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1765 results found.
For as long as Connie LuVenia Williams can remember, letters have been giving her trouble. Sure, she learned the ABCs, but making sense of how these symbols we call letters combine to form the sounds that make up the English language – that part stumped her. And from what she remembers nobody taught her those skills as a kid.
Her first teachers used Dick and Jane style books with simple, repetitive phrases.
This whole-word approach to reading teaches kids to memorize and recognize entire words rather than start by sounding out individual letters, like you would with phonics. Whole-word was prevalent in the ‘60s, but for a decade, phonics proponents had already been arguing the method produced poor reading skills. In Williams’ case, they were right.
“I never learned how to spell my middle name,” she told me as she struggled to spell out ‘LuVenia’ and turned to her driver’s license for help.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
This past Sunday my 8 Black Hands crew did a show on the missing importance of school boards, and then this article pops up saying the National School Boards Association (NSBA) has launched a campaign called “Public School Transformation Now!”
The goal, flimsy as ever, is to “bring equity issues front and center.” I’m triggered because leaders, especially education, consistently go for sophistry over function. They focus on the feel-good rather than the complex. They love the fashion instead of the fix.
If you read through the article and the NSBA’s Twitter timeline you’ll be browbeaten with the words “reinvent!” and “reimagine!” and “transform!” With America’s massively ineffective public schooling gasping for air from the shock of Covid, I don’t blame them for branding their effort in aspirational terms even as parents and journalists complain about the remote learning “disaster” across cities. And I certainly don’t blame them for ringing the bell on important issues like increasing teacher diversity, stemming potential teacher shortages, the urgent need for flexibility on how special education services are delivered, and the national need to ensure kids can access the internet. But it feels like some essentials are missing from their hubbub.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison suggests that the state’s high school sports have not caused an increase in COVID-19 infections among athletes.
The UW School of Medicine and Public Health released the study Thursday. Researchers led by Dr. Andrew Watson surveyed 207 schools that restarted fall sports in September, representing more than 30,000 athletes, more than 16,000 practices and more than 4,000 games.
The survey found 271 athletes contracted the virus overall compared with 2,318 Wisconsin children aged 14-17 over the month of September. No sports were found to have a higher incidence rate of COVID-19 overall than 14-17 year-olds. None of the cases among the athletes resulted in hospitalization or death.
Of the 209 athletes who knew where they contracted the virus, only one case was attributed to participation in sports.
All the schools reported they had a formal plan in place to reduce the risk of transmission, including monitoring for symptoms, temperature checks at home and on site, masks for staff and players off the field, social distancing, increased facility cleaning and staggered arrival and departure times for events.
The findings suggest participation in sports isn’t associated with an increased risk of COVID-19 among athletes but call for expanded studies to build a more complete picture, the researchers wrote.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees). Run for office. Spring 2021 elections: Dane county executive.
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Voters will consider nearly $1.2 billion in property tax increases in the November election, thanks to school district referenda. Taxpayers in 41 school districts across the state will consider a total of 51 questions on their ballots for projects ranging from brand new buildings, upgrades to existing facilities and permission to spend beyond state-imposed property tax protections and
The vast majority of the referenda, totaling $925 million, would issue new debt. Twenty-one different referendum questions across the state will ask taxpayers to issue new debt for various school projects.
According to the Department of Public Instruction (DPI), 77 percent of the referenda up for vote will issue debt directly to taxpayers. Another 19 percent are non-recurring or one-time increases on district spending caps, while recurring increases to spending camps make up the remaining 4 percent.
Of the districts asking to issue new debt, the Madison Metropolitan referendum question is by far the largest. Madison voters will consider whether to issue $317 million in debt to build a new elementary school, combine Madison High East and West into a single school, among many other renovations and improvements.
Recent reports show enrollment in the district fell by more than 1,000 students in the last year.
Much more on Madison’s substantial Fall 2020 tax & spending increase referendum, here.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 school districts, Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
2017: West High Reading interventionist teacher’s remarks to the school board on madison’s disastrous reading results
MMSD Budget Facts: from 2014-15 to 2020-21 [May, 2020]
Property taxes up 37% from 2012 – 2021.
MMSD Budget Facts: from 2014-15 to 2020-21
1. 4K-12 enrollment: -1.6% (decrease) from 2014-15 to projected 2020-21
2. Total district staffing FTE: -2.9% (decrease) from 2014-15 to proposed 2020-21
3. Total expenditures (excluding construction fund): +15.9% +17.0% (increase) from 2014-15 to proposed 2020-21
4. Total expenditures per pupil: +17.8% +19.0%(increase) from 2014-15 to proposed 2020-21
5. CPI change: +10.0% (increase) from January 2014 to January 2020
6. Bond rating (Moody’s): two downgrades (from Aaa to Aa2) from 2014 to 2020
Sources:
1. DPI WISEdash for 2014-15 enrollment; district budget book for projected 2020-21 enrollment
2. & 3.: District budget books
4. Bureau of Labor Statistics (https://www.bls.gov/data/)
5. Moody’s (https://www.moodys.com/)
Madison School Board.
Run for local office details.
December 1, 2020: Nomination Papers may be circulated.
December 25, 2020: Deadline for incumbents not seeking re-election to file Notice of Non-Candidacy.
January 5, 2021 All papers and forms due in City Clerk’s Office at 5 p.m.
January 8, 2021 Deadline to challenge nomination papers.
PRIMARY DATE (if needed): February 16, 2021
ELECTION DATE: April 6, 2021
School Board campaign finance information.
** Note that just one of 7 local offices were competitive on my August, 2020 ballot. The District Attorney was unopposed (the linked article appeared after the election).
CBS2:
Hundreds of teachers are taking a sick day for Monday, according to the West Ada School District, one day after the board voted in favor of a hybrid schedule.
A spokeswoman for the district says out of 2,145 classroom teachers, 652 have taken a sick day for Monday.
The sick calls leave approximately 500 positions unfilled, the district’s superintendent, Dr. Mary Ann Ranells, said in a letter to parents.
“Principals, administration, teachers and staff worked hard to cover the absences, but unfortunately, we cannot,” the letter said. “With safety in mind, and due to supervision concerns, we are regretfully unable to hold school Monday.
The district will “reassess the situation” on Monday, the letter said.
Related: Frustrated Middleton-Cross Plains parent group calls (school board) recall effort a ‘last resort’.
Recall Mount Horeb School Board Member Leah Lipska.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees). Run for office. Spring 2021 elections: Dane county executive.
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Howard Blume and Laura Newberry:
As parents express widespread dissatisfaction with distance learning, two influential California teachers unions are pushing against growing momentum to reopen schools in many communities, saying that campuses are not yet safe enough amid the pandemic.
Leaders with the California Teachers Assn., with 300,000 members, and United Teachers Los Angeles, representing 30,000 in the state’s largest school district, said that districts do not have the resources to provide the level of protection they say is needed to bring teachers and children together in classrooms.
Related: Frustrated Middleton-Cross Plains parent group calls (school board) recall effort a ‘last resort’.
Recall Mount Horeb School Board Member Leah Lipska.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees). Run for office. Spring 2021 elections: Dane county executive.
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Today I issued a statement on the need for our School District to focus on reopening our public schools, not renaming them. To address inequities, we need to get our kids back in the classroom. pic.twitter.com/nHnauVZzFe
— London Breed (@LondonBreed) October 16, 2020
Related: Frustrated Middleton-Cross Plains parent group calls (school board) recall effort a ‘last resort’.
Recall Mount Horeb School Board Member Leah Lipska.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees). Run for office. Spring 2021 elections: Dane county executive.
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Annysa Johnson, Samantha West and Alec Johnson:
Enrollment in Wisconsin public schools fell by 3% this year, the largest dip in decades, and private schools that accept taxpayer-funded vouchers saw an increase, though not as much as last year.
In all, according to new data released Thursday by the state Department of Public Instruction, public schools enrolled 818,922 full-time equivalent students in the current school year, down more than 25,000 students, based on the headcount taken in late September. Private voucher schools added 2,577 students for a total of 45,954.
Because school funding is tied to enrollment, the shifts will be costly for many districts around the state at a time when they are spending millions more on expenses related to the coronavirus pandemic. In all, nearly a third of the state’s 421 public districts will see a decline in their state aid totaling more than $23 million this year, losses that will continue because schools are funded in part on a three-year rolling average.
“There will be significant, long-term structural effects on school districts’ finances,” said Dan Rossmiller of the Wisconsin Association of School Boards.
K-12 Tax, Referendum and budget climate: Madison School District enrollment drops by more than 1,000 students
A substantial 2020 tax and spending increase referendum is on Madison school district voter ballots this fall.
She said the curriculum offered to students was not intended to be delivered digitally and her children now have online meetings with their teachers for five hours each week compared to 30 hours of live teaching prior to the pandemic.
“We need to give parents options so those who feel safe sending their children to the school should have that option, teachers who feel they can teach in the classrooms better than they can virtually should have that option, and the school board has not given us that option,” she said.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees). Run for office. Spring 2021 elections: Dane county executive.
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
For Brooklyn parent Priscilla Santos, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Tuesday announcement that he was releasing his own plan for temporary New York City COVID-related school closures dispelled any lingering remnants of faith she had in political leadership after a bleak, confusing summer.
Santos is the special education representative for her district’s Community Education Council in Coney Island. Her children, ages 12 and 14, attend Mark Twain I.S. 239 for the Gifted and Talented, where they study media and art. The area where her family resides is currently marked yellow on the governor’s map, signaling that school closures could happen there, if neighborhood positivity rates worsen.
Meanwhile, the blocks around nearby Brighton Beach Avenue and the famed amusement park are marked orange. The confounding boundary between Santos’s zip code and the “hotter” neighboring ones cut right through some streets and buildings, she noticed.
The advocate and mother knows the value of virus containment measures firsthand: her community was among those hit hardest when the pandemic overtook the city this spring. Still, she’s troubled by the way officials have laid everything out.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees). Run for office. Spring 2021 elections: Dane county executive.
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Despite spending far more than most taxpayer supported K-12 school districts, Madison has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
2017: West High Reading interventionist teacher’s remarks to the school board on madison’s disastrous reading results
MMSD Budget Facts: from 2014-15 to 2020-21 [May, 2020]
Property taxes up 37% from 2012 – 2021.
MMSD Budget Facts: from 2014-15 to 2020-21
1. 4K-12 enrollment: -1.6% (decrease) from 2014-15 to projected 2020-21
2. Total district staffing FTE: -2.9% (decrease) from 2014-15 to proposed 2020-21
3. Total expenditures (excluding construction fund): +15.9% +17.0% (increase) from 2014-15 to proposed 2020-21
4. Total expenditures per pupil: +17.8% +19.0%(increase) from 2014-15 to proposed 2020-21
5. CPI change: +10.0% (increase) from January 2014 to January 2020
6. Bond rating (Moody’s): two downgrades (from Aaa to Aa2) from 2014 to 2020
Sources:
1. DPI WISEdash for 2014-15 enrollment; district budget book for projected 2020-21 enrollment
2. & 3.: District budget books
4. Bureau of Labor Statistics (https://www.bls.gov/data/)
5. Moody’s (https://www.moodys.com/)
Madison School Board.
Run for local office details.
December 1, 2020: Nomination Papers may be circulated.
December 25, 2020: Deadline for incumbents not seeking re-election to file Notice of Non-Candidacy.
January 5, 2021 All papers and forms due in City Clerk’s Office at 5 p.m.
January 8, 2021 Deadline to challenge nomination papers.
PRIMARY DATE (if needed): February 16, 2021
ELECTION DATE: April 6, 2021
School Board campaign finance information.
** Note that just one of 7 local offices were competitive on my August, 2020 ballot. The District Attorney was unopposed (the linked article appeared after the election).
Enrollment in the Madison School District has dropped by more than 1,000 students for the 2020-2021 school, the district said Friday.
The decrease in enrollment is significant compared to the previous school year when the district lost only 33 students between 2018-2019 and 2019-2020.
The drop in enrollment could spell trouble for district funding. A portion of state school aid funding is doled out to districts per student, and district enrollment impacts how much money it receives in state equalization aid.
The district had planned for a 3% drop in enrollment due to the COVID-19 pandemic, after administering a survey to student families in July. Respondents to the survey who said they planned to leave the district indicated they would enroll students in homeschooling, transfer to a virtual school, transfer to another district or transfer to a private school.
Elementary and 4K grade levels accounted for 90% of the 2020-2021 school year decrease, according to a memo released by the district. Kindergarten and 4K enrollment accounted for a loss of 500 students, and there were “noticeable” decreases in 5th and 9th grades, the memo said.
Middle school enrollment dropped from 5,486 to 5,455 and high school decreased from 7,891 to 7,834.
More than half of the drop, 56%, is accounted for by students moving to another district in Wisconsin, according to the memo. Another 15% is students who moved out of state, with open enrollment, private school, international move, drop outs and homeschooling accounting for the rest.
Lots of folks are shocked at that NPR story about huge declines in public school enrollment.
Let me offer one data point. We polled a nationally representative sample of teachers and asked them how prepared they felt for virtual learning.
Look at the district teacher line. pic.twitter.com/Q0HqjafAcE
— Mike McShane (@MQ_McShane) October 9, 2020
A July 13-26 survey on reopening schools found that about 3% of respondents planned to not enroll their children in MMSD for the school year. District administrators then used that number to plan the budget. The drop of 1,006 students equals about 3.7%.
In early August, the first kids in America went back to school during the pandemic. Many of these openings happened in areas where cases were high or growing: in Georgia, Indiana, Florida. Parents, teachers, and scientists feared what might happen next. The New York Times reported that, in parts of Georgia, a school of 1,000 kids could expect to see 20 or 30 people arrive with COVID-19 during week one. Many assumed that school infections would balloon and spread outward to the broader community, triggering new waves. On social media, people shared pictures of high schools with crowded hallways and no masking as if to say I told you so.
Fear and bad press slowed down or canceled school reopenings elsewhere. Many large urban school districts chose not to open for in-person instruction, even in places with relatively low positivity rates. Chicago, L.A., Houston—all remote, at least so far.
It’s now October. We are starting to get an evidence-based picture of how school reopenings and remote learning are going (those photos of hallways don’t count), and the evidence is pointing in one direction. Schools do not, in fact, appear to be a major spreader of COVID-19.
