Interesting--but generally disappointing--results last night

by folkbum

Most disappointing, I think, in Maine, where once again the reactionary forces of bigotry turned out in greater numbers than the forces of goodness and light, and repealed the state's same-sex marriage law. The civil rights efforts of this generation have been dealt another severe setback. (At the same time, Washington State seems to have approved fully equal rights for civil unions; good for them.)

The Virginia race suggests two things: One, Democrats will have to work very hard--and will need to recapture or somehow replace the personally inspirational figure of Barack Obama--to spur base turnout in 2010. It doesn't seem that the voters who elected Obama in Virginia rejected him last night; rather, they stayed home, and that's a different, but equally deadly, problem. Two, it suggests that contra the tea-party philosophy, Republicans who run away from the crazy (Bob McDonnell did everything he could to paint himself as a reasonable moderate) can win. Put that up against NY-23, where the in-all-but-name Republican went the Full Palin, and lost a seat that Republicans had held since 1850 to the moderate Democrat. (The other federal race, CA-10, also went to the Democrat. Two races does not a trend make--it takes three!--but clearly voters did not reject Nancy Pelosi, either, last night.)

In New Jersey, I think the lesson is that when things are sucky, it's difficult for an incumbent to win, even against a scandal-mired candidate. (I'm sure many Republicans believe this is the lesson of 2008.) NJ's economic climate is ugly--much moreso than Virginia's--and the vote there is clearly a rejection of current policies in a way that Virginia's vote, where there was no incumbent and the Democrat was not all that closely tied to his predecessor, was probably not.

More locally, the North Shore once again suggests it's not necessarily going to be receptive to the Full Palin--no tax is a good tax--in the future, either. Not that I love taxes or that I think the first answer to any question is to raise them, but the tea-party vanguard has at its core the polar opposite of that message, and it did not win last night in New York, in Whitefish Bay, or anywhere else.

And one final question remains, one year out from 2010: Who's our Democratic candidate for governor? I said it wouldn't be me, but clearly they must be getting pretty far along the list of people ahead of me who would all have to say no before it's my turn. I mean, seriously, guys. Someone's gotta step up.

The (occasionally) mighty teachers union

by folkbum

One of the most regular complaints leveled against the Milwaukee Public Schools is that its elected board is nothing but a bunch of union tools doing the bidding of the union, the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association (MTEA). For those of you keeping score at home, a dose of reality: After the new board is sworn in, there will be two--just two-- of nine members supported by MTEA in their elections, Peter Blewett and Terry Falk. (This is down from four of nine for the past four years.) Keep those numbers in mind before you levy that complaint again.

On the other hand, Tony Evers cruised to election last night, defeating Rose Fernandez by more than 100,000 votes. (One blogger had bizarrely predicted that anything less than a 5% Evers win would be a Fernandez "upset." Way to pre-spin for your candidate: Even if she loses, she wins an upset! Yeesh. And she wasn't that close.) Many will (and by now, have) attribute this victory to the "special interest" of the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC).

Indeed, WEAC spent heavily in this race which directly affects its members, much like others with a direct interest--ties to the for-profit, out-of-state companies set to benefit from a greater degree of privatization of K-12 schooling under Fernandez--also invested in the race. It shouldn't surprise anyone, and it won't surprise anyone when WEAC claims a victory. But what is surprising--maybe not surprising; let's say befuddling--is the continued demonization of WEAC among the conservatives.

After all, who is WEAC? It is Wisconsin residents who do one of the most important jobs in the state--teach our children. A commenter on a previous thread elaborates the complaint:

Their goal is to protect teachers' jobs, teachers' salaries and teachers' gold plated benefits packages. Nothing wrong with that, but you want people to think that getting those things for you and your fellow members equates to top of the line schools for our kids.

