Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 43. Sunrise is 6:44 AM and sunset 7:15 PM for 12h 31m 25s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 33.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM. 

 On this day in 1915, Typhoid Mary, the first healthy carrier of disease ever identified in the United States, is put in quarantine for the second time, where she would remain for the rest of her life.

Parents reasonably hope that their children receive education in language, mathematics, and science. Determining how much they’ve learned often falls to standardized tests, including the ACT. These standardized tests are imperfect yet useful measures of overall performance. 

In today’s Wisconsin, where the ACT is administered to high school students (almost) universally, the test is not simply a measure of college readiness. That test is, instead, now a measure of high school students’ readiness of graduation. Some test like this, the ACT or another, is important to answer this question: what have high school students learned, and how well have they learned it?

If too much is made of college, then too little is made of high school. Whitewater High School should, regardless of a graduate’s next destination, teach language, mathematics, history, and science so that ‘every graduate [remains] an engaged, lifelong learner.’  (A fine motto the Whitewater district should not have abandoned.)

And so, and so, the community has legitimate concern over test scores. At the March 11th school board candidates’ forum, the second question was about measurement of academic performance: 

Question 2, 30:17: How do you plan to address low ACT scores, and below proficient scores in math and reading?

(Some years ago, when the ACT was not administered universally, a few gentlemen in this town thought that boosting scores among a small number of test takers would reflect well on Whitewater.  Certainly not. The success or failure of a high school program is measured among all, not among a few. Now that larger numbers of high school students are required to take the ACT, opportunities for cherry-picking have thankfully vanished. See Whitewater’s ACT Participation Rate Near the Bottom of Area Schools, The Better, Reasoned Approach on ACT Scores, and Whitewater’s ACT Scores.)

It’s not school board candidates, however, who have the key obligation to assure that students’ understanding of fundamentals is sound. It’s the superintendent, administrators, and faculty members. They are the ones who are employed full-time in our district. Each and every regular school board meeting in this district should have a report on academic progress, and what is being done to improve learning, and support those who are teaching. 

Broken boilers, quotes for new doors, etc. — those are brief discussions. (Someone gets three quotes, the board votes after a quick review, and the matter is settled. Time is irrecuperable.) 

There should be a place at meetings for awards and recognitions, but that place should not be larger or longer than a regular discussion of substantive academic progress. 

When progress toward better scores becomes the centerpiece of each and every regular meeting, leaders in the district will have an unavoidable opportunity to offer improvement plans. The more industrious and creative among them will seize that opportunity.  more >>

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will see scattered snow and rain showers with a high of 38. Sunrise is 6:46 AM and sunset 7:14 PM for 12h 28m 30s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 25% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1812, a political cartoon in the Boston-Gazette coins the term “gerrymander” to describe oddly shaped electoral districts designed to help incumbents win reelection.

These recent years have seen discussion after discussion of liberty, of freedom. Liberty has been as misused these last few years as any noun in memory. Liberty is an individual right or it’s no right at all. The liberty of a person that depends on the group, the mob, the horde, is not a right of being free from others’ control. That sort of liberty is a mere chance, a favor from the group to the individual that may be pulled away at the group’s discretion. 

The populists talk much about liberty so long as they describe it in their own exaggerated, group terms. See Defining Populism and Extreme Populism Presents as Trolling. They insist they represent all people, all families, overwhelming majorities, etc., and invert a traditional burden of proof to demand that others disprove them. 

The supposed rights of an exaggerated majority aren’t an expression of individual liberty; they’re a justification of mob rule.

There’s a view in Whitewater that our schools should let students (or their parents) settle disputes about behavior on their own. (That’s not merely the view of one candidate, but of backers of some of the other candidates.) 

Quite plainly: the extreme populists hope that if they can do whatever they want they’ll be able to intimidate others into conformity (students in the hallways, parents in meetings). All the while, these extremists will duplicitously describe themselves and their children as the real victims. 

The plain truth is that they’ve had some success with this approach already. Some of them crave more. So close they can almost taste it: what books can they ban, into what closets can they shove a harmless minority? 

Not everyone sees matters this way, even on the right. 

Consider a portion of the response of candidate Stephanie Hicks to Question 4 from March 11th school board candidates’ forum, video at 1:01:07 (“Minority and LGBT students exist in this community and deserve respect and to not feel ostracized. Can you commit to supporting all Whitewater students and making sure they have a voice? And then how would you work to make sure all students are accepted and supported?”):

Well, of course, my answer is yes. I mean, I think we forget, these are children, these are children 18 years and younger, who are sitting in our schools, who are coming to our educational institutions, wanting to learn, the desire to learn, the desire to be included, the desire to make friends. And of course, we have to, we have to be able to support all of those realms of whatever it is in. And so I always get hung up on the idea of like, we are there still children.

