Editor & Publisher on Pimentel's apology

Yesterday, I noted Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editorial Page editor O. Ricardo Pimentel's apologizing in print for doing "a bit of promulgating" of Bush administration lies spin propaganda misstatements about Iraq and the justification for the war. Today, Editor and Publisher picks up on the piece, too:

The most important newspaper in its region finally apologized to readers for accepting "cooked" evidence about WMD in Iraq that helped lead to war in 2003. No, it was not The New York Times.

In a column on Sunday, O. Ricardo Pimentel, editorial page editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, wrote that, “Yes, regrettably on the matter of WMD, count us as among the many who were duped. We should have been more skeptical. For that lack of skepticism and the failure to include the proper caveats to the WMD claim, we apologize, though I would note that, ultimately, we didn't believe that the president's central WMD argument warranted war. Not then and especially not now.”

The column appeared on the same day Tim Rutten, media writer for the Los Angeles Times, urged major newspapers to own up to their role in easily accepting the WMD argument from the Bush administration. He noted that his own newspaper was among this large group.

The other side, of course, thinks this is just about the worst thing ever (and they repeat debunked lies while they're at it). But the other side needs to see a bigger picture. As the Rutten article reference by E&P says,

Connect the dots and what do you get?

Clearly, it's a picture of an administration in disarray--particularly when you shade the scene with the fact that more than half of all Americans now say the invasion of Iraq was a mistake; the implosion of presidential crony Harriet E. Miers' Supreme Court nomination; the indictment of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and the investigation into possible insider trading by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.

That's the foreground.

In the background is a more ambiguous image, and bringing it into clearer focus is the most urgent challenge now confronting the American news media. Plainly put, the issue is this: George W. Bush and the key members of his administration--particularly Cheney, Libby's former boss--convinced the American people, still traumatized by the Sept. 11 atrocities, to support war against Hussein by telling them that he had both nuclear and biological weapons of mass destruction. It was only a matter of time, they said, before the vengeful Iraqi dictator, a mass murderer of his own people, made those weapons available to terrorists who would use them against the United States.

And, Rutten says, the media played along, knowingly or not, and it's important to the credibility of the media to admit when they are wrong. An ill-informed electorate is as bad--or worse--than an uninformed electorate. "The American people need to know [how we were manipulated] because that knowledge is key to the responsible exercise of citizenship in the upcoming midterm elections and beyond," Rutten says. Yeah, yeah, I can hear the dissenters, he's a partisan Democrat, blah, blah. To paraphrase Lawrence Wilkerson from that previous post of mine: Given the choice, I'd take an honest partisan over a lying warmonger any day.

What's important here is that the media (and I find it hard to believe that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel may be a leader in this regard) is waking up from its 1990s-induced fit of pundit journalism, and instead taking responsibility for, you know, reporting, like, facts. Being able to admit you were wrong is a good first step. Insisting on playing spin the pundit bottle will only lead to the same kinds of messes we're in now: 2000+ dead and counting.

Testing Week

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a two-part series on Wisconsin's state testing, testing that began officially last week. In part one, Alan Borsuk does a good job of running down much of what makes educators wary of the tests:

Ask a room full of teachers at a planning meeting at a Milwaukee public school and you get an off-the-record round of groans that appears to represent the views of many educators. Schedules have been reshaped, curriculum changed, special procedures put into effect. The pressure is high.

Leaders of the state Department of Public Instruction aren't very enthusiastic. "It's not like we felt a need for more testing," said assistant superintendent Margaret Planner. [. . .]

Under the federal law, all third- through eighth-graders must be tested each year in reading and math, starting this year. The same is true for one grade in high school--in Wisconsin, it is 10th grade. [. . .] Thousands who have special education needs or limited ability in English and who would not have been included years ago are now taking tests, in many cases with special arrangements made to assist them, or with special tests. Schools face consequences if they don't have at least 95% of their students take the tests.

Add it all up, and it is a lot of testing--and money.

Wisconsin paid the private firm that handles the state testing program, CTB/McGraw-Hill, $6.6 million in 2004, and that's only a part of the total testing tab in the state.

It is worth noting here that McGraw-Hill posted a 17.5% increase in third quarter profits the other day. All purely coincidental, I'm sure.

I want to write much more about the testing, but, alas, since this is testing week, I don't have time right now to do it. Jim Horn at Schools Matter does some good commentary on this article, though. Perhaps later this week I'll have more time to say something.

In part two, Amy Hetzner writes about the effects of No Child Left Behind on special education students, noting that the law confilcts in many serious ways with federal IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) legislation:

It is the testing of special education students in particular--along with the expectation they be able to match their peers without disabilities - that has been both one of the more controversial and celebrated aspects of the law.

All but the most severely disabled students are taking the same tests from third through eighth grade and in their sophomore year of high school. That means students who previously might have been exempted from state tests - or whose lower-than-average results might have been explained away - are being prepped, scored and compared to their classmates in regular education classes. And there are consequences for poor performance. Weak performance by a group of students in a school--such as special education students--can lead to sanctions.

The development has some educators concerned that students with disabilities will be taught fewer of the skills they will need to cope in life and a more limited curriculum. [. . .]

