Wisconsin: SB 286 Amendment Details Released - Public Education Takes it up the Rear
Lots more at the link than can be captured in four paragraphs, but the Republicans are busy working to destroy public education in Wisconsin.
http://wisoapbox.blogspot.com/2014/01/sb-286-amendment-details-released.html
And then the real kicker, especially for those of us who teach in MPS or other large urban districts: The school either has to become a charter school or it has to close.
Now, it has to close or become a PRIVATE charter school. There appear to be some restrictions on what type of operators can come in, but it still cannot be a public charter.
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Boy, did I have reason to worry. Once the voucher and charter proponents got their hands on this bill, they decided to tuck a little nugget in there that almost requires MPS to divest itself of it's lowest performing schools. They are automatically put on the failure list through 2018? How does that work?!?!? What happens if MPS closes the schools but then reopens them with new names and initiatives in the mean time? Does that mean they are still on the hook? Something smells very damn fishy about this section of the proposal.
Ultimately, if this part of the bill survives, it kills MPS. They will be forced to lose so many schools and staff that they won't be able to operate their district's legacy costs and have to declare bankruptcy. This bill is truly aiming to annihilate MPS, but there are several other school districts that should have reason to be concerned as well. Racine and Beloit among others have some schools that fall in to the "Fails to Meet Expectations" category and would face similar issues.
You can actually search it and find it on a spreadsheet HERE.
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As Madison School Board member Ed Hughs noted in at the end of the article:
"If there is a way to grade schools that can realistically take into account different demographics of schools, that’s one thing, but that’s still attaching Draconian consequences to what are inevitably somewhat arbitrary scores."
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