There are several problems with that argument, the most notable being that if we treat teachers like burger-flippers and cut their compensation, it becomes that much harder to attract the best and the brightest to the profession. (True story: I asked a talented student of mine last week why she didn't want to be a teacher. The answer: Teachers don't get paid enough to put up with the crap you do. She didn't use the word crap.) The argument also does a disservice to WEAC's actual, fairly broad lobbying efforts, which spans much more than salary and benefits and includes support for a lot of things that will make our students' lives better, as well.

One place where I have disagreed strongly with my union is on the issue of campaign finance reform. I want the kind of spending WEAC (and other groups) did out of state politics. However, it galls me that WEAC has been and probably will continue to be labeled a "special interest." Wisconsin residents looking out for themselves and the families we teach are not the same as for-profit enterprises that value taxpayers and children less than the dollars they can score for shareholders. If you can't see that, well, I don't know what to tell you.

Sometimes the good guys win

by folkbum

Congrats to Mike Mathias*, Peter Blewett, and Tony Evers. We must move forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!

*UPDATE: Apparently overnight the vote totals switched. The story in the paper is still reporting that Mathias won, but the results (and an email from him) now say he lost by 76 votes. Also thanks are due to Zach Wisniewski, who ran a close race in South Milwaukee, too. Sometimes the good guys lose.

Vote Today

by folkbum

Seems like these come around way too often, but there's an election. Your humble folkbum recommends the following:

• Statewide
  • Shirley Abrahamson for State Supreme Court
  • Tony Evers for State Superintendent
  
  
• Milwaukee County
  • JD Watts and Ellen Brostrom for circuit court
  • Peter Blewett, Michael Mathias, and Donna Peck for the Milwaukee Board of School Directors
  • Zach Wisniewski for South Milwaukee School Board

There are a bunch of other suburban city-wide positions up for grab that I just haven't been following and cannot intelligently comment upon. (Some of you are probably quite certain that I cannot intelligently comment upon the races I have commented upon.) Whatever your selections, just vote.

UPDATE: Where to vote.

Liebenthal on Fernandez

folkbum

If you were hurt or sick, and needed medical attention, would you rather go to the hospital with its trained and licensed doctors and registered nurses or to the clinic (if it's still there when you go) with no trained doctors or nurses, but staffed with people that have watched ER and Gray's Anatomy on the TV?

There's more.

Fernandez supporters campaigning in the wrong election

by folkbum

Aaron Rodriguez--I have thoroughly enjoyed his attempts to persuade people to support an advocate for private interests in her run for public office--has what seems like one last-ditch effort to convince people to vote for Rose Fernandez tomorrow. (The real choice is Tony Evers.)

I think now it's very clear what the problem is: Rodriguez and other Fernandez supporters are busy fighting in the wrong election. Here's how he describes Tony Evers's platform:

Tony Evers will not consider breaking up MPS into smaller districts for the purposes of efficient manageability. He will not lift enrollment caps on virtual schools [. . .]. And he will not lift the enrollment caps for the voucher program in Milwaukee.

Let's pretend that Tony Evers did want to do these things (he doesn't, and these are among the reasons why I support him). He can't. The state superintendent of schools does not have the authority to do any one of these things. State law sets governance for MPS; state law caps virtual school enrollment; state law caps voucher enrollment. The state superintendent of schools is not a legislator or the governor and has no control over state law.

On the off chance that Fernandez wins tomorrow, supporters will be sorely disappointed that they elected someone promising reform she cannot deliver to an office she apparently does not understand. Evers, on the other hand, has offered plans and policies fully within the scope of the office. He also has a track record of working with legislators--as opposed to Fernandez, who has a track record of working with lobbyists. I know who I trust more to get real reform done, and who is sadly quixotic.

Vote Tony Evers tomorrow, please.

Aaron Rodriguez Makes the Case for Evers

by folkbum

Aaron Rodriguez at The Hispanic Conservative is trying very hard to drum up support for his candidate for state superintendent, Rose Fernandez against my candidate, Tony Evers. In his latest, archaically titled "The Allurement of Tony Evers," Rodriguez attempts to explain why wavering moderate conservatives should back the extremist Fernandez over the moderate-to-liberal Evers. I won't bore you with long excerpts, because you're all smart people and if you want to read it you will anyway.

