The Referenda

Latest Episodes:

21. A Citizen's Guide to Your District's Finances [STATEWIDE] Jan 27, 2025

Show notes

How are voters supposed to know whether a school district has been spending tax dollars responsibly? How are community members supposed to evaluate a district's claim that it needs a referendum?

This episode gives you some public resources to start with -- what's driving cost increases and where are they occurring? How have revenue sources changed in response? What has the district already done to limit costs?

LINKS:

1.) "Multiyear Comparative Cost Detail" spreadsheet (explanation of formulas etc is here)

2.) "Multiyear Comparative Revenue Detail" spreadsheet (explanation of formulas etc is here)

3.) WI Dept of Public Instruction's "All Staff Report" page.

20. Why Shiny Reforms Often Fail Jan 21, 2025

Show notes

In this episode, I'm basically giving an academic paper on how our default approach to improving schools gets something wrong about how we inherit values and practices from the past and how we project them into the future.

Is it nerdy? Extremely. Enjoy!

19. BONUS: What We Can and Should Expect from School Boards, with Rachel White Jan 09, 2025

Show notes

School Board elections are coming up in April, and so I invited a national expert on district leadership to talk about what boards do, how they do and should work with district administrators, and how boards respond to community members, parents, and teachers.

LINKS:

My contact info, again

18. State Report Cards and Thoughtful Accountability Nov 26, 2024

Show notes

In this episode:

What data (from which years) goes into state report cards
How "achievement," "growth," "target groups," "on-track-to-graduation," "chronic absenteeism," etc. are technically defined
How different stakeholders can/should interpret state reports
Just to keep it interesting, does WSTEM have "incubator" value? Why or why not?

LINKS:

Wauwatosa's report cards (district and individual schools)
DPI's "report card resources" page
DPI's report card "technical guide" for all my stats/measurement nerds out there
"target group outcomes" explainer
"growth model" explainer

17. So What's Next? Nov 08, 2024

Show notes

In this episode:

What the passage of the referenda means for us
What the district is doing and can do more of in building trust
What makes participation in local school gov't difficult and what we can do about it.
A surprising amount of Hannah Arendt.

LINKS:

My contact info
The district's long-range facilities plan
WSD facilities referendum project list
WSD Financial transparency plan
Manny Teodoro's The Profits of Distrust
Linda Zerilli's incredible A Democratic Theory of Judgment, which has really informed my reading of Arendt.

16. BONUS: Why Local School Accountability Matters, with Jack Schneider Nov 02, 2024

Show notes

University of Massachusetts professor Jack Schneider joins us to talk about what local school governance does for us as citizens, how to do it well, and what stands in the way.

LINKS to stuff we've written together:

"Putting the Public Back Into Public Accountability" (Kappan)
"In Praise of Ordinary Measures" (Educational Theory)
Educational Accountability 3.0: Beyond ESSA (NEPC report)

LINKS to Jack's stuff:

15. BONUS: How to Change State Policy, with Heather DuBois Bourenane and Jenni Hofschulte Oct 30, 2024

Show notes

Okay, if every local district is in the same bind, and taxpayers and schoolkids everywhere are being pitted against each other, then how do we get together and apply pressure on the state?

I'm joined by two folks who've been organizing pressure campaigns and harnessing the kind of anger we're seeing in our community for a long time: the Wisconsin Public Education Network's Heather DuBois Bourenane and Jenni Hofschulte.

Check out the network itself here.

Here is the link to register for their 11/7 post-election debrief.

And here is the link to register for their 12/14 Budget Action Planning event.

14. Back to Basics (feat. Zombie Ideas for Halloween) Oct 25, 2024

Show notes

In this episode:

What the referenda are asking for
What the money will be used for
What effects can we expect if they pass
What are the plans if they fail?
Why our community loses no matter which way the vote goes.

And of course:

What the state might do to help, and why it has to.

LINKS:

ADA standards (the law), since people keep asking.

MDRoffers "Community Change and Projections Report."

Wauwatosa teacher salaries info for 2017 and 2023 comes from here.

Referenda statewide ask for $6b

Wisconsin 23-25 education budget (general aids amount is at the bottom)

WSD "potential reductions" list

13. BONUS: School Finance and Reciprocal Accountability, with Chris Saldaña Oct 21, 2024

Show notes

UW-Madison's Chris Saldaña joins us to talk about Wisconsin's school finance regulations in comparison to other states' policies, and we think through some ideas we've considered before, around the way that local institutions--including citizen groups and taxpayer organizations--might hold states or local institutions accountable themselves.

LINKS:

Chris's recent article "examining the practices of K-12 early fiscal intervention during periods of economic crisis."

Accountability 3.0: Beyond ESSA, which we both worked on.

Taking Equal Opportunity Rhetoric Seriouslyreport.

12. BONUS: Trust, Legitimacy, and Local School Governance, with Kathleen Knight Abowitz Oct 15, 2024

Show notes

Kathleen Knight Abowitz joins us to talk about her recent research into school board members in her home state of Ohio, the squeezes that school leaders find themselves in between state pressures from above and constituent demands from below, and how easy it is to forfeit local trust and how hard it is to rebuild.

LINKS:

Kathleen's Publics for Public Schools (2014)

Malin and Lubienski, "Information Pollution in an Age of Populist Politics" (2022)

Jonathan Collins's website.

Jonathan Collins's dissertation abstract (it's paywalled)

Collins's article version of the same (also paywalled)

Collins "The Politics of Re-Opening Schools"