Glenn Schmidt, a longtime special education teacher at Northside Elementary School in Sun Prairie, calls the federal law "disastrous" for children with disabilities.

He complained about the time the extra testing takes away from instruction, especially now that students with disabilities can receive such accommodations as extra time to complete the tests. And he questioned the value of a fifth-grade reading assessment for a student already known to read at a second-grade level.

"The year before last, I had nine kids in here that were taking the WKCE and, at one point or another in that testing week, seven out of the nine of them really broke down in doing it," Schmidt said. "The whole testing situation tends to be very difficult when kids know they can't do it," he said. "These kids are sharp enough to figure out these are tests that, in many cases, are difficult for them to master."

Despite the fears of some, school leaders believe they can resist the pressures to narrow the curriculum to reading and math instruction and to ignore teaching life and work skills required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act--or the pressures to pull special-education students out of regular education classes.

Last year at my school, it was our special education students who kept us from moving up on the sanctions list, instead of going further toward them. Four special ed kids, in fact--four who did not take the test. Had they taken it, whatever their performance, we would have made "safe harbor," as they call it, showing enough growth even without meeting minimum performance standards, and would not have fallen to another level of sanctions. I don't know who those four were, but I am guessing that they feel the same kind of response Glenn Schmidt's students do--that testing is beyond them at their identified disablity level, and, more importantly, that there is no life-skill purpose behind doing it. Even my regular education students feel that way about the tests sometimes.

Even I feel that way about the tests some days. Today is one of those days.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: We were lied to--and we lied to readers--about Iraq

Okay, I'm paraphrasing slightly O. Ricardo Pimentel's editorial from today's paper, but not by much:

The New York Times has gone through its mea culpas on this score, capped recently by Judith Miller's alleged tell-all on her role in Plamegate. Miller is the reporter who undeniably did much of that promulgating, taking at apparent face value self-interested claims from dubious sources that such Iraqi WMD existed.

Those caches of deadly weapons did not exist, of course, revealing much of the administration's stated reasons for going to war to be just as barren--as in devoid of truth. I'll leave for the moment the question of whether this was a matter of error or just plain lying.

The New York Times occupies an elevated strata of journalism. But do the rest of us below that level of influence and reach--this newspaper's Editorial Board being my concern--also have a responsibility to explain ourselves?

I think so. In the interest of transparency.

The news side of this operation simply reported the days' events and debate in the walkup to the war, including meaningful reporting of the reasons given.

But, you see, this Editorial Board did indeed accept the premise that Saddam Hussein had these weapons early on. And in that acceptance by the board, it can be credibly argued that we did a bit of promulgating ourselves.

Pimentel is the paper's editorial page editor, and, as such, bears ultimate responsibility for everything appearing on that page. In the run-up to the war, despite Pimentel's assertions that the Journal Sentinel "hedged" and "counseled caution," the paper, like most papers around the country, was an unabashed cheerleader for Bush and his plans to interrupt the war on terror with a sideshow in Iraq. Pimentel says they were misled, and, while not asking for forgiveness, asks a much more pertinent question:

Now, of course, we discover much evidence that the intelligence fed the public, including us, was "cooked" or "fixed"--choose your favorite description--around what the administration viewed as its most salable argument. Americans were not likely to favor invasion because of the dominoes-of-democracy theory nor because Hussein was a monster. Vietnam is a word that still resonates, and what made this particular monster any more worth toppling than the world's many other monsters?

But, yes, regrettably on the matter of WMD, count us as among the many who were duped. We should have been more skeptical. For that lack of skepticism and the failure to include the proper caveats to the WMD claim, we apologize, though I would note that, ultimately, we didn't believe that the president's central WMD argument warranted war. Not then and especially not now.

So there it is--with an addendum. We take responsibility for being duped on the matter of WMD--and still arguing against war--but at what point will those doing the duping be held accountable for taking us to war?

The only person "doing the duping" (not counting Miller, whom Pimentel assumes was a patsy) that Pimentel mentions by name is Colin Powell, who, with his February 2003 United Nations speech was the one who "resolved" the editors' doubts about Iraq's WMD. Yet Powell was as much a victim as the editors were. Powell aide Lawrence Wilkerson made that clear this week in the Los Angeles Times, as he fingered those who really were responsible:

In President Bush's first term, some of the most important decisions about U.S. national security--including vital decisions about postwar Iraq--were made by a secretive, little-known cabal. It was made up of a very small group of people led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. [. . .]

Its insular and secret workings were efficient and swift--not unlike the decision-making one would associate more with a dictatorship than a democracy. This furtive process was camouflaged neatly by the dysfunction and inefficiency of the formal decision-making process, where decisions, if they were reached at all, had to wend their way through the bureaucracy, with its dissenters, obstructionists and "guardians of the turf."

But the secret process was ultimately a failure. It produced a series of disastrous decisions and virtually ensured that the agencies charged with implementing them would not or could not execute them well. [. . .] It's a disaster. Given the choice, I'd choose a frustrating bureaucracy over an efficient cabal every time.

