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Education, Open Government, Press Release, School District

Whitewater Schools: Paltry “Community Input”

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Update, 2.10.20 – Since this post, the location has now been changed to Whitewater High School’s more spacious and inviting library.

There’s a story in a local newspaper about a public forum for community input on the search for a permanent Whitewater school district administrator. Here’s the beginning of the newspaper’s account of the district’s efforts:

The Whitewater School Board and a consulting firm will host an open forum Feb. 18 to hear what the community wants in its next district administrator.

The forum will start at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 18, at the school district’s central office, 419 S. Elizabeth St.

Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates is helping the school board with its search, according to a news release.

A few remarks:

That’s It? One session, in a small and cramped building with limited and poor seating, cannot possibly be what this school board considers a suitable forum for public input, can it?

The district’s central office can accommodate so few people that, at a series of student awards held there last year, groups had rotate in and out so that all students could appear before the board. The building is too small to accommodate large numbers.

It’s possible – if not probable – that this location is an admission that, despite being a district serving tens of thousands of residents, this board has lost the interest of even modest numbers of ordinary residents.

Where Are Employees, Building Leaders, and Elected Officials Having Their Meeting? There’s sure to be a separate employees’ forum, and there is simply no chance that meeting will be in a small, cramped space with cheap & uncomfortable chairs.

If the district expects more attendees among employees than from a community of tens of thousands, then one sees starkly the failure of community outreach.

The answer to that failure is not acceptance (of what should be unacceptable). The answer is to hold a community meeting in a better location with far more outreach than a news release here or there.

A Website Survey.  One reads that there will also be a website survey. No matter how much one appreciates the web (as I do, truly), it’s an imperfect means of outreach in a community with significant numbers of impoverished or alienated  people.

The Proper Priority at a Community Meeting. In the comments section to a post yesterday (see Ready-Made is Poorly Made), I offered a sound plan for community meetings (including – unlike these sessions, meetings where residents and officials are together). I’ll reproduce those remarks below:

Here’s a sound approach for any meeting (including other meetings where leaders should be present): those who have never been to a meeting – who are unaffiliated and unconnected – get pride of place. They get to sit where they want, and have refreshments first. Ordinary residents come before employees. Employees lower in the organizational hierarchy take precedence over those placed higher in the school system. Elected officials go last, and spend time ushering, or assisting other attendees.

No one – but no one – from the school board or paid leadership should ever take a better seat than ordinary residents. Those at the top go last (if it’s the sort of meeting where leaders should be present). In meetings with leaders, no leader should be on his or her phone, whispering distractingly, walking around disinterestedly, or sitting off to the side away from the meeting.

If this is too hard for paid or elected leaders, they should consider other areas of employment or public service.

Assault Awareness & Prevention, City, Ethics, Misconduct, Sexual Harassment, University, UW System

At UW-Whitewater, Beverly Kopper’s Tenure Was about More than Beverly Kopper

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Former UW-Whitewater chancellor Beverly Kopper was on leave – apparently for part of that time under federal or state medical leave act provisions – before her resignation from UW-Whitewater.

I’ll not speculate about the circumstances under which she claimed leave under the law.

There’s another matter that requires attention.

There’s talk at UW-Whitewater these days about speaking one’s truth. In that spirit, a bit of truth – not mine alone, but an objective truth: Kopper’s time as chancellor involved more than Kopper, herself – it involved an entire campus, and particularly and notably those who were injured in repeated instances of sexual harassment or assault.

See a collection posts on Kopper’s time at UW-Whitewater. 

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 2.5.20

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of thirty.  Sunrise is 7:04 AM and sunset 5:13 PM, for 10h 09m 20s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 82% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1849, the University of Wisconsin opens with 20 students led by Professor John W. Sterling.

Recommended for reading in full —

Samantha Michaels writes Trump Just Bragged About Criminal Justice Reform. Look Closer at How His Administration Is Undoing It:

Yes, it’s true that Trump—the same man who recommended heavier enforcement of stop and frisk policing, and whose administration brought back the federal death penalty and fueled the expansion of private prisons—signed a much-heralded bill in 2018 to reform the federal criminal justice system, with broad bipartisan support. The First Step Act made changes that have reduced the federal prison population, and it was the first criminal justice reform bill to pass Congress in a generation. So far, the law has shortened the prison stays of about 2,500 people who were serving disproportionately long sentences for crack cocaine offenses, most of them African American. It has also let more than 3,000 people go home early because of their good behavior during incarceration. And it could lead to improvements in prison conditions.

