schoolinfosystem.org
Abbey Machtig: Nearly two years after construction began, the renovations of Madison’s four comprehensive high schools are complete. Funded by a $317 million referendum approved by voters in 2020, the aging schools got major upgrades. Dated hallways and cramped classrooms were replaced with bright and airy spaces geared toward modern learning. Extra natural light, expanded […]
Becky Jacobs: As first-year and transfer students start classes this fall at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, they must watch a new presentation about freedom of expression on campus. The seven videos cover the First Amendment, academic freedom, campus speakers, talking across differences, offensive speech, activism and civil disobedience. Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin provides introductory and closing remarks. “To […]
Alan Borsuk: “Instead of focusing on declining academic achievement in Wisconsin, the Department of Public Instruction is working to hide the problem,” wrote Will Flanders, research director at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a conservative law firm and think tank. “Unfortunately, changing standards for political correctness and to avoid accountability will hurt students today, […]
David Blaska summary: Madison’s well funded k-12 system and city government are seeking substantial 607M+ tax and spending increases via referendum this fall.
Dale Chu: The assessment world was set alight last week with the news of skyrocketing test gains in the Sooner State. Reading scores for Oklahoma’s third graders jumped from 29 percent proficient last year to 51 percent this year. Eighth graders bested their previous mark by double, spiking from 20 percent proficiency to 40 percent. While some […]
Www. On Wednesday August 28, the Virginia Board of Education will hold a Special Session to consider the Statewide Comprehensive Support Plan. The Plan proposes the requirements that will be imposed on schools and districts when they do not meet the Board’s new rules for accreditation and accountability. —- Andrew Rotherham: Context missing here is […]
Brook Silva-Braga Only about one-third of elementary school students in the U.S. are reading at grade level, according to the recent National Assessment of Educational Progress. In response, many schools are rethinking how they teach kids to read. In one New York City first grade classroom, Melissa Jones-Diaz goes letter by letter, teaching the specific […]
Steve Hsu: In my view we’re in late stage imperial decline. This is the “looting and grifting” stage, and it’s very rare for really talented people to want to go into government – they’re much more likely to be found in tech startups or maybe in academic labs or at hedge funds. There is no […]
Quinton Klabon: —— More. —— Yet: Madison taxpayers of long supported far above average K – 12 spending. 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 and our Disastrous Reading Results 2017: West High […]
Zvi: As a bonus, here are two sections that would have been in my next childhood roundup: Ban Phones in Schools England to give the power to ban mobile phone use on primary and secondary school grounds, students will have to switch them off or risk confiscation. Reactions like this always confuse me: However, teachers’ […]
Nicholas Garton: Still, Couture said she plans to vote “no” on the property tax referendum. “Am I surprised that these are the threatened services? Not a bit,” she said. “The city needs a hard stop on the current ways they are spending our money.” —— Notes on the upcoming $607,000,000 (!) Madison k-12 tax & […]
Quinton Klabon: —— Commentary. MTEL and the Foundations of Reading —— Madison taxpayers of long supported far above average K – 12 spending. 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 and our Disastrous Reading Results […]
Alan Borsuk: Before the 2012 changes in cut scores, Wisconsin was regarded by some national education experts as having some of the lowest bars in the country for defining students as proficient or advanced. For example, the percentages of Wisconsin students who were categorized as proficient in reading and math, using the state’s definitions, were […]
By Allison Garfield The mayor said the referendum is “the only budgetary path in 2025 that protects our values as a community, while we work to address the chronic underfunding of local governments at the state level.” “I’m glad the council agreed that putting that issue to the voters is the right thing to do,” […]
Linda Jacobson: officials took a closer look at the data. “Nobody makes jumps of that size,” said an assessment director from a school system near Oklahoma City. The official asked not to be named because she does not want to “put a target” on her district. To put the outsized gains in perspective, The 74 […]
Abbey Machtig: The Madison School District has big plans to update 10 of its aging schools using taxpayer dollars if voters approve a $507 million referendum in November. But those plans don’t take into account the current decline in student enrollment, and there is no plan, for now at least, to close or consolidate any […]
Steve Hsu: Author Peter Hessler taught at a PRC college in 1996 and again recently. Remarks on changes over a ~25 year period: Kids he taught in 1996 were much shorter, smaller, often had illiterate parents, had to wear the same clothes every day, which they washed by hand. Only 8% of that cohort were […]
Donna Lee Elm Google’s location history data are prized by law enforcement because they can be highly precise. Instead of the indeterminant and broad scope of cell tower location data, Google’s data can potentially identify a device’s location to within a yard or two. Moreover, Google tracked devices’ location quite often (sometimes as frequently as […]
Will Flanders: DPI changed the scales completely, so that parents, policymakers, and taxpayers have 0 ability to compare scores to previous years. Related: Tony Evers use of teacher mulligans.