Since early last month, I’ve been working with a group of data scientists at the technology company Qualtrics, as well as with school-principal and superintendent associations, to collect data on COVID-19 in schools. (See more on that project here.) Our data on almost 200,000 kids in 47 states from the last two weeks of September revealed an infection rate of 0.13 percent among students and 0.24 percent among staff. That’s about 1.3 infections over two weeks in a school of 1,000 kids, or 2.2 infections over two weeks in a group of 1,000 staff. Even in high-risk areas of the country, the student rates were well under half a percent. (You can see all the data here.)
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees). Run for office. Spring 2021 elections: Dane county executive.
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
The budget vote this summer took place in a June 29 public meeting, and district spokesman Tim LeMonds pointed to a mention in the June 26 staff newsletter, which he called “the primary mechanism used for communicating to all staff.” In that newsletter, a “Budget Update” section on page two includes a mention of the pay freeze in its fourth paragraph among other details of the preliminary budget timeline.
“This effectively pauses our previously planned compensation increases and a few Strategic Equity Projects, not previously approved,” the newsletter states. “Although it is our hope that our budgetary landscape improves by late fall, we also need to be prepared for State budget reductions that may be coming in the upcoming months.”
Another teacher wrote in an email she did not know “anyone who was aware of the pay freeze until we got an email with a preview of our checks and we all realized our salaries were not updated.”
At the time of the preliminary budget approval, district chief financial officer Kelly Ruppel was projecting a loss of $7.6 million in state aid from what had been anticipated in earlier projections. Removing the salary increases saved $7.8 million.
Sadlowski wrote in an email the union is seeking “clarification on whose authority the unilateral change” was implemented. He added that they hope for “a swift resolution that adheres to the agreed upon terms” and that resolving it now would “help to avoid further acrimony than this adverse action has already created.”
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees). Run for office. Spring 2021 elections: Dane county executive.
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
America’s largest school district, New York City, brought some 300,000 students back for in-person learning on Tuesday, even as Covid-19 rates in the city began to tick up. Meanwhile, schools in Miami announced a return to fully in-person learning this month, after a disastrous rollout of online education earlier in the fall. Then there are schools from Kentucky to New Jersey that have switched from in-person to remote learning in recent weeks due to Covid-19 cases.
Like everything about the response to the coronavirus in America, school reopenings have been a patchwork, with states and districts each following their own guidelines — some informed by public health guidance, some less so. As millions of Americans try to make decisions about their children’s education, or their own work as teachers or school staff, they face a terrifying lack of information: There’s no nationwide data on the number of Covid-19 cases in K-12 schools.
Still, we are starting to get a picture — or perhaps a rough sketch — of what education looks like in this time — helped along largely by data collection efforts by the New York Times and the Covid-19 School Response Dashboard.
We are beginning to have a sense of how common Covid-19 is in schools that have reopened, and what schools are doing to reduce the spread of the virus. We know that rates among staff are markedly higher than those among students — not a surprise given previous evidence that adults are more likely to contract the virus, but significant nonetheless. And we know that, at least for now, hybrid learning models employed in many districts to make schools safer have not completely eliminated the risk.
Florida reopened schools for in-person teaching in August. The feared coronavirus surge didn’t happen, reports a team of USA Today reporters. “The state’s positive case count among kids ages 5 to 17 declined through late September after a peak in July.
More than half of Florida families returned their children to school in-person, while the rest chose remote learning. “As weeks ticked by and a surge of school-linked cases did not materialize, requests to return remote learners to the classroom have surged in some places,” the team reports.
Caitlynne Palmieri was among the Martin County parents wanting to return her child to the classroom. She initially enrolled her 9-year-old in the remote learning option because of high community infection rates. Her son, a fourth grader, had trouble focusing on schoolwork from home. When she saw how safety measures were implemented and adhered to, Palmieri sent him back to the classroom.
“I knew it was right for us,” she said. “He wanted to be back, and I felt safe.”
Cases are up for young adults in some counties. But not schoolchildren.
In Belgium, Germany, Norway and Switzerland, coronavirus outbreaks in schools are rare, report Michael Birnbaum, Loveday Morris and Quentin Ariès in the Washington Post. “So despite rising coronavirus cases, and although universities have emerged as sites of concern, European countries remain wholeheartedly committed to in-person learning for primary and secondary schools.”
Belgian health officials think in-person classes might “be safer than virtual schooling, assuming students tend to be less rigorous about social distancing when they’re not being supervised in classrooms,” they write.
Many countries in Europe have dropped rules about wearing masks in schools, reasoning that it’s difficult for students to concentrate when they have them on all day. Public health authorities have spent more energy devising ways for children to study within relatively small cohorts, so that if quarantines are required, fewer people will be affected.
“The view in Norway is that children and youth should have high priority to have as normal a life as possible, because this disease is going to last,” said Margrethe Greve-Isdahl, a senior physician at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees). Run for office. Spring 2021 elections: Dane county executive.
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Amid a national conversation on policing and race, Dane County school districts are taking a closer look at the work officers do in their schools but so far have not gone as far as the Madison School District and removed them entirely.
Of the 16 districts completely or predominantly within the county, 12 had school resource officers, or SROs, at the beginning of the 2019-20 school year. As of last week, at least nine of them had either decided to continue their existing SRO programs or were in the process of working with their local police departments to make changes to their programs for when the coronavirus pandemic abates and students can return to in-person learning.
The Madison School Board on June 29 voted to end its contract with the city of Madison for SROs at each of the district’s four main high schools. The decision followed protests against police in Madison and across the country in the wake of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis Police custody, as well as years of pressure on the board from local activist group Freedom Inc., whose members regularly shouted down public board meetings and protested at the School Board president’s home.
Since Madison’s action, at least one other local government body in Dane County — the Middleton City Council — has voted against its local school district’s SRO program.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
What Biden says about school choice
The Biden campaign said he’s firmly against using public money for private K-12 schools. Here’s the full statement we received:
“Joe Biden opposes the Trump/(Betsy) DeVos conception of ‘school choice,’ which is private school vouchers that would destroy our public schools. He’s also against for-profit and low-performing charter schools, and believes in holding all charter schools accountable. He does not oppose districts letting parents choose to send their children to public magnet schools, high-performing public charters or traditional public schools.”
As part of a broader education policy outlined on his website, Biden calls for nearly tripling the Title 1 funding for aid to schools serving lower income neighborhoods and raising teacher pay.
The Trump-Pence 2020 website claims that Biden said “that if he’s elected, charter schools are gone.” The campaign links to a comment Biden made at a December 2019 forum on public schools. Biden was attacking Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ policy on student sexual assault accusations. At the very end of condemning that policy on assaults, he said, “If I’m president, Betsy DeVos’ whole notion from charter schools to this are gone.”
Biden didn’t otherwise discuss charter schools or school choice broadly.
Assessing Biden on school choice
EdChoice, an advocacy group that aims “to advance educational freedom and choice,” lists a number of practices that fall under the school choice umbrella. In addition to vouchers, that list includes charter schools, specialized magnet schools (for example, for math and science or the arts) and allowing students to choose which public school they want to attend.
Biden’s platform includes all of those elements except vouchers.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Brenda Gonzalez, director of community relations at UW-Madison who spoke during the County Board meeting in opposition of the resolution, said testing and protocol put in place should keep the number of positive cases on campus low. She said Public Health Madison and Dane County is monitoring possible transmission of cases from campus to the surrounding community and hasn’t found evidence to support a large number of campus-to-community case transmissions.
“We do not believe that further limiting in-person instruction is prudent or necessary,” Gonzalez said.
Dane County Sup. Michele Ritt, a mother of a UW System student, voted against the resolution but questioned the effectiveness of policies meant to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 on campus.
“Sending all students from residence halls home is unsafe and unrealistic,” she said. “If we close residence halls and move classes online, this will encourage students to engage in more reckless behaviors.”
In response to the vote, UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank reiterated that many students will stay in Madisonregardless of whether classes are delivered entirely online because they are members of the community who live, work and vote in the city. Further, she said, no faculty or staff have become infected in classrooms or lab settings and the latest testing data on campus shows a lower infection rate than in Dane County.
“Given the low case numbers at UW, our extensive testing and messaging regime, and our students’ commitment to being part of the Madison community, we disagree with calls for the university to send student(s) home,” Blank said in a statement. “The university, the city and the county need to work together to make sure that all people — students and non-students alike – follow county health protocols and remain healthy
The Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce opposed the resolution, saying it strikes the wrong balance and would cause “unnecessary economic hardship” on businesses.
“Ending in-person classes and sending students ‘home’ is not a productive public health strategy and sends a terrible message to the students that are members of our community,” the Chamber said in a statement.
Dane County plans a 3.4% property tax increase….
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
When Mayor Jorge Elorza raised concerns last year about a charter school organization’s expansion plan in Providence, he had a very practical reason. He was in charge of a school system with 24,000 students, and he feared that the district would not be able to absorb the financial hit if too many students left the traditional school system for public charter schools.
Now Elorza, a Democrat who is openly considering a run for governor in 2022, is publicly supporting an even larger expansion of the Achievement First Mayoral Academy, and he has also agreed to chair the board of directors for Excel Academy, the Massachusetts-based charter school organization that wants to open a school that would eventually serve nearly 2,200 students from Providence, North Providence, and Central Falls.
The mayor’s about-face in such a short period of time would ordinarily be viewed as a stunning policy shift, but he maintains that his evolution is also a practical one. In short, the state has taken over the Providence school system, so Elorza no longer has the same worries about the district’s finances that he had a year ago.
“Not having to take into account the finances and how we’re going to balance the budget, it’s a much a different consideration for me,” Elorza told the Globe on Monday. “Now it comes down to: Are they delivering for students? And the answer is unequivocally yes.”
The Rhode Island Department of Education took control of Providence schools on Nov. 1, 2019, several months after researchers from Johns Hopkins University released a scathing report that showed widespread dysfunction with nearly every facet of the district. Elorza publicly supported the takeover, although it has been less of a partnership between the city and state than he initially envisioned.
2011: A majority of the Madison School Board aborted the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter school.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Asra Q. Nomani and Glenn Miller:
This week, a group of about 200 students, parents, alumni, and concerned local residents flooded the sidewalk in front of America’s number-one-ranked public high school—Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia. This was no back-to-school event. It was a rally to save the soul of the school itself.
The parents included Norma Muñoz, a Peruvian immigrant who told us she was there to “fight for TJ” (as the school is known locally). Other parents were from China, India, and South Korea. They stepped forward, one by one, to describe their families’ journeys—from marching in Tiananmen Square decades ago to arriving in the United States with only dollars in their pockets.
“I came here for freedom,” said Yuyan Zhou, a Chinese-American woman who’s spent eight years as a TJ parent. “Moral courage is the only solution for this madness. Stand up for your rights. Stand up for your values. Fight for the future of our students!”
And what is this “madness” Ms. Zhou describes? Since early June, a small but vocal group of TJ alumni have worked with activist school-board members, state education officials, politicians, and even TJ’s principal, to undermine the school’s selective admissions process. Their language consistently channels fashionable academic doctrines such as critical race theory (popularly known as CRT), which presuppose that all of society’s institutions are embedded with implicit forms of white supremacy.
The result is a proposal to replace the existing race-blind, merit-based TJ admissions system of standardized tests, grade rankings, essays, and teacher recommendations with a process based on random selection from among applicants who have a core class GPA of 3.5 or greater (and are currently enrolled in algebra). Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) Superintendent Scott Brabrand has branded this proposed new system a “merit lottery.”
The news conference, which also featured Madison Teachers Inc. President Andy Waity, was part of a national day of action by teachers unions across the country, calling for safe working conditions in schools during the pandemic.
The renewed push to bar in-person instruction comes as the number of COVID-19 cases has spiked in the state and two weeks after a Green Bay-area school teacher died of the virus.
On Wednesday, DHS reported an additional 2,319 individuals tested positive, about 19.7% of those tested. It reported a record number of COVID-related deaths, at 27, and hospitalizations, at 91.
Wisconsin has also been labeled a “red zone” by the White House Coronavirus Task Force, which has called for increasing social distancing here “to the maximal degree possible.”
Cases among school-age children have spiked dramatically since late August, according to new data released Wednesday by DHS. Numerous cases involving students and staff have been reported at schools across the state, according to DHS and a database created by the Journal Sentinel and USA Today Network-Wisconsin.
Scott Girard: “we know best”, continued.
“We cannot rely on individuals to make good decisions in a pandemic,” Mizialko said, citing reports of parents knowingly sending symptomatic children to school. “It requires a systemic response. This is why we have government and it’s why we pay taxes and it’s why we have elections.”
Many private schools had planned to open for some in-person instruction the week after the Public Health Madison & Dane County order was issued after 5 p.m. on a Friday. PHMDC officials have encouraged schools to use the metrics they issued for reopening schools even if its order is not in effect.
In Dane County, public health officials in late August ordered all schools closed for grades 3-12, while allowing in-person instruction for grades K-2 with certain requirements in place. The state Supreme Court put that order on hold in response to a legal challenge from various private schools, parents and membership organizations, allowing schools to open.
“The notion that parents inherently know what school is best for their kids is an example of conservative magical thinking.”; “For whatever reason, parents as a group tend to undervalue the benefits of diversity in the public schools….” – former Madison School Board member Ed Hughes.
We Learn Faster When We Aren’t Told What Choices to Make
Ontario doctors sign letter to Premier advising against sweeping lockdowns
‘If you are under the age of 50 you have a 99.98% chance of surviving from COVID-19’
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Jesse Paul and Erica Breunlin:
Gov. Jared Polis on Tuesday pleaded with Colorado parents to enroll their children in school, saying that districts have seen declines in the number of kids signed up for classes during the coronavirus crisis, especially among younger grades.
“Your kid will return to school someday,” Polis said at a coronavirus briefing with reporters at the governor’s mansion in downtown Denver. “You don’t want them to be behind.”
Polis said the state doesn’t have specific data showing how large the declines are in enrollment. It’s anecdotal thus far, but widespread.
“There are certainly more than usual.” Polis said
Polis said he fears some Colorado parents are trying to home school their kids without proper planning and curriculum.
“Don’t just think you’re home-schooling because you’re giving your kid a book all day and leaving them at home,” Polis said. “… It’s not something to be taken lightly.”
The governor said that parents who don’t feel comfortable sending their kids back to school for in-person learning should at least enroll them in an online program. That will give children access to social interaction with their peers as well as counseling, should they need it.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
President Trump is bringing some attention to the connections between this summer’s riots, the 63 percent of young Americans who believe America is racist, and the disaster that is civics and history instruction in U.S. public schools. He recently announced a federal commission to counter the saturation of anti-American ideology in American education institutions through “patriotic education.” He also “threatened to cut funding to schools that teach the 1619 Project.”
