39. Reviewing the New State Budget with Anne Chapman
*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 metaphorA discussion of revenue-limit and state-aid changesA conversation on open-enrollment transfer amounts and declining-enrollment pressuresA 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!
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38. Taking Care of (School-Governance) Business [Statewide]
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 JudgmentScribner's The Fight for Local Control Weinstein's Adam Smith's PluralismNeem's Democracy's Schools: The Rise of Public Education in America Arendt's The Human ConditionCavell's The Claim of ReasonCavell's Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome
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37. The Proposed 2025-2027 Education Budget [Statewide]
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)
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36. The 2030 Task Force Report, w/ Dr. Chris Merker
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, andAmanda Lewis and John Diamond's Despite the Best Intentions (2nd edition)2030 Task Force links:2030 Task Force websiteMedia hubOpen Records hubHow to get involvedContact/Signup
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35. Governance and Self-Governance [TOSA]
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.
For the second time in six years, an upscale suburban school district in Wisconsin is asking residents for millions of dollars to keep the lights on. This is the story of how we got here, and what we can do about it.
USA