However, as a central tenet in Rodriguez's case against Evers, he avers that Evers is responsible for everything that has happened in Wisconsin education since 2002, particularly in the Milwaukee Public Schools:

Tony Evers, the candidate of experience, has spent 7 years as the Deputy Superintendent of DPI--a position second only to the State Superintendent. In the past 10 years, student enrollment has decreased significantly while fringe benefits for teachers have increased disproportionately, MPS expulsions have tripled, high-school truancy has risen to 72%, and graduation rates have dipped down to 46% (among the lowest in the nation). This string of facts shows that Evers' experience has not empowered him to be a good leader. Like John McCain, Tony Evers is entrenched in the same failed policies of the past. MPS is a miserable failure, and everyone knows it.

So Evers, though he has clearly described ways in which he would break from his predecessor, is being associated with a politics of failure specifically related to one (the biggest, sure) of Wisconsin's more than 400 school districts. I could take issue with some of the specifics Rodriguez raises, but that's not the point of this post. The point is that if Evers is really responsible for the last 7 years, let's look at those seven years, not arbitrary data points from them.

One of the numbers in Rodriguez's paragraph there links to an article (.pdf) in a 2004 issue of the conservative WPRI's quarterly glossy magazine. In that article, the author cites 2002 test scores to compare MPS unfavorably to the Wisconsin as a whole. Evers took his present job as Libby Burmaster's #2 that spring, so that fall's test scores could be the baseline, if you will, of Wisconsin achievement under his watch. Here's an image of that table from WPRI:


Does MPS look good? No. I'm not going to pretend we do. (For those of you just joining us, I teach high school English for MPS.) However, as I read those numbers, I thought, boy, that seems lower than I remember. And that's because I was thinking about more recent data. And, indeed, when I went to look at MPS and Wisconsin scores from 2007--the most recent year available--there was considerable improvement in many areas state-wide and in MPS. To make the comparisons easier, I broke it into 3 tables:




You can click on any of the images for a larger, clearer version. The source for the 2007 data is the MPS report card, available here.

Obviously, MPS still lags the state across the board. However, you can also see that Wisconsin and MPS students improved nearly universally in nearly every subject. In many cases, MPS's improvement outpaced that of the state as a whole. If Evers is truly responsible for this--and remember, this is Rodriguez's explicit argument--then this is a good thing, right?

Or graduation rates. Rodriguez cites a study that uses a non-conventional method of calculating graduation rates. Here's MPS's version (using DPI methodology, so the comparison to the state is accurate):


Again, not a wonderful result for MPS, but if Evers is responsible for this, then this is also a good thing, no?

Look, I am generally loath to use such data as test scores or graduation rates to pass judgment on students, teachers, school districts, and so on, and normally would not use them as a gauge for candidates, either. However, Rodriguez is doing it to advocate against Tony Evers. And yet, the data cut both ways, and you have to admit that there has been improvement in recent years that Rodriguez is trying to hide by cherry-picking.

More on ASA's emails

by folkbum

Dan Bice has the story in this morning's paper, and he does give credit to the anonymous blogger for uncovering the Yahoo! group Advocates for Student Achievement was using to plot is strategy. Bice got a hold of more of them than I could before the group was shut down. I don't have much to add, except to comment on this, from ReDonna Rodgers, who is running against Peter Blewett in next week's election:

Keith Bailey, a spokesman for Rodgers' campaign, said the candidate hadn't received anything from ASA other than what she picked up from its orientation sessions, which he said were open to anyone.

But as Bice notes, and as I highlighted last week, the group seems to have done some paperwork for her:

FYI, here's ReDonna's campaign platform document
Sun Feb 22, 2009 3:06 pm

Look forward to seeing most of you tomorrow at 7:45 at Highland Park Pies. In the meantime, thought you might want to see the final version (at least for now) of ReDonna’s platform. This piece is being used with potential donors and others who want a better understanding of where she’s coming from.

