Why I have decided to run again for the MPS school board

Filed under: MPS,Public Education — millerlf @  Edit This

I’ve been fortunate to be part of the effort in Milwaukee to improve public education and serve students and their families. MPS is seeing important gains in educating the city’s children. In a variety of areas — college readiness work, expansion of highly successful programs like Montessori, strengthening our bilingual programs, advancing rigorous curriculum in schools, advancing the BlackLivesMatter initiative, creating the foundation for ethnic studies, bringing the arts into all of our schools, improving cultural relevancy for students, and striving for academic growth in educating all students — I have been able to work with a visionary administration and a school board that puts children first.

Despite our accomplishments, the administration and school board recognize that our most difficult work lies ahead. The challenges are daunting but hope and enthusiasm are visible throughout the work.

At the same time, intentional roadblocks to serving 77,000 students keep rising to the surface. At a time when white nationalism, misogyny, and xenophobia plague our national and local politics, some of the same people supporting these undemocratic positions have MPS and the governing authority of the MPS school board in their cross-hair. Their efforts represent a diversion from supporting and educating our students; fair-minded people who care about reaching all children must oppose such attacks.

Our job is to educate every child who walks through our doors and strive to help them succeed. We will continue to do this work and we will continue to make progress.

I cannot walk away from this work at this time.

Larry Miller

I will be holding a fundraiser

on Monday November 14,

from 5PM to 7PM at:

The Art Bar

722 E. Burleigh St.

Battle at Standing Rock vs. Dakota Access Pipeline

How to Talk About #NoDAPL: A Native Perspective

Friday, 28 October 2016  By Kelly Hayes, Truthout | Op-Ed

Stacey Alkire of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, who has been at the campsite set up to protest the Dakota Access oil pipeline for five weeks, near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, on October 8, 2016. (Photo: Kristina Barker / The New York Times)

An earlier version of this piece appeared on Transformative Spaces.

The public witnessed a new level of escalation on Thursday in the Native struggle at Standing Rock, as police swept through an encampment in the direct path of the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL). The resulting standoff with the National Guard, and police officers from various states, led to 117 arrests. Advancing authorities attacked Water Protectors with flash grenades, bean bag launchers, pepper spray and Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRADs). There were also numerous reports of police beating Water Protectors, and reports of live ammunition being used.

Such developments were incredibly disturbing, both to those present and to Natives who were actively watching from a distance, but the raid itself was not unexpected. In fact, there was a great deal of suspicion that the police would close in the day before, which led me to reach out to a number of my friends on the frontlines Wednesday. Amid our conversations about their feelings and recent experiences at the camps, I asked my friends if there was anything they wanted shared in writing. What follows is grounded in the substance of those conversations. These ideas are obviously not representative of all Native perspectives on the subject, because our convictions are as diverse as that of any peoples. But it’s a perspective we thought was worthy of expression.

A Shared Reflection

It is crucial that people recognize that Standing Rock is part of an ongoing struggle against colonial violence. The Dakota Access pipeline (#NoDAPL) is a front of struggle in a long-erased war against Native peoples — a war that has been active since first contact, and waged without interruption. Our efforts to survive the conditions of this anti-Native society have gone largely unnoticed because white supremacy is the law of the land, and because we, as Native people, have been pushed beyond the limits of public consciousness.

The fact that we are more likely to be killed by law enforcement than any other group speaks to the fact that Native erasure is ubiquitous, both culturally and literally, but pushed from public view. Our struggles intersect with numerous others, but are perpetrated with different motives and intentions. Anti-Blackness, for example, is a demonstration of power, whereas the violence against us is a matter of pragmatism. The struggle at Standing Rock is an effort to prevent the construction of a deadly, destructive mechanism, created by greed-driven people with no regard for our lives.

It has always been this way. We die, and have died, for the sake of expansion and white wealth, and for the maintenance of both.