Wilkerson is in a position to know things, having been at State for the process that led us to war, a process that included creating false evidence of Iraqi WMD and, when challenged, engaging in the kind of criminal conspiracy that led to Scooter Libby's indictment this week. It was a process whose beginning, middle, and end was in Dick Cheney's office. It was a process that should lead Pimentel to call, as other media figures have, for Cheney's ouster. Pimentel knows all about Cheney and his role in the cabal, since Thursdays editorial cites Wilkerson by name. We all know about Cheney's role in outing Valerie Plame as revenge on Wilson, since it's in black and white in Libby's indictment. Pimentel and his editors made some very cogent points along these lines when they endorsed John Kerry last October: "The president is a decent man, yes," they wrote. "On the whole, however, he has been so wrong about so much in such a short time that accountability must kick in at some point." The cabal was wrong about Iraq, about WMD, about everything. Time to call for accountability again.

So why can't you pull the trigger, Mr. Pimentel? Isn't it enough that we were lied to, sir, and that the vice president is almost certainly culpable in a a politically-motivated breach of national security? Does Cheney actually need to eat a baby on live TV before you call for his head? This is your chance to be bold, and show some leadership on an issue of great concern to your readers.

Say it with me: Cheney must go.

Now print it in your paper.

Friday Saturday Random Ten

The Day Late and a Dollar Short Edition

1. "Art of the Gun" The Nields from Play
2. "If These Teardrops Had Wings" Vance Gilbert from Summerville Live
3. "Four" Phineas Newborn, Jr. from The Great Piano Of . . .
4. "Man I Used to Love" Susan Werner from Last of the Good Straight Girls
5. "Winter Woods" Peter Mayer from Earth Town Square
6. "Falling" Dave Herlihy from This is Boston, Not Austin
7. "Jagged" Old 97s from Fight Songs
8. "Strange Fire" Indigo Girls from Women Live from Mountain Stage
9. "Return Trip" Mulgrew Miller from Hand in Hand
10. "Intermittently" Barenaked Ladies from Maybe You Should Drive

Would you like a weapons system with that glazed?

Perhaps the most shocking news on this Fitzmas day (and, by the way, here's hoping Fitzmas comes twice this year) is that the Carlyle Group--they of the shady aerospace and military stuff--have bought Dunkin' Donuts.

Diversify, diversify, diversify . . .

Once again proving that the editors don't read their own paper

To the editors,

In your editorial Thursday about the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program's having reached the "cap" on students it can accept ("Giving families options"), you relentlessly attacked Governor Jim Doyle for his vetoes on the legislature's attempts to "lift the cap" (emphasis mine):

Gov. Jim Doyle must recognize that, in opposing such a move, he is hurting needy children. [. . .]

Republicans have pushed lifting or abolishing the cap. Doyle has thrice vetoed such bills. He must stop opposing the interest of needy kids in Milwaukee and work out a deal with Republicans on voucher caps.

Doyle would doubtless argue that he is looking after the interest of the needy kids in MPS. What he fails to grasp is that he is narrowing their options. Even an option not exercised is of value because it gives the holder more bargaining power.

What Doyle must do is make a quality education for poor children the top goal and recognize that putting more resources into MPS is but one means to that goal, rather than the top goal itself. Another means is the lifting of the enrollment cap on the voucher program. Our preference is to employ any and all means that lead to the top goal.

Doyle, with his more pinched perspective, says he'd back raising the lid if the Republicans would back his plan for smaller classes in the public schools--a plan the GOP regards as too expensive.

Yet it is very clear from the story your very own paper ran the day before ("Stop taking new voucher students, state tells schools"), it is not Doyle at all who needs an attitude adjustment. Rather, it is Assembly Speaker John Gard and the Republicans in the legislature (my emphasis again):

Hitting the cap "changes the debate," [John] Gard said. "It puts enormous pressure on the governor. It's a simple thing. It shouldn't come with a bunch of spending strings or pork for Milwaukee."

Doyle was traveling late Tuesday and could not be reached. Spokeswoman Melanie Fonder said the governor stood by his earlier position that raising the cap must be tied to help for public schools. "He is more than willing to sit down and reach a compromise that will improve the quality of education for all kids in Milwaukee, whether they're in choice schools or public schools," she said.

Which one sounds like he wants to compromise? Which one sounds like he's more concerned about the education of all of Milwaukee's children? Hint: Not single-minded John Gard.

I think you owe Governor Doyle an apology.

Yours, as always,

folkbum

Last-Minute Cheddarsphere Meet

Wisconsin blog regualr and political fixture (and the Democratic primary challenger to Herb Kohl) Ben Masel organized a last-minute meeting planned for Saturday. It's supposed to be unseasonably beautiful, so he proposes we meet in Aztalan State Park, halfway between Madison and Milwaukee (but still way out of the way for anyone else). Planned meeting time is a soft 12:30. Here's a map if you need one!

Not so wild about Harriet

Wow. Harriet Miers actually did it--she withdrew her nomination the Supreme Court.

In some ways I'm not surprised: The most reactionary of the religious and social conservatives in the country ate her alive for her ambiguous statements regarding choice and separation of church and state. Democrats complained (quietly, since we didn't want to overshadow the spectacle of Republicans eating their own) about Miers's qualifications to serve. No one, it seems, was pleased with her. But that's never stopped Bush and his single-mindedness before.