Robert McFadden: In 1961, Ms. Colvin, a middle-aged, college-educated Syracuse homemaker and mother of two, was appalled to discover that the recent census had counted 11,055 residents of Onondaga County, N.Y., who could not read or write. She had no experience teaching, but felt passionately that she had to do something about it. It was […]
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 […]
Paris Schutz The Chicago Teachers Union Foundation is seeking to significantly reduce the property tax bill for its West Loop headquarters, according to documents from the Cook County Assessor’s Office obtained by FOX 32 Chicago. The Assessor recently reappraised the value of the CTU’s building, estimating its fair market value at $19 million. However, the CTU is […]
Matt Lamb The Chicago Teachers Union president has a convenient excuse for low test scores in the public school system: The exams are “rooted in white supremacy.” “The way in which, you know, we think about learning and think about achievement is really and truly based on testing, which at best is junk science rooted in white supremacy,” Stacy Davis […]
Abbey Machtig: The school also would focus on building literacy and math skills through “boot camps” in the first year of enrollment. Beyond this bootcamp, students would get grade-level English instruction through the Odell High School Literacy Program, according to the proposal. ——- A majority of the taxpayer financed Madison school board aborted the proposed […]
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 […]
Joshua Trevino: The circumstance is quite different in America’s British — or more specifically, its English — inheritance. The Americans never convulsed themselves in a general social rejection of their British heritage: even the most-radical of the Founders, a handful of Jeffersonian and adjacent thinkers, nevertheless conceived of themselves as restoring Anglo-Saxon (which is to […]
Holly Korbey In schools, the podcast was a shot across the bow in a longstanding battle over the best way to teach young children to read. “A lot of teachers didn’t know about this research. It was very clear to them, when they started to learn about it, that it has huge implications,” says Hanford. […]
Sara R. Shaw, Robert Rauh, Jeff Schmidt, Jason Stein and Rob Henken: We can show that by looking at the overall operating funds available to the district from local, state, and federal sources. Using a metric developed for the Forum’s School DataTool, we found that MPS had operating spending in the 2022 school year of […]
Abbey Machtig: The two referendums total $607 million, making them the second-largest request of voters by a school district in state history. It comes in behind Racine’s $1 billion school referendum, which passed in 2020 by only five votes Lucas Robinson and Gayle Worland “Residents in Madison are likely looking at a higher cost of living across […]
Chris Rickert: The first half of Rhodes-Conway’s signature initiative, a Bus Rapid Transit system, is also expected to launch this fall, and while the federal government is picking up from 75% to 80% of the costs to build it, that still leaves the city on the hook for at least $70 million. City officials say […]
Tyler Cowen Summary: “how are you criticise the EU/Federal government” and the promotion of cancellation against those who go against the established narrative on issues such as the speed/scope/direction of Net Zero, stand up for women’s rights against the trans ideology or who critique the current model of immigration/integration. The cosmopolitan liberals are on a […]
WILL: On July 30th and 31st, the Wisconsin Public Education Network (WPEN) will hold its annual conference in Madison. While the name of the Network sounds harmless, it belies an organization with a far-left agenda that is contrary to what most parents in the state want for their kids. The worst part? Wisconsin taxpayers are going […]
The district is asking voters for the money as funding from federal pandemic aid and a 2020 referendum are set to expire. If voters also approve of the district’s other referendum on the November ballot — a $100 million request to help fund day-to-day expenses — district officials estimate the owner of an average-value home in Madison […]
David Blaska: Like hobo stew, the cost of living has many ingredients. Pumping increasingly worthless dollars into the economy is one of them. Democrats in Washington injected billions into America’s economic bloodstream in the name of Covid relief. Yet another casualty of the pandemic panic, along with closing schools and wearing masks on the bike […]
The Economist: A new study by Raj Chetty, of Harvard University, and colleagues provides fresh data on how America’s landscape of opportunity has shifted sharply over the past decades. Although at the national level there have been only small declines in mobility, the places and groups that have become more (or less) likely to enable […]
By Kayla Huynh But the school failed to ensure the teacher had the proper licensing to teach a portion of the students’ instruction. The error meant Steffen’s son, Theodore, and his son’s six classmates would need to redo thousands of minutes of instruction to stay on track with other students. “I don’t think the problem […]