The harms committed against us have long been relegated to the history books. This erasure has occurred for the sake of both white supremacy and US mythology, such as American exceptionalism. It has also been perpetuated to sustain the comfort of those who benefit from harms committed against us. Our struggles have been kept both out of sight and out of mind — easily forgotten by those who aren’t directly impacted.

It should be clear to everyone that we are not simply here in those rare moments when others bear witness.

To reiterate what should be obvious: We are not simply here when you see us.

We have always been here, fighting for our lives, surviving colonization, and that reality has rarely been acknowledged. Even people who believe in freedom frequently overlook our issues, as well as the intersections of their issues with our own.

It matters that more of the world is bearing witness in this historic moment. However, we feel the need to point out that the dialogue around #NoDAPL has become increasingly centered on climate change. Yes, there is an undeniable connectivity between this front of struggle and the larger fight to combat planetary warming. We fully recognize that all of humanity is at risk of extinction, whether they realize it or not. But intersectionality does not mean focusing exclusively on the intersections of our respective work. It sometimes means taking a journey well outside the bounds of those intersections.

In discussing #NoDAPL, too few people have started from a place of naming that we, as Indigenous people, have a right to defend our water and our lives, simply because we have a natural right to defend ourselves and our communities. When “climate justice,” in a very broad sense, becomes the center of conversation, our fronts of struggle are often reduced to a staging ground for the messaging of NGOs.

Yes, everyone should be talking about climate change, but you should also be talking about the fact that Native communities deserve to survive, because our lives are worth defending in their own right — not simply because “this affects us all.”

So when you talk about Standing Rock, please begin by acknowledging that this pipeline was redirected from an area where it was most likely to impact the residents of Bismarck, North Dakota. When Bismarck’s population — which is over 90 percent white — objected to the risks the pipeline posed to their drinking water, their concerns were accommodated, and the pipeline route was shifted into treaty lands. Please inform people of these facts, and remind them that our people are still struggling to survive the violence of colonization on many fronts. People should not simply engage with stories related to our struggles when they see a concrete connection to their own issues — or a jumping off point to discuss their own issues. Our friends, allies and accomplices should be fighting alongside us because they value our humanity and right to live, in addition to whatever else they believe in.

Every Native at Standing Rock — every Native on this continent — has survived the genocide of 100 million of our people. That means that every Indigenous child born is a victory against colonialism, but we are all also born into a fight for our very existence. We need that to be named and centered.

This message is not a condemnation. It’s a fundamentally reasonable ask.

We are asking that you help ensure that dialogue around this issue begins with and centers a discussion of anti-Native violence and policies, no matter what other connections you might ultimately make, because those discussions simply don’t happen in this country. There obviously aren’t enough people talking about climate change, but there are even fewer people — and let’s be real, far fewer people — discussing the various forms of violence that Indigenous people are up against, and even fewer acting in solidarity with us. And while such discussions have always been deserved, we are living in a moment when Native Water Protectors and Water Warriors have more than earned both acknowledgement and solidarity.

If you have been with us in this fight, we appreciate you. But we are reaching out, right now, in these brave days for our people, to ask that you keep the aforementioned truths front and center as you discuss #NoDAPL. This moment is, first and foremost, about Native liberation, Native self-determination and Native survival.

Kelly Hayes

Kelly Hayes is a direct action trainer and a cofounder of The Chicago Light Brigade and the direct action collective Lifted Voices. She is community relations associate and a contributing writer at Truthout and her photography is featured in the “Freedom and Resistance” exhibit of the DuSable Museum of African American History. Kelly’s contribution to the anthology Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? stems from her work as an organizer against state violence and her ongoing analysis of movements in the United States, as featured in Truthout and the blog Transformative Spaces.

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Why I have decided to run again for the MPS school board

I’ve been fortunate to be part of the effort in Milwaukee to improve public education and serve students and their families. MPS is seeing important gains in educating the city’s children. In a variety of areas — college readiness work, expansion of highly successful programs like Montessori, strengthening our bilingual programs, advancing rigorous curriculum in schools, advancing the BlackLivesMatter initiative, creating the foundation for ethnic studies, bringing the arts into all of our schools, improving cultural relevancy for students, and striving for academic growth in educating all students — I have been able to work with a visionary administration and a school board that puts children first.