Makes me wonder who's left to choose from, given that there was a credible story (I can't find the link now) about other, more qualified folk withdrawing their names from consideration becuase they were afraid the process would be so ugly. Who in their right mind would step up now?

Government Accountability: Joint Finance does a Good Thing

In the wake of two convictions in the Wisconsin legislature corruption scandals--convictions, finally, after five years of waiting--the Joint Finance Committee approved SB-1:

The bill (SB 1) would merge the state Ethics Board and Elections Board into the new Government Accountability Board, which would have an enforcement division that, unlike the current boards, could prosecute politicians for criminal violations. Currently, only district attorneys and the state attorney general can pursue criminal law violations. [. . .]

Under the new bill, the governor would appoint four people to the new board based on recommendations from the chief justice of the state Supreme Court and the deans of the Marquette University Law School and the University of Wisconsin Law School. The Senate would have to approve the appointees.

If Doyle signs the bill into law, the Government Accountability Board would be formed immediately. The Elections and Ethics boards would continue to exist until May 1; they would then be abolished, and their staffs--including the long-time executive directors of each board--would be transferred to the Government Accountability Board.

The makeup of the new board would be modeled on the Ethics Board, which is non-partisan. The Elections Board includes representatives from the Democratic, Republican and Libertarian parties, as well as appointees of the governor and other politicians.

The new board's enforcement division could investigate potential violations of the state's lobbying laws, campaign finance rules and code of ethics for public officials.

At present, the Ethics Board is perhaps the most toothless agency in all of state government: They have no enforcement authority and, in fact, have to seek funding from Joint Finance for every single individual investigation that they wish to pursue, which can put everybody in an awkward position. ("You want money for what?" "To investigate you, sir." "Um, let me think about it.")

I am surprised and disappointed that three Democrats--Milwaukeeans Pedro Colón and Lena Taylor, along with Sen. Russ Decker of Schofield--voted against the bill. Colón noted that the bill would give the new Accountability Board the power "to go all over your life." Given the way things have been going down in Madison over the last few years, I think the scrutiny--or the threat of scrutiny--will be refreshing. A more powerful independent watchdog will, I hope, lead to some cleaner governing.

I do want to acknowledge that among those voting for the bill in Joint Finance was indicted Republican Scooter Jensen, whom I've let have it in a few recent posts for not accepting responsibility for his alleged ethics (and legal) violations the way others have. Kudos to Scooter for that, and to Madison Dem Mark Pocan, the only Democrat on the committee to vote for it. Accountability and ethical governing ought to be a bi-partisan no-brainer.

And lo, a campaign issue descended from on high,

and the Republicans were well pleased, and the SpongeJon did rejoice. And a voice cried out from the Wilderness, Oh, crap.

It's looking more and more like Wisconsin's Gubernatorial election next year will feature a perhaps-unprecedented confluence of issues guaranteed to bring national Republican attention and tens of millions of dollars in spending from national conservative groups. So far, we know it will be an anti-gay marriage amendment (most likely, anyway), concealed carry, voter ID, and TABOR/ tax-freeze nonsense. The latest is the voucher cap:

State officials ordered schools participating in Milwaukee's voucher program to stop enrolling new students through the choice program because it appears to have hit the state-imposed enrollment cap of about 14,750 students. [. . .]

In a letter sent to all choice schools on Tuesday, the Department of Public Instruction said that private schools are prohibited from accepting choice applications or enrolling students through the program through the remainder of the current school year.

"We absolutely had to say, 'Don't enroll anymore,' because we are very close to the cap," said Tony Evers, the deputy state superintendent.

The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program lets low-income families send their children to private schools using state-funded tuition vouchers. The cap is set at 15% of the enrollment of Milwaukee Public Schools, or 14,751 students for this school year. [. . .]

Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, has vetoed bills to raise or eliminate the caps three times, saying at different times that it would prompt property tax increases or needed to be tied to a more comprehensive education package for Milwaukee. He has said he would be willing to increase the number of students who can participate in the program if it includes additional funding for smaller class sizes.

Assembly Speaker John Gard (R-[Sun Praire]) said Tuesday that the state couldn't afford the funding Doyle wanted for smaller class sizes.

Hitting the cap "changes the debate," Gard said. "It puts enormous pressure on the governor. It's a simple thing. It shouldn't come with a bunch of spending strings or pork for Milwaukee."

There's lots to say here, but let's look first at what Gard has to say, since he's got the party line that Mark (I ♥ Tom DeLay!) Green and Walker: Tosa Ranger will follow (give it a few hours and their press releases will be all over, if they aren't already). One, the state can't afford to reduce class sizes, the one educational reform that has near-unanimous consent among researchers of all stripes as to its effectiveness. But we do have the money, apparently, to throw at an unaccountable shadow system of private and religious schools. Two, money for Milwaukee's public schools is "pork," while an unecessary dock wall in your district isn't. Or all the building projects you shuffle to your road-building buddies. Three, demanding accountability from an unaccountable system that eats up $75,000,000 in taxpayer dollars is attaching "strings." How many other programs that have spent billions of taxpayer dollars over the last fifteen years ago have been allowed to escape even elementary scrutiny? Remember that it was only last week that any school in the program ever had been shut down for not meeting rudimentary requirements, and only last school year that any schools had ever been shut down period for violating the public's trust.