And I mean, no matter what your sexual preferences, your race, your religion, whatever the case is, it still remains the same. Like we have to be welcoming to all that enter our schools, we have no idea what happens outside the walls. And in some we do, what happens the other 20 hours that they’re at home, and all the things that they’re bringing in all those places, they’re bringing all that trauma they’re bringing, we have to be able to acknowledge that and support that.

And I think what I would do, again, I don’t disagree, I think we have to have policies in place that make sure every student that walks through that door is safe, and that they feel supported, and that they feel welcomed. And it is a safe haven. I mean, I’ve said this millions of times, and I’m a teacher, myself, sometimes the only safe haven a child has is school, because when they leave that school, we have no idea what they are facing, and it basing things that no child should have to face. Those are adult issues that most children are facing on a daily basis. And so we need to make sure that there is at least one place that they feel safe.

Stephanie Hicks and this libertarian blogger might have a hundred ideological differences, but there would be no disagreement between her remarks here and my own views. (Note well: education is not my field, and in contrast to her background as a teacher, I approach all this from a different professional perspective,) 

Now consider this portion of the closing remarks from candidate Chuck Mills, video at 1:29:03:

Well, I think that we need to get down to the business of building morale. In our school system, we got to pick it up. You got to make people proud of what they’re doing. You got to make people looking forward to coming to work every day in teaching and learning. We need to reward the exceptional people, students, faculty, administration. We need to celebrate this.

We need to get away from all these distractions. We have a lot of resources, a lot of good teachers and faculty administration and we need to get back to the to a model of simply educating and let’s make it fun. And let’s, let’s not worry about micromanaging every little single thing that’s happening around us or following a narrative, whether it be federal or union or whatever, it all comes down the pipeline, it sounds the same in every community. I don’t know where it came from, it wasn’t here 10 years ago, and all of a sudden, in 10 years, we have all this going on. Could we be the first ones to say, No, we don’t want to do it anymore. That’s kind of where I’m at with this thing. If we could all just get along and get back to the teaching these kids, making them feel comfortable.

These aren’t the same sort of answers. The former accepts that students are as they are; the latter erroneously speculates that students are what external forces have made them.

No and no again: the fundamental natures of these students come from within, not from without. One sees more of their natural expression because they have been, rightly, free to express themselves in their natures.  They’re not made; they’re born.

Now here’s a political truth about these two candidates. If Mills should win, he’ll receive less ongoing criticism for his views from the center-left (as they’ll write him off as out-of-touch) than Hicks will for her views from the extreme populists (as they’ll expect her to conform to their views despite her professional background).  

Upside down. more >>

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be snowy with a high of 39. Sunrise is 6:47 AM and sunset 7:13 PM for 12h 25m 35s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 17.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1995, WikiWikiWeb, the world’s first wiki, and part of the Portland Pattern Repository, is made public by Ward Cunningham.

There’s a concern in the Whitewater Unified School District of twenty thousand that only dozens of voices are heard. That concern appeared as a question at the March 11th school board candidates’ forum:

Question 1, 19:31: Are you committed to a yearly survey of families, students, graduates, community residents, faculty and staff about what they see as major strengths or shortcomings of the district and its schools. And are you committed to publicly sharing the results?

It’s true that a survey would have to be prepared professionally, with questions crafted plainly and without ambiguity. A serious survey requires serious design and distribution, and neither the school board nor Whitewater’s superintendent & administrators are skilled in the task. If there are to be annual surveys, and that’s a good idea, then they should be designed and disseminated with a professional standard of care. Whitewater can find the money for the work as she’s found (wasted, truly) money for less important work. 

Let’s assume, then, that they’ll be able to check the cushions at the district’s Central Office and scrape together what a proper survey requires. 

Question 1 of the candidates’ forum will then lead to something like Question 1A: How will the district treat the results of its properly-crafted survey? 

There is a difference between an accurate gauge of residents’ sentiments and receiving those sentiments as a mandate. If families, students, graduates, community residents, faculty, and staff demand action, must the district comply? 

The populists are one’s legitimate concern here. First, they habitually claim a majority position where it does not exist, so a poorly worded survey will allow them to exaggerate support for their positions. Second, they are intemperate by disposition, and see what they want to see. Along these lines, see Defining Populism and Extreme Populism Presents as Trolling. 