This is a start, but it’s going to take a lot more to address this serious problem. Significant structural changes are required, and state-level elected officials need to do most of it. Since schooling that teaches children to hate their own nation threatens its very existence, it’s past time to get serious about this.
The examples are myriad and expansive, and they are not limited to deep-blue locales (as if indoctrination is okay if local politicians approve). The College Board’s changes to its U.S. and European history Advanced Placement curriculum, which more than 800,000 American high school students take each year, are one major example.
WILL:
WILL sued MMSD for violating parental rights with gender identity policy
The News: Dane County Circuit Court Judge Frank Remington issued an injunction last week in a WILL parental rights lawsuit that forbids Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) employees from lying or deceiving parents about the gender identity that their child may have adopted at school. The lawsuit is ongoing, but the injunction goes into effect immediately as the case is under consideration.
The Quote: Deputy Counsel Luke Berg said, “We are pleased Judge Remington issued this injunction that will require honesty when Madison Metropolitan School District staff interact with parents about critical matters impacting their child’s health and wellbeing. This is an important win for parental rights as the court considers this matter.”
Background: On behalf of a group of Madison parents, WILL and Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed a lawsuit in Dane County Circuit Court against the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) in February 2020 for adopting and implementing policies that violate the rights of District parents. MMSD policies adopted in April 2018 enable children, of any age, to change their gender identity at school without parental notice or consent, and then directs District employees to conceal and even deceive parents about the gender identity their son or daughter has adopted at school. The Circuit Court’s injunction prevents District staff from lying to or deceiving parents if they directly ask about their child, including the name and pronouns their child is using at school.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Nature Hill Intermediate School, Silver Lake Intermediate School and Oconomowoc High School students will have class in person five days a week starting Sept. 28 after an Oconomowoc School Board vote on Sept. 23.
The board voted, 4-2, in a special meeting to have the intermediate school and high school students return to a full, five-day face-to-face setting. The vote also provided a virtual option for students in grades five through 12 who do not want to return to school in person beginning Sept. 28.
Those three schools started the school year in a hybrid model, alternating in-person and virtual learning from home.
Board members Jessica Karnowski, Kim Herro, Rick Grothaus and James Wood voted in favor of the new plan, while board members Scott Roehl and Dan Raasch voted against it. Board member Juliet Steitzer abstained, saying there was insufficient data for her to make a decision.
Oconomowoc made substantive changes to their high school teaching approach several years ago. I wonder how that has played out?
This year, after a lot of research about COVID-19 and schooling options and after the district announced it was starting virtually, Ludtke withdrew the girls and enrolled them in a state college that offers online classes. They’re earning both college and high school credit in English and math. (Because the girls are 12 and 13, the college administrators asked to interview them first – then offered them a grant toward tuition.)
Ludtke resigned from her principal role and stepped back to teaching, which leaves her time to home-school her daughters in their other necessary subjects, such as social studies and physical education. The girls hadn’t learned much in the spring when Clark County moved to remote instruction, she said, and the combination of college classes and home-schooling seemed to be the most rigorous option.
The upshot: The girls are learning, but they’re no longer enrolled in any school district.
As parents nationwide tread through a wildly different education landscape this year, many kids, like the Ludtke sisters, disappear from the rosters of their public schools. Clark County schools are down about 10,000 students this year, a loss that will translate into a reduction of about $61 million from the state of Nevada, though the impact won’t be felt right away.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Foundation for Madison Public Schools [Board] recently spent funds on a pro 2020 Tax & Spending increase referendum Facebook advertising campaign.
The advertisement.
The advertisement includes a reference to https://yes2investmsn.org
The Foundation for Madison Public Schools lists $9,011,063 in assets at the end of 2019 (!) via FMPS’ IRS Tax Form 990 “Return of Organization Exempt from Tax” .
This represents a truly impressive display of political incompetence on the part of Black Lives Matter and its allies. If you came to the American public with an argument that cities such as Louisville and Philadelphia are poorly governed, that this poor governance imposes especially terrible costs on African Americans, that the municipal incompetence naturally extends to police work, and that sweeping reform is called for, you would get a great deal of buy-in from both sides of the aisle. Republicans don’t need a whole lot of convincing that Chicago is a flying circus of whirling buffoonery.
In truth, the Left isn’t especially interested in police reform. If they cared about police reform, progressives would be offering actual halfway serious proposals for police reform, which have been notably few and far between over these past months, drowned out by unserious and irresponsible rhetoric about abolishing city police departments. The police are a special problem for the Left in that they represent an incompatibility between the Left’s post-1960s Bill Ayers–style radicalism and the realpolitik that recognizes police as unionized municipal employees and hence natural constituents of the Democratic Party.
The scandal of urban America is a stumbling-block for Democrats, for the obvious reason that this is pretty much exclusively their show and has been for generations. Louisville, currently convulsed by the death of Breonna Taylor at the hands of police, hasn’t elected a Republican mayor since Lyndon Johnson was in the White House. Portions of American cities were ceded to armed militias over the summer, not by Republican authorities accommodating right-wing radicals descending from the hills of Idaho but by the powers that be in impeccably progressive Seattle inviting a left-wing occupation force to set up shop in a corner of that declining city, where they promptly set about shooting a few children.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Twenty-five Madison high school seniors have been named semifinalists for the 2021 National Merit Scholarships.
The students join about 16,000 other high school seniors across the country that were named this month as semifinalists for the prestigious scholarship. About 15,000 of semifinalists are named finalists, and about 7,600 of the finalists go on to receive a scholarship.
More than 1.5 million high school juniors from roughly 21,000 schools across the country entered the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2019 Preliminary SAT National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. The test is used to screen initial program applicants. Semifinalists represent less than 1% of high school seniors in the U.S.
Wisconsin’s cut score is 216. Texas is 221, Minnesota 219, California 222 and New York 221….
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
An 18-year-old Madison man out on bail was charged with reckless homicide Thursday in a crash last week on the West Side that killed a 22-year-old former Madison School Board member and National Merit Scholar.
Maurice M. Chandler is also charged with driving with a revoked license, reckless injury and eight bail-jumping violations after the Jeep he was driving T-boned a car driven by Anthony M. Chung as Chung was making a left turn Sept. 17 on Mineral Point Road at Grand Canyon Drive. Chung died at the scene, according to investigators.
Chung was a 2016 graduate of Memorial High School who served as the student representative on the School Board. His girlfriend and front-seat passenger, Rory Demick, 22, was seriously injured in the crash, according to court records, suffering multiple broken bones.
Former School Board member T.J. Mertz, who served with Chung, said he had a bright future.
“He was a hard worker,” he said. “He did his research. He cared about making a difference. … He was going to do good or even great on a bigger scale.”
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Reopening schools isn’t spreading coronavirus, say public health experts. Early evidence “suggests that opening schools may not be as risky as many have feared,” report Laura Meckler and Valerie Strauss in the Washington Post. While students and teachers have become sick with coronavirus, there’s “little evidence that the virus is spreading inside buildings.”
Sweden, which didn’t close schools, reported no higher rate of infection among schoolchildren than in Finland, where schools did close in spring. Photo: Lena Granefelt
The new National COVID-19 School Response Data Dashboard released its first data showing low levels of infection among students and teachers. Emily Oster, a Brown economics professor who helped create the dashboard, said school coronavirus rates are “much lower” than those in the surrounding community.
The Network for Public Education has been tracking 37 school districts in Connecticut, New York and Pennsylvania. It’s found 23 confirmed cases of coronavirus at 20 schools, with “no indication the virus was spread in schools,” report Meckler and Strauss. So far, “outbreaks have not occurred, even when someone tests positive for covid-19,” said Carol Burris, the executive director.
“We’re not seeing schools as crucibles for onward transmission,” said Sara Johnson, associate professor of pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Last week, a Jefferson County Circuit Judge
“); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px); background-repeat: repeat no-repeat”>ruled that the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) violated the law when it came to releasing data on the state’s private school choice programs. Along with Jim Bender of School Choice Wisconsin and Matt Kittle of Empower Wisconsin, I served as a plaintiff in this case brought by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL). While issues with data may tend to make people’s eyes glaze over, this case actually represents an important opportunity to highlight the successes of Wisconsin’s school choice programs, and how DPI has routinely tried to hide them.
The Court ruled in WILL’s favor on two counts. First, the Court ruled that the Department cannot hold a private press briefing before releasing all school choice data to the public. State law requires a public release of the data, and instead DPI regularly has held a private briefing in the days leading up to the release. This provides DPI with an opportunity to shape the narrative that will be reported when the data becomes public. Those of us who are regular critics of the public school system are denied access to the calls, meaning that our opportunity to respond to what is released is limited. In today’s 24-hour news cycle, immediate response is critical if one wants their perspective to be a part of the narrative on the data. Mandating a full, public release will give those on all sides of education issues in the state a fair shot to let their voice be heard.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Tennessee students have likely experienced significant learning loss, especially in reading and math, this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Preliminary data released Wednesday by the Tennessee Department of Education projects an estimated 50% decrease in proficiency rates in 3rd grade reading and a projected 65% decrease in proficiency in math.
“The department has identified trends that indicate real challenges that have been experienced by students at all levels.” Gov. Bill Lee said during a news briefing Wednesday. “It just shows how important it is that our kids get back into the classroom and that’s why we’ve put such a strong effort in making sure our kids do return back to classrooms for in-person learning.”
Lee characterized the data as “an alarm that’s been sounded.”
“We are seeing through this report an alarm that’s been sounded, especially with regard to not only the short term impacts on kids but the long-term impact on our state,” Lee said.
Most students traditionally experience some sort of learning loss over the summer, but educators have worried that students might experience greater loss since schools initially closed in March thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
If you’re a public-minded student or teacher committed to reducing the death toll from Covid-19, what is the morally correct way to behave?
According to the epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta, you should do just about the opposite of what’s being preached by college presidents, teachers’ unions, political leaders, and the scientific and media establishment. Unless you’re elderly or particularly vulnerable, you shouldn’t be wearing a mask all day, or shaming others for going unmasked. You should be careful not to endanger the vulnerable, but otherwise you should be exposing yourself to the virus in order to promote herd immunity.
Gupta, 55, wants to teach her classes at Oxford in person, without a mask, and she is appalled at her colleagues’ reluctance to go back to the classroom.
“It’s such a disservice to this generation of students,” she says. “Teachers and students who are vulnerable should have the option to go online, but for the rest of us this virus is no bigger than other risks we take in daily life. It’s not rational, and certainly not communitarian, to avoid being infected with a pathogen that carries such a low risk to you when there’s a high benefit to the community by helping to create herd immunity.”
Gupta’s strategy is heresy to the public-health establishment, but it seems to be paying off in Sweden, and her research team at Oxford has a far better track record on Covid-19 than the scientists whose work inspired the widespread lockdowns and mask mandates in the first place. In March, when Neil Ferguson’s team at Imperial College London terrified politicians and the public with its projections of Covid deaths—more than 500,000 in Britain and 2 million in the United States—Gupta’s team warned that this scenario was based on dubious assumptions about the virus’s spread and lethality.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
The district has made it a priority to bring an elementary school to the racially diverse neighborhood where most students need to take long bus rides out of the area to attend Allis Elementary on the Southeast Side.
About 450 elementary students live in the neighborhood bounded by the Beltline to the north, Highway 14 to the west, and parkland and marshes to the south and east.
If the facilities referendum passes, it would create the first new elementary school in the district since 2008. An elementary in Moorland-Rimrock could open as early as fall 2023.
Additional notes and commentary from Scott Girard.
MMSD Budget Facts: from 2014-15 to 2020-21 [May, 2020]
Property taxes up 37% from 2012 – 2021.
– via a kind reader (July 9, 2020 update).
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
Wisconsin institute for law and liberty:
The News: Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Bennett Brantmeier issued a summary judgement ruling in a lawsuit brought by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) that the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) violated state law when the state agency released partial data on Wisconsin’s school choice programs to a select media list ahead of a September 2019 public release. The Court’s decision includes a permanent injunction to prevent DPI from violating state law that says data on Wisconsin’s school choice programs must be released “all at the same time, uniformly, and completely.”
WILL sued DPI in Jefferson County in November 2019 on behalf of School Choice Wisconsin (SCW), Empower Wisconsin journalist Matt Kittle, and WILL Research Director Will Flanders.
The Court’s Decision: Judge Brantmeier ruled that DPI’s actions violated state law by providing press with early access and by releasing incomplete data on Wisconsin’s school choice programs. Judge Brantmeier declined to restrict the state Superintendent’s ability to comment on the data it releases but emphasized that DPI remains bound to release full data sets on equal terms to all Wisconsinites.
Why It Matters: Wisconsin’s state agencies must understand that following state law is not optional. This is another victory for a more accountable state government.
Wisconsin has generally lacked a rigorous approach to statewide assessments: see the oft criticized WKCE.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Reyes was one of 40 applicants. The deadline was today. She is a former police officer and, under past mayor Paul Soglin, was deputy mayor for law enforcement. Once an advocate for police in the city’s four troubled high schools, Reyes caved after BLM invaded her residential street this summer and voted to expel police. (Related here.)
Notes and links on Gloria Reyes.
Ruppell estimated Monday that the district would see a 400-student drop in enrollment this school year, though that won’t be finalized until the state certifies enrollment numbers in early October. That’s up nearly 350 students from the estimated drop of 51 pre-COVID, which is why the district implemented a hiring freeze over the summer, Ruppell said.
“We have a game plan in place regarding this,” Ruppell said. “These numbers can get much better by the time we hit Friday.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
The $317 million ask is among the largest in the history of the state, according to state Department of Public Instruction data. It is surpassed only by Racine’s barely approved $1 billion question in April, which won by five votes, and Milwaukee’s $366 million 1993 question that failed.
[New Madison elementary school would go on Badger Rock site if referendum approved]
Each of the comprehensive high schools would receive about $70 million for renovations under the plan, while the other funds would go toward the Capital High move, elementary school construction and $2 million earmarked for sustainability projects.
The second question on the ballot would provide MMSD with additional revenue authority above the state-imposed limit, phased in over four years. It would provide an additional $6 million in year one, an additional $8 million in year two, another $9 million in year three and $10 million more in year four. The district would then be able to surpass the revenue limit by $33 million in perpetuity thereafter.
The facilities referendum would add an average of $50 per $100,000 of property value each year in taxes for homeowners over its 22-year payoff period, according to the district. The operating referendum would add about $103 per $100,000 of property value in property taxes by the time it reaches year four, rising incrementally each year.
2020 Referendum: Commentary on adding another physical Madison School amidst flat/declining enrollment..
2020 tax and spending increase referendum notes and links.