Despite our accomplishments, the administration and school board recognize that our most difficult work lies ahead. The challenges are daunting but hope and enthusiasm are visible throughout the work.

At the same time, intentional roadblocks to serving 77,000 students keep rising to the surface. At a time when white nationalism, misogyny, and xenophobia plague our national and local politics, some of the same people supporting these undemocratic positions have MPS and the governing authority of the MPS school board in their cross-hair. Their efforts represent a diversion from supporting and educating our students; fair-minded people who care about reaching all children must oppose such attacks.

Our job is to educate every child who walks through our doors and strive to help them succeed. We will continue to do this work and we will continue to make progress.

I cannot walk away from this work at this time.

Larry Miller

I will be holding a fundraiser

on Monday November 14,

from 5PM to 7PM at:

The Art Bar

722 E. Burleigh St.

 

Urban Milwaukee: Why State’s MPS Takeover Plan Died

Murphy’s Law

In changing state ratings to protect choice schools, Republicans ended up killing OSPP.

By Bruce Murphy – Oct 27th, 2016 Urban Milwaukee

Darling insisted the law was intended to create a “partnership” with MPS, but Driver clearly saw it as undermining her authority, and questioned why it did not also address chronically underperforming choice and charter schools (which are championed by Darling and Kooyenga). The OSPP soon came to called the state “takeover law.

Darling’s response highlighted the schizophrenic nature of an approach that wants to make nice with Driver even as it undermines her leadership, of a “partnership” plan that is really a takeover. Kooyenga’s response highlights the contradiction of a state plan that targets poor performing public schools with mostly low-income students while ignoring choice schools in the same category.

 

Dale Kooyenga and Alberta Darling.

It was back in January 2015 that Rep. Dale Kooyenga (R-Brookfield) and state Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) announced their plan to dictate change in Milwaukee Public Schools through a plan they soft-pedaled with the name Opportunity Schools and Partnership Plan (OSPP) and which was soon enacted into law.

Under the law, selected MPS schools with failing grades on the state report card would become independent charter schools that do not employ unionized teachers or answer to the Milwaukee School Board. A new commissioner independent of the board or Milwaukee School Superintendent Darienne Driver would choose and oversee these schools.

Darling insisted the law was intended to create a “partnership” with MPS, but Driver clearly saw it as undermining her authority, and questioned why it did not also address chronically underperforming choice and charter schools (which are championed by Darling and Kooyenga). The OSPP soon came to called the state “takeover law. The harder edge of the plan was suggested at times by the comments of Kooyenga, who has labeled MPS schools eligible for a takeover “the worst of the worst schools,” while castigating MPS leaders for doing a “good job of bringing absolute chaos, dysfunction and toxic environment for trying new ideas in Milwaukee.”

So there is more than a little irony in the fact that the takeover program was killed as a result of changes in state standards intended to help choice schools.

The changes were announced the same month, January 2015, that the OSPP plan was released. Gov. Scott Walker, in releasing his massive proposed budget for 2015-2017, including language that would alter the state school report card system. “These measures include changes” to start “weighting school performance to account for student poverty rates, student disabilities and the length of time a school has had to influence a student’s academic progress.”

The state school report cards were begun under the Walker administration during the 2011-2012 school year and were intended to give parents a simple measure of how good a school was. Initially the grades were given to school systems, but by the 2013-2014 year the grades were given to every individual school.

Officials with the state Department of Public Instruction felt the report card had a built-in bias. “We’ve been pretty open about the report card and the correlation with poverty,” DPI spokesperson Tom McCarthy says. The schools getting lower grades, he says, “correlated almost perfectly with the percent of students in poverty.”