Fifteen years with no strings, no accountability, and a steadily declining sense of obligation to our public schools.

Last weekend's paper featured an editorial entitled "State failing black students," damningly criticizing the commitment of the state to the Milwaukee Public Schools:

How many clangs of the alarm bell have to be sounded before policy-makers start feeling the need to deal more urgently, differently and more creatively with what can properly and officially be termed a crisis?

The latest clang comes in the form of a Journal Sentinel analysis by reporter Sarah Carr of the latest national test scores that show a wide gap between Wisconsin's black and white students in reading and math. In fact, in eighth-grade reading and fourth-grade math, the gaps in this state are the largest in the country, this despite the overall good news that Wisconsin students generally scored above national averages.

But the latest results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress - often called the nation's report card - show that black students here are not scoring even as high as black students nationally in all four of the test's categories, fourth-grade reading and math and eighth-grade reading and math. Latinos also are faring badly in comparison to white students but not by as wide of margins. [. . .]

We are not suggesting that those involved in teaching Wisconsin's black students are not serious about teaching or are not committed to their students. We are suggesting that "fixing" schools is only part of the solution, albeit a necessary one. Addressing the underlying problem of poverty, disproportionately affecting the state's black community, is the broader solution. And, to the extent schools can be "fixed," doing so is as much a matter of good-faith efforts in the state Legislature and in the governor's office as efforts in the schools.

"Fixing" the schools doesn't involve decrying solutions as "pork" and skimming money off to give to unaccountable private schools. "Fixing" the schools doesn't mean cutting $40 bmillion--the amount MPS would have lost under Gard's budget--needed to keep and train teachers, repair failing buildings, and provide textbooks and supplies to our most disadvantaged students. "Fixing" schools does not involve posturing for next November's Gubernatorial election.

The editorial concludes on a note I have sounded before--mark this day, my friends, as it may be the only day I ever agree with the eductaion editors at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel--by calling on the state to address poverty in Wisconsin's biggest city:

Yes, this means more resources for schools. And that's because of that underlying problem: poverty. Simply, when it comes to resources, the need is greater in schools that serve students who are disproportionately poor.

But overcoming poverty is the ultimate solution. That means growing jobs for workers across the socioeconomic scale.

The test scores come on the heels of other recent stories - Milwaukee ranking seventh nationally in poverty and ninth among cities with the highest concentration of poverty. In this regard, the performance of Wisconsin's black students on this test is hardly a surprise since the black community is hit hardest by poverty here.

I bet you a nickel--no, two nickels--that poverty will not be a theme in next year's election. Nor will health care, or true school-funding reform, or will anything else that could actually make a difference in the lives of the people who most need it. No, the election will center on this confluence of conservative issues: tax freezes, voter ID, guns, vouchers, and gay marriage. And the state will continue to fail its black students and fiddle as Rome burns.

Wisconsin Democrats take responsibility for crimes;

Wisconsin Republicans don't, sit on Joint Finance Committee instead

At least, that's the headline I would write if I had a better job. Chuck Chvala pleaded out:

Former state Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala (D-Madison) today pleaded guilty to two felonies for having a state worker campaign while on state time and for funneling illegal amounts of cash into the election fund of a fellow Democrat in 2000.

Chvala’s sentencing was to be held soon but was postponed until December, to give his attorneys time to prepare a proposal to have him complete a community service project that he hopes would substitute for any time behind bars. [. . .]

In exchange for Chvala’s pleas, 11 other felony corruption charges — including two extortion charges that accused Chvala of asking lobbyists for campaign cash to schedule votes on their pet projects — were dismissed. Six additional counts that accused Chvala of campaign finance violations and of having state workers do on-the-job campaigning were also dismissed, but the judge can consider them when he sentences Chvala. [. . .]

Chvala and four other legislators were charged in 2002 — more than a year after a secret John Doe investigation was convened by the Dane County district attorney. The initial probe into the use of state workers to campaign on state time mushroomed into pay-to-play allegations that involved possible violations of state extortion laws.

Those "four other legislators" include one Democrat--Brian Burke, who also copped to breaking the law--and three Republicans--former Assemblyfolk Steve Foti and Bonnie Ladwig, plus current Assembyman Scooter Jensen, who sits on the powerful Joint Finance Committee. The Republicans have yet to admit to wrongdoing, though reports at the time of Burke's plea indicated that Foti might plead, too. Foti, Ladwig, and Jensen are all accused of abusing power the same way Chvala did. Why is it so hard for them to take responsibility for it? Must be something in the Republican blood--watch the spinning tomorow when the Plame indictments come out, and you'll see what I mean.

Drinking Liberally Tomorrow

I will, in fact, be there, though probably not with bells on. Hope to see you there, too.

