The Referenda

Latest Episodes:

41. What Should We Do with Our Secondary Schools? [TOSA] Sep 27, 2025

Show notes

The district has drawn up some options, a community committee has been poring over pros and cons for months, and we're going to get a survey to take in late October. So what should we be thinking about? What are our choices?

LINKS:

1.) Ad-Hoc Committee page, with a list of proposed models to consider.

2.) In-depth description of each model

3.) What "modernization" means in these models

DEPT PRESENTATIONS:

1.) Human Capital exec summary and full presentation

2.) Finance exec summary and full presentation

3.) Facilities exec summary and full presentation

4.) Academic Performance exec sum and full presentation

5.) Pupil & Family Supports exec sum and full presentation

40. Practice Makes Perfect Sep 21, 2025

Show notes

LINKS:

Onward Tosa piece on our reassessments

WSD 2024 referenda tax impact calculator

Wauwatosa's post-reassessment 2025 tax estimator

WSD Strategic Plan (feat school-engagement indicators)

SP podcast interview on board-supt relationships

39. Reviewing the New State Budget with Anne Chapman Aug 15, 2025

Show notes

*Corrected an editing mistake in an earlier version*

In which I’m joined by Anne Chapman, the leading expert in Wisconsin school finance, the research director of the Wisconsin Association of School Business Officials, to talk about the impacts of state budget changes on school funding decisions and community conversations. In this episode, we’ve got:

A recap of Wisconsin school finance basics, featuring an extended shandy metaphor

A discussion of revenue-limit and state-aid changes

A conversation on open-enrollment transfer amounts and declining-enrollment pressures

A summary of special-ed and high-cost special ed funding changes.

This is a cross-posting of a conversation I featured on the School Perceptions podcast. If you’re a school leader or a district administrator or a board member, that show is aimed at you and you should check it out!

38. Taking Care of (School-Governance) Business [Statewide] Jul 11, 2025

Show notes

I originally intended to fit something like this into the previous episode, but it clearly is too big. But here I'm talking about why local control of schools matters for us as citizens, what the state ought to be doing to invest in the cultivation of civic virtue, what districts can be doing to facilitate good conversations about schools, and ultimately, our own obligations as citizens to participate in the good governance of our public schools.

LINKS:

Wauwatosa's financial transparency page.

Zerilli's Democratic Theory of Judgment

Scribner's The Fight for Local Control

Weinstein's Adam Smith's Pluralism

Neem's Democracy's Schools: The Rise of Public Education in America

Arendt's The Human Condition

Cavell's The Claim of Reason

Cavell's Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome

37. The Proposed 2025-2027 Education Budget [Statewide] Jul 01, 2025

Show notes

So, I got mad, and I had to use the bleep button a few times.

Here, moving backward through time, is media coverage of the budget as it has developed:

Today's update. (July 1)

JFC's June 13th plan.

Budget negotiations reach an impasse (June 4)

JFC starts over from scratch (May 9)

Evers's budget proposal (Feb 26)

36. The 2030 Task Force Report, w/ Dr. Chris Merker Jun 24, 2025

Show notes

Links!

First, just put down your name and email here if you're interested in participating in the book group at all. I'll follow up with details. Here are the two books:

Manny Teodoro's Profits of Distrust: Citizen-Consumers, Drinking Water, and the Crisis of Confidence in American Government, and

Amanda Lewis and John Diamond's Despite the Best Intentions (2nd edition)

2030 Task Force links:

2030 Task Force website

35. Governance and Self-Governance [TOSA] Jun 09, 2025

Show notes

I kept trying to get my thoughts down to 3 minutes in order to deliver them at public comment on June 9th 2025, but I, um, overshot it a little.

34. Facilities, Enrollment, Stability [TOSA] Apr 22, 2025

Show notes

LINKS!

Secondary School Ad Hoc Committee (including application)

Secondary School Configuration summary

33. April School Referenda Recap! Apr 11, 2025

Show notes

A couple of colleagues from School Perceptions join me to talk about what we saw with the 89 school referendum questions on the ballot April 1st!

Here's the blog post breaking down referendum results, including graphs and everything.

Here's the info on Tosa's Secondary Ad Hoc Committee.

And here's a link to the School Perceptions podcast, for any school leaders out there!

32. Board Accountability, School Quality Measures, and Perverse Incentives, with Vladimir Kogan Mar 26, 2025

Show notes

In this episode:

Meet Vlad Kogan
Learn about quality measures that isolate school effects from out-of-school effects.
Understand some of the factors that impede school board accountability.
Hear a bit about Vlad's forthcoming book

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