When the populists falsely insist that they are a majority, or when they demand action against viewpoints they dislike even if they are a majority, how will officials in this community respond? 

These aren’t simply educational questions. They are questions of law and political philosophy. 

Should the two center-right candidates (Stephanie Hicks and Christy Linse) in this race prevail (and they’ve a solid chance), then they will be under enormous pressure to go much further in action than any statements they, themselves, have made. The populist candidate (Chuck Mills) in this race has already made clear what he wants. 

A bit here about expression from principle: the positions that this libertarian blogger takes publicly are the positions that I hold privately. It might have seemed easier to some over the years to trim my sails to accommodate others. No, and no again. It would not have been easier. If every other of fourteen thousand in the city, or twenty thousand in the district, held contrary views, still I would hold fast if deliberation and reflection led me to opposition. It would be impossible for me to sleep well otherwise. There’s nothing special about my view on holding fast. All people who take political positions should decide for themselves how far they will go, yet no further. 

It weighs on my mind that others in this city, individuals expressing their natures (however different from mine), may see their rights under law swept away at the hands of an insatiable populism. This city is beautiful yet troubled, this district is beautiful yet troubled. The populists will make these troubles seem slight as against the actions they will demand against vulnerable individuals in the name (falsely invoked) of majoritarianism. 

Another question from the candidates’ forum makes this risk plain. That’s a subject all its own, for tomorrow. more >>

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 47. Sunrise is 6:49 AM and sunset 7:12 PM for 12h 22m 40s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 10% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1765, Great Britain passes the Quartering Act, which requires the Thirteen Colonies to house British troops.

The Whitewater school board race has attracted attention throughout the district of 20,444 residents, leading to a large number of candidates (12 on the ballot for the primary, 6 remaining on the general-election ballot for three board seats).  In an an election like ours, of high interest and intensity, where the candidates comprise roughly two ideological blocks, the out-of-office block could choose a few big issues or instead advance many issues, to see which ones gain traction.

The candidates running as challengers to the board’s existing alignment, as it turns out, have advanced fewer issues than some of their supporters. Indeed, it’s obvious that two challengers (Stephanie Hicks, Christy Linse) would do as well or better on their own than with the help of some of their professed supporters. Indeed, their own efforts served them well in the primary, and at the candidates’ forum on March 11th it was clear yet again that both are more disciplined than their most ardent backers. (Both Hicks and Linse present as candidates of the center-right, but some of their supporters are much farther right, as is the third conservative candidate, Mills.) 

Three of the questions from the candidates’ forum attracted less interest from most candidates (and notably Hicks and Linse) than presumably for those who posed the questions. The question about future referendums was one of those three, and I posted about that question yesterday. 

The other two were about dual-language learning and CRT:

Whitewater Schools’ Candidates’ Forum 3.11.23, video at 42:17 for a question about dual-language learning (“Would you support a dual language program in schools? And does our district and community have the resources to put in dual language learning?”).

Whitewater Schools’ Candidates’ Forum 3.11.23, video at 1:05:45 for a question about CRT (“What is CRT to you? How does it differ from teaching the real and sometimes harsh truth of American history? And what is your opinion of having CRT, woke, and D E I in the Whitewater United Unified School District schools (DEI standing for diversity, equity and inclusion)?”). 

Candidate Lisa Huempfner spoke in support of dual-language learning, video at 46:55, while recognizing that a program like this takes time and should be an elective. (She is the only candidate in the race with professional experience in this field. Her remarks on the subject were informed and balanced.)  

No candidate voiced outright opposition to dual-language learning as an elective, and that’s the tell: they’re not as exercised over the topic as are some members of the community, whether strongly for or strongly against. 

CRT, critical race theory, drew neither passionate embrace nor rejection, as its not been taught in our schools, isn’t a K12 topic, and isn’t about to become one in Whitewater regardless of the composition of the next board. But CRT has become something like beauty (or, to detractors, ugliness) in the eye of the beholder: the eyes see what the heart wants them to see. (The people who believe they can find CRT in ordinary texts in Whitewater are the sort of people who think the Illuminati, the British Royal family, the Trilateral Commission, the Rothschilds, and George Soros run the world. They don’t, and in any event not one of them could find Whitewater, Wisconsin on a map.)