Pardon

(with deep, deep apologies to Joni Mitchell)

It’s coming on Fitzmas
They’re arresting me
They’re taking my mug shot
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a pardon
I could skate away on

But it don’t snow here
It stays pretty brown
I’m going to make a lot of money
Then I’m going to put on the judges' gown
I wish I had a pardon
I could skate away on

I wish I had a pardon so strong
I run off with everything I had
Oh I wish I had a pardon
I could skate away on
Because I made my baby mad

He tried hard to help me
You know, he put me at F-E-M-A
But I did so badly
How I wished I could stay
Oh I wish I had a pardon
I could skate away on

I’m so hard to handle
I’m selfish with my trust
Now I’ve gone and lost the best chance
To be POTUS
Oh I wish I had a pardon
I could skate away on

I wish I had a pardon so strong
I run off with everything I had
Oh I wish I had a pardon
Because I made my baby mad

It’s coming on Fitzmas
They’re targeting me
They’re writing songs about it
And betting on me
I wish I had a pardon
I could skate away on

Advocate Weekly

Another week, another fine set of reads linked at the Advocate Weekly. Of particluar note is Chris Correa's examination of the new NAEP scores as a function of poverty--poverty being one of my bugbears when it comes to education policy. As he notes, poverty "explained between 40% - 49% of the variance in performance."

Let's have a big shout-out to the cowards at the American Education Reform Council!

After all, I know that those Milwaukee-based pro-voucher people read the blog, so let's give them a virtual wave. How do I know they read me? The magic of the internet!

A couple of Thursdays ago, I got comments on two posts from commenters whose names I did not recognize. It's always nice to get new readers, of course, and with steadily rising hit counts over the last several months and some mentions in high-profile places like NEA Today, I have been looking forward to new names in the comments. But these comments were interesting.

First, there was "mike" responding to this post about Jonathan Kozol's scheduled appearance at the 20th anniversary fundraiser for Rethinking Schools. The comment from "mike" was an odd dis of Kozol:

I don't get Kozol. Everything I read by him points out that there are problems in education. obviously. Where are his solutions? Then always seem to be so vague.

And so on. I didn't think much of it, except that then I noticed a comment on an older thread from a "Tom," taking issue with my commentary on a Journal Sentinel story noting that Wisconsin's Department of Public Instruction was withholding voucher checks from some choice schools that failed to file paperwork on time. He actually made some cogent points, and I even started looking at some research to debate him, but then I noticed something about the comments from "mike" and "Tom": Both comments, posted about ten minutes apart, had come from the same IP address. So I figured I was dealing with some kind of troll and ignored him.

But "mike"/ "Tom" showed up again last Friday, this time calling himself "Bill" as he commented in my post about DPI cracking down for the first time ever in fifteen years of Milwaukee Choice on schools that did not offer enough instruction time or a complete curriculum as defined by Wisconsin's constitution. This comment from "Bill" called me out specifically as a liar:

Note that three of these schools are in trouble for not meeting academic standards. You make some good points on voucher schools, but your repeated statements about no academic standards at voucher schools is false.

Okay, so "Bill" didn't use the word liar, exactly, but it raised my hackles. And if you've been here long enough, you know that my hackles often override my better judgment. So I started responding in the comments without thinking.

When I did start thinking, I thought to myself that the argument "Bill" used was similar to what "Tom" had said the week before. So I checked the IP address from the comment by "Bill" and, as you may have guessed, it was the same as the other two suspicious comments. So I made sure to add that to my response.

The IP address thing reinforced my notion that "mike"/ "Tom"/ "Bill" was trolling, or at least engaging in classic HaloScan troll behavior by posting under different names, perhaps not knowing that HaloScan shows account owners the IP addresses of commenters. But the comments--save the dig at Kozol--were smarter than your average troll comments. So I figured I should at least see what I could learn about "mike"/ "Tom"/ "Bill."

Turns out that the IP address "mike"/ "Tom"/ "Bill" was using belongs to the American Education Reform Council, an organization that should be familiar to anyone who has spent any time studying the national school voucher debate. They are, as I said at the top, based in Milwaukee, but their reach extends well beyond ground zero for vouchers and into pretty much any school choice debate anywhere in the country. I'll let the good folks at People for the American Way describe them, from an article they did called "Community Voice or Captive of the Right?: A Closer Look at the Black Alliance for Educational Options":

AERC poured $185,000--a whopping 65% of its grant money--into BAEO in 2001. AERC, a tax-exempt 501(c)(3), is affiliated with the American Education Reform Foundation (AERF), which serves as AERC’s lobbying arm. The two groups share office space and Susan Mitchell heads both groups.

AERC is intimately connected to BAEO in both staffing and funding. John Walton not only funds AERC--giving almost one million dollars via the Walton Foundation between 1999 and 2000--but was also AERF’s previous president and provided its initial grant. The Bradley Foundation also supports AERC, providing $300,000 grants in 1998 and 2000. It is clear that the Bradley and Walton Foundations have a key role in both directly and indirectly funding BAEO.

In addition, Howard Fuller himself sits on the AERC board alongside John Walton. Kaleem Caire stepped down from his position as executive director of BAEO to become Project Director for AERC’s national effort to expand parent options.

As a 501(c)(3), AERC’s political advocacy is restricted. It cannot endorse political candidates and may only do a minimal amount of lobbying on legislation. However, AERC ran “informational” advertisements during the Colorado and Michigan voucher campaigns in 1998 and 2000, respectively. AERC spent $500,000 on the Michigan initiative, in addition to the $2 million Walton spent out of his own pocket.