Anne Curley [contact info redacted]

Which was followed closely by this one:

Correction to ReDonna's platform overview
Sun Feb 22, 2009 4:00 pm

Attached is a revised document. Only change is that it includes the proper disclaimer at the back.

Anne Curley [contact info redacted]

Doesn't that sound to you like Curley was preparing the document, or at least had access to edit the document to add the "disclaimer"? I'm not an elections lawyer, so I'll leave that all to others. But it sounds suspicious to me.

They Closed the Curtains Too Soon

by folkbum

Earlier this week, I wondered about Advocates for Student Achievement, a seemingly pro-privatization group that wants to influence the election of members of the Milwaukee Public Schools board. Another blogger, going by the monicker of "sixandsevens," has been tracking the group, too, at dKos and OWN.

One thing this person caught--and, honestly, I have no idea who s/he may be--is that ASA and its members were on the Yahoo! together in an open email listserv. Well, open in the sense that anyone could stroll through and read their emails to each other, not that anyone could just chime in.

Sadly, this is what's left of that group:
I did get to spend some time poking around in the archives before they shut off the pipeline, and there was some good stuff. For example, I got a good sense of who the major players were, including ASA honcho Anne Curley (she needs to fix her website), current MPS board member Bruce Thompson, exurban consultant Wendell Willis, failed 2005 candidate Kevin Ronnie, aborted 2009 candidate Lena Stephenson, and a Steve Adams.

Unfortunately, I couldn't mine as much as this sixandsevens person, but I wanted to point out a couple of things I found interesting. One is this email about the most recent poll done by the group. Apparently, after the negative publicity surrounding the first push-poll in the Peter Blewett-ReDonna Rodgers campaign, the pollster threw a fit, and ASA wants its money back:

From: Anne Curley [mailto:anne@...]
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 9:26 PM
To: KOCZELA, Steven
Subject: MPS landscape poll project outcome

Steve – It’s been more than three weeks since we released the results of the poll conducted for Advocates for Student Achievement by Brilliant Corners.

We have had not one iota of publicity, due to the concerns raised by our critics regarding the methodology employed by Brilliant Corners and our inability to counter that criticism effectively since we’re not professional pollsters.

In addition, we have raised virtually no financial support as a result of the poll, which I attribute to our lack of credentials in presenting the results and the aforementioned credibility issues.

In short, while we certainly have gained some value from the insights produced by the poll, we received none of the added value you projected, in terms of publicity and fundraising, because Brilliant Corners backed out of its commitment to present its findings and essentially walked away from its own work.

In light of this outcome, I am writing to request a partial refund of the $11,900 paid by ASA to Brilliant Corners. After discussing this with other members of the Executive Committee, I’ve been instructed to ask for a minimum of a 25% rebate, i.e., at least $2,975.

Needless to say, we are extremely disappointed in the outcome of our decision to employ Brilliant Corners. This is especially true in light of the fact that every member of our Executive Committee except for me appears to have voted for President Obama. To have been mischaracterized as a right-wing organization is galling enough. To have been short-changed by a vendor to whom we have paid what amounts to a small fortune, relative to our tiny operating budget, because of this politically motivated lie is clear cause for action.

Let me know if you prefer that I address this request to Cornell, or submit it in a letter. Thanks in advance for pursuing a resolution, Steve.

Sincerely,

Anne

Anne Curley [contact info redacted]

I have no idea if they ever got their refund.

This little bit was much more disturbing to me:

FYI, here's ReDonna's campaign platform document
Sun Feb 22, 2009 3:06 pm

Look forward to seeing most of you tomorrow at 7:45 at Highland Park Pies. In the meantime, thought you might want to see the final version (at least for now) of ReDonna’s platform. This piece is being used with potential donors and others who want a better understanding of where she’s coming from.