A presenter [org chart] further mentioned that Madison spends about $1 per square foot in annual budget maintenance while Milwaukee is about $2. – October 2019 presentation. Milwaukee taxpayers plan to spend $1.2B for 75,234 students, or $15,950 per student, about 16% less than Madison.
Taxpayers have long supported the Madison School District’s far above average spending, while tolerating our long term, disastrous reading results.
With the bulk of schools back in session now, a majority of Wisconsin school districts representing about half of the state’s public school students report plans to open up school buildings for some form of in-person instruction during the ongoing pandemic.
A Wisconsin State Journal review found in rural parts of the state the decision was driven in part by a lack of reliable broadband internet access for students and teachers; districts representing about a third of students, including most large urban districts, started entirely online; and some schools’ plans have already been set back by positive cases of COVID-19.
The state Department of Public Instruction sent a survey to school districts on Aug. 3 asking for descriptions of reopening plans. As of Friday, about 310 of the state’s 421 school districts responded to the voluntary survey.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
The early childhood center on Madison’s West Side, which previously served children from ages 17 months to about 5, has added kindergarten through second grade this fall as it pivots to address the new realities amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The new arrangement helps the preschool families who were juggling jobs and assisting their elementary-age children with online learning at home.
“Our families that had kids here previously or still had little ones here were a little panicked,” said Preschool of the Arts executive director Penny Robbins.
In addition, organizations caring for children have been hit hard by the pandemic, said Robbins, whose own facility was closed from March 13 to June 1. When it reopened it had only about half the normal enrollment, which also meant fewer staff members.
Robbins, who started in her position Jan. 6, was about two months into her new job when the coronavirus pandemic rocked the preschool world. As the Preschool of the Arts looked for ways to continue to support its teachers and the school, opening up to older grades made sense, Robbins said. The school runs a summer program for kindergarten through second-grade students.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
The Madison Metropolitan School District plans to apply for a series of waivers from state requirements later this month for the 2020-21 school year.
On the same day as students began the school year virtually, administrators told the School Board about three waivers they plan to request — as long as the board approves them later this month. That vote is expected at the Sept. 21 board meeting.
The waivers would allow exemptions from state requirements on attendance, instructional minutes and the Civics Exam. Assistant superintendent for teaching and learning Lisa Kvistad told the board the waivers would allow flexibility for whatever learning model is in place as the year goes on.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
It’s been decades since the landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education declared school segregation unconstitutional in 1954, though it took years for schools to actually adopt that ruling. Now, no one can be denied enrollment in a school due to the color of their skin, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that educational conditions are equal for all students. A recent study found that school districts that have a high concentration of white students receive $23 billion more per year in funding than those that have a high concentration of non-white students. Lower funding can lead to lower quality education, which can affect not only a person’s income trajectory but also their career trajectory for the rest of their life.
In order to determine which states have the most racial equality in education at a time when protests against racism and inequality are happening all across the U.S., WalletHub compared the 50 states across six key metrics. Our data compares the difference between white and black Americans in areas such as high school and college degrees, test scores and graduation rates. Read on for the results and a full description of our methodology.
Catherine Winkel was prepared for the usual back-to-school expenses. The notebooks and binders, pens and pencils, new clothes, new shoes.
There was one expense she hadn’t expected: thousands of dollars in tuition to send her 7-year-old to private school where she could attend classes in person.
But after the Mequon-Thiensville School District announced it would be starting the school year remotely as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, Winkel enrolled her first grader at Christ Alone, a small, neighborhood Lutheran school.
The district has since reversed itself, offering in-person instruction for families that want that option. Winkel’s older child, who is a freshman this year, will stay in the district. But she’s keeping her youngest at her new school.
“We had to take a big dent in the savings account,” said Winkel. “We were saving for other essentials, not at the last minute to pay for private tuition for an elementary school student.”
Winkel is among a number of Milwaukee-area parents who have decided to transfer their children to other schools — public and private — to avoid having them spend their school days online.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Schools in Dane County that want to open for in-person education can do so immediately for all grades after the state Supreme Court temporarily blocked enforcement of the Public Health Madison & Dane County order requiring virtual learning for grades 3-12.
The court’s conservative majority issued the 4-3 ruling [PDF document], which combined three cases brought against Emergency Order No. 9 since its Aug. 21 announcement, just before 6:30 p.m. Thursday.
The court will consider the arguments against the case on its merits in the months to come, but the order is on hold in the meantime. Thursday’s opinion, which lawyers believe is the first time the court has weighed in on a local COVID-19 order since the pandemic began, indicates those seeking to overturn the order will have a good chance to win.
“First, based upon the briefing submitted at this stage, Petitioners are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim,” the opinion states, adding that “local health officers do not appear to have statutory authority to do what the Order commands.”
Parents, private and parochial schools and membership associations brought the lawsuits challenging Public Health Madison & Dane County director Janel Heinrich’s authority to close schools. They maintain that schools planning to open took precautions over the summer to follow guidance issued by PHMDC to make in-person learning safe.
In its announcement of the Aug. 21 order, PHMDC outlined positive case averages that would be required to allow in-person school for grades 3-5 and 6-12. With the recent uptick in positive cases, mostly among UW-Madison students returning to campus, Dane County was unlikely to reach those numbers anytime soon.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Madison School Board Member Ali Muldrow (WORT-FM):
Today, Wednesday host Ali Muldrow spends the hour with Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway to take stock and openly discuss issues facing the city, with the input of listener callers.
It’s a wide-ranging conversation that covers topics like racial injustice in Wisconsin, the mayor’s opinion of the Madison Police Department and their handling of the summer protests, investing in education, affordable housing and combating displacement on the isthmus, and leading Madison through the twin crises of the pandemic and the fight for Black lives.
Satya Rhodes-Conway is the 58th mayor of Madison. She was elected in 2019 after serving three terms on the Madison Common Council.
Transcript [Machine Generated]
Notes and links: Ali Muldrow and Satya Rhodes-Conway.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
It notes that schools spent months developing detailed plans, per earlier county orders, to safely reopen. Tseytlin also argues that the statute defining local health officials’ duties says they can inspect schools, but reserves the right to close them to the head of the state Department of Health Services.
In a response to the St. Ambrose petition, Bitar wrote Heinrich’s was a proper exercise of her statutory power to “do what is reasonable and necessary for the prevention and suppression of disease.”
“It is not a complete shutdown of the school system; learning is still happening under this Order virtually and in other ways. Religious studies are not prohibited; to the contrary, religious teachings, instructions and missions are all allowed and can be accomplished virtually and in other ways.”
In the St. Ambrose petition, Tseytlin argues the parents are currently suffering irreparable harm, while an injunction against the order would not harm the county.
We have embraced outdoor classrooms in the past.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
WION:
But, teachers in Nilamnagar, western India, have started a unique initiative to make sure that children don’t miss out of learning due to technological shortfalls.
They have set up outdoor classrooms for a total of 1,700 students for age group 6-16, where a small group gather around painted walls, which are used for teachings.
From writing to trigonometry, the murals in the village cover many subjects, written in local Marathi and English.
In one of the walls, objects that begin with the letter ‘s’ are made, including scooter, spade and swing and are painted in black underneath the words such as “look, listen and say”.
“Since most of the families lack resources to educate their kids digitally, we had to come up with an innovative method to keep children invested in education,” said Ram Gaikwad, a teacher at Asha Marathi Vidyalaya school, reported news agency AFP.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Thirty years ago, Milwaukee launched a private-school voucher program for low-income students. In 1998, when religious schools were allowed to participate, enrollment expanded.
Overall, test scores for voucher students resemble their public school counterparts. But there’s a critical difference: Voucher students are more likely to complete high school, enroll in college and earn a degree.
They’re also more likely to become law-abiding citizens, concludes a study, published in the Journal of Private Enterprise.
Participation in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) “predicts lower rates of conviction for criminal activity and lower rates of paternity suits” by ages 25 to 28, conclude Patrick Wolf, a professor of education policy at the University of Arkansas, and Corey DeAngelis of the Reason Foundation. “Exposure to the MPCP is associated with a reduction of around 53 percent in drug convictions, 86 percent in property damage convictions, and 38 percent in paternity suits,” Wolf and DeAngelis found.
Effects tend to be “largest for males and students with lower levels of academic achievement at baseline.”
2011: A majority of the taxpayer supported Madison School Board voted to abort the proposed Madison Preparatory IB Charter School.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Among education reform advocates, improving urban education is often the focus. That’s no surprise since tens of thousands of kids in cities suffer from decades of educational failure and limited opportunity. But often overlooked are the challenges and problems plaguing rural education. Sometimes opportunities for success are just as limited, or even more so, than for students in cities.
One example of this is found in Mattoon, Wisconsin, a village of just 400 residents. When the elementary school closed in 2016, most students from the North Central Wisconsin village found themselves riding the bus 45 minutes to Antigo. The distant, sprawling Unified School District of Antigo has five low-performing schools but only one high-performing elementary school. For the kids in Mattoon, attending a high-performing school isn’t really an option.
The problem of high-performing school deserts is highlighted in in a new studyfrom the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL). The study identifies ZIP codes and regions in the state of Wisconsin without access to high-performing schools. High-performing school deserts are defined as locations that have no high-performing schools within ten miles, based on WILL’s value-added analysis of state test data.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Many districts moved to pass/no pass grading in the spring during the sudden switch to virtual as the COVID-19 pandemic forced unexpected closures. But with more time to plan and build their virtual learning environments, schools are moving back to letter grades for high school students this fall.
The Middleton-Cross Plains Area School District, for example, is moving back to its traditional letter grading system for high school, it informed students in an Aug. 28 email.
Not everyone supports the decision.
Middleton High School junior Daria Rudykh started a petition that has gotten more than 175 signatures asking MCPASD to keep the pass/no pass system in place as long as virtual learning continues. Distractions at home, whether siblings to care for or the stress of families losing income during the pandemic, can make it a challenging environment to learn in, she said, in addition to the stress and anxiety of the ongoing pandemic.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Joe Biden delivered a speech in Delaware Wednesday on the issue of safely reopening America’s schools, which he says is a “national emergency.”
In his second speech in three days, the Democratic presidential candidate outlined his plan to keep students and teachers safe during the pandemic. The remarks come ahead of a planned trip to Wisconsin Thursday.
During the campaign event in Wilmington, Biden said that if he were elected president, he would have the Federal Emergency Management Agency guarantee access to disaster relief for K-12 schools.
Biden criticized President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic Wednesday, saying he “still doesn’t have a real plan.”
“This is an emergency and Donald Trump and his FEMA should treat it as one,” Biden said.
FEMA officials said this week that the agency would no longer pay for cloth face masks and disinfectant in schools.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Maxine McKinney de Royston and Erica O. Turner:
Let’s be clear: an uncontrolled COVID-19 pandemic, anti-Black racism, xenophobia, climate crises and economic collapse are deepening existing inequities. A large body of research, including our own, shows that students of color are systematically denied access to safe and high-quality education. Maxine’s article, “I’m a Teacher, I’m Gonna Always Protect You,” details how anti-Black racism operates every day via harmful disciplinary practices, teacher-student relationships and stereotypes to make classrooms and schools physically, emotionally, psychologically and academically unsafe spaces for Black children. These inequities do not get resolved by families securing “the best” for their children through “white flight” and opportunity hoarding.
Indeed, Erica’s book, “Suddenly Diverse: How School Districts Manage Race and Inequality,” demonstrates how a focus on the individual actions of privileged families obscures systemic inequities such as racialized wealth inequality and the defunding of public schools and contributes to the adoption of managerial policies that, in failing to disrupt inequity, actually exacerbate it. As before, in this new “normal,” individualized actions layered onto ongoing systemic inequities continue to have stark consequences for public schools and the children they serve. Individualized actions that do not consider the collective further privatize education by taking away much-needed resources and eroding the social safety nets public schools provide as a public good. They also often foreclose resources needed to disrupt the inequities and racism seen in Maxine’s work.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Dane County parents upset over online instruction at schools that were intending to hold classes in-person are speaking out following a recent emergency order by the local health department, which restricted all public and private schools to virtual instruction for grades 3-12 because of COVID-19.
Parents and their children carried signs outside city hall Wednesday night before a virtual meeting of the Board of Health. Speakers at the meeting told members of the board how their children cried because they missed their teachers, and some schools said they spent “countless hours and thousands of dollars to prepare for opening.”
“To have this blanket order is heartbreaking to me and to our families,” said Liz Goldman, principal at St. John the Baptist Catholic School in Waunakee. “Public health officials need to realize we are not only looking at the physical health of our children and families. We need to look at the emotional and social health too.”
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).
Molly Beck and Madeline Heim:which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Taxpayers have long supported the Madison School District’s far above average spending, while tolerating our long term, disastrous reading results.
The district has placed substantial tax and spending increase referendums on the November, 2020 Presidential ballot.
A presenter [org chart] further mentioned that Madison spends about $1 per square foot in annual budget maintenance while Milwaukee is about $2. – October 2019 presentation. Milwaukee taxpayers plan to spend $1.2B for 75,234 students, or $15,950 per student, about 16% less than Madison.
Blacks for Political and Social Action of Dane County:
“We have not been presented with evidence that links additional public expenditures with increasing the academic performance of African American students,” the organization said in the statement. “More of the same for African American students is unacceptable.”
2020 Referendum: Commentary on adding another physical Madison School amidst flat/declining enrollment..
Elected Madison School Board referendum advocacy and rhetoric:
Savion Castro: Why Madison Needs Referenda 2020.
$350 million for our kids and our Madison public schools!? On behalf of Schools Make Madison Advocacy and the “Vote Yes 2 Invest” campaign, Maurice “Mo” Cheeks and I invite your questions and involvement as we work together between now and November 3rd. Let’s get this done! To learn more, please read: https://lnkd.in/eF276nn and visit our website, https://yes2investmsn.org/.
Many SIS 2020 Referendum notes and links.
Foundation for Madison Public Schools [Board] recently spent funds on a Facebook advertising campaign.
The advertisement.
The advertisement includes a reference to https://yes2investmsn.org
The Foundation for Madison Public Schools lists $9,011,063 in assets at the end of 2019 (!) via FMPS’ IRS Tax Form 990 “Return of Organization Exempt from Tax“.
Administrative commentary via a Wisconsin State Journal article.
I’ve not seen any discussion of the property tax implications of a decline in property assessments. For example: Lindsay Christians:
“It’s not an economic environment or a political environment for a business like mine to stay open,” Warnke said. “The government can’t get its stuff together. We can’t control the pandemic, and it’s getting worse in Wisconsin. I’m looking at it, going … this might be the right time to gracefully exit, before I run out of cash.”