Paul Buchheit: The Biden situation is a good example of why single-party states are dangerous — the incentives always favor party loyalty over truth. If it weren’t for the disastrous debate and upcoming elections, experts and insiders would still be insisting that Biden is “sharp as a tack”, and that all evidence to the contrary […]
James Varney: The Biden administration initially sought to remove those questions, saying it wanted to avoid data duplication, but it backtracked after fierce criticism it was doing so as a sop to teachers unions. Consequently, the question will be included on future questionnaires, but, as of today, the Department of Education “has no data,” a spokesperson told RCI. These […]
Rachel Hale: An increasing part of library specialists’ and district administrators’ jobs has become dealing with requests. Records showed hundreds of internal emails related to scheduling reconsideration meetings and addressing parent concerns. Administrators oversee books across numerous buildings and are struggling with the balancing act of appeasing parent concerns while maintaining appropriate grade interest levels […]
Abbey Machtig: State aid payments are influenced by factors like enrollment, district spending and local property values. Assistant Superintendent of Financial Services Bob Soldern told the Wisconsin State Journal via email the district had been planning to receive about $50 million in state support. Nichols said she doesn’t think the additional money from the state […]
Glenn Reynolds: Well, speaking as a professor of Administrative Law, I think I’ll bear up just fine. I’ve spent the last several years telling my students that Chevron was likely to be reversed soon, and I’m capable of revising my syllabus without too much trauma. It’s on a word processor, you know. As for those academics who […]
Rory Linnane: The final candidates for the interim superintendent position are: In compiling the finalists, the school board reviewed lists of potential candidates from the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators, the Wisconsin Association of School Boards and the Council of Great City Schools.
Abbey Machtig: At $607 million, the Madison School District’s pair of referendums set for November will be the second-largest ask of voters by a school district in Wisconsin history. It comes in behind Racine’s $1 billion referendum, which passed in 2020 by only five votes. The dollar amount Madison is requesting has been described as “unprecedented” in […]
NCLA: “Today, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 to vacate a historic preliminary injunction granted by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in the case of Murthy v. Missouri, finding that the Respondents protected by the injunction lacked standing to support injunctive (that is, future) relief. The injunction had barred officials from […]
Nader Issa The window for hopefuls to submit their minimum 1,000 signatures to get on the ballot closed Monday afternoon with more than two dozen final-day submissions wrapping up the week-long process that kicked off the elections. Chicago’s first-ever school board elections will feature 47 candidates vying for 10 seats, a number surpassing most expectations […]
Jeremy Wall When Rya Mousavi saw a poster for Wisconsin’s first civics bee, she had an idea. “My teacher just had a poster on the board and I talked to her about it. She kind of introduced me to the civics bee and I thought it was a good opportunity,” said Mousavi An opportunity to […]
Abbey Machtig Administrators are recommending Sennett Middle School and Cherokee Heights Middle School be replaced with new buildings. The same goes for several combined schools that share the same location: Shabazz City High and Sherman Middle; Black Hawk Middle and Gompers Elementary; Toki Middle and Orchard Ridge Elementary. The district would also renovate Anana and […]
David Blaska: but probably won’t because — Forget it, Jake, it’s Madison WI! School employees harassed police as they arrested an 18-year-old student criminal for carrying a loaded weapon inside La Follette high school, according to the most excellent report from Chris Rickert of the WI State Journal, made after an open records request. One Kyshawn M. Bankston had […]
With the arrival of our latest K-12 Superintendent, I thought readers might have interest in recent calendar activity. On 4 June, 2024, I made a public records request of the taxpayer funded Madison School District: “digital copy of Superintendent Joe Gothard’s calendar from his first meetings (April?) through 4 June, 2024. In addition, I write […]
David Blaska The so-called “security staff” at La Follette high school put up a hissy fit when police carted off an 18-year-old student found with weapons of mass destruction in his backpack. (“We’re supposed to protect kids here” — from police!) The newspaper quotes the school principal, who caught hell from the “security staff,” to […]
“Mildred & Hands”: He certainly has his work cut out for him. Gothard is being thrust into a likely $600 million referendum campaign this fall that won’t be easy to pass. Inflation and soaring housing costs have soured many voters on tax hikes. Advocates will need to show taxpayers in a clear and specific way […]