AERC activities apparently extend beyond advertising to organizing local grassroots organizations. A Friedman Foundation newsletter credits AERC and the Institute for Justice for working together to start Pensacola Parents For School Choice in May 2000.

Without the restrictions of a 501(c)(3), AERF can participate in more overtly political activities. It was a major force behind failed efforts to get a voucher referendum on the California ballot in 1996 and 1998. Walton and AERF then teamed up with a combined $410,000 in an unsuccessful attempt to pass Proposition 226, so-called “paycheck protection,” in California to limit the use of union money being spent in political campaigns. The organizers of the anti-union measure all worked together on the state’s failed 1993 voucher initiative and saw the measure as payback for money the teacher’s union spent to “cream the measure.”

AERF drew public criticism in 1997 when it hired Sterling Tucker, a community activist and former D.C. City Councilman, to organize support for a DC voucher program designed by House Majority Leader Richard Armey (R-TX). Local officials opposed this congressional effort to impose a voucher program in the District of Columbia. Several black ministers, who had initially supported the program, later withdrew their support, accusing Tucker of misleading them about the program and not disclosing his connection with AERF.

That's quite a history, though for those of you in the audience who support vouchers, it probably doesn't bother you at all. However, PFAW does remind us of an important Wisconsin case involving, indirectly, the AERC and AERF. Barbara Miner tells the story in Rethinking Schools:

Voucher Backers Illegally Funnel Money

A suit by the State Elections Board of Wisconsin has accused voucher supporters of illegally funneling money into the Wisconsin Supreme Court campaign of Justice Jon Wilcox.

The Wisconsin State Journal newspaper has called the illegal donations "one of the largest political-corruption cases in state history."

Wilcox was elected in the spring of 1997 and in the summer of 1998 voted with the majority to uphold the Milwaukee voucher program providing public dollars to private schools. During the election campaign, Wilcox's vote was considered crucial to the outcome of the voucher case. His opponent, Walt Kelly, was known as a strong supporter of public schools and of the separation of church and state.

Days before the election, a group known as the Wisconsin Coalition for Voter Participation engaged in a massive, $200,000 pro-Wilcox postcard and phone-calling campaign. In order to not violate state campaign finance laws, the group denied it had any ties to the Wilcox campaign. Following an extensive investigation, this spring the State Elections Board filed suit accusing the Wilcox campaign and the Coalition with illegally coordinating their activities to circumvent state election laws.

The Wisconsin State Journal noted in an April 20 [2000] story that Wilcox "probably would have had to withdraw from the case if the contributions from school-choice supporters had been made public."

Only two of the donors to the postcard and phone-calling campaign came from Wisconsin. The others were described by The Wisconsin State Journal as a "nationwide collection of Republican school-choice supporters." Donors included nationally known voucher advocates such as John Walton of WalMart and Patrick Rooney of Golden Rule Insurance in Indiana, who each kicked in $25,000 to the campaign. [. . .]

Out-of-state donations accounted for 85% of the cash used to finance 345,000 postcards and 250,000 phone calls on the Supreme Court election. The single largest contribution, $34,500, came from the American Education Reform Foundation, a nationwide pro-voucher group based in Milwaukee. [Several individuals connected to AERC and AERF also contributed.]

PFAW does let us know that "AERF was not found in violation of election law." Wilcox was, though, as this third-hand reprinting of a dead-pixel Shepherd Express article notes, paying $10,000 in fines. Sadly, Wilcox never recused himself from the lawsuit involving Milwaukee's vouchers, despite the massive contributions from voucher backers. He ruled in favor of continuing the program.

The PFAW article I quoted above mentions in passing both the Black Alliance for Educational Options and Howard Fuller. BAEO is a wholly-owned creation of the conservative white wealth of the Bradley Foundation, no matter what their letterhead says, with new recent funding by the Bush Administration. (See the Black Commentator, for example, here, here, and here.) Howard Fuller is on AERC's board and has been (if I remember right) president of BAEO. Fuller was a former Milwaukee Public Schools superintendent (before my time in the district) and helped to create the unaccountable shadow system that undermines and sucks tax dollars from the public schools he headed. Fuller admitted, in last spring's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel series on voucher schools that the biggest lie they used to sell us vouchers--that the "marketplace" would keep bad schools out of the program--was, in fact, a big lie (more on that here). Fuller now makes a good living promoting vouchers from inside Marquette University.

Anyway, this all brings us back to the American Education Reform Council: This is a nation-wide organization with millions of dollars in right-wing cash behind it, instrumental in pushing voucher programs in Milwaukee and plenty of other places, with the ear even of pocketed politicians like Wisconsin's indicted Scooter Jensen. Why would they bother with li'l ol' me? More importantly, why would an organization whose stated objectives explicitly say they "seek[] to ensure an honest debate about school choice" send an anonymous coward to comment on my blog? I think it's clear that they are afraid of the truth about voucher schools getting out. Look again at the comment from "Tom":

All voucher schools must also qualify as private schools, which have academic requirements such as 875 hours of instruction and a sequentiall curriculum in Math, Science, Language, Reading, and Health. DPI can, and has, examined schools for this. If a school cannot prove it is meeting these academic requirements, DPI can pull their status as a private school and hence kick them out of the choice program. [. . .]