It’s small comfort to Warnke that he and Rockhound are not alone. Beloved breakfast spot Manna Café on the north side, elegant Graft on the Capitol Square, Charlie’s on Main in Oregon with its hidden speakeasy and the family friendly Italian spot Vin Santo in Middleton — all have been casualties of COVID-19.
Foundation for Madison Public Schools pro referendum YouTube videos:
Owner of East Towne, West Towne malls files for bankruptcy protection
Shelley Mesch:
The owner of East Towne and West Towne malls in Madison filed for bankruptcy protection Monday, hurt by the coronavirus pandemic that has forced their tenants to permanently close stores or not pay rent.
The malls, owned and operated by Chattanooga, Tennessee-based CBL, will remain open as the bankruptcy protection process continues.
East Towne and West Towne malls closed in March for nearly two months following Gov. Tony Evers’ stay-at-home order that shut the doors on nonessential businesses as the coronavirus spread in Wisconsin. Statewide restrictions were eased in May and ultimately thrown out by the state Supreme Court, but Dane County’s health department placed capacity restrictions on businesses including retailers.
I was supposed to go back to class next week, but the public school I attend won’t open even for remote learning for three weeks. Its classrooms will be shut for at least another two months.
My twin sister and younger brother, who attend a Jewish school in a Boston suburb, are going back this week. The city’s Catholic schools are advertising on Twitter : “If your school in the Greater Boston area has a delayed opening or is going fully remote, check our website to find a Catholic school near you that is offering live in-person instruction.”
Time will tell which school made a safer decision. For now, though, it seems like my siblings are better off. It’s frustrating to see them excitedly preparing their school supplies and finding out their classes while I sit around the house wondering what the heck is going on with my school this fall. I love seeing my friends each day, even on Zoom, and it’s upsetting to be unable to do so because of a weekslong delay I can barely understand. I’d rather be in class learning and discussing new things than sitting at home scrolling through my phone. I miss screaming my friends’ names in the busy halls as I pass them on my way to class, or the laughter-filled sharing of “do nows” at the beginning of each class.
There are complex reasons why private schools are quicker to reopen. Public schools have influential teachers unions, whereas the National Labor Relations Board and the U.S. Supreme Court have limited union power at religious schools. Private-school budgets depend on families choosing to enroll and pay tuition. Public schools keep collecting tax revenue regardless of whether school opens on time.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Of the 50 largest school districts in America, 35 plan to start the coming term entirely remotely. The opportunity to squelch the virus over the summer has been lost, upending plans for “hybrid” education (part-time in-person instruction). This means more than just child-care headaches for parents. The continued disruption to schooling will probably spell permanent learning loss, disproportionately hurting poorer pupils.
“Achievement gaps will become achievement chasms,” warns Robin Lake, director of the Centre on Reinventing Public Education, a research group. Analysts at McKinsey, a consultancy, reckon that the typical American pupil would suffer 6.8 months of learning loss if in-person instruction does not resume until January 2021 (which looks plausible). This would fall heaviest on black pupils, who would regress by over ten months’-worth of instruction, and poor ones, who would fall behind by more than a year. There could also be 648,000 more high-school dropouts.
The true scale of the educational fallout will be unknown for years, because it manifests itself in future decisions like dropping out of high school or university. It will also remain murkier because typical barometers, such as the standardised tests administered in crowded school halls, have also been impeded. What evidence exists now does not look encouraging.
A team of five education scholars recently calculated that American schoolchildren in 2020 learned 30% less reading and 50% less maths than they would in a typical year. Despite that, the top third of pupils posted gains in reading. Data from Opportunity Insights, an economic-research outfit at Harvard University, show that after lockdowns began in March pupils from low-income neighbourhoods fell permanently behind on online maths coursework, whereas those from richer areas quickly rebounded (see chart).
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Happy first day of school from this Wisconsin education reporter!!! I’m starting my day at Lincoln Elementary in Appleton, and I’m STOKED to be back chatting with kiddos, teachers and parents as I work to chronicle a school year that’s sure to be unlike any other. pic.twitter.com/e5Ym1wwTlT
— Sami West (@BySamanthaWest) September 1, 2020
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Dane County Madison Public Health:
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services’ (DHS) Activity Tracker, Harvard guidance, COVID-local and COVIDActNow served as the main sources of the targets used for determining in-person instruction by grade level.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Germany’s largest trade union, IG Metall, is proposing its members call for a four-day week to offset economic pressures heightened by the pandemic.
The proposal has had a mixed reception, with the German labour minister open to the possibility, while others are fundamentally opposed.
The idea of a reduced working week has already been raised in other countries – and coronavirus could make others willing to consider it.
At 34.2 hours, Germany already has one of the shortest average working weeks in Europe. And there are loud voices calling for it to be shorter still.
The country’s largest trade union, IG Metall, has proposed a four-day week to limit job losses in the automotive industry. Coronavirus woes are compounding economic pressure from existing structural shifts in the sector.
Let’s compare: Middleton and Madison Property taxes
Madison property taxes are 22% more than Middleton’s for a comparable home, based on this comparison of 2017 sales.
Fall 2020 Administration Referendum slides.
(Note: “Madison spends just 1% of its budget on maintenance while Milwaukee, with far more students, spends 2%” – Madison’s CFO at a fall 2019 referendum presentation.)
MMSD Budget Facts: from 2014-15 to 2020-21 [July, 2020]
Property taxes up 37% from 2012 – 2021.
– via a kind reader (July 9, 2020 update).
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
There seems to be a rhythm to the text message touch attempts.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
In his briefs, Kaul states, “For over a century, Wisconsin has maintained a public health infrastructure that empowers local health officials to be a critical line of defense, barring public gatherings and swiftly taking any actions that are reasonable and necessary to suppress spreading diseases. That is precisely what Dane County did here, barring in-person school instruction in order to prevent outbreaks of COVID-19.”
The petitions challenging the emergency order were filed on behalf of eight Dane County families, five private schools, School Choice Wisconsin Action, and the Wisconsin Council of Religious and Independent Schools, by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL).
In its petitions, WILL states the emergency order exceeds Heinrich’s statutory authority and violates petitioners’ religious liberties and right to direct their children’s education by barring in-person education.
“This order injected unnecessary chaos, confusion, and frustration into the lives of children, families, and school leaders preparing to navigate a difficult new school year,” WILL President and General Counsel Rick Esenberg said in a statement.
Unsurprising.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Two separate lawsuits are seeking to block a new public health emergency order that allows only a fraction of elementary school students to attend classes in person in Dane County.
The legal challenges come days after Public Health Madison and Dane County officials in their ninth emergency order restricted in-person schooling to grades K-2 and outlined metrics required for students in higher grades to return in-person.
PHMDC’s Friday announcement at 5:18 p.m. came just days before many area private and parochial schools were set to return with at least some in-person instruction. At least one school already had, which formed the basis for the first challenge, filed directly to the Wisconsin Supreme Court Tuesday.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
A lawsuit was filed in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court on Tuesday arguing that Janel Heinrich, the Public Health Officer of Madison and Dane County, does not have the legal authority to keep children home from school.
Public Health Madison and Dane County issued Emergency Order #9, which went into effect Monday. It orders all Dane County schools to begin the 2020 school year virtually for students in grades 3-12. That includes private schools, many of which had intended to reopen to in-person classes.
The order says “At issue is whether one unelected official has the power to order children to ‘stay home’ from school whether or not they are sick, or to prohibit them from gathering in-person with other children to receive a religious education.”
The petitioner in the case is Sarah Lindsey James. Within the order she is identified as a Fitchburg single mom, who enrolled her two children at Our Redeemer Lutheran School saying “she believes that it is essential that her children’s education take place ‘in-person’ and ‘together with others as part of the body of Christ.’” It says her children began in-person learning Wednesday.
The order asks the Supreme Court to end Emergency Order No. 9, and prevent Heinrich from creating any other orders that would close private schools or restrict private gatherings. The court has asked Heinrich to respond by 4 p.m. Friday.
Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
A group of parents and private religious schools is asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to void a Dane County order barring in-person school for most students, saying the order issued in response to the COVID-19 pandemic infringes on the right to worship and to an education.
“This case challenges the authority of one unelected bureaucrat to upend the education plans of thousands of students and families and their schools located throughout Dane County via the stroke of a pen,” asserts the petition filed Wednesday by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty on behalf of 14 parents, five religious schools, and interest groups for school vouchers and religious and independent schools.
Issued Friday and effective Monday, Emergency Order No. 9 bars schools from offering in-person instruction for grades 3 through 12 until the county meets certain benchmarks showing the coronavirus is better contained. In effect, it applies almost exclusively to private schools because public schools in Dane County had already decided to start the year online for almost all students in almost every grade.
In the WILL petition and a separate one filed on behalf of Fitchburg mother Sara Lindsey James on Tuesday, attorneys argue that Janel Heinrich, director of Public Health Madison and Dane County, doesn’t have authority under state law to close schools and that the order runs counter to the decision the high court made in May striking down the statewide stay-at-home order.
In the May case, the court did not strike down the part of the stay-at-home order closing schools, but that order only closed them through the end of last school year. James’ petition argues state law allowing the state’s public health director to close schools in a public health emergency does not extend to local public health directors such as Heinrich.
(Some) Madison Governance Rhetoric on University of Wisconsin Governance Plans
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Shortly after normal office hours on Friday (08-21-2020) Madison/Dane County Public Health issued an order closing down in-school education for students above second grade at private schools for the upcoming school year — matching the voluntary stance taken by area public schools.
“This is clearly about making sure private schools aren’t allowed to show up the [unionized] MTI teachers in the public schools,” a well connected attorney told the Werkes.
In response, the Catholic Diocese of Madison plans to file lawsuit this week contesting the coronavirus pandemic order. Many Catholic schools had been scheduled to open today (Monday 08-24-2020). Fourteen diocesan Catholic schools are located in Dane County; another 20 outside the county in southwest Wisconsin.
Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).
which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.
While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.
The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.
The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.
“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”
Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.
Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Assembly against private school forced closure.
Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Starting in the fall, Madison high school students won’t receive less than a 50% grade on assignments; the weight of formal assessments such as exams compared to informal work such as homework on final grades will be consistent across all classes; and the way semester grades are calculated will put less emphasis on quarters.
According to a memo sent to the Madison School Board earlier this month, the district’s goal is to transition from an “antiquated” system of grading in the country built on beliefs that schools function to sort students, only a subset of students can meet academic expectations, and “extrinsic motivation” is the best way to influence learning.
Instead, Madison’s high schools are moving in a direction of “more accurate and equitable grading practices that better serve students and families,” the district said in statement Thursday in response to questions about the changes.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
An advocacy group of Black leaders is opposing the Madison School District’s $350 million ask of taxpayers this fall, arguing the proposals are under-developed and the district hasn’t done enough to support African American children to get their endorsement on the two November ballot referendums.
In a statement sent to some media members Tuesday, Blacks for Political and Social Action of Dane County said it’s concerned with the progress on closing wide racial achievement gaps; the cost of the referendums could be burdensome on fixed-income residents; and educational priorities in the COVID-19 pandemic have shifted since the referendums were first proposed more than a year ago.
“We have not been presented with evidence that links additional public expenditures with increasing the academic performance of African American students,” the organization said in the statement. “More of the same for African American students is unacceptable.”
Last month, the Madison School Board approved two referendums for the Nov. 3 ballot: A $317 million facilities referendum largely focused on renovating the high schools and a $33 million operating referendum that could permanently raise the budget by that amount within four years.
With only about 10% of Black elementary and middle school students scoring proficient or higher in reading and math on a state test, Blacks for Political and Social Action said “taxpayers have not received a fair return on investment.”
Let’s compare: Middleton and Madison Property taxes
Madison property taxes are 22% more than Middleton’s for a comparable home, based on this comparison of 2017 sales.
Fall 2020 Administration Referendum slides.
(Note: “Madison spends just 1% of its budget on maintenance while Milwaukee, with far more students, spends 2%” – Madison’s CFO at a fall 2019 referendum presentation.)
MMSD Budget Facts: from 2014-15 to 2020-21 [July, 2020]
Property taxes up 37% from 2012 – 2021.
– via a kind reader (July 9, 2020 update).
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
As of 8:30 a.m. Monday, out of the 12,820 public school teachers statewide, there were 496 requests for substitutes, according to the Department of Education. Substitutes cover for teachers who take personal leave or are out sick as well as vacant positions. On any given day, the number of subs needed ranges from 300 to 1,000, the department said.
At Waialua, all teachers came to work except for one who was out sick, Alexander said. While the day went well for the kids, she acknowledged it was a lot of work for the staff, given the new safety protocols.
“Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “We are all exhausted.”
Hunter Harris, 17, has been on the front lines of the debate over school reopenings as the student representative on the statewide Board of Education. He is starting his senior year at Kapolei High from his home in Makakilo.
His school originally intended to have all students come to campus for a full day of orientation over this week, but ultimately made it optional and cut the time to two hours, he said.
“With the recent triple-digit cases for the past week, almost two weeks, it was very smart on their part to lessen the time and the number of kids,” he said. “I think that right now we need to come together as a community to make sure we are all safe,” he said. Collaboration is so key right now.”
After a spring of pandemic lockdowns and a summer of uncertainty as coronavirus infections surged, working parents with school-age children now face what could be a year of online schooling, presenting a buffet of bad options.
Sacrifice earnings and career advancement to stay home. Hire a nanny, if you can afford it. Lean on elderly relatives. Enroll kids in private schools or expensive day care programs and risk exposing them or others to the disease.
There are no good solutions, and every decision comes with trade-offs.
“There’s no solution that won’t harm someone,” said Hollis Rudiger, a teacher in the Madison School District and mother of two school-age children.
Let’s compare: Middleton and Madison Property taxes:
Madison property taxes are 22% more than Middleton’s for a comparable home, based on this comparison of 2017 sales.
Fall 2020 Administration Referendum slides.
(Note: “Madison spends just 1% of its budget on maintenance while Milwaukee, with far more students, spends 2%” – Madison’s CFO at a fall 2019 referendum presentation.)
MMSD Budget Facts: from 2014-15 to 2020-21 [July, 2020]
Property taxes up 37% from 2012 – 2021.
– via a kind reader (July 9, 2020 update).
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
We must prepare and implement a plan of action to prevent violence and to stop this horrific rise in violence.”
Our word of the day is ‘Chutzpah’
(Yiddish for “what nerve!”)