Anne Curley [contact info redacted]

Which was followed closely by this one:

Correction to ReDonna's platform overview
Sun Feb 22, 2009 4:00 pm

Attached is a revised document. Only change is that it includes the proper disclaimer at the back.

Anne Curley [contact info redacted]

Sadly, even before the group was disappeared, the attachments to the emails were not public, so I have no idea what "disclaimer" a document prepared and distributed by a registered PAC purporting to be a candidate's platform would actually look like. I know what disclaimers are supposed to look like from campaigns, but not what might be going on here.

And there was lots more, including talk about the candidate training and roundtables the group offered, strategy they used, and a lot of talk about which reporters might be most manipulable to get their version of events out to the public. It is not wrong that such a group exists, or that they used Yahoo! to chat amongst themselves. It was, for the brief moment it lasted, though, an interesting glimpse into the motivations and machinations of this group.

I would like to see Tony Evers pay his fine tomorrow. And then beat Rose Fernandez April 7.

by folkbum

Well, I think the GAB has to make some sort of official ruling first--I doubt Evers can just dash off a check.

Mark Belling has finally posted (.pdf) the docs he got from his open records request, and it confirms what the paper is reporting today:

Evers' campaign manager Peter Knudsen responded today that the e-mail in question was part of a series of exchanges between Evers and CESA 7 Administrator Jeff Dickert. The exchange began as a discussion of official business and, when it appeared the conversation was becoming political, Knudsen said Evers switched to his private e-mail account. (Dickert admitted a possible violation earlier this month.)

Does it bug me that someone who should know better did this? You betcha. But I'm not about to throw away four years for a knuckleheaded mistake.

Tony Evers is a dedicated public servant and life-long educator, with the backing of teachers and administrators alike. Rose Fernandez is a proven advocate for diverting tax dollars to for-profit companies and school districts looking to make a buck on children who would otherwise be homeschooled. Evers supports accountability and transparency for a unproven voucher system that Fernandez wants to expand as-is statewide. Evers wants to bring the region together to find common ground for improving the Milwaukee Public Schools while Fernandez wants to hand majority control of the district over to two of the biggest partisans in the county, Scott Walker and Tom Barrett. (Note that neither Walker nor Barrett has been doing a little dance at the idea.)

There is much more to say, but I am on deadline for the paying gig, and, let's face it, I'm probably not going to change anyone's mind. But let me be clear: Four years of Fernandez laying waste to one of the last purely public institutions we have left is not a fair trade for brief boneheaded mistake.

Speaking of the DPI race ...

by folkbum

First, let us all be shocked--just shocked--that the conservative Madison paper endorsed the conservative candidate. Amazing! (We're Tony Evers people at this blog.)

Second, Cory Liebmann is continuing to do great work on the race; read his two most recent posts.

What? Conservative bloggers have double standards? You're kidding!

by folkbum

Last week, Assembly member Don Pridemore (R-Bad Judgment) put out a press release, on Assembly office letterhead, with his Assembly office phone number as the contact number, urging people not to vote for Tony Evers for state superintendent on April 7. In fact, the closing line of his release is clear: "These issues alone make Tony Evers a bad choice to lead Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction into the future."

He stops just short of saying to vote for the other candidate*, but I bet if you called his office number and told whoever answered that you read his press release and wanted to know what else you could do, you'd get that bit of instruction. What else are they going to say?

In other words, Pridemore is pretty clearly campaigning against Evers.

Two weeks ago, a CESA employee sent an email campaigning for Evers through his work (i.e., state) email address. The conservative half of the Cheddarsphere--well, some of them--went ballistic. Some outright lied about the Evers campaign's involvement in the matter, mostly following the lead of Milwaukee yakker Mark Belling, who "broke" the story by lying about it. Belling claimed, "the campaign of Tony Evers, candidate for Wisconsin Superintendent of Public Instruction in the April election, is using state resources to campaign to state workers to try to raise money for the campaign." That was, of course, 100% false. (As far as I know, he's never issued a correction, either.)