But as Trump claims credit for freeing people from prison, there’s one very big problem that he’s not mentioning: His Justice Department is actively pushing to send some of these same people back behind bars, and to prevent others from reducing their sentences—which greatly limits who can benefit from the law that Trump has touted as one of his signature achievements.

While the First Step Act has allies in the White House—including Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner—the officials tasked with implementing it are in the Justice Department. Attorney General Bill Barr, who leads the department, has reportedly raised concerns in private that the legislation’s reforms will drive up crime. And under his watch, the department’s prosecutors have argued that hundreds of incarcerated people applying for relief under the law’s cocaine sentencing reforms are not eligible, according to an investigation by the Washington Post. In some cases, Trump has even stood onstage hugging and congratulating people who were recently released under the law—even as the Justice Department was arguing in court to lock those same people up again.

Jeramey Jannene reports Milwaukee DNC Leaders Fired by Board:

The top two employees of Milwaukee’s Democratic National Convention host committee were fired Tuesday as part of an investigation into a toxic work environment at the organization.

The board terminated president Liz Gilbert and chief of staff Adam Alonso less than 48 hours after opening an investigation into a “toxic” and “unstable” work environment.

“Adam Alonso has consistently bullied and intimidated staff members, but of note is that this is primarily directed at the women on staff. Resulting in a culture that coddles male senior advisors and consultants who have no clear role or clear lines of management,” wrote an anonymous group of “senior women from the host committee” to the committee’s five-member board. The letter, dated Thursday, January 30th, said the concerns were brought to Gilbert’s attention in November, but she defended Alfonso and dismissed the issue.

(Emphasis in original.)

Trump’s 2020 State of the Union, fact checked:

Culture, Education, School District

Ready-Made is Poorly Made

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The Whitewater Schools now have an interim district administrator, and the district is looking to hire a permanent replacement. At the most recent school board meeting of 1.27.20, there was a brief discussion of community involvement in the selection process (see meeting video).  The school board president and vice president (having each been on the board for several years)  discussed focus groups for community opinion (43:50 on the linked video):

Board Vice President: I suspect we [referring to board members] can have input into who wants to be invited to those [referring to focus groups] or who we think…

Board President: They’ll be asking us, Matt and I talked, Jim was there, we have some ready-made groups, the Citizens Financial Advisory Committee, Whitewater Yes, the Whitewater Unites Lives, but we also want staff, BLT [building leadership team], parents groups, ultimately, I think, as many people as as we can get them to talk to is what our goal is.

Whitewater has struggled for years with a same-ten-person problem of low participation. Relying on ‘ready-made’ groups of the same ten people won’t solve that problem. Referring people the board members already known to focus groups won’t solve that problem. Listing parents after staff and building leaders won’t solve that problem. Saying all this in a desultory way won’t solve that problem.

Even those few groups that are newer, and so commendably bring in fresh perspectives, are only part of what Whitewater needs.

A consultant might prefer small groups, but Whitewater needs large groups of people able to speak without board members, administrators, staff, and the same local notables (who have presided of years of stagnation  and relative decline) over-watching.

Saying what one ultimately wants isn’t the same as doing what one ultimately should.

Meetings should be well-publicized, in a large auditorium, with refreshments. If an open meeting fails to attract unaffiliated parents and residents, then another should be held. It will take years for Whitewater to re-engage with its public institutions, but one has to start somewhere.

Perhaps some men and women don’t realize how listless they seem. The worthy people of our past faced challenges by rolling up their sleeves and getting to work; they did not roll up the covers and take a nap.

Worse, by far: when ‘building leaders’ see somnambulism in their school board, they will mistakenly think that all the community is as undemanding.

Lack of energy at the top inspires only sloth and carelessness in others, and condescension toward the community.

For Whitewater, ready-made is poorly made.

Bigotry, Culture, Trump

Acculturation – or its Absence – Begins at the Top

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There’s a story in the Washington Post about a school meeting in Saline, Michigan entitled ‘Then why didn’t you stay in Mexico?’: A Latino dad was interrupted by a white man at meeting about racism in schools. The meeting was meant to address racism in schools, but it did not go smoothly:

On Monday, he [Adrian Iraola] was was telling a crowd of parents in Saline, Mich., about the harm these kinds of remarks had inflicted on his son yet again — how classmates’ taunts of “taco,” “enchilada” and “dirty Mexican” had left the high schooler in tears.