Nationally, the data on schools shows the same correlation between lower achievement test scores and high poverty rates. But DPI’s concerns were not addressed.

That is, until the growing push to also measure achievement in choice and charter schools benefitting from public funding resulted in a decision to extend the state report cards to these schools. This was alarming indeed to representatives of choice, charter and virtual schools.

School Choice Wisconsin had great concerns about the report card. Jim Bender, president of the group, serves schools with a high percentage of low-income students, who would more than likely rank lower than average schools in the state.

“The report card was flawed,” Bender says. “In working with legislators to improve it, we certainly took the lead. When all the data pointed to a report card that was not accurately showing the performance of high poverty schools, we worked to improve the report card.”

One reason his group was able to take the lead is because of its clout in the capitol. Bender has hired lobbyists John Gard, a former Assembly Speaker and Jeff Fitzgerald, another ex-Speaker and also the brother of Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald. Bender himself was formerly a senior aide to Jeff Fitzgerald. To that list can be added yet another former Republican Speaker, Scott Jensen, who works for two Washington D.C.-based groups that work to support School Choice, the American Federation for Children and the Alliance for School Choice.

Bender concedes that “If there was no choice program, we would likely have the old system” of report cards in Wisconsin. Bender, however, puts the ultimate blame on “the heavy hand of DPI…Education policy has always been turned over to DPI from the public schools. They are not going to mess with DPI for fear of retribution.”

But public schools had no reason to oppose the changes in the report card, because the result would make it easier on any school serving a significant population of poor students, while making the overall system less tough.

Indeed, the result of a new system that took into account the impact of poverty was that Milwaukee Public Schools, as a system, no longer had a failing grade. It was bumped up from “failed to meet expectations” to “meets few expectations.” Individual schools in the system are also likely to get higher rankings, though this fall’s grades for all schools have yet to be finalized.

As a result, MPS no longer qualifies as a failing school system under the criteria created by the OSSP law.

The reaction of Darling was hilarious. She released a statement saying “I want to congratulate Superintendent Driver for her leadership in moving MPS out of the ‘failing school district” category. This is great news for all of Milwaukee.”

This was just a few months after Darling had decried MPS as a system where students are “trapped in failing schools…This isn’t a new problem. Many Milwaukee public schools have been failing generations of students.” Apparently no one explained to Darling that the new ranking was really just a cosmetic change.

Kooyenga, by contrast, complained that “Although MPS has demonstrated progress, this new report card model is attributable to a new methodology of grading schools and districts. Under the previous model, MPS would still be considered a failing district.”

Darling’s response highlighted the schizophrenic nature of an approach that wants to make nice with Driver even as it undermines her leadership, of a “partnership” plan that is really a takeover. Kooyenga’s response highlights the contradiction of a state plan that targets poor performing public schools with mostly low-income students while ignoring choice schools in the same category.

Kooyenga has promised we haven’t heard the last of this issue. “Rest assured, there will be more reforms,” he declared. Meanwhile, the more accurate acronym for OSPP might be RIP.

Call for MPS Takeover: Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC) 2015-2017 Agenda States “Fundamentally reform MPS governance and empower the MPS Superintendent to make reforms within the district.”

The MMAC is calling for another attempt at governance takeover of the MPS school board. Their 2015-2017 legislative agenda (see right hand column on their web page at the following link) calls for “Fundamentally reform MPS governance and empower the MPS Superintendent to make reforms within the district.”

http://www.mmac.org/k-12-education.html

Wisconsin’s Special Needs Voucher Program Only Fills Half the Available Seats; Many Go to Existing Voucher Students

Note the reporting on St. Marcus (highlighted in report).

Date: October 24, 2016 Stop Special Needs Vouchers <stopspecialneedsvouchers@gmail.com>

Greetings from Stop Special Needs Vouchers!  Please feel free to forward widely, and be sure to VOTE!