So a check of those same bloggers for anything on Pridemore turned up ... guess how much outrage? If you guessed zip then go to the front of the class. Nothing here. Or here. Or here**. Or even here. A search turns up a one-line dismissal here, and that's the extent of conservative commentary on the matter.

Let's just put this one in the ever-growing pile of conservative double standards, eh?

* I wonder if the Fernandez supporters who scour the net looking for anything about her find Pridemore's failure to use her name "immature" and "disrespectful," or if we just add that to the pile, too?

** Wigderson now (as of Monday night) offers an apologist take here.

Case not made for any "Turnaround Team"

by folkbum

Aaron Rodriguez, last seen dancing up to the line of libel (and furiously--some would say hilariously--dancing back [Can anyone else get his comment feature to work? I tried replying to that post to no avail.]), has another piece of puffery for his candidate in the DPI race. (We're Evers people at this blog.)

Rodriguez begins with an Lettermanesque top ten things the Milwaukee Public Schools should be doing differently:

1. Stop hiring employees.
2. Verify expense accounts for all capital expenditures.
3. Cut back on replacing equipment that functions.
4. Reduce inventory.
5. Defer discretionary projects that will not yield immediate returns.
6. Discharge unproductive employees.
7. Terminate management politics and roadblocks.
8. Develop a tough business plan with a clear mission.
9. Stay optimistic.
10. Listen often and communicate well.

Later in the post, there's a somewhat different "first ... second ... third ..." list in paragraphs. I'll deal with some of that in a moment.

But Rodriguez's main point seems to be that to do all of these things, MPS needs not to be run by an elected school board, but by a "Turnaround Team" of the style proposed by his favored DPI candidate. There are all kinds of problems with his list--stay optimistic? thanks, Dr. Peale!--but beyond that, what makes him think the current board, or the one we'll be half-electing in less than a month (we're Mathias people at this blog), can't do these? Or, for that matter, that the current board hasn't done these things?

For example, Rodriguez clearly has no idea about the performance-based budgeting being implemented starting this year (kind of along the lines of what was recommended by Anneliese Dickman here). He doesn't know that the district communicated and listened and developed a tough, clear plan just a couple of years ago (large .pdf). He doesn't seem to realize MPS has an audit division (and, helpfully, a special audit just for us from the state). And Rodriguez obviously hasn't been inside an MPS building to see the deferred capital projects dripping on the heads of unsuspecting staff (true story!).

In fact, when you start unpacking the paragraphs later in Rodriguez's post, his obliviousness to the reality in MPS is even clearer. Here's a taste:

First, we need to stop hiring more teachers. Due to decreased enrollment, MPS has one of the lowest teacher-student ratios among comparable school districts across the nation. [. . .]

Fourth, we need to defer on discretionary projects. One good example is building new schools. Enrollment is down, so new schools should be out of the question.

Fifth, discharge unproductive and incompetent teachers. Allowing them to teach does a disservice to our children.

So much to do here! Start with Rodriguez's "fifth," the "unproductive and incompetent teachers." One question I ask all the time but never get an answer to: How many are we talking about? Our graduation rate is about 60%--do we fire 40% of our high school teachers? Our 8th-grade math proficiency rate is 38%--do we fire 62% of our middle-school teachers? Can we get some clarity, please? Oh, and if we fire all these teachers, whom do we replace them with if we can't hire new ones? And if there's an exception made for replacements for those staff, how do we recruit great teachers if we're raising class sizes, using outdated equipment, and threatening to cut salary and benefits back to among the lowest in the region?

MPS's turnover rate among new teachers--about half don't make it five years in the district--also means a hiring freeze will skyrocket the student-teacher ratio from 14:1 now (does that seem low to you?) to unbearable levels in short order. Not to mention the constant demand for math, science, and special-education teachers, positions we fill with substitutes and interns now, hiring freeze or no.

