Last week the Governor brought together concerned Legislators to discuss the struggling Milwaukee Public Schools. Invited to the meeting were officials with experience turning around failing school districts in Boston and Chicago. The discussion centered on proposals to significantly overhaul the Milwaukee Public Schools system.
Many of our schools are struggling to provide a quality education, but the problems Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) face make our troubles pale in comparison. Milwaukee’s public schools have failed. According to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, in the last three years, MPS students have not met Adequate Yearly Progress in math and reading. And a review of statistics for the last five years clearly demonstrates this is not an uncommon result.
Just last week, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that more than 6 out of 10 MSP eighth graders scored at or below the most basic level of math proficiency in a national study comparing achievement levels of public school students in the nation’s largest cities. Only students in Detroit scored worse than Milwaukee students.
From our friends at On The Earth Productions:
Governor James Doyle to announce the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Natural Resources agreement to clean the Kinnickinnic River. Today. 2000 S. 4th St, Milwaukee.
I need to grouse this morning. I have a complaint about the Democratic party (surprise, everyone). They do not like politics as usual.
If the purpose of today's event (August 20, 2008) were to get people, voters, environmental friends to the event, they could have done the usual and boring thing: invite them.
Getting It
Now, I'm not saying I'm a heavy contributor to river politics, but I've put my personhood into some public forums recently, and I am on a committee in Bay View that has the word "Environmental" [and Transportation] in it. I am easier to find than a bus. And I am beside the point. Just whom did the Party think would show up for this event? Press and political consultants? Why not voters?
This week I turn my blog over to a visitor. There are a couple of conservatives who know how to conserve. Paul gets it right here.
Free Congress Foundation Commentary
Political Cards, Joker and Otherwise
http://www.freecongress.org/
By Paul M. Weyrich
August 7, 2008
This past week we have heard non-stop about the race card. This is one of the most long-running uses of it in the political process. I first heard the term used when President Lyndon B. Johnson tried to force a reluctant Congress to pass a Great Society-type program in 1964 by invoking the memory of his predecessor, President John F. Kennedy. "He is using the JFK card," we were told. Then there was President Richard M. Nixon's China card. And when President Ronald W. Reagan walked away from an arms deal with Mikhail Gorbachev, pundits said Reagan was playing the Star Wars card. And so on.
I began to think of what card I could play if I were running for or had been elected President. I am not into cards myself so this is a difficult assignment. If I were running against Congress I would invoke the joker card.
Why then did they print an editorial that was so shabbily researched? I am referring to the editorial column “Van Hollen should act fast on petition fraud case” (July 25).