This is the school board president who kicked cops out of
Madison’s troubled high schools
NEWS ALERT:
Detectives from the MPD’s Violent Crime Unit, the MPD’s Gang Unit, with assistance from many MPD officers, have arrested two Madison teens in the murder of 11-year-old Anisa Scott.
Andre P. Brown, age 16, was arrested on Northport Drive earlier today. Perion R. Carreon, age 19, was arrested Wednesday, for an unrelated crime, while driving a stolen car on Thierer Rd. Carreon had a loaded handgun in his waistband at the time of his apprehension.
‘Please protect my child from Andre Brown’
2½ years ago a parent asked Madison schools to refer
Brown to delinquency court.
The same André Brown, age 16, now in jail for his alleged part in the
08-11-2020 shooting death of Anisa Maria Scott, age 11.
Sat, August 15, 2020 at 3:36 PM
To: Kelly M Ruppel, MMSD Chief of Staff
Ms. Ruppel,
Below is an email string establishing that you were long aware that André Brown had perpetrated criminal acts upon my child and others in his classroom, that you were aware that Andre was an out-of-control thug, that you attempted to gaslight me, that you were aware that the so-called principal at Sherman wasn’t doing her job, that my family incurred very significant financial expense on the part of André Brown, and that your district’s so-called behavior-education plan wasn’t working.
As I stated to you two and a half years ago regarding André (whose behavior I had started reporting to the MMSD four and a half years ago: … A “Behavior” plan isn’t going to cure the conduct of a kid who has a brain problem and whose parents are ineffective.
Let’s compare: Middleton and Madison Property taxes:
Madison property taxes are 22% more than Middleton’s for a comparable home, based on this comparison of 2017 sales.
Fall 2020 Administration Referendum slides.
(Note: “Madison spends just 1% of its budget on maintenance while Milwaukee, with far more students, spends 2%” – Madison’s CFO at a fall 2019 referendum presentation.)
MMSD Budget Facts: from 2014-15 to 2020-21 [July, 2020]
Property taxes up 37% from 2012 – 2021.
– via a kind reader (July 9, 2020 update).
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
More than twice as many Wisconsin families as a year ago have told the state they plan to homeschool for the 2020-21 school year.
According to data from the state Department of Public Instruction, 1,661 families filed forms to homeschool between July 1 and Aug. 6, up from 727 during the same period a year ago and 599 two years ago. The number of students in those families is up to 2,792 from 1,279 last year and 1,088 two years ago.
The same is true locally, as 122 Dane County families with 202 students filed forms in that period, up from 55 and 80 last year.
Michelle Yoo, the administrator of the Madison Area Homeschoolers Facebook page, said she’s seen evidence of the uptick in interest.
“When Madison announced they were doing online school, I think I had about 100 requests to join in about a two-week period,” Yoo said. “I can’t tell you what I used to get, but it was nowhere near 100.”
With those students go funding, as district revenue limits and state aid both depend on enrollment. The Madison Metropolitan School District discouraged parents from leaving to homeschool or attend a private school in its Aug. 7 family newsletter, citing that funding loss.
Let’s compare: Middleton and Madison Property taxes:
Madison property taxes are 22% more than Middleton’s for a comparable home, based on this comparison of 2017 sales.
Fall 2020 Administration Referendum slides.
(Note: “Madison spends just 1% of its budget on maintenance while Milwaukee, with far more students, spends 2%” – Madison’s CFO at a fall 2019 referendum presentation.)
MMSD Budget Facts: from 2014-15 to 2020-21 [July, 2020]
Property taxes up 37% from 2012 – 2021.
– via a kind reader (July 9, 2020 update).
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
In his first week, the former Memorial High School associate principal said he learned that there are “just a bunch of wonderful people” in Madison.
“This energy that’s happening right now from people inside the district and outside the district, really wanting Madison to move forward,” Jenkins said. “There’s a momentum, and people just want to build on that momentum.”
[‘I believe Dr. Carlton Jenkins gets it’: On first day, superintendent helps rebuild a parent’s trust]
He’s having to feel that momentum and meet the community in creative ways, with virtual meetings remaining the safest due to COVID-19. He said that while he is a “human relations” person who misses handshakes and seeing people’s body language when talking, it’s also likely “giving me an opportunity really to see probably more people than I would’ve normally seen during this time.”
“This is the same thing that transfers over, not just work relationships but when we have our students,” Jenkins said. “We’re missing our students as part of what we do. We’re in the human connection business.”
In navigating his own district through “crisis mode” this spring, including a shift to virtual learning, Jenkins said he saw how key good communication was for the social-emotional well-being of both students and staff. He held more frequent full-staff meetings, he said, and worked quickly to get students that didn’t previously have devices online.
“We had to get devices for the young children because they were crying missing the teachers and the teachers were crying missing the students,” he said.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Options at the new school under the recommendation would include designating it as a Community School — the district has four of those now — or creating specific programming like social-emotional learning, social justice or environmental education. Other ideas could still be added to that list as the planning process continues.
Teachers have access to materials in their classrooms that are not available at home,” – despite million$ spent on Infinite Campus
Costs continue to grow for local, state and federal taxpayers in the K-12 space, as well:
Let’s compare: Middleton and Madison Property taxes:
Madison property taxes are 22% more than Middleton’s for a comparable home, based on this comparison of 2017 sales.
Fall 2020 Administration Referendum slides.
(Note: “Madison spends just 1% of its budget on maintenance while Milwaukee, with far more students, spends 2%” – Madison’s CFO at a fall 2019 referendum presentation.)
MMSD Budget Facts: from 2014-15 to 2020-21 [July, 2020]
Property taxes up 37% from 2012 – 2021.
– via a kind reader (July 9, 2020 update).
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Prominent Democrat politicians have started making huge concessions on reopening schools. Back in May, Democrats pounced after President Trump supported reopening. Despite the data finding precisely the opposite, it quickly became the Democrat-media complex line that opening schools this fall would be preposterously dangerous to children and teachers.
In July, when New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled a plan to put the city’s 1.1 million school kids back in schools half the week and “online learning” the rest of the week, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo picked a public fight with him, saying, “If anybody sat here today and told you that they could reopen the school in September, that would be reckless and negligent of that person.”
Then on Friday, Cuomo cleared schools to open this fall, just a few weeks after making uncertain noises about the prospect as teachers unions breathed down his neck. That same day, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s minority leader, joined the Democrat messaging reversal:
Sen. Chuck Schumer: “If we don’t open up the schools, you’re going to hurt the economy significantly.” pic.twitter.com/Ne5znhvk2y
— The Hill (@thehill) August 7, 2020
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tucked the posture shift into a Saturday response to Trump’s latest executive orders, saying “these announcements do…nothing to reopen schools,” as if Democrats have been all along supporting school reopenings instead of the opposite. Just a few weeks ago, Pelosi was on TV bashing Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for encouraging school reopenings, saying, falsely, “Going back to school presents the biggest risk for the spread of the coronavirus. They ignore science and they ignore governance in order to make this happen.”
What gives? For one thing, New York’s richest people have fled during the lockdowns. If their kids’ tony public schools don’t offer personal instruction or look likely to maintain the chaos of rolling lockdown brownouts, those wealthy people have better choices. They can stay in their vacation houses or newly bought mansions in states that aren’t locked down. They can hire pod teachers or private schools.
And the longer they stay outside New York City and start to make friends and get used to a new place, the less likely they are to ever return. Cuomo is well aware of this.
“I literally talk to people all day long who are now in their Hamptons house who also lived here, or in their Hudson Valley house, or in their Connecticut weekend house, and I say, ‘You got to come back! We’ll go to dinner! I’ll buy you a drink! Come over, I’ll cook!’” Cuomo revealed in a recent news conference. “They’re not coming back right now. And you know what else they’re thinking? ‘If I stay there, I’ll pay a lower income tax,’ because they don’t pay the New York City surcharge.”
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
“I’ve always said that the ‘1619 Project’ is not a history,” Hannah-Jones said in a series of tweets. “It is a work of journalism that explicitly seeks to challenge the national narrative and, therefore, the national memory. The project has always been as much about the present as it is the past.”
Nevertheless, the “1619 Project” has had a profound impact on America’s schools.
School districts in cities ranging from Buffalo to Chicago to Newark to Washington immediately announced that they would incorporate the “1619 Project” into their school history curriculums—using a “1619 Project” curriculum that the Pulitzer Center posted to the internet as soon as the Times published the special edition of its Sunday magazine last year. The Pulitzer Center claims more than 3,500 classrooms have adopted their curriculum.
Clearly, the project’s creators of the “1619 Project” had coordinated with the Pulitzer Center and school district leaders to transform the nation’s curricula immediately—without bothering to wait for input from parents, school boards, or historians.
The “1619 Project” was meant to be a revolution from above, imposed on America’s children to teach them to despise their country.
Across the country, many parents are joining together to engage private tutors (who are often school teachers) to provide tutoring or home instruction for small groups of children. While there is no systematic way to track these private efforts, it’s clear that a number of “pandemic pods” or tutoring pods are being established in Fairfax County.
We are aware of these tutoring pods, as well as some accompanying community concerns. To be clear, these instructional efforts are not supported by or in any way controlled by FCPS—for several reasons:
• These are purely private initiatives on the part of parents and families. Families have an absolute right to work together and pool resources to provide instruction or tutoring—just as they do to pool resources and provide private daycare, music lessons, or recreational activities for their children—but tutoring pods are not part of the public school system.
• Under the terms of their contracts, FCPS teachers are allowed to provide tutoring services for reimbursement, but only as long as they meet these conditions:
• Teachers must make it clear that the services are being provided as an independent contractor, and not as an employee of FCPS.
• They cannot tutor children for private compensation if the same children are receiving instruction from them in FCPS schools (i.e., the children cannot be in their classes). That’s true for private tutoring or group instruction in any location.
• They cannot engage in outside instruction or any preparation for it during their FCPS work hours.
While FCPS doesn’t and can’t control these private tutoring groups, we do have concerns that they may widen the gap in educational access and equity for all students. Many parents cannot afford private instruction. Many working families can’t provide transportation to and from a tutoring pod, even if they could afford to pay for the service.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
The police aren’t policing and the teachers aren’t teaching. While many vital services aren’t functioning, the useless machinery of the bureaucracy grinds on with no one to pay for it. Locked down businesses don’t generate revenues and the unemployed aren’t a tax base.
Tax revenues in New York City fell 46% in June. A third of small businesses in the city are likely to shut down for good and sales tax collections are down by a quarter amounting to $1.2 billion.
Statewide, there’s a 37% drop, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other lefties are calling for higher taxes on the rich, staging protests outside the homes of billionaires. But the wealthy have the resources to pick up and leave while leaving failing states like New York with nothing.
Nothing except a $14 billion deficit and an 8.2% GDP drop.
“You have 100 billionaires. You will have to tax every billionaire half a billion dollars to make it up. You know what that means? That means you have no billionaires,” Governor Cuomo noted.
But the news is bad everywhere.
State revenue shortfalls are heading toward $200 billion and over $500 billion by 2022 as the wealthy flee urban areas, tourists are banned from even thinking about visiting, and businesses keep going out of business.
“If I stay there, I pay a lower income tax, because they don’t pay the New York City surcharge.”
Costs continue to grow for local, state and federal taxpayers in the K-12 space, as well:
Let’s compare: Middleton and Madison Property taxes:
Madison property taxes are 22% more than Middleton’s for a comparable home, based on this comparison of 2017 sales.
Fall 2020 Administration Referendum slides.
(Note: “Madison spends just 1% of its budget on maintenance while Milwaukee, with far more students, spends 2%” – Madison’s CFO at a fall 2019 referendum presentation.)
MMSD Budget Facts: from 2014-15 to 2020-21 [July, 2020]
Property taxes up 37% from 2012 – 2021.
– via a kind reader (July 9, 2020 update).
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Students of civics might think the California state budget is crafted by the elected representatives of the citizenry, who debate and amend proposals working their way through various committees, ultimately leading to a spending plan with majority support and the signature of the governor.
All that happens, of course, but no budget makes it to the governor’s desk without at least the tacit approval of the state’s public employee unions. Since public education alone makes up a minimum of 40 percent of the state budget, the California Teachers Association has an outsize influence over the construction of that budget.
This has been true for at least the 27 years I have covered the union’s operations. In 2000, for example, then-President Wayne Johnson boasted to his members about how he had the governor and state legislative leaders on the phone with him, falling over themselves to place more money in the education budget, until Johnson finally relented at an additional $1.84 billion.
This year’s budget, however, rivals any previous examples of teachers union benefits sewn into state law.
Imaginary money. The budget relies on two sources of funding that do not exist, and may never exist. First, it hopes that the U.S. Senate will approve, and President Donald Trump will sign, the HEROES Act, which contains $1 trillion in aid to state and local governments. Should that fail to happen, California will issue $12 billion in deferrals to school districts. Deferrals are essentially IOUs to be paid in the next fiscal year. This is also money that doesn’t yet exist.
Should deferrals become necessary, the state also authorizes school districts to transfer money from any account they hold to any other account in order to pay their bills. Money targeted for a specific purpose or program can be used for any purpose or program. Districts can also use the proceeds from the sale or lease of property for any general fund purpose.
Costs continue to grow for local, state and federal taxpayers in the K-12 space, as well:
Let’s compare: Middleton and Madison Property taxes:
Madison property taxes are 22% more than Middleton’s for a comparable home, based on this comparison of 2017 sales.
Fall 2020 Administration Referendum slides.
(Note: “Madison spends just 1% of its budget on maintenance while Milwaukee, with far more students, spends 2%” – Madison’s CFO at a fall 2019 referendum presentation.)
MMSD Budget Facts: from 2014-15 to 2020-21 [July, 2020]
Property taxes up 37% from 2012 – 2021.
– via a kind reader (July 9, 2020 update).
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
The Madison Metropolitan School District is considering an update to its policy on restraint and seclusion of students after a state law change earlier this year.
Staff presented the proposal to the School Board Monday. Board members had a few questions about training and definitions, but generally supported the changes. They are expected to vote on the policy later this month.
The notification changes require districts to report data to the board and the state Department of Public Instruction, schools to provide a written report to parents, and principals to meet with staff or law enforcement involved in an incident. The new state law also prohibits the use of prone restraints, or those that involve staff taking a child to the floor to restrain them, and using rooms with a lock on the door for seclusion.
Physical restraint, according to the district’s definition in its presentation Monday, “means a restriction that immobilizes or reduces the ability of a student to freely move their torso, arms, legs, or head.” A brief touch or hold of a student’s hand, arm, shoulder or back to comfort or redirect the student does not fit the definition.
Seclusion is “the involuntary confinement of a student, apart from other students, in a room or area from which the student is physically prevented from leaving,” according to the presentation.
