How much more can Madison stand?!
How fitting is it that Brenda Konkel’s Social Justice Center is being called a public nuisance! Home to congeries of dependency enabling non-profits, many of them taxpayer subsidized, the SJC was the command center for the hostile takeover of city streets to valorize the Exceptional Corey Ruiz, a career criminal killed trying to murder Madison police.
It is from the Social Justice Center that the likes of Shadayra and Amelia flooded the Common Council 08-24-26 with calls condemning the City for re-opening Willy and Baldwin Streets two weeks earlier. Hosts the cheering section for the Blame-the-Police monitor.
If we weren’t First Amendment near-absolutists, we would close the Social Justice Center on its late-stage Woke progressivism alone. But the Werkes does not shout down stupid speech; we counter it. (With our own stupid speech, a cynic would say.) The City is acting against the Social Justice Center as a public nuisance because of the visible dysfunction resulting from its policies.
“Fights and other disturbances, camping, public urination and defecation, and suspected illegal drug use — some of it by employees at the center.” So reports ace news reporter Chris Rickert. Over 300 police calls for service, 20 arrests, and 47 charges during the first eight months of the year.
→ “Pooping and popping” at Madison’s social justice center
Will Chicago re-elect progressivism?
Endorsed by what the NY Times calls “high-level democratic socialists, including Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the mayor of Chicago has for the last four years raised taxes, stiffed business leaders, expanded social programs, exploded budget deficits, and wrecked the city’s credit rating. The city council defeated his bid to tax businesses based on how many workers they employed! Even so, Mayor Brandon Johnson “intends to double down on his progressive agenda,” the Times reports. His approval rating stands at 23 percent.
It’s the kids who suffer
Progressivism wreaks less visible damage on Madison’s government-run schools. We turn to the Wisconsin-based, free-market think tank, Institute for Reforming Government. Quinton Klabon, its senior research director, draws this damning picture of MMSD:
Madison’s district, despite an elite university pipeline, hyper-educated leadership, and a shiny, new strategic plan, suffers the same frailties as Milwaukee’s: basement performance [and] backbreaking spending. But while Milwaukee is pulling out of its tailspin due to courageous choices from the top, Madison is ponderously ambling to nowhere. …
Madison’s test scores are near the state’s bottom. Controlling for poverty … Madison ranks 13th of Wisconsin’s 15 biggest districts on the Forward Exam and 12th on the ACT. — far below leaders like Sheboygan and Janesville. Specifically, Madison has a tragically high number of students failing mathematics. … Hispanic and Black students are doing no better in Madison’s district than they are in Milwaukee’s. The average ACT score for Madison’s Black students is 14.6. Milwaukee’s is 14.4. The average ACT score for Madison’s Hispanic students is 15.9. Milwaukee’s is 16.0.
Money is not the problem
Progressives blame the Republican legislature for not shoveling more tax dollars to Madison schools. The Institute for Reforming Government explains:
Madison’s district is squandering immense financial advantages. … middle-class Madison ranks in the 89th percentile among big districts nationally in school funding, adjusted for the cost of living. They pay one adult for every 6 students, relying on local taxpayers to fund the lowest ratio [students to staff] of Wisconsin’s 15 biggest districts. …
For too long, progressive Madison has acknowledged “historically created barriers” to students succeeding without reflecting on the one they have created today.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Remember that the next time The Capital Times demands Madison elect more progressives.
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