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction has released the 2016 enrollment figures for the “Special Needs Scholarship Program,” which was passed in the most recent Wisconsin state budget without a public-hearing opportunity for families or community members to express our concerns. Families who accept the special needs vouchers must give up their rights and protections under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), including the right to a free appropriate public education, the right to have disability considered when it comes to suspension and expulsion, and the right to recourse in case of a dispute.  Public schools, meanwhile, must follow the full IDEA and educate all students regardless of disability.

The DPI press release is online at http://dpi.wi.gov/news/releases/2016/first-year-figures-special-needs-scholarship-program-announced

Even after changing the law to allow current private-school students at participating schools to receive the special needs vouchers, the program was only able to fill 206 of the 408 available seats at 26 participating schools.

To qualify for a special needs voucher, a student must have been denied open-enrollment between public school districts. Families with Stop Special Needs Vouchers warned that this would lead to a rush of open-enrollment applications merely to qualify for the voucher. It appears that this has come to pass.  The after-the-fact “fix” to the law allowed current private school students to pursue open-enrollment denials in 2016 even if they had never sought open enrollment before, and participating schools instructed current families to do just that.

As reported in the Journal Sentinel 10/23 (Special Needs Vouchers Cost Districts $2.4 Million in Aid), “St. Marcus Lutheran School, where almost all children attend with a Milwaukee Parental Choice Program voucher worth about $7,300 annually, shifted almost 70 students onto special-needs vouchers.
    St. Marcus leaders directed their parents of children with disabilities to apply for open enrollment at suburban districts that they knew had no seats available and that they knew their parents had no desire to attend. Once the districts denied the applications, the St. Marcus children were eligible for the higher-paying vouchers.”
http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/education/2016/10/23/special-needs-vouchers-cost-districts-24-million-aid/92515608/

Among the 26 participating special needs voucher schools, programming and staff qualification varies widely. Several of the schools have no certified special education staff, and only one specifies that it is wheelchair accessible. Participating schools are not required to provide their suspension/expulsion policies in their profiles.

The profiles of the special needs voucher schools are online at http://dpi.wi.gov/sites/default/files/imce/sms/SNSP/SNSP%202016-17%20School%20List.pdf

Voucher-school families can find instructions for submitting disability-related complaints to DPI at https://dpi.wi.gov/sites/default/files/imce/sms/Complaint%20Process%2010-14-14.pdf.  However, the instructions caution that DPI may not have the authority to address the complaint.

Meanwhile, voucher lobbyists are preparing for more special needs voucher legislation in 2017.  Again from the Journal Sentinel: “Jim Bender, the president of the pro-voucher group School Choice Wisconsin, said the enrollment process and subsequent funding for special-needs vouchers will be part of the upcoming legislative session.”

It remains to be seen how many special needs voucher students will be returning to the public schools now that the fall semester count is complete. Stop Special Needs Vouchers will continue to advocate for providing the resources that our kids need to succeed in the public schools, where the doors are open to all, and students with disabilities have their full IDEA rights and recourse.

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Your Vote Matters for Students with Disabilities!

Early voting is underway across Wisconsin, through 5pm or close-of-business on Friday November 4 — Election Day is Tuesday November 8!  Every municipality sets its own early voting schedule; check with your local voting official to learn hours and locations in your area.

A reporter for the Washington Post recently asked presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to respond to questions on education:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/10/13/the-washington-post-asked-clinton-trump-for-their-education-vision-heres-what-they-said/

Mr. Trump did not respond in detail, but provided a short statement beginning:”As your president, I will be the nation’s biggest cheerleader for school choice.”  Further information can be found in the national Republican Party platform, which echoes the Choice Act proposal for allowing IDEA funding to flow to private schools that are not required to follow the IDEA: “We propose that the bulk of federal money through Title I for low-income children and through IDEA for children with special needs should follow the child to whatever school the family thinks will work best for them.”