MMSD’s policy update would also remove words like “reasonable” to describe some uses of physical restraint, and prohibit restraints that “obstruct the student’s circulation” like those that cause chest compression or place weight on the student’s neck or throat.
2005: Gangs & School Violence Forum.
1995-2006: Police Calls – Madison Schools.
The Waunakee Community School District Board of Education voted to reverse its decision on an all-virtual start to the school year.
During a meeting Monday night [video], members of the board talked about recent coronavirus numbers and learning options that would best fit the community.
In a 4-3 vote, the board was in favor of a four-day schedule for K-4 students. The younger children will have half-days, either AM or PM, every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
During the meeting, parents expressed they were interested in having their kids attend in-person classes, especially at that young age.
“I believe that in-person schooling is in the best interest of the kids, and that’s what we need to be focused on,” one parent said.
However, some teachers expressed their concerns for students and members of the community.
“I am extremely concerned about the safety of our students, teachers and community members,” Molly Petroff, the music department chair said.
“Teachers have access to materials in their classrooms that are not available at home,” – despite million$ spent on Infinite Campus
Costs continue to grow for local, state and federal taxpayers in the K-12 space, as well:
Let’s compare: Middleton and Madison Property taxes:
Madison property taxes are 22% more than Middleton’s for a comparable home, based on this comparison of 2017 sales.
Fall 2020 Administration Referendum slides.
(Note: “Madison spends just 1% of its budget on maintenance while Milwaukee, with far more students, spends 2%” – Madison’s CFO at a fall 2019 referendum presentation.)
MMSD Budget Facts: from 2014-15 to 2020-21 [July, 2020]
Property taxes up 37% from 2012 – 2021.
– via a kind reader (July 9, 2020 update).
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Protesters from four of Wisconsin’s largest cities gathered Monday in a National Day of Resistance caravan to demand that legislators and superintendents make the fall 2020 academic semester completely virtual.
Educator unions, community organizations and advocates from Kenosha, Madison, Milwaukee and Racine traveled to the Capitol, the state Department of Public Instruction and the state Department of Health Services.
“We have districts marching teachers and students into an unsafe position in which teachers and students are likely to contract COVID,” said Angelina Cruz, president of Racine Educators United. “It is unsafe, because our schools are not fully funded in a way that can address all of the safety concerns we have.”
The caravan, which started in Kenosha, traveled through Racine and Milwaukee before arriving in Madison about 1 p.m. Teacher unions from Beaver Dam, Cudahy, Greendale, Middleton, Oak Creek, South Milwaukee and St. Francis also joined the effort to push for virtual school in the fall.
Similar marches and caravans calling for safe schools took place in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles.
Organizers of the Wisconsin caravan wrote a letter July 20 to Gov. Tony Evers, Superintendent of Public Instruction Carolyn Stanford Taylor and Secretary of Health Services Andrea Palm, detailing their dissatisfaction with the state’s resources and social distancing practices in schools.
The growing COVID-19 outbreak has some teachers fearing for their lives, organizers said.
A Milwaukee attorney is offering free wills to teachers returning to classrooms in the fall, noted Tanya Kitts-Lewinski, president of the Kenosha Education Association and co-organizer of the protests. “Educators are afraid, to say the least,” she said.
“Teachers have access to materials in their classrooms that are not available at home,” – despite million$ spent on Infinite Campus
Costs continue to grow for local, state and federal taxpayers in the K-12 space, as well:
Let’s compare: Middleton and Madison Property taxes:
Madison property taxes are 22% more than Middleton’s for a comparable home, based on this comparison of 2017 sales.
Fall 2020 Administration Referendum slides.
(Note: “Madison spends just 1% of its budget on maintenance while Milwaukee, with far more students, spends 2%” – Madison’s CFO at a fall 2019 referendum presentation.)
MMSD Budget Facts: from 2014-15 to 2020-21 [July, 2020]
Property taxes up 37% from 2012 – 2021.
– via a kind reader (July 9, 2020 update).
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
District administrators outlined the latest updates to the “Instructional Continuity Plan” Monday night for the School Board’s Instruction Work Group. Board members expressed appreciation to staff for their efforts and asked questions about engaging students and ensuring they get some social experiences despite the restrictions of the virtual environment.
The district announced July 17 it would begin the year virtually through at least Oct. 30 amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It plans to re-evaluate the possibility for in-person instruction in the weeks ahead of each new quarter within the school year.
Staff moved abruptly to online learning this spring, along with many districts around the state and country as schools closed to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. While its effectiveness got mixed reviews from families and staff, district officials hope that spending the next month focused on virtual learning and providing professional development to staff can help make the fall a better experience.
“We are focusing on the priority standards for students that are required to accelerate learning,” said assistant superintendent for teaching and learning Lisa Kvistad.
Despite Madison students beginning the new school year with all-online learning, more than 1,000 elementary students could be inside school buildings in September under a district initiative to provide child care.
The Madison School District plans to offer child care for up to 1,000 students at 15 elementary schools and at the Allied Learning Center, potentially using federal COVID-19 relief money to pay for the $1 million initiative. Students in the school-based child care settings will still learn online using iPads and Chromebooks.
The district is also partnering with child care providers to run programs inside other elementary schools and at community sites for up to another potential 1,000 students, who the district would feed and transport.
“Teachers have access to materials in their classrooms that are not available at home,” – despite million$ spent on Infinite Campus
Costs continue to grow for local, state and federal taxpayers in the K-12 space, as well:
Let’s compare: Middleton and Madison Property taxes:
Madison property taxes are 22% more than Middleton’s for a comparable home, based on this comparison of 2017 sales.
Fall 2020 Administration Referendum slides.
(Note: “Madison spends just 1% of its budget on maintenance while Milwaukee, with far more students, spends 2%” – Madison’s CFO at a fall 2019 referendum presentation.)
MMSD Budget Facts: from 2014-15 to 2020-21 [July, 2020]
Property taxes up 37% from 2012 – 2021.
– via a kind reader (July 9, 2020 update).
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
As the 2020-21 school year approaches, private schools are taking advantage of smaller enrollments and fewer buildings to plan in-person learning while area public schools are focusing on virtual learning.
And since the Madison Metropolitan School District announced July 17 it would start the year entirely virtually, some private schools are seeing an increase in enrollment interest.
“My phone and email are off the hook right now,” said St. Dennis Catholic School principal Matt Beisser, whose school will offer parents a choice of in-person or virtual school. “The uptick is there.”
Lighthouse Christian School, which will also offer its parents a choice, has received 15 to 20 requests since MMSD’s announcement, “some only until MMSD (goes) back to in-person,” principal Tia Sierra wrote in an email.
The interest in private schools comes as the Madison district works on details of how it will improve its virtual-learning program — created in just weeks amid an unprecedented situation this spring — as it received mixed reviews from parents and students. Many other districts in Dane County have followed suit, though a few are going to offer a choice for some form of in-person instruction.
Many local private schools, meanwhile, are pushing ahead with an option for in-person schooling, as long as Public Health Madison & Dane County doesn’t order all schools closed as it did this spring.
“Teachers have access to materials in their classrooms that are not available at home,” – despite million$ spent on Infinite Campus
Costs continue to grow for local, state and federal taxpayers in the K-12 space, as well:
Let’s compare: Middleton and Madison Property taxes:
Madison property taxes are 22% more than Middleton’s for a comparable home, based on this comparison of 2017 sales.
Fall 2020 Administration Referendum slides.
(Note: “Madison spends just 1% of its budget on maintenance while Milwaukee, with far more students, spends 2%” – Madison’s CFO at a fall 2019 referendum presentation.)
MMSD Budget Facts: from 2014-15 to 2020-21 [July, 2020]
Property taxes up 37% from 2012 – 2021.
– via a kind reader (July 9, 2020 update).
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
As parents opt out, could we see eroding support for public education? Based on my research as a historian of American education, I fear so. The reason is simple. In a country that has long been hostile to big government, public schools succeeded because almost every family was a stakeholder.
At the time of the American Revolution, education was not considered a public good. Parents were responsible for educating their own children. But, many Revolutionary-era leaders argued, a democracy requires all citizens to be educated, and this requires providing tax support for new public schools.
Open schools: Racial inequities will grow if schools don’t open safely this fall. Here’s an action plan.
Americans then were skeptical. Many were unwilling to pay taxes to educate other families’ children. Tax collectors sometimes faced physical threats when they went out to collect school taxes! Although American leaders — Thomas Jefferson among them — spoke eloquently about the need to equalize access to education, their words were not enough. It was not until a critical mass of Americans started sending their kids to the new public schools that schooling really took off. As more parents sent their kids to public schools, others wanted in. And over time, the bulk of families in a community had a reason to pay taxes for public schools: Their children or grandchildren attended. In short, public support for public schooling was forged through the schools themselves.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results.
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.
Corey Saffold served as a school resource officer for four years at Madison West High School. We asked about the implications of the end of the SRO program and removal of Madison police officers from the schools. Now the head of security at Verona Area School District, he repeatedly said he is only speaking on behalf of what he experienced as an individual.
Madison365: When and where did you serve as a School Resource Officer?
Corey: Madison West High School. I served for four years. The Madison Police Department only allows their officers to work four years then they like to give somebody else a chance to get in. There isn’t any good reason behind it. I think the reason is that there are other officers that like the schedule (of working in a school) and they try to get in there too. In my opinion, if he or she is doing good then the SRO should stay there. This is how most other police districts do it, but Madison police do not. After four years he or she comes out, which I don’t think is smart but nonetheless their officers are out of schools now. So again, it doesn’t matter.
Madison365: What were the key responsibilities of SROs and what sort of education and training did you get to fulfill these responsibilities?
Corey: The responsibilities are varied and it really depends on the type of system you are operating in. So when I was an SRO I really focused on education. Key responsibility for me was educating students that got into legal trouble, instead of charging them or punishing them. So my responsibility was a little different. I did that as cases naturally came to me. If there was a student that stole from the Co-op right around the corner I would immediately put a plan in place or they would pay for whatever it was. Then I would educate them on why this behavior cannot continue because my key responsibility was to think of any and every opportunity to respond restoratively.
Madison365: Did you get training to do this or is it your own way of working?
Corey: No. It is really my own way of working. There is not much training that comes with having the desire to do restorative practices. It is up to the individual officer. Either you have the desire or you don’t. Which is why the success of the School Resource Officer program depends on three things—the culture of the police department, the program that is set up for the officer to work within, and the individual officers him or herself. The reason is that the individual officer has to really focus on restorative practices. He or she should have a desire to do everything in his power or her power to avoid arresting and citing students. Now there are going to be some instances that rise to the level where you have to arrest and give citations, but for the most part, you should be able to work around that, but that’s going to depend on that individual officer wanting to accomplish that, wanting to do it.
Madison365: Are SROs sufficiently trained for healthy and appropriate interventions? Can they identify a problem when it is to do with mental health rather than criminal behavior?
Corey: The police department in general receives training like trauma-informed care or mental health training. I don’t know that there is anything separate that the SROs receive to work in the high schools. That’s why the vetting process for SROs is crucial, because you really have to pick a person that already has that understanding and training. The training you are referring to really is a department-wide training and officers receive it through the department, not necessarily because he or she is an SRO.
Madison365: What would you say will be the biggest challenges facing Madison high schools now that SROs are no longer being used?
Corey: I don’t know that there will be a problem. Once schools are back in session, things may start off normally, with the exception of COVID-19 or you may see a need to call the police. If a large incident arises and those extra resources like the social workers, counselors, behavior specialists, etc., need help, police will need to be called. That may happen on occasion and there isn’t anything unusual about that. The problem is now you don’t have that officer in school that has relationships with students. The officer that responds could really listen to administration and really try to figure out restorative practices for the students, or he or she could not. Now you don’t know what type of response you’ll get, whereas if you have an officer in the school you know what their response would be. Hopefully, you have a good one that works with the administration. In Madison, they will argue that the presence of an officer in school is too traumatic based on the current climate of policing in our country, and I totally understand that. So it really is a hard question to answer. All we can do is wait and see.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results.
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.
Earlier this year, The New York Times looked at different editions of the same public-school textbooks published in California and Texas and found them spun in opposite directions to suit the ideological tastes of the dominant political factions in those states. It was a handy summary of the long-raging curriculum wars that have seen politicians and activists battling to present their preferred interpretations of the world to the captive audiences in America’s classrooms.
Those are wars which many families will escape this fall as the pandemic and school closures push parents to assume responsibility for teaching their own children and, not incidentally, to pass along their own views and not those prepackaged by government officials. For all the damage COVID-19 and the fumbling human responses to the virus are doing, viewpoint diversity may actually get a boost.
America’s public-school textbooks, the Times story explained, reflect the country’s polarization.
“The books have the same publisher. They credit the same authors. But they are customized for students in different states, and their contents sometimes diverge in ways that reflect the nation’s deepest partisan divides,” Dana Goldstein wrote for the Times in January of this year. “Classroom materials are not only shaded by politics, but are also helping to shape a generation of future voters,” she added.
Former Madison School Board Member Ed Hughes: August 3, 2013
“The notion that parents inherently know what school is best for their kids is an example of conservative magical thinking.”; “For whatever reason, parents as a group tend to undervalue the benefits of diversity in the public schools….”
Jessica Holmberg & Will Flanders:
Educational quality varies extensively across the state of Wisconsin. While some students have ready access to high-performing public, private, and charter schools, many areas of the state are high-performing school deserts—where families have few high-performing school options to help push their child forward. In this study, WILL utilizes statistical analysis and our new school mapping tool to locate the areas of Wisconsin where these deserts exist. We identify areas with no high-performing schools by looking at WILL’s performance rankings, which place schools on a level playing field with respect to demographics. Using this metric, we find that Wisconsin still has a long way to go in ensuring that all its children have access to a rigorous education.
Wisconsin has 134 ZIP codes with up to 40,112 school-age children with no high-performing school options within 10 miles. 134 ZIP codes across 49 counties have no high-performing school options—public, charter, or private—within 10 miles. High performing school deserts represent regions of the state lacking educational equity and opportunity.
High-performing school deserts are most common in rural areas. While urban schools are often the focus of education policy makers, this report sheds light on the many rural regions of Wisconsin without high-performing school options. Shawano County (11) and Langlade County (7) lead the way with the most ZIP codes without easy access to high-performing schools. Another eight Wisconsin counties have four or more ZIP codes without high-performing school options.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results.
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.
Over the few days, the political right has been in an uproar over Nice White Parents, the Chana Joffe-Walt-reported and -hosted podcast that premiers today, via Serial and the New York Times.
