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.

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My contact info, again

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In this episode:

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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:

LINKS to Jack's stuff:

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.

In this episode:

And of course:

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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

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.

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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 Seriously report.

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.

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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"

In this episode:

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WSD School Board budget presentation (10/9)

WSD 2022-2023 budget summary

In this episode:

LINKS!

Send me your questions!

WSD admin's "long-range budget planning" doc (June '24)

WSD admin's "potential reductions list" (updated 9/27/24)

DPI staffing reports (all of our district's salaries).

DPI comparative revenue per member (excel file)

DPI comparative cost per member (excel file)

District docs showing 50% rise in admin costs

No Country for Old Men "just how dangerous is he?" clip.