Patrick Mcilheran: In Madison, where the possibility of school choice arrived 23 years after Milwaukee, there are six private schools in the choice program that Smith calls “vouchers,” and those six schools enrolled 655 choice students in the school year just ended. The Madison Metropolitan School District, in comparison, has about 25,000 students. Big ask Perhaps Madison […]
David Blaska Contrast that with a public school system here in Madison in which so-called safety monitors try to prevent police from removing pistol-packing pupils from the hallways of La Follette high school in the name of diversity, equity, and inclusion. (Read & Weep!) In the spirit of transparency, our new superintendent of schools gave an interview to […]
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 […]
Dave Zweifel Many educators complained at the time that the entire voucher program would serve as a foot in the door to eventually undermine the public school system — a system that had served the country since colonial days and was credited with representing the true melting pot among children from different cultures, races and incomes. […]
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 […]
The Economist: An air of quiet piety hangs over Rongwo Monastery in the western province of Qinghai. The streets near this ancient complex draw pilgrims and Tibetan Buddhist monks in dark red robes. Local believers make circuits around the monastery’s yellow walls, turning a line of wooden prayer-wheels as they walk. On a recent Monday afternoon, […]
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 […]
armed services @ Senate I am thankful that some folks are keeping an eye on the ebb and flow of legislation. Meanwhile; America’s assassination attempt on Huawei is backfiring Our mulligan policy….
Luther Ray Abel: once you’re auto-graduated from one of the area’s failed schools. But if you’re a Marquette-educated city planner who grew up in Whitefish Bay and now has a place, a goldendoodle, and a job in the Third Ward, Milwaukee is everything a man could ever want. Ride the white-collar novelty streetcar that cost tens […]
Brian Fraley: State Superintendent Jill Underly put out a written press statement today (Thursday) wherein she shared startling, detailed statistics regarding the historic failure of DPI and MPS to educate hundreds of thousands of Milwaukee Public School students over the last several decades. She included information regarding the district’s increased spending and the flow of […]
William Andrekopoulos Fortunately, I had a mostly strong and supportive board with the courage to pass those recommendations even when there were hostile reactions from the public. These included closing under-enrolled schools, changing school start times for transportation savings, moving to central kitchens, and negotiating benefit changes. There is not enough space here to talk […]
Timothy Walker Since I first moved to Finland in 2013, I have witnessed an ever-deepening societal problem that has devastated student learning. Childhood has become dominated by digital devices. This is a global trend, but it disproportionately affects Finnish children. Finland’s teenagers, formerly the world’s highest achievers, still perform above average on the Program for International […]
Helen of Destroy: While the Berliner affair at NPR may have been the general public’s first exposure to its new CEO Katherine Maher, her hire earlier this year was the culmination of decades of grooming by the ruling class political establishment, which raised her on the warm fuzzy feelings of American Exceptionalism via a who’s-who […]
Abbey Machtig: Past spending decisions combined with current revenue estimates leave the district with an estimated $40 million shortfall, Assistant Superintendent of Financial Services Bob Soldner told the Wisconsin State Journal. District could renovate, build new schools The district appears to be leaning toward building several new schools with potential referendum dollars rather than renovating […]
Abbey Machtig: The estimated tax impact for residents is as follows: Operational referendum: 2024-25 — $316.72 increase; 2025-26 — $315.49 increase; 2026-27 — $209.1 increase; 2027-28 — $208.28 increase; total: $1,049.58 increase in property tax bill over the next four years. Facilities referendum: 2025-26 — $327.47 increase; 2026-27 — $328.83 increase; 2027-28 — $326.20 increase; […]
Molly Beck, Rory Linnane And Kelly Meyerhofer The review proposed by Evers would be funded through federal dollars allocated for MPS but yet used or funding leftover from previously awarded contracts, according to the governor. The audits would produce “a comprehensive review and evaluation of the district’s systems, processes, and procedures to identify areas for improvement,” and […]
Mike Damiano Less than five years ago, Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences followed a trend that was then sweeping across American higher education. It instituted a requirement that professors who wished to work at Harvard submit an essay explaining how they would advance “diversity, inclusion, and belonging” in their work. On Monday, the […]
Juma Sei: The easiest way to describe it is you kind of just let a kid figure things out by giving them context clues for the words they see, like pictures. But… JOHNSON: Our reading data was terrible. We didn’t have the data to back up what we were doing. SEI: So today, the teachers […]