“Disintegrationists are now claiming that if you are a good parent who wants to educate your child in the best possible way, you are inherently racist because you are exacerbating racial inequality,” tweeted Ben Shapiro. “This holds only if you are white.”
The response is perhaps understandable, given the show’s inflammatory name given to the series and and promotional copy blaring that “if you want to understand what’s wrong with our public education system, you have to look at what is arguably the most powerful force in our schools: White parents.”
However, it’s progressive parents who should feel targeted. They’re the ones being scrutinized here. To understand why American schools are so broken and uneven, as Joffe-Walt reports it, we have to look closely at the beneficiaries of the system, those who make and shape the rules, whose preferences influence policy and worry politicians — and those who have the option to move or pay for private school if they are not pleased.
In big cities like New York City, the “nice white parents” are likely to be liberal.
Taxpayers have funded Madison’s K-12 school district well above most other public schools. Yet, we recently expanded our least diverse schools – despite space in nearby facilities.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
A new report from the Madison Metropolitan School District shows that police interactions with students continued recent trends in 2019-20, with few citations and arrests but Black students making up a disproportionate number of those.
While the data come with caveats — most notably that the in-person school year was three months shorter than normal because of the COVID-19 pandemic — the report outlines statistics for Madison Police Department officers responding to each of the four comprehensive high schools, including interactions with students that resulted in arrests and citations.
The numbers were low compared to the student population, but among those who were arrested or cited, a disproportionate number were once again Black students. The data include incidents involving the school resource officers stationed at each of the four schools as well as officers who responded to a school campus for a call.
The report, which covers Sept. 1, 2019, through March 13, 2020, comes about a month after the School Board voted unanimously to end the more-than-20-year-old SRO program amid a nationwide reckoning with systemic racism, especially in policing. Board member Ali Muldrow cited the ongoing disparities ahead of her vote.
“Over the course of the entire lifespan of this program of policing in schools, a majority of students every year to be arrested in school are African American children,” Muldrow said June 29. “Policing in schools has had an impact in terms of racial profiling within education.”
2005: Gangs & School Violence Forum.
1995-2006: Police Calls – Madison Schools.
Almost immediately after the Madison School District joined other districts across the country in announcing a return to online instruction instead of bringing students back to the classroom for the fall semester, posts started popping up on Facebook groups, Craigslist, Reddit and the University of Wisconsin-Madison student job board seeking in-home academic help.
Parents taxed by trying to do their own jobs from home while monitoring their children’s school work are looking for tutors, nannies, even retired teachers to help them navigate what could be several more months of virtual education.
“I think one of the important things that everyone needs to understand is right now, parents are in just an untenable position, all the way around, every parent,” said Madeline Hafner, executive director of the Minority Student Achievement Network Consortium at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research.
Many families are teaming up with neighbors to pool resources and form “learning pods” for the school year. But research indicates when families can afford to do so turn to tutoring and educational services in their homes, it can affect the academic success of all students.
Mike, who asked for his last name to be withheld, was initially considering forming a learning pod with a small group of neighbors and hiring a teacher to help with virtual learning through the 2020-2021 school year.
But now he is planning to take his children out of MMSD and renting a house in Columbia County where he can send his children to in-person classes before returning to Madison next June. Otherwise, his family will adopt “some sort of home school curriculum.”
But if it’s hard to figure out, then the least privileged families — the ones the experts are supposedly so concerned about — will be impaired in doing what they might be able to do on their own to close the achievement gap. The experts are working hard to drive home the message that you can’t do it, that your kids are losing out, that you need the public schools, and that those other people over there — the privileged people — are taking advantage again and their advantage is your disadvantage.
IN THE COMMENTS: ellie said:
I am a homeschool mom who normally utilizes a cooperative. We cannot meet in our building this year due to covid. I’ve set up a “pod” in my home. It was easy. All the moms got together and talked over what our kids needed for the year, then we divided the classes. Each mom took what they were good at or could reasonably handle. No money involved at all for us. We set a schedule for 2 days a week, and the other days, work is assigned for home.
“Teachers have access to materials in their classrooms that are not available at home,” – despite million$ spent on Infinite Campus
Costs continue to grow for local, state and federal taxpayers in the K-12 space, as well:
Let’s compare: Middleton and Madison Property taxes:
Madison property taxes are 22% more than Middleton’s for a comparable home, based on this comparison of 2017 sales.
Fall 2020 Administration Referendum slides.
(Note: “Madison spends just 1% of its budget on maintenance while Milwaukee, with far more students, spends 2%” – Madison’s CFO at a fall 2019 referendum presentation.)
MMSD Budget Facts: from 2014-15 to 2020-21 [July, 2020]
Property taxes up 37% from 2012 – 2021.
– via a kind reader (July 9, 2020 update).
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
The Madison School District will spend close to $500,000 out of the $8.2 million the district estimates it will receive from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act to shore up its mathematics instruction for elementary and middle school students.
Using CARES Act money, the district plans to:
• Purchase $143,808 in individual math kits for elementary students;
• License for one year at $211,750 for all elementary students learning math;
• License the i-Ready platform for one year at $122,190 for middle school mathematics.
According to memos on the online platforms, i-Ready and DreamBox will be core teaching components to “hybrid and virtual learning environments.”
Middle schools have been using i-Ready for the past two years, but the use expanded in the spring when the platform’s developer allowed all Madison students to access it, according to a memo.
“Teachers have access to materials in their classrooms that are not available at home,” said a memo on the purchase of elementary math kits. “Purchasing the students kits will provide essential resources to all students to engage in online learning with lessons provided by their teacher.”
The $2 trillion CARES Act included $30.7 billion for K-12 and higher education institutions to respond to the financial constraints and needs of the pandemic.
The School District expects to receive funds from two pots of money for K-12 schools. Kelly Ruppel, the district’s chief financial officer, said the district estimates it will be able to use $8.2 million of the $9.1 million slated to go to Madison, depending on how much private schools within the district boundaries are eligible to receive.
Costs continue to grow for local, state and federal taxpayers in the K-12 space, as well:
Let’s compare: Middleton and Madison Property taxes:
Madison property taxes are 22% more than Middleton’s for a comparable home, based on this comparison of 2017 sales.
Fall 2020 Administration Referendum slides.
(Note: “Madison spends just 1% of its budget on maintenance while Milwaukee, with far more students, spends 2%” – Madison’s CFO at a fall 2019 referendum presentation.)
MMSD Budget Facts: from 2014-15 to 2020-21 [July, 2020]
Property taxes up 37% from 2012 – 2021.
– via a kind reader (July 9, 2020 update).
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
In 2017, Anderson and a partner approached the UW System’s Office of Educational Opportunity about starting an independent charter. The school’s design team was formed the next year, and Milestone received approval from the System in 2019 to open as Madison’s third independent charter.
Independent charters are tuition-free, public schools authorized by government entities other than school districts and not under the supervision of local school boards. The other two in Madison are One City Schools and Isthmus Montessori Academy.
For 2020-21, Milestone is seeking a minimum enrollment of 30 students across grades seven through 12 and has a cap of 64 students in total, said Anderson, who will serve as an adviser. So far, fewer than 20 students are going through the enrollment process.
The first day of school is Aug. 27, but enrollment can happen throughout the school year, he said.
Despite its remote start, Milestone recently signed a five-year lease to take over the former Madison Media Institute building, 2758 Dairy Drive, on the city’s Southeast Side.
Milestone Democratic School operates on less than half the per student taxpayer funds (redistributed state and federal tax funds) as the Madison School District, which deeply harvests local property taxes.
2011: A majority of the Madison School Board aborted the proposed (independent) Madison Preparatory IB charter school.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
The Madison School District is eligible for up to $3.9 million.
It’s the only district in Dane County that is eligible for money from this specific pot in the CARES Act.
Costs continue to grow for local, state and federal taxpayers in the K-12 space, as well:
Let’s compare: Middleton and Madison Property taxes:
Madison property taxes are 22% more than Middleton’s for a comparable home, based on this comparison of 2017 sales.
Fall 2020 Administration Referendum slides.
(Note: “Madison spends just 1% of its budget on maintenance while Milwaukee, with far more students, spends 2%” – Madison’s CFO at a fall 2019 referendum presentation.)
MMSD Budget Facts: from 2014-15 to 2020-21 [July, 2020]
Property taxes up 37% from 2012 – 2021.
– via a kind reader (July 9, 2020 update).
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
When schools shut down this spring, Congress sent them $31 billion — nearly half its annual schools outlay — for sanitation and online learning, even though students weren’t in schools to theoretically contaminate them and online learning barely happened for millions of children. The vast majority of this money has not even reached schools yet.
Nevertheless, the Wall Street Journal reportsthat education special interests are demanding, through their Democrat representatives, nearly half a trillion in additional deficit spending for the fall without requiring schools to operate. Yes, you read that right: Democrats want nearly $430 billion extra to put kids in the equivalent of Khan Academy online math lessons. Did I mention that Khan Academy is free? And that the ask to duplicate it is 600 percent more than annualfederal spending on K-12?
“There is absolutely no way that federal funds included in the next COVID relief package…will reach schools in time to open in August and September,” notes Inez Feltscher. “Due to bureaucratic inertia and the requisite multiple rounds of paperwork, new federal COVID-response funds are unlikely to reach schools before 2021.”
Even though schools haven’t spent a fraction of their existing coronavirus loot, Republicans are also on board with larding on more. They merely want to inflate federal K-12 spending by 150 percent, $105 billion. In case you were concerned that Congress isn’t spending the next generation’s money fast enough while neglecting to ensure schools prepare the nation’s young to gratefully contribute to their country, WSJ reports neither side will even require schools to operate to have their federal funds increased by several magnitudes:
Costs continue to grow for local, state and federal taxpayers in the K-12 space, as well:
Let’s compare: Middleton and Madison Property taxes:
Madison property taxes are 22% more than Middleton’s for a comparable home, based on this comparison of 2017 sales.
Fall 2020 Administration Referendum slides.
(Note: “Madison spends just 1% of its budget on maintenance while Milwaukee, with far more students, spends 2%” – Madison’s CFO at a fall 2019 referendum presentation.)
MMSD Budget Facts: from 2014-15 to 2020-21 [July, 2020]
Property taxes up 37% from 2012 – 2021.
– via a kind reader (July 9, 2020 update).
As school districts across the nation announce that their buildings will remain closed in the fall, parents are quickly organizing “learning pods” or “pandemic pods” — small groupings of children who gather every day and learn in a shared space, often participating in the online instruction provided by their schools. Pods are supervised either by a hired private teacher or other adult, or with parents taking turns.
At face value, learning pods seem a necessary solution to the current crisis. But in practice, they will exacerbate inequities, racial segregation and the opportunity gap within schools. Children whose parents have the means to participate in learning pods will most likely return to school academically ahead, while many low-income children will struggle at home without computers or reliable internet for online learning.
As a social emotional learning specialist, I know how important connection, community and socialization are for children and adults. I also know that parents are being crushed under the weight of having to simultaneously parent, work, and teach their children. Nowhere is the anxiety, fear and devastation that is gripping our country more evident than in our education system. The appeal of learning pods is immense. For parents who need to work and can’t supervise their children’s learning, joining a pod may feel like the only way they can educate their kids and keep their jobs.
Based on what I’ve seen online, the learning pod movement appears to be led by families with means, a large portion of whom are white. Paradoxically, at a time when the Black Lives Matter movement has prompted a national reckoning with white supremacy, white parents are again ignoring racial and class inequality when it comes to educating their children. As a result, they are actively replicating the systems that many of them say they want to dismantle.
Take the school where I work, a racially and economically diverse public elementary school in the heart of Atlanta. It’s a gentrifying school within a gentrifying neighborhood. The building is bordered by half-a-million-dollar homes on one side, and low-income apartments on the other, where a large portion of our Black students live.
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, via a kind email:
Madison West High School students were separated by race for group discussions
The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) issued a letter to administrators at Madison West High School urging the school to reconsider a series of school-sponsored racially segregated Zoom discussions. In recent weeks, West High School hosted virtual discussions on race and current events where students were segregated into one for white students and one for students of color. The discussions may violate federal law.The Quote: WILL President and General Counsel Rick Esenberg said, “It is head-spinning that a public school in Wisconsin would adopt racial segregation as a tool to confront racism in the twenty-first century. It is an affront to the hard-fought progress our country has made. Madison West ought to reverse course immediately and reject this unmistakably bad idea.”
Background: Madison West High School recently hosted “virtual discussion spaces” on race and current events for students and staff. But the high school took the unusual step of segregating the discussions by race: one for “white students” and one for “students of color.” An email from school officials encouraged students to “Please join the Zoom space where you most closely identify.”
These racially segregated discussion groups may constitute a federal Title VI violation. Title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 generally prohibits “discrimination” “on the ground of race, color, or national origin” in federally funded programs, including schools. The Department of Education’s implementing regulations further make clear that schools covered by Title VI may not “[s]ubject an individual to segregation or separate treatment in any matter related to his receipt of any service … or other benefit.”
WILL intends to closely monitor this situation and hopes for a prompt response from Madison West High School administrators.
Madison West High School notes and links:
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
Kati Pohjanpalo and Hanna Hoikkala:
Scientists behind a Nordic study have found that keeping primary schools open during the coronavirus pandemic may not have had much bearing on contagion rates.
There was no measurable difference in the number of coronavirus cases among children in Sweden, where schools were left open, compared with neighboring Finland, where schools were shut, according to the findings.
Commentary on 2020 K-12 Governance and opening this fall:
Unfortunately, the Madison School District announced Friday it will offer online classes only this fall — despite six or seven weeks to go before the fall semester begins. By then, a lot could change with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Dane County recently and wisely implemented a mask requirementfor inside buildings that aren’t people’s homes. That should help ease the spread of COVID-19, making it safer for in-person classes.
The AAP recently stressed that “the preponderance of evidence indicates that children and adolescents are less likely to be symptomatic and less likely to have severe disease resulting” from COVID-19. They also appear less likely to contract and spread the infection.
Let’s compare: Middleton and Madison Property taxes:
Madison property taxes are 22% more than Middleton’s for a comparable home, based on this comparison of 2017 sales.
Fall 2020 Administration Referendum slides.
(Note: “Madison spends just 1% of its budget on maintenance while Milwaukee, with far more students, spends 2%” – Madison’s CFO at a fall 2019 referendum presentation.)
MMSD Budget Facts: from 2014-15 to 2020-21 [July, 2020]
Property taxes up 37% from 2012 – 2021.
– via a kind reader (July 9, 2020 update).
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration
schoolinfosystem.org