In "fourth," I'd like to know exactly what schools Rodriguez thinks we're building. MPS hasn't opened a new school since--and correct me if I'm wrong--the new Tech in 2002, and that was largely financed by donors, not taxpayers. And we're now in the process of selling off properties left and right.

And again I repeat my question: What is a "Turnaround Team" going to do about this that the current board has not done or cannot do?

(Rodriguez's numbered paragraphs go on up to "eighth," with some of them not being MPS issues at all, but DPI ones. We can argue over who's more political--his "sixth" point--Evers, the life-long educator and consensus builder, or Rodriguez's candidate, who became a cause célèbre among talk-show hosts, conservative activists, and Republican legislators. I'd suggest his candidate does not look good there. And Evers's record of working with parents across the state to move the legislative agenda speaks for itself.)

In the end, Rodriguez, who titles his post "Why MPS Needs a Turnaround Team," cannot make a case for such a team. In fact, he levels a pretty ugly insult at the voters of Milwaukee, calling the current board a "special interest group," implying that a collection of public servants beholden to the voters and earning a pretty paltry salary are somehow pulling a fast one on us.

Look, I have my disagreements with the board. I have my disagreements with the district superintendent. (I even occasionally have disagreements with my union.) But to suggest that an appointed board or "Turnaround Team" will be able to change things that the current board can't or won't is ridiculous. In fact, one of the most absurd moments of this whole campaign was the initial press release (.pdf) announcing the idea, which proclaimed, "The Turnaround Team will be empowered to make dramatic changes at MPS," followed by a bullet-point list of ten things, nine of which the current elected board is already "empowered" to do. That's kind of like the opposite of dramatic.

In the end, the "Turnaround Team" plan also faces a major hurdle that Rodriguez doesn't even bother to mention: It's illegal. No amount of misinformed blather will change that fact.

See DPI Candidates in Milwaukee Tonight, Next Week

by folkbum

In one of a long series of joint appearances, the candidates for state superintendent of public instruction (Tony Evers and Rose Fernandez) will be discussing issues related to children and adults with disabilities here in Milwaukee tonight. They'll be meeting at 7 PM at Independence First, 540 S. 1st St. More information is in this .pdf from Disability Rights Wisconsin.

I also had a note in the inbox this morning that the two will be facing off in a forum sponsored by the Educators' Network for Social Justice on Monday, March 16, 7 PM at the Gordon Park Pavillion, 2828 N. Humboldt Blvd. More information is on the ENSJ website.

Unfortunately, tonight I have to pick my wife up at the airport (she's picky about not being stranded places), so I cannot attend. I'm hoping to get a first-hand report from someone who will be there. Next week's, though, I hope to make in person.

Oh, what a tangled etc.

by folkbum

Rose Fernandez seems sincere enough in her efforts, but the people around her ...

More.

Reminders

by folkbum

A reminder that the Wispolitics Budget Blog is indespensable indispensable this time of year.

A reminder of just how close we came to disaster.

A reminder of the Really Big Show Saturday night. You'll be there, right?

A reminder that Mathias, Evers, and Abrahamson need your help now that the primary is over.

A reminder for reader Andy that he doesn't need to spend $3000 on appliances. (I got my first dishwasher for $10, if I remember correctly.)

A reminder to commenters here: I have never banned anyone only banned one person from this site. Ever. In six years. But if your comments have a very high profanity-and-insult-to-content ratio, you'll be gone. That is all. (This item updated.)

Vote Today

by folkbum

It's primary day for the spring non-partisan elections. Your humble folkbum recommends the following candidates:

State Superintendent: Tony Evers
Milwaukee County Circuit Court: JD Watts
Milwaukee Board of School Directors, District 4: Michael Mathias
Milwaukee Board of School Directors, District 7: Felicia Owen

Update: Finally, I'm number one at something!