By: Jenna Wells “Talk to the people who are paying for the referendum,” Spiker said. He also wants to see a 25% reduction in their $252 million referendum. Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce is calling for a full suspension. “The Milwaukee Public School Board needs to immediately announce that they are not moving forward […]
Kate Roberson: An academic journal has reversed course and rejected an article about abortion that it initially accepted, citing concerns about the author being a “white” “male,” according to an email from the editor obtained by The College Fix. The article “Abortion Restrictions are Good for Black Women” by philosopher Perry Hendricks initially was accepted for […]
Will Flanders: The person put in charge of implementing the Science of Reading in Wisconsin apparently wrote positively about Lucy Calkins. More. Quinton Klabon: GENUINE QUESTION: She was the 2017 president of the Wisconsin State Reading Association, which lobbied against Act 20 in 2023! Many know her, so can someone explain? DPI Superintendent Underly: “I […]
Chris Rickert: Staff at Madison’s La Follette High School have on at least two occasions objected to police arresting at least one La Follette student who brought a gun to school, including one case in which two staffers lied about being two students’ legal guardians, according to police reports. Kyshawn M. Bankston, 18, was charged May […]
Abbey Machtig: Both groups have similar demands and say the school’s principal, Candace Terrell, and assistant principal, Annabel Torres, are “unfit” to lead Southside or any school. “With Candace Terrell and Annabel Torres at the helm, Southside will continue to run afoul and eventually sink into the abyss,” the complaint from parents reads. “For this […]
By: A.J. Bayatpour Less than 24 hours after Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) board members negotiated a resignation agreement with former Superintendent Keith Posley, a state lawmaker called for a federal investigation into the district’s finances. State Rep. LaKeshia Myers (D-Milwaukee) said Tuesday she wanted the U.S. Department of Education to look into how MPS has […]
Quinton Klabon Nancy Carlsson-Paige, former Lesley University education professor/Matt Damon’s mom from that 1 Reason video: “I could barely stand [Sold A Story]…full of false information, misconceptions, and distortions of 3-cueing. She didn’t even understand it.” More from Dr. Tim Slekar: Mary Kate McCoy: We’re concerned about equity in education. You will never achieve equity […]
Lucas Robinson: West Side residents who have been most opposed to the plan worry about elements that call for up to 16-story apartment buildings along Mineral Point Road and near the Hilldale Shopping Center. They also complain that the plan now doesn’t have enough medium-density housing, some of which was removed in response to previous […]
AJ Bayatpour Superintendent Keith Posley has resigned. Rory Linnane: “We can’t keep things the way they are now, and that includes leadership,” Leonard said. “We need to make some significant changes. It’s time to clean things up.” Board member Missy Zombor was absent but had attended the closed session meeting virtually before having trouble connecting […]
Allison Garfield: If the property tax increase covered the projected $27 million deficit, it would cost the average household an additional $284 annually, or roughly $24 a month. If approved by voters, the increase would add to a revenue stream Madison already relies heavily upon to fund its services, with over 70% of the city’s […]
Julia James: This growth can be attributed to several factors, but chief among them is a 2013 state law that created a more robust infrastructure around helping children learn to read and holding them back at the end of third grade if they didn’t hit a certain benchmark. But this national test also measures students […]
Chris Reed: Given how many kids struggle with reading proficiency, it’s stunning that the ‘whole language’ approach is still used in so many elementary schools Who are the most dangerous cultists — adherents of a belief system regarded as unorthodox or spurious, to use a common definition — in the United States? Some will point […]
JR Ross Thread: “Deputy State Superintendent John Johnson wrote MPS will likely see a “significant” reduction in state general aid payments for the 2024-25 school year due to errors the district reported for 2022-23 shared costs” Two of the reports were due eight months ago, and the district is in danger of missing out on […]
Noah Smith: I was raised in an age of liberal triumphalism. Liberal democracy won the 20th century — imperialism, fascism, and communism all collapsed, and by the end of the century the U.S. and its democratic allies in Asia and Europe were both economically and militarily ascendant. Even China, which remained an autocracy, liberalized its […]
Jeremy Noonan: It is also a major reason why teachers are fleeing public schools. The public school accountability system, by relying solely on quantitative metrics like graduation rates to gauge educational quality and to evaluate administrators, frustrates teachers’ ability to truly teach and care for their students and look out for their long-term well-being. The first […]