Secretary Clinton did respond in detail, including the following statement: “Private schools can decline to accept students with disabilities, refuse to abide by the Individualized Education Plans of students they do accept, and segregate students with disabilities away from other kids. That’s why I believe we should keep public resources in our public schools.”

Where do your local candidates stand on public education for students with disabilities?  Be sure to find out, and take their positions into account when you vote!

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For complete current coverage of stories as they appear, “like” our Facebook page at
https://www.facebook.com/StopSpecialNeedsVouchers

For an introduction to Stop Special Needs Vouchers, visit our website at:
http://www.stopspecialneedsvouchers.org/about/

To subscribe to these mailings, or to unsubscribe, send e-mail to
stopspecialneedsvouchers@gmail.com

 

Voucher Enrollment Up. Now 28,000 Vouchers in Milwaukee.

School voucher programs grow in 2015-’16

Annysa Johnson , Milwaukee Journal SentinelOctober 24, 2016

Wisconsin is expected to spend almost $245 million on private school vouchers for the 2016-’17 school year, up almost $15 million from a year ago, driven by double-digit enrollment increases in the Racine and statewide programs.

Overall, 33,781 students received vouchers to attend one of the 209 participating private schools in the Milwaukee, Racine and statewide Parental Choice programs, up about 5% over last year.

Milwaukee remains the state’s largest and costliest program with 28,188 students, up almost 2% over last year. But enrollments surged in the other two programs, rising 19% to 2,532 students in Racine and 21.4% to 3,061 elsewhere across the state.

“We’re seeing more and more demand for parental choice programs” outside of Milwaukee, said Jim Bender, president of the advocacy group School Choice Wisconsin. “The more parents learn about the program, the more they want it,” he said.

The Racine program held steady with 19 participating schools. But the statewide program, which started in 2013 with 511 students in 25 private schools, now has the same number of voucher schools as Milwaukee’s decades-old program: 121. Both seats and schools are likely to rise in the coming years as state-mandated enrollment caps rise and eventually roll off, further fueling an ongoing battle over school funding in the state.

While state funding for public schools rose about $122 million this year, revenue caps — the limits on how much a school district can raise in state and local taxes — did not increase, meaning most of the funding increase will go to property tax relief. Many districts saw a reduction in state aid because of changes in the way the state pays for the expanding voucher programs.

Payments to the Racine and statewide programs are deducted from the public school districts where those students live — $7,323 per full-time student in kindergarten through eighth grade, and $7,969 for each high schooler. And Milwaukee Public Schools will see a $52.1 million deduction to pay for its share (25.6%) of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program.

Mary Young of the public schools advocacy group SOS Wauwatosa called the increase in voucher funding “heartbreaking.”

“After 25 years of study there’s no proof that voucher schools outperform public schools. In many cases, they do worse,” she said. “Our state should support great schools that serve all of our kids.”

A 1% limit on the number of students private schools in the statewide program can take from the public schools mitigated the impact of the program on those districts. But that cap increases by 1% in each of the next nine years before rolling off entirely. Thirty districts across the state hit that 1% threshold this year, including the West Allis-West Milwaukee and Burlington Area schools.

Andrew Chromy, finance director for the West Allis-West Milwaukee schools, said it would cost his district almost $662,000.

“This cost is not something that we can continue to sustain,” he said.

Todd Gray, superintendent of the Waukesha Public Schools District, said it lost about 40 students this year, about 30 fewer than last year. It remains below the 1% threshold.

“I think parents recognize that we provide a much broader and higher quality set of educational opportunities for all students as opposed to what the private voucher schools can offer,” he said.

While enrollment in the Milwaukee program saw a slight uptick in enrollment, there were significant swings for some schools. Holy Redeemer Christian Academy lost 200 students, and Blessed Savior Catholic School lost 92, for example, according to the state. Milwaukee Lutheran High School grew by nearly 100 students because of growth at its feeder schools.

