Commencement

Granddaughter high school graduation was crowded but went smoothly. A gymnast did a back flip before receiving his diploma cover, the class clown got a lot of attention, and one name got drowned out by the continued cheering/blatting for the previous recipient, but otherwise all was orderly.

The student speeches were short. As freshmen they'd had to study from home for Covid reasons, and as juniors the high school had split in two, so there was a lot of congratulation about resilience and forging new paths and whatnot, and lots of talk about potential.

"Infinite potential," according to one speaker. If any of the students think they have infinite potential, they didn't take any substantive courses. I didn't like to contemplate the matter, but high school made it pretty clear that I wasn't any good at PE or very quick at learning foreign languages—not exactly infinite potential there.

We're making graduation do duty as a coming-of-age ceremony. Close, but no cigar. The high school probably still has the short course in "on turning 18" about adult responsibilities, but getting recognized by the school board for having survived a 4-year course of miscellaneous studies isn't the same as getting recognized by the community as being an adult citizen. I wonder if we even agree on what it means to be an adult anymore—what do we expect of a man or a woman?

They probably shouldn't ask me to address the students at commencement. I'd probably annoy them by pointing out the difference, and suggesting that the graduates not try to follow their passions, but their vocations—and spend some time thinking about what sort of legacy they want to leave when they die.

Staff protecting violent students

At La Follette high school in Madison in 2022, two staffers (elsewhere alleged to be "student advocates", though one claims to have been personal secretary to the principal) interfered with the arrest of a 16-year-old found with a stolen Glock at school (modified to shoot BBs??? I think the reporter didn't do his research.), claiming to be his guardians and berating the arresting officers.

As will not surprise the reader, the then-16 is now 18, and thus his name is publishable after getting caught again with a gun at school (Kyshawn Bankston). Whether the two interfering staffers are still employed by the MMSD two years later isn't clear from the story (I think at least one isn't), but this time "at least one of the MMSD security assistants became erratic and upset at MPD for arresting the 18-year-old with a gun in their school... he said ... 'We're supposed to protect kids here. This is the second time you've done this to Bankston.'"

I don't know the people involved, but I've heard a few possible explanations for the staff behavior. They are so focussed on advocating for and protecting the students from the consequences of their behavior that they lose sight of the big picture. They are all in on the ideology/religion that holds that criminals are really victims of society/police. They automatically close ranks whenever anyone of their tribe is threatened. They are associated with the same gangs.

None of the options speaks well of MMSD's hiring and supervision practices.

"Restorative Justice" Contracts

La Follette High School "abruptly suspended" a contract with a "restorative justice" firm, without explanation beyond "disagreements with Flywheel over expectations, vision and scope of the work."

A little backstory: "school resource officers" are police who work in the school, mainly to de-escalate conflicts and provide a little backup in case things really get out of hand. In its infinite wisdom Madison decided their presence was "racist" and defunded them. La Follette High School had earned a bit of a reputation in recent years as a place for violent conflicts--though East High is a peer these days. Had I any kids in high school, I'd home school them before I sent them to either one.

A bit farther down the story one learns: "Flywheel declined to take part in La Follette’s ramped-up security initiatives in the absence of police officers known as school resource officers at the beginning of the school year, which Brown said did not align with restorative justice practices championed by the organization." "'we still need you to understand that punitive and restorative don’t mix,' Brown said."

"Last year, the group focused on training teachers in making classrooms more democratic." I'm not sure what "more democratic" means, and all the likely possibilities seem unlikely to improve education. Are kids supposed to get a vote in what they learn and how?

"This year, organizers were planning to focus on changing “policing culture” in school." And in the meantime kids were bringing guns to school, but I guess they hoped that somewhere down the road and over the rainbow that wouldn't happen anymore.

A letter signed by a "large number" of La Follette teachers complains about Flywheel and implies that they weren't supplying the people they'd contracted to. It sounds a bit like the Flywheel leadership had decided they couldn't deal with the real world and had started to back out of the contract already.

Headlines can mislead...

Election petition

The school electors meeting went on for 3 hours. The strategy report was overlong, and not entirely relevant. And not encouraging--lots of buzzwords. I think I see where they could save a chunk of change. Last year was pretty weird, of course, and this year the legislature has said they should balance their budget out of Federal ESSER-2 funds--which are explicitly NOT for balancing budgets, but for helping kids make up lost school time.

Attendance was high because of a petition to change the way school board members are elected. Currently all 7 are at large; the proposal said 1 at large and 3 each from the two new high school districts. The attorney was asked several times about what would happen next year, when 3 of the 6 West-ers are up for re-election. Apparently the clerk has to sort that out--which gives a little more power to the clerk than would seem reasonable.

To support the petition the partisans brought up the arguments that the diversity would be increased, that "the community" has a different reality, and that the school board was "stale" with little turnover.

The petition has nothing to do with the third point, the second isn't very relevant either, and the first fell to the floor when it was pointed out that the high school boundaries had been crafted to equalize ethnic, racial, and economic diversity on both sides. The partisans didn't notice, though. And, to make matters more interesting, the high school boundaries were drawn to equalize the number of high-school students, not the number of households or voters, which aren't equalized.

They'd have done better to argue that in smaller districts you are more likely to actually know your representatives, rather than just know their names.