Celia Walden: She cites drug legalisation as one example: “I was so pro-legalisation, but then you start to see things in the world, you learn things and you think: ‘I might have been wrong about this or that.’ And it’s not like I need to disavow me at 25. It’s just that now that I’m 36, I’m […]
WILL WILL filed this appeal because Ms. Johnson’s posts are protected by the First Amendment. She should not have to endure a costly, pointless, and incoherent jury trial. The Quotes: WILL Deputy Counsel, Luke Berg, stated, “The case against Ms. Johnson should have been promptly dismissed. She was expressing her opinion, and the First Amendment gives […]
Wall Street Journal: Payday lenders challenged the CFPB’s power under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act to draw its funds from the Federal Reserve up to $734 million, adjusted for inflation. They argued this self-funding scheme violates the Constitution’s command that “no Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” […]
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 […]
Corrinne Hess: An Evers spokesperson said last month Evers was within his right to line-item veto the appropriations bill. But on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu said the governor was using literacy funding “as a pawn in his effort to strengthen his veto power rather than doing the right thing for Wisconsin families. When […]
A.J. Bayatpour While the DPI supports a broader list of programs, joint finance Republicans want to limit the money to a shorter list of four programs recommended by the state’s early literacy council. —— Literacy momentum stalls in Wisconsin (DPI): Why would Wisconsin’s state leaders promote the use of curriculum that meets “minimal level” criteria, […]
Abbey Machtig: Madison developed the community schools program in 2015 and Kennedy will be the eighth school with that designation. Starting next school year, Kennedy will be granted a community school resource coordinator and a family liaison who will work full-time from the school. Kennedy also is adding several other new staff members, including another school social worker, a […]
Beth McMurtrie: Theresa MacPhail is a pragmatist. In her 15 years of teaching, as the number of students who complete their reading assignments has steadily declined, she has adapted. She began assigning fewer readings, then fewer still. Less is more, she reasoned. She would focus on the readings that mattered most and were interesting to them. For […]
Patrick Mcilheran Fortunately, they were in the minority. The Joint Legislative Audit Committee voted 6-4 to instruct the state auditor to find out what has come of Gov. Tony Evers’ 2019 order to make “diversity, equity and inclusion,” or DEI, a central feature of agencies’ plans and to corral every state employee into “mandatory equity and inclusion training.” This means […]
Mitchell Schmidt: It’s unclear what the audit will ultimately find, but Legislative Audit Bureau Director Joe Chrisman said a final report with recommendations could be completed sometime next year. “Providing opportunities for all is important to the success of state government institutions, but to create more unaccountable bureaucracy in the name of DEI is a […]
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 […]
Alex Tabarrok: In my 2011 book, Launching the Innovation Renaissance, I wrote: At times, teacher pay in the United States seems more like something from Soviet-era Russia than 21st-century America. Wages for teachers arelow, egalitarian and not based on performance. We pay physical education teachers about the same as math teachers despite the fact that math […]
Christopher Peak: The educational publisher raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue during the 2010s selling reading programs based on a disproven theory. The company now faces financial fallout, as schools ditch its products. A publisher that once held a commanding shareof the market for materials to teach and test reading has seen its […]
WILL The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) has filed a response to a case brought by Planned Parenthood seeking an original action ruling from the Supreme Court of Wisconsin (SCoW) that would create a constitutional right to an abortion in Wisconsin. WILL believes ruling in favor of Planned Parenthood would embroil SCoW in the same mess of policy questions that Roe […]
William Jacobson: The non-profit Equal Protection Project (EqualProtect.org) is devoted to opposing racism and racial discrimination in all forms. EqualProtect.org believes there is no ‘good’ form of racism, and the remedy for racism never is more racism. EqualProtect.org has undertaken dozens of legal actions seeking to uphold the principle of equal protection of the laws. EqualProtect.org opposes […]
David Blaska: Those days dwindled in Dane County a good 30 years ago. In tandem with the teachers union and unionized labor, the Dane County Democrat(ic) Party has been muscling into office progressive candidates who, among other achievements, defunded school resource police officers and dumbed down honors classes. In the last contested Madison school board election, […]