Speak out against pay grab!
The tragedy of Madison’s public schools is that the minority-race students it valorizes are the ones who suffer most from its disempowering Woke racism. For its failures, the seven school board members are poised to reward itself with pay raises, health insurance, and out-of-town junkets. They meet tonight starting at 6 p.m. to consider:
• Almost doubling their annual pay to $15,000 from the current $8,000 and $200 for out-of-town retreats [UPDATE: Passed 6-0 with Pearson abstaining]
• Getting staff-level, taxpayer-paid health, dental, and vision insurance; [UPDATE: Voted down unanimously]
• $3,500/year each member for professional development. [UPDATE: Defeated 5 to 2; Nichols, Mosner Feltham voted for it.]
Proving once again, big gummint is the Left’s sugar daddy.
Board member Savior Castro justifies the goodies to make Madison’s school board “more accessible to the folks that look like the students and the families of the district,” according to Chris Rickert’s excellent reporting, rather than the despised “older, whiter, wealthier folks.” That’s straight-up, burning-cross racism but bashing whitey is still in fashion among Madison’s chardonnay progressives.
Of course, five of the seven members are minorities, all are young, none are wealthy and (for good measure) he is the only he.
We encourage anyone within sight of our pixels to tell all seven to go pack sand. Here’s their e-mail.
Minorities are victims — of our schools
Peter Anderson is a Madison environmentalist (and no Republican!) who once taught in New York City’s South Bronx. He says four of his grandchildren are black, brown and Asian. Excerpts from his posting to the MMSD Board of Education:
The Madison School Board’s performance had been … an unmitigated disaster for its black and brown students. The number of black students who can read at grade level when entering high school has, in the last decade, declined from its previous unacceptably low levels to just above 5%, as shown in this graph. (Note that the seeming improvement in the last year is a mirage created by DPI’s lowering the proficiency thresholds to hide its failures). …
Peter Anderson wrote that MMSD commits:
the tyranny of low expectations [by] blaming low black participation in advanced placement classes on systemic racism when the facts are that the district failed to teach 95% of them to read and it doesn’t expect better.
Instead [the district] performatively pretends to address the problem by distractions, e.g. black excellence, jiggered graduation rates, and so-called anti-racism call-outs; and [does] not understand the need to accompany love with consequences (e.g. refusing to help police identify students, even when they have guns and stolen cars).
Anderson hit MMSD for eschewing phonics in favor of the discredited whole-word, see/say approach “because phonics was first championed by conservatives.” (The legislature in July 2023 mandated phonics.)
Just three years ago, the Board supported a Blue Ribbon Panel to figure out what to do. But its 104-page report essentially ignored phonics and instead focused on “ensuring an anti-racist education … that strengthens our commitment to social justice.“
Blaska’s Bottom Line goes to Mr. Anderson to saying what this city’s editorialists fear: “The Board majority has crippled the lives of too many generations of its black and brown students. Now, as a reward for its abject failure, which earns the board’s majority an F on its equity report card, it wants to award itself substantially more money.”
8 responses to “No $$$ reward for failed school board”
The photos look like a Rogues Gallery of perpetual grifters.
This is truly bad. But the voters fail to hold the school board accountable. We can’t get decent candidates who would make meaningful change to run. It is a hopeless situation. Even California just very recently has followed Mississippi’s lead and adapted Phonics to improve reading scores(finally).
They all look intelligent, trustworthy, and very serious. I can see a potential next Mayor in this group, I only wish they were around when I was in school, who knows where I would be right now.
I wonder if Mr. Castro can function outside of academia…Who can say? He has some impressive web pages to his credit. But I do know that he owes the “white folk” of Madison a public apology. I’m not holding my breath.
Five of the seven are minorities? Wanna bet? The other two undoubtedly “identify” as minority in one way or another–and as we all know, “identifying” is as valid as “being.” As for their salary increase, which they will certainly get, it will be paid for by the next referendum to raise taxes, which will certainly pass. Madison’s progressive elites are incapable of admitting failure, especially when the failure is endorsed by poster-children for diversity of the sort that constitute the school board.
While there are other examples, the American public education system seems to have a high population of people that expect raises for poor performance. They also fail to understand that tax dollars aren’t charity money.
DEI
As all school administrators and politicians will tell you “we just need more money to do a better job”. I’ve heard this for the last 50 years that I cared about politics. I’m still waiting for the next referendum from the school board, city or county. The state bailed out Milwaukee and the first thing the mayor and city council did was give themselves a pay raise. Now they have no money. Let’s raise taxes.