I guess there'd been a lot of debate already, and people knew each other, because the pro-change speakers had a clapping section in the back right, and the no-change speakers' clappers were in the middle left. We went to find out, though I admit I have a "if it ain't broke" bias. Was the system broken? Not in a way they would fix. You aren't going to get people who don't have time to attend meetings to run for school board just by changing district boundaries.

The elephant in the room sat silently. Spring elections have low turnout, and the largest voting block is the teachers. I figured there was no point in opening that can of worms. This was the largest turnout at an elector's meeting that I've ever seen, and the first where teachers and administrators weren't the majority.

It lost 52 to 114. I did my part.

Educational software in Africa

While looking up Ricks Institute info, I found that they're using an African-sourced software platform for e-learning. Ashcon turns out to be an extension of Wordpress and Buddypress which serves a customized set of free instructional videos, pre-downloaded. This is organized to match the school's (Ricks' here) curriculum. The history of installing their software at Ricks is interesting. Try to buy a server and find that unless you wait (too long!) you have to buy local at 2x the normal price. A large fraction of the downloaded demonstrations demand java or flash--problematic. Iowa State warned them that some of the simulations might have minor flaws, but they worked. Khan Academy has lots of material they could use.

All of this educational material is easy to find and use--if you have good internet connectivity. The value-added with Ashcon is pre-downloading the material to a local server and simplifying the access. It developed thus:

"Whilst in my first semester in Ashesi, I developed a simple website with educational videos from Khan Academy and hosted it on my laptop. This was in response to the many requests I received from fellow students to copy the videos for them onto their flash drives. These were videos teaching topics related to the introductory courses we were taking that semester. Students who had seen me watching Khan Academy videos wanted to use them to revise for the upcoming mid-semester exam. Over that weekend, my classmates downloaded about a thousand videos, which motivated me to develop the site further. This gave birth to AshCon."

A little good news in the world...

Police-free school planning

Madison mulls safety plans for police-free schools, including student-led oversight panel

The proposed committee would have six youth advocates who have been disenfranchised by discriminatory discipline practices in the past, led by a member of Freedom Inc. and supported by two district-designated and funded staff members.

Under Freedom Inc.'s proposal the committee would have complete decision-making power over school safety and accountability policies within the district; oversee all district investigations of student, parent or family member complaints against school staff; and establish a process to protect students against retaliation after filing a complaint, among other measures.

"disenfranchised by discriminatory discipline practices" sounds an awful like: "Got arrested for misbehavior"(*) and "led by a member of Freedom Inc" means Freedom Inc (the plan proposers) want control.

What could go wrong?

True, the schools of my youth didn't have police presence, but then neither did they have frequent fights either. (Even Little Rock Central High didn't.) Madison's do.

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If they mean literally "disenfranchised", that means the person is in prison or on parole or extended supervision.

Athletics departments

I was talking with a PE teacher this morning about school closures (he says: closed in Dane County, not in the surrounding ones). He wondered about the sports teams: if one player tests positive (even if not sick), that player is out for 2 weeks, which can put a crimp in your lineup, and maybe take out others. He worried that departments would have a perverse incentive to not test players, or fudge the testing.

Zero-tolerance rules

The Madison teachers' union claims that teachers who were disciplined for using the n-epithet were not intending to demean students.

The Madison School District's teachers union said Friday that none of six teachers who used the N-word in front of students this school year directed the slur at students or used it in a manner meant to be derogatory.

All of the teachers were removed from their positions shortly after the incidents, and all later resigned.

Writing in the Monday edition of its weekly Solidarity! newsletter, posted online Friday, Madison Teachers Inc. says "some instances have involved staff citing this word as an example of inappropriate language," while "other instances have involved staff repeating offensive comments made by students which included the word."

I gather that simply reporting a class incident may run afoul of this rule.

Ruben Anthony, president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Madison, ... declined to say whether if what the union says is true, the six teachers should have been able to keep their jobs.

I gather that school administrators aren't selected on the basis of common sense. And I'm afraid that Ruben Anthony has safely ensconced himself on my "Political-advantage is more important than truth" list.

School discipline

Does the teacher need it, or the student, or both? There's blurry footage of the teacher and the student and a third party in a conflict in the hall, but nothing from the classroom where it started. District Attorney Ozanne isn't pressing charges: "some members of our community have coupled this information with their own experiences, drawing conclusions that are simply wrong." I only know what I read in the papers about the incident.

The mother of the girl who supposedly had braids pulled out is a special education assistant at MMSD.

"I have been in several situations where students have kicked me, spit on me, broke my ankle, and I still did not conduct myself in that kind of manner," Price said, noting that she believes Mueller-Owens lost his cool and snapped.

"Broke my ankle." I don't believe it is reasonable or right to expect teachers to endure that level of violence from students, no matter how young the students are. I suspect Price exaggerates her experiences, or minimizes her responses. But other reports tell me that many schools do have startling levels of violence, and not just in the inner cities. Teachers aren't the only targets, of course.

I'm well aware, more so than most, that some children have special needs. But when the problems reach the furniture-throwing level,(*) mainstreaming is not a good option any more. Separate classes, extremely tight discipline--maybe those will help. It should help the other students. Maybe there'd be a stigma associated with attending special schools, but there's a stigma associated with throwing furniture too.

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(*) Not this case, but others I've heard of. I don't have details and couldn't share them if I did.