To call the voucher program a black hole is misleading and harmfull to the ultimate goal of lifting up all Milwaukee children so a voucher program doesn't even need to exist.

So less than a week before DPI came down--for the first time ever in 15 years--on schools who didn't meet the 875 hour or curriculum requirements, "Tom" is trying to pre-emptively defend the quality of voucher schools by saying, "Hey, at least they meet these minimum requirements!" It's clear now that not all voucher schools do meet those requirements, and the hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars we've already paid to the suspect schools is lost forever. The hundreds of students who have passed through those schools have lost forever years of schooling--years of schooling MPS has to make up for. And of course the voucher program is a black hole--there is not one academic performance datum required to be made public by any voucher school. Not one. Zero. Zilch. Even the worst-performing MPS schools make public the data that show how poorly they perform, allowing parents to make a truly informed choice, and not a leap into the unknown.

As DPI keeps cracking down--and I hope they do!--I'm sure more schools like the ones currently targeted will come to light. And, yes, let me throw in my standard disclaimer: There are plenty of voucher schools doing a fine job educating Milwaukee students, and who will never face challenges or penalties from the DPI. (Which schools they are, we can't be 100% sure, because of non-existent accountability procedures.) What worries me is that there are those like "mike"/ "Tom"/ "Bill" and his allies at AERC, BAEO, AERF, the Bradley Foundation, and beyond who want to keep the curtains closed, who want to keep expanding the program to involve more untested, unaccountable schools eating up your taxpayer dollars without any quality control or transparency.

They are so opposed to transparency, apparently, that they won't even use their real names.

Blue Nation

Courtesy of Delaware Dem, here are red-blue maps of the US using SurveyUSA's 50-state approval numbers for Bush. Blue is net disapproval, red net approval, and purple a tie. Note the change following Miers and other scandal revelations since September. Since that change was mostly in the South, I wonder if Hurricane disatisfaction isn't rising.

October

September

Your required Sunday reading

Teacherken's What makes a good high school?

Speaking of the school board . . .

The board did make official the tax hike I hoted here.

Are layoffs coming for MPS?

Every year for the past three years, Milwaukee Public Schools has cut hundreds of teaching positions from its budget. The result is the kind of mess that exists at my high school--class sizes of 35 or 40 are not uncommon. We have six-and-a-half English teachers in my department for 1500 students, and English is a four-year requirement. Further results include the total elimination of art and music programs at the elementary level, and bare-minimum phy-ed classes. The district has been hiring few new teachers, unless those teachers are certified for science, math, or special ed.

Now comes word that four more schools will likely close next year, including Juneau High School.

Some of you may remember earlier this month when I noted that the superintendent finally kept one of his appointments with the staff at my school and met with us. Our fear had been that he was going to tell us he was shutting us down and re-opening a bunch of small schools in a "multiplex" at our building. This is a process done--badly so far--at a few other schools in the district. I hear from teachers and former students that there is not a lot of success so far, and the teachers, especially, feel jerked around and treated unprofessionally. (My board member, Joe Dannecker, believes the opposite to be true, but what are you gonna do?)

The superintendent is not going to multiplex my school, it turns out. This is good. However, he wants to close the school to new ninth-graders next year--meaning in 2006-2007, we'd have only 10th, 11th, and 12th grade students. In many respects, having no ninth-graders would be great; frankly, I'd be happy to get rid of some of the ones I'm teaching right now. But the loss of those students would devastate our staff--we would lose a quarter of our teachers, including all the young, enthusiastic, most-likely-to-embrace-innovation teachers. This would not be good. Where would those 15 or 16 teachers go? How could my English department survive on just four-and-a-half teachers?

Then I read about the recommendation to close Juneau, and it hit me: They are softening us up for layoffs next year.

When the 900 students from Juneau need a place to go, and the 400 freshmen who would have been at my school need a place to go, the district can be careful to spread them out among the remaining large high schools and the struggling small high schools so that the student counts are just right to justify eliminating 100 more high school teaching positions. Just wait.

And rather than following the pattern of the past couple of years wherein they let attrition take care of the cuts in teaching staff, I would not be surprised if this coming year the cuts come in the form of layoffs. Our enrollment is not significantly down--about 7000 students since 1998--and yet more than 800 teaching positions have been cut in recent years. The next cuts will be devastating.

Friday Random Ten

The It's a good thing I have tickets to see Dar Williams next weekend since the iTunes really, really wants me to go, apparently Edition

1. "Alleluia" Dar Williams from The Honesty Room
2. "Shape I'm In" The Band from The Last Waltz
3. "For the Story" Darryl Purpose from Travelers' Code
4. "It's a War in There" Dar Williams from Mortal City
5. "Sylvia Plath" Ryan Adams from Gold
6. When I'm Up" Great Big Sea from Road Rage (Live)
7. "In a Hurry" Christian McBride from Gettin' to It
8. "Paint Box" Pink Floyd from Early Singles
9. "Spring Street" Dar Williams from The Green World
10. "My Buffalo Girl" Bill Frisell from Good Dog, Happy Man