Tony Evers: "I would be an aggressive state superintendent"

by folkbum

Two things have kind of been bugging me about the present race for state superintendent: One, even though it is not really true, the best candidate, Tony Evers, is going to be portrayed--already has been portrayed--as a part of the problem, a status quo candidate who cannot bring any kind of change to a bloated state bureaucracy. Two, the great eternal challenge of a position like state superintendent is that it has little policy-making authority: The state superintendent does what the legislature tells him or her to do, not the other way around. Sure, there's some pull when the budgets get submitted, but ultimately, the DPI chief enforces the law, not makes it.

When I talked to Evers last week, it was clear to me that neither of those two things--his being a status-quo candidate or his being a weak figure in government--were the least bit true. "I would be an aggressive state superintendent," he told me, emphatically. And immediately he started off listing off the ways in which he's pushed during the last eight years for change--from increases in funding for 4-year-old kindergarten to leveraging more federal dollars for AP programs and more.

Evers, in fact, bristled at the idea that the state superintendent was dependent on the legislature and the governor for policy changes. He told me of how he worked with parents and local schools to build a rural coalition that was too strong for the legislature to look the other way, and how they won categorical schools aids to rural districts for the first time ever. "That's how the bully pulpit works," he said. "The dirty work of the bully pulpit is the most effective."

Now I know that in these times of hopey-changiness, it would be kind of insane to run as the candidate of no change. However, I don't think Evers is just making it up. If anyone can pull off well the kind of large-scale change that's coming in things like school funding, it's Evers. He has a track record of being able to get ideological opponents together in a room and making them compromise. For example, he brought legislators together to craft the compromise expansion and accountability bill for the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program a couple of years ago. Sure, it was in imperfect bill--and believe me, I was all over its flaws--but it didn't have to happen at all.

Evers is even now as we speak working with voucher proponents like Howard Fuller on bringing real accountability, what was missing from that bill two years ago, to the voucher schools in Milwaukee through a public-private school-by-school report card system. "If we will sill embrace choice as an unchallenged value," he said, giving no indication he would challenge it himself, "then we have to help people make the best choices."

When it comes to changes in school funding, Evers, doesn't have his own plan. However, like a few of the other candidates, he sees value in the work done by the Wisconsin School Finance Network, which is in many ways already a compromise solution.

When I asked him about the Milwaukee Public Schools, Evers pointed to the Milwaukee plan (.pdf) on his website. He is serious about both improving instruction in MPS and finding help for MPS's image and funding problems. Bullet point number one demands MPS "increase consistency of instructional practice across all schools," something independent-minded teachers often resist, for example, and he also talks about de-funding programs that don't work in favor of those that do. Several times as we talked he was clear that there must be accountability to the public--setting goals attached to the dollars spent, showing how well those goals were meant, and so on. He does not support dissolving the MPS board or anything like that, but he has all this accountability talk because, as he put it, "we've got to get to the point where the community trusts its elected leaders."

He's also got something called the Education 7 (or E7) he wants to organize, which would be the educational equivalent Milwaukee 7 (M7), the business group designed to promote the region. He wants to bring together educators from all levels in seven counties, public and private, to work together and promote the schools we have. "I don't think we do kids a service by making them think they could do better someplace else," he told me. And I had never quite thought of it that way, but he's right--nothing about the way MPS and its teachers and leaders gets disparaged does one thing to improve the district, but it does tell our students over and over that they are getting a sub-par education. That's not the way to turn a failing district around.

By now--heck, probably since the beginning of this post--you're probably thinking, Jay, why should we care? You're a WEAC thug so of course you're going to support the WEAC candidate. Think what you will; there is just one candidate for state superintendent right now who has a demonstrated record of coalition-building, working with the legislature, and fostering positive change in public schools across the state, and that's Tony Evers. He has my unqualified support, and deserves yours, too.

Give to Wisniewski online, too

by folkbum

By overwhelmingly popular request, a link to the other blogger running for school board--Zach W (of Blogging Blue) for South Milwaukee School Board.

Give to Mathias online

by folkbum

Now all of you stampless or lazy people--like me--can PayPal your contributions to Mathias for School Board (endorsement post here). Just click through and give away!