“We’ve intentionally opened up some seats because we want to serve those students,” Principal Adam Kirsch said

Bender, of School Choice Wisconsin, attributed the small growth in the Milwaukee program to a 2014 law that makes it harder for new school startups to win state approval, and the difficulty some schools have had acquiring vacant buildings from Milwaukee Public Schools to expand.

“It’s not because demand is down, but because fewer seats are available,” said Bender, who noted that several schools have waiting lists.

“We have not heard from any schools in Milwaukee that demand is down.”

BlackLivesMatter in Seattle!

Thousands of Seattle teachers wore Black Lives Matter shirts to school. Here’s what it looked like.

By I AM AN EDUCATOR on October 20, 2016

The #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool event in Seattle  was breathtaking.

Never before in the country has an entire district of educators risen up to declare that Black lives matter. It’s hard to even put into words the power of this event. It has been reported that 2,000 teachers wore Black Lives Matter shirts to school across the district–in fact, the number was much larger than that.  That is the number of shirts that were ordered from the Social Equality Educators, however, many schools made their own shirts. Families made buttons and distributed them to schools.  Some parents set up informational booths in front of their school with resources for teaching about racism. There was a joyous atmosphere around the city.  Many educators around the city took the day to teach students developmentally appropriate lessons about institutional racism and hold dialogues about Black lives matter.

There is so much work left to be done to make Black Lives truly matter at school. But at the rally for Black lives at lunchtime at my high school, Garfield, something happened that let everyone know that change is already happening.

One of our teachers, Janett Du Bois, revealed to everyone in the middle of our rally that the police had murdered her son a few years ago. No one at our school knew about this. It was in that moment of seeing everyone wearing  Black Lives Matter shirts that she found the strength to tell her story. Her bravery to go public with this has changed Garfield forever.  I am so glad that she no longer has to suffer alone with the pain. Here is a short news story that doesn’t do her full speech justice, but will give you a glimpse: http://www.king5.com/news/local/seattle/2000-seattle-teachers-to-wear-black-lives-matter-shirts/338419052

ABC provided national news coverage of our day and the amazing evening rally: http://abcnews.go.com/US/video/seattle-teachers-bring-black-lives-matter-school-42942387

Here is a link to some of the best photos taken of the day from a Seattle Public Schools parent, photographer, and author Sharon Chang: https://sharonhchang.com/blacklivesmatteratschool/

Below are just some of the photos of schools from around Seattle who participated in #BlackLivesMatterAtSchool:

Misogyny in the Election: Op-Ed by Ellen Bravo

There’s always That Guy

Ellen Bravo October 19, 2016 MJS

The voters, men and women alike, need to say decisively, “Not in this nation. We will not stand for this.”

 

Activists rally during a protest against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for his treatment of women in front of Trump Tower on Monday in New York City.(Photo: Getty Images)

Athletes and sportswriters have been quick to pounce on Donald Trump’s “locker room talk” defense as inaccurate and insulting. Is there crude talk in locker rooms, boasting about sexual exploits? Yes, they say. Boasting about sexual assault? Never.

And yet, as a friend of my husband’s pointed out, there’s always That Guy. That Guy is the one who crosses the line. He goes beyond sexual banter or dirty jokes or anything resembling flirtation. Even in an all-male setting, his words cause people to flinch. Too often, he surrounds himself with guys who will laugh. Others shrug or walk away.

Most times, no one tells him to stop. And no one in authority says, “We won’t stand for this.”

That Guy (and sometimes they come in pairs or even packs) shows up in locker rooms, but also in board rooms, operating rooms, break rooms, classrooms, green rooms. His goal is not seduction but humiliation. He’s not just lewd, he’s a harasser. Typically, he engages in molestation, acts that are not just inappropriate but illegal and criminal. His taunts frequently roam beyond gender to race, sexual identity, physical ability, national origin.

If you ask people to identify That Guy in their workplace, virtually everyone will write down the same name.

The women he goes after tell him “no” in dozens of ways. Yet, most of the time, no one in authority says, “Not in this school / this locker room / this workplace / this town. We won’t stand for this.”

