker [17-19] Last Biennial Budget: $76 billion Evers[19-21] First Biennial Budget: $87.5 billion Evers [23-25] Proposed Biennial Budget: $103.8 billion Will you get $27.8 BILLION more value from govt? Sell underused properties, consolidate overlapping agencies. $0 INCREASE! pic.twitter.com/DNXG1aSozd — Will Martin, Business Owner & Govt Reformer (@willmartinWI) February 20, 2023 WILL budget primer: Massive Spending […]
When you see “school district could shut it’s doors” headlines, be sure to google per pupil funding levels. You won’t learn this from the article. Then google the local budgets of your high achieving choice school. https://t.co/gATUrXRFVU pic.twitter.com/snXeikpsGK — Dan Lennington (@DanLennington) February 19, 2023 The article. Note that spending increases annually, with Madison taxpayers supporting at […]
I requested copies of the contracts related to Madison’s latest reading program on May 19, 2022. Curiously, I just received a response to this simple request yesterday – after numerous email and phone followup attempts. The April, 2022 Madison School Board presentation on the latest reading program – an effort to address our long term, […]
Martin Gurri: The name of our Substack publication, Public came from the 2018 book, Revolt of the Public by a former CIA media analyst named Martin Gurri. It is perhaps the best book ever written about the impact of the Internet on social and political life. If you haven’t already, we encourage you to watch Leighton’s video about Martin’s great book […]
“Prioritize Your African American Students” over all others: ⚡️New @WILawLiberty lawsuit against @MMSDschools for failing to turn over public records related to this policy below pic.twitter.com/iSGgLGQM9Z — Dan Lennington (@DanLennington) January 17, 2023 2011: a majority of the taxpayer funded Madison School Board aborts the proposed Madison Preparatory Academy IB Charter School in a 5-2 vote. The data […]
Kaleem Caire: Thank you CapTimes for printing my OpEd. Interestingly, in a conversation with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction yesterday, state officials told us that we are legally obligated to count our students who are enrolled and present on the day of the pupil count (tomorrow, Friday). This is state law. They also told […]
John Sailer: In June 2020, Gordon Klein, a longtime accounting lecturer at UCLA, made the news after a student emailed him asking him to grade black students more leniently in the wake of the “unjust murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.” Klein’s response was blunt. It stated in part: Thanks for your suggestion in […]
Wow. The CDC gives direction to teachers, the unions give direction to teachers, the UN gives directions to teachers… So much direction from outside organizations- no wonder the kids aren’t learning to read. 🤷♀️ https://t.co/g4poAIR0NW — Moms for Liberty (@Moms4Liberty) January 6, 2023 The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement […]
Scott Girard: “We need impactful change in our handbook before May 15 or the mass exodus of staff will continue,” she said. “It’ll become impossible to staff our schools with qualified teachers and the staff that our students deserve.” MMSD spokesperson Tim LeMonds wrote in a statement Tuesday that the district “has hired more teacher […]
Dylan Brogan: The “time is now” to eliminate standalone honors classes in Madison high schools, according to Superintendent Carlton Jenkins. At a Dec. 5 school board meeting, Jenkins said a “racist attitude” underlies support for keeping separate classes that offer more rigorous coursework to students. “We are no longer going to uphold what is considered […]
Olivia Herken: His stand-alone classes didn’t give him that much deeper of an understanding of a subject than earning honors did, Hernandez said. In his general Western civilization class, for example, he had to read an additional book to earn his honors credits, which allowed him to gain more knowledge than he normally would have. […]
Colleen Flaherty: Faculty diversity is positively associated with student success across a variety of metrics. Black and Latino students are more likely to graduate when they see themselves represented in their instructors, for instance. But the benefits of faculty diversity aren’t just evident among historically underrepresented students: research suggests that engaging with diverse instructors, perspectives and […]
Still trying to process my emotions on learning that @twitter blacklisted me. The thought that will keep me up tonight: censorship of scientific discussion permitted policies like school closures & a generation of children were hurt. 1/2 — Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBhattacharya) December 9, 2022 Related: the great Barrington declaration. and: UW’s Oct. 18 response to […]
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, […]
Revolver: Five months after Richardson started at Apple, the company made one of the most ideologically aggressive cancellations ever when it banned Parler from its app store. While Apple works hard to obscure its decision-making process, Richardson was without a doubt central to that decision, and with her involved, it wasn’t a surprising one. In […]
Last night: 1/3 Her: Science of reading is a white people movement. Me: If so, it’s only because you’re standing still. Her: What? Me: I can’t let you get that off. You wanna lead, then lead. But don’t knife the thing that can give our kids a fighting chance. — Kareem J. Weaver (@KJWinEducation) November […]
Scott Girard: MMSD had its strongest ratings in the growth and on-track to graduation priority areas, though both were down slightly from last year’s scores. In growth, the district received a 73.6 out of 100, while it scored 77 out of 100 for on-track to graduation. In the other two priority areas, MMSD scored a […]
Marquette Law School: Please join us on Thursday, November 17, for a program, “So Now What? The Path Ahead for Education in Wisconsin and the Nation.” In Wisconsin, the outcome of the November elections, particularly for governor, will be an important marker in setting the course of education policy going forward, as a new state […]
Dave Cieslewicz: To which I think I can safely say that I share a widespread reaction among Madisonians: Huh? Again, we could use a whole lot more context here and it would be useful if Copeland would speak to reporters to clarity just exactly what was going on. But from what’s currently on the record […]
Students of all backgrounds are having academic success in Mississippi. Our state is in the top of the nation in 4th grade reading gains for black students! Thank you to our teachers, parents, and students for working so hard to get us here. pic.twitter.com/7Jw3wkj47H — Governor Tate Reeves (@tatereeves) November 4, 2022 The data clearly indicate […]
Isabel Dias: One day leading up to winter break, administrators of the predominantly white New Trier Township High School in the wealthy northern Chicago suburbs announced that “Understanding Today’s Struggle for Racial Civil Rights” would be the theme for a school-wide topical event known as Seminar Day. One of its main goals was to help “students […]
“Perhaps the gravest injustice of our time is the imprisonment of minority kids in substandard public schools… The real culprits are union collective-bargaining agreements and state laws that put teachers unions’ interests ahead of students’.”https://t.co/P2Qj2XTUA6 — Betsy DeVos (@BetsyDeVos) November 1, 2022 The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for […]