And so, and so… these topics (like the topic on future referendums) saw less critical commentary from the candidates than from some in the community. This begs the question, however, whether what the candidates profess now will be what officeholders do months from now. That’s a topic for later in this series.  more >>

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will see morning showers with a high of 46. Sunrise is 6:51 AM and sunset 7:11 PM for 12h 19m 45s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 3.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1909, Theodore Roosevelt leaves New York for a post-presidency safari in Africa. The trip is sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and National Geographic Society.

There are 14,889 residents in Whitewater proper, and 20,444 within the boundaries of the larger Whitewater Unified School District. Two decades ago, a challenge to a school district referendum would have been the most significant political and social event in the district.

No longer.

A recent operational referendum generated less controversy than other issues the district now faces. This libertarian blogger supported that referendum, writing that 

For many years, in confident conviction as FREE WHITEWATER’s libertarian blogger, I have opposed school referendums, notably capital ones, for the Whitewater Unified School District. It is with equal confidence that I now urge my fellow residents to support the Whitewater Schools’ 2022 operational referendum.  The well-being of our students will best be served through operational stability, and, once assured, that stability will offer time for methodical adjustments in the district’s operation.

The rejection of this operational referendum — one that simply allows the district to continue needed services day-to-day — would plunge this district’s residents into destructive, internecine strife over budgets from one year to the next. Our community, managing through multiple challenges, would make no better choices, and find no better solutions, in the chaotic, uncertain political environment after a failed operational referendum. 

There is a profound difference between wanting change and fomenting disorder. We cannot burn this village to save it. Many years ago, using a different metaphor, the noted libertarian Sheldon Richman proposed that the only way to manage the ‘onion’ of government was to smash it completely. He was wrong: a reasonable man peels away parts of government deliberately and methodically only after careful reflection. Opposition to this referendum is an unreasonable smashing in the place of careful peeling.

See In Support of the Whitewater Schools’ Operational Referendum. 

It’s telling — and practical of the candidates at the March candidates’ forum for the Whitewater Schools’ board  — that not one of them made referendum questions the centerpiece of his or her remarks.

See Whitewater Schools’ Candidates’ Forum 3.11.23, video at 1:16:22 for a question about referendum spending (“As a member of the school board, will you support a future referendum to exceed revenue limits? If so, where would you direct this additional funding? And what will you do to address the rural community’s discontent with board spending habits and stop the 30 plus years of continuous referendums?’)   

Of course these candidates did not focus on yesterday’s bugbear. Although proponents of future referendums might see the success of the last referendum as a sign of progress, it’s nothing of the kind. Instead, a majority in this community understands, sensibly, that there are worse challenges before this district, and this community, than school spending. 

That’s not progress, however. It’s triage. more >>

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will see scattered showers with a high of 50. Sunrise is 6:53 AM and sunset 7:09 PM for 12h 16m 49s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 0.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1765, Parliament passes the Stamp Act that introduces a tax to be levied directly on its American colonies.

On March 11th, at the Whitewater City Hall, six candidates running for three seats on the Whitewater Unified School Board participated in a candidates’ forum. The Whitewater Area League of Women Voters sponsored the 90-minute event. Embedded immediately below is a video recording of the forum.

I’ve added the six questions that each candidate was asked, along with the timestamp at which that portion of the discussion begins. 

Consideration of this election, in this school district, with these candidates, begins with a record of their remarks as they presented them. 

Opening Statements, 7:50.

Question 1, 19:31: Are you committed to a yearly survey of families, students, graduates, community residents, faculty and staff about what they see as major strengths or shortcomings of the district and its schools. And are you committed to publicly sharing the results?

Question 2, 30:17: How do you plan to address low ACT scores, and below proficient scores in math and reading?

Question 3, 42:17: Would you support a dual language program in schools? And does our district and community have the resources to put in dual language learning?

Question 4, 54:46: Minority and LGBT students exist in this community and deserve respect and to not feel ostracized. Can you commit to supporting all Whitewater students and making sure they have a voice? And then how would you work to make sure all students are accepted and supported?

Question 5, 1:05:45: What is CRT to you? How does it differ from teaching the real and sometimes harsh truth of American history? And what is your opinion of having CRT, woke, and D E I in the Whitewater United Unified School District schools (DEI standing for diversity, equity and inclusion)?

Question 6, 1:16:22: As a member of the school board, will you support a future referendum to exceed revenue limits? If so, where would you direct this additional funding? And what will you do to address the rural community’s discontent with board spending habits and stop the 30 plus years of continuous referendums?

Closing Statements, 1:26:26. more >>