On the Access Hollywood tape, Trump claimed he could get away with the groping and unwanted advances because he was “a star.” Often That Guy is, indeed, someone prominent, a rainmaker for the company or a person with enough power for others to fear repercussions if they stand up to him.

I’ve called That Guy the “UGLI,” the Untouchable, Godlike Individual. If women complain about him to someone in Human Resources, they usually hear something like this: “Oh, That Guy. Sorry to hear that you’re having a problem with him. We’ll be glad to move you to another location.”

When women stand up to That Guy, he accuses them of making it up or claims whatever happened was consensual. That Guy has a lot of money to spend on lawyers and publicists and other staff to hound anyone who dares accuse him. He’s ruthless, aiming not just to make the accusation go away but to demonize the accuser and destroy her reputation.

Not surprisingly, That Guy often gets away with his crimes.

Now That Guy is running for president of the United States.

And the voters, men and women alike, are the ones with authority. We’re the ones who need to say decisively, “Not in this nation. We will not stand for this.”

Ellen Bravo is a long-time activist on working women’s issues. She’s written a non-fiction book on sexual harassment and a novel, “Again and Again,” involving date rape and politics.

 

Far-Right MacIver Institute Attacks Any Progress made by Milwaukee Public Schools

Lisowski: Call it whatever you like, MPS is still failing its students

OLA LISOWSKI October 17, 2016 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The facts overwhelmingly show us that high school graduates in Wisconsin, and especially in MPS, aren’t ready to take on the real world.

In a letter to Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele and Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent Darienne Driver, State Superintendent Tony Evers has provided an update on the beleaguered Opportunity Schools Partnership Program. DPI’s official report cards come out in November, but Evers’ letter provides a teaser in writing that “based on the preliminary data … there are no districts eligible for the OSPP in 2016-’17.”

In other words, expect MPS to lose its “failing to meet expectations” label in the coming report cards, which more heavily weigh progress than outcomes.

Evers writes that in order to participate in OSPP, schools must be placed in the lowest performance category — failing to meet expectations — for two consecutive report cards, or the school building must be vacant or underutilized. Participating schools also must be located in a district categorized as failing to meet expectations.

I’m happy that the state is more diligently measuring progress. When students do better year over year, it’s cause for celebration. But before we all declare MPS a success and the problem solved, let’s wait for the report cards to to be published in November. Consider the latest data available, which paints a different picture, showing that many MPS schools are still serving their students at dismal levels.

According to the University of Wisconsin Remedial Course Report, 175 schools sent more than six graduates to the UW System who needed remedial education in the fall of 2015. Of those schools, 160 graduated classes in which more than 10% of students required remedial math education. In 76 schools, more than 25% of students required math remediation. In 12 schools, 50% or more of the graduating class that went to the UW System needed remedial education.

Bradley Tech, for example, sent 12 students to the UW System in fall 2015. Eight students required math remediation before starting regular courses. This is a school that attracts millions of dollars in philanthropy and is held up by MPS as “the premier technology and trade high school in Milwaukee.” And yet its graduates must take zero-level math courses to catch up with their peers.

Think about what that means for those students who have been told for years that they’re lucky to attend elite institutions within MPS. For the 58% of MPS students who graduate high school in four years, large numbers go on to the UW System where they must take remedial coursework for zero credits and full tuition. For the more than 30,000 students trapped in schools for no other reason than their ZIP code, it’s tragic. The status quo still reigns at MPS, and children are left in schools that fail them — official state label or not.

By declaring MPS to no longer be failing, it appears that DPI simply has moved the goal posts rather than addressing the real issues within the largest school district in the state. The facts overwhelmingly show us that high school graduates in Wisconsin, and especially in MPS, aren’t ready to take on the real world. Never mind what the bureaucrats tell you — that’s the definition of failing to meet expectations.

Ola Lisowski is a research associate at the MacIver Institute, a Madison-based right-wing free market think tank.