For most k-12 families, this is the last week of school. Congratulations parents, you survived.
To the parents of MPS and any other district that fails to meet their students’ basic academic needs, now is the time to do your homework and exercise the options Wisconsin’s Choice, Charter and Open Enrollment laws provide.
Don’t wait for the ‘leaders’ to lead.
Alright, let’s get to the last Key Reads of the week, shall we?
Some are finally paying attention to the fact that certain politicians are standing in the way of construction of more modern, safer prisons in Wisconsin.
Charges against warden and guards at Wisconsin’s Shawshank-like prison renew calls to close it | Associated Press
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has rebuffed Republican calls for closure, saying that can’t be done without broader criminal justice reform and a plan for housing the roughly 1,700 inmates who would be displaced.
Democrats last year proposed prison reforms that didn’t call for hiring more guards or building new facilities. Meanwhile, Republican calls to close one or both of the prisons have floundered.
The focus has been on Waupun over the past year after four inmates died. Families of three of them have filed federal wrongful death lawsuits against the state.
Inmates also have filed a class-action lawsuit alleging that they can’t access health care, with guards telling them their illnesses are “all in your head” and they should “pray” for cures. They also argue that they’re allowed only one shower per week, receive no educational programming, aren’t allowed in-person visits with their families and the prison is infested with rats and roaches.
The state Corrections Department is investigating the prison’s operations, and the governor last year asked the U.S. Justice Department to look into contraband smuggling at the facility.
“We are operating the oldest prison in the state of Wisconsin in a dangerous and reckless manner,” Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt said Wednesday when he announced the charges against the warden and eight others.
Some in the Education Blob believe perception and feelings are more important than reality. Again, it’s the adults failing the children. Here’s the latest example.
Reformers demand legislative action on plan to change Wisconsin test score designations | Center Square
There are calls for hearings and action at the Wisconsin Capitol after the state’s public school managers announced a plan to change student reading and math scores.
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction recently updated the asset-based performance levels that are used to see how well students are reading, writing and doing math.
“After extensive engagement with internal and external education partners, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction is updating terminology used to describe student performance levels on statewide standardized assessments. Performance level descriptors provide information to parents, guardians, educators, and others about student achievement relative to grade-level expectations,” DPI said in its announcement.
Kids who are thriving in reading, writing and math will continue to be rated in the advanced category. But the other terms for performance are changing.
That means the current proficient rating will change to meeting. The current basic rating will change to approaching. And the current below basic will change to developing.
“So, 78% of kids in Milwaukee’ predominantly Black schools are now developing their math skills,” Quinton Klabon, an educational researcher at the Institute for Reforming Government, told The Center Square.
Klabon said the change will make it much more difficult for parents, and anyone else for that matter, to see if students in Wisconsin are making progress in their reading, writing and math skills.
“This update promotes academic potential, engagement, and growth at every level, and improves feelings of encouragement and motivation among students,” DPI said in its announcement.
Klabon said DPI is also changing Wisconsin’s reading scores to align with the new category names
“Now, true, it may barely budge!,” he said on social media. “But, because of this, 2024 will not be comparable to 2023 or 2019. So, regular people will not know if their children recovered from the pandemic.”
Will Flanders, an education expert at the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, said Wisconsin lawmakers need to step in.
“The legislature must take action to ensure that DPI doesn’t continue to ‘game the system’ with report cards,” Flanders explained. “There is no reason to change them yet again and make all previous years incomparable.”
WILL is also saying DPI is hosting a meeting next week to set the cut scores for the new standardized test results that are due out soon. However, everyone attending that meeting must agree to not speak about what they saw or learned.
“Changing terms for student performance on the Forward Exam will only serve to cloud parent’s ability to know how their child is doing in school. It’s great if a child in the lowest category is developing skills, but those skills may never actually develop in a failing school,” Flanders added on social media.
Wisconsin golfers have it pretty good here. Now that school is out, it’s a great time for parents and kids to hit the links, together.
Golfweek’s Best 2024: Top public-access golf courses in every state, ranked | Golfweek
The top publicly-accessible golf courses in Wisconsin
- 1. Kohler Whistling Straits in Mosel, Straits
- 2. Sand Valley in Nekoosa, Lido (No. 5 nationwide)
- 3. Sand Valley in Nekoosa, Mammoth Dunes (No. 7)
- 4. Sand Valley in Nekoosa, Sand Valley (No. 8)
- 5. Lawsonia in Green Lake, Links
- 6. Erin Hills in Erin
- 7. Kohler Blackwolf Run in Kohler, River
- 8. Kohler Whistling Straits in Mosel, Irish
- 9.SentryWorld in Stevens Point
- 10. Troy Burne in Hudson
- 11. University Ridge in Madison
- 12. Kohler Blackwolf Run in Kohler, Meadow Valleys
- 13. The Bull at Pinehurst Farms in Sheboygan Falls
- 14. Wilderness Resort in Wisconsin Dells, Wild Rock
- 15. Club at Lac La Belle in Oconomowoc
We end with continuing coverage of the mess at Milwaukee’s Public Schools. One of the fall guys didn’t sign an NDA, and doesn’t feel like taking the fall.
Fired MPS comptroller says district’s financial staff was understaffed and inexperienced | CBS58
Just 10 months after he was hired, Milwaukee Public Schools’ comptroller is out. Alfredo Balmaseda says he was fired Tuesday night, the same day former MPS superintendent Keith Posely resigned following the district’s financial fiasco.
If words have meaning, then bullet point three in Milwaukee Public Schools’ comptroller job description would suggest the position “ensures that financial records are maintained in an accurate and timely manner,” but Balmaseda says that was a role that was nearly impossible to accomplish.
…Balmaseda says the root of the issue was the way the district handled its accounting process before he arrived. Balmaseda says he alerted the district the program was not compliant with generally accepted accounting principles — also known as GAAP.
“If you miss one bit of detail, one spreadsheet that has the detail, that is it. You cannot find that detail again,” said Balmaseda. “I have never seen a system like this.”
MPS was more than eight months late on reporting its financial data to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI). Balmaseda says the data was submitted, but there was no one to check the accuracy of it.
…He says he was working between 60 to 70 hours a week to fix the district’s accounting process. Balmaseda says at least 10 auditors should have been checking the district’s financial data. Instead, he says there were only three auditors, one of which was gone for two months.
…The previous data that was submitted was also inaccurate, leaving MPS at risk of losing state funding next year.
What a week. The state’s largest school district implodes and deep problems within the State’s Department of Corrections are exposed as a Warden and eight others are arrested and charged in connection to prisoner deaths, including one determined to be a homicide.
Those in control of MPS and the DOC are hoping people have short attention spans and that this will all eventually just die down and go away.
We’ll have no part in anything like that.
Have a great weekend, we’ll be back with more Key Reads on Monday.