“I went to his bedroom to say good night,” Iraola said, turning to an audience that had been discussing diversity and inclusion in schools. “He was crying because of the abuse that he was enduring in this school system.”

Suddenly, the man behind him interjected.

“Then why didn’t you stay in Mexico?” he asked.

The story reports that some in the audience were shocked. They should have been repulsed, but not shocked: the most powerful person in all the world is a vulgar man, an unreconstructed bigot, who carries on as a daily (unworthy) example to hordes of others.

Our ancestors did not speak hesitantly of Know Nothings, Confederates, Copperheads, the Klan, and the Bund; they saw them – and described them – for what they were.

One could take the hands of that ilk and say now, now, it’s all right, but it’s not all right – and never will be.

We haven’t advanced a proper acculturation of those who have been born here. The typical concern about acculturation (of newcomers) is a slight matter as against the obvious failure to set the proper – that is, ethical, moral – expectations for those who are native born.

Those in the Michigan crowd who gave that nativist what-for are admirable for having defended the better norm that he so plainly failed to meet.

 

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 2.4.20

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of thirty.  Sunrise is 7:05 AM and sunset 5:12 PM, for 10h 06m 50s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 73.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM. 

On this day in 2004, Mark Zuckerberg launches “TheFacebook,” originally located at thefacebook.com.

Recommended for reading in full —

Daniel Bice reports ‘An unacceptable and upsetting environment’: 2020 Democratic Host Committee under investigation:

The two top officials overseeing Milwaukee’s host committee for the 2020 Democratic National Convention were sidelined Monday amid allegations of a toxic work culture.

In a letter to staff obtained by the Journal Sentinel, the board said it had retained an attorney to investigate “concerns about the work environment” for the Milwaukee 2020 Host Committee.

….

In interviews with the Journal Sentinel over the weekend, two experienced political hands who have worked with the host committee described it as having a toxic culture rife with power struggles, backbiting and mismanagement.

They accused the top two officials, Gilbert and Alonso, of giving contracts to their friends in New Jersey, calling meetings and then failing to attend them and being more focused on accumulating power than promoting Milwaukee.

A New Jersey firm with strong ties to the New Jersey Democratic Party, for instance, developed the website for the host committee and manages its email platform. Both Gilbert and Alonso are top-ranking Democratic operatives in that state.

These assertions come at the same time that Alonso is being accused in his home state of New Jersey of shaking down campaign contributors for his personal consulting business.

(Emphasis in original.)

Molly Beck reports Evers administration threatened prosecution of journalist over child abuse case reporting:

Gov. Tony Evers’ administration sought to block a journalist from publishing information from a confidential child abuse investigation by threatening prosecution, a rare move that could violate the U.S. Constitution.

Wisconsin Department of Children and Families officials in January warned an NBC News reporter that his planned publication of a story that included information from the investigation file would violate state law and could result in six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

“Please cease and desist immediately from any further illegal use and disclosure of the documents in the child abuse investigation file illegally disclosed to you, and any information obtained in that file,” Therese Durkin, chief legal counsel for the agency, wrote to NBC News reporter Mike Hixenbaugh on Jan. 24. “Failure to comply will lead to further legal action.”

State law requires such information be kept confidential, to ensure the privacy of children who are or suspected to be victims of abuse, and carries criminal penalties if documents or details contained in child abuse investigation files are released.

….

But media law experts say the First Amendment protects journalists’ possession and publication of truthful information in the public’s interest, regardless of how the information was released to them — and even trying to stop a reporter from publishing violates the U.S. Constitution.

“If somebody unlawfully discloses information to the journalist, but the journalist did nothing wrong, they have a First Amendment right to publish that information,” Sarah Matthews, a staff attorney with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said in an interview.

Tonight’s Sky for February 2020:

America, Resistance, Trump

Times of Resolution & Defiance

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Churchill proposed a ‘moral of the work’ for his series The Second World War:

In War: Resolution, In Defeat: Defiance, In Victory: Magnanimity, In Peace: Goodwill.

Our times are not Churchill’s times, yet the moral of his work is suitable for us.

It’s suitable for us, however, in a partial and unfinished way – we may say of our present political conflict that we have yet required of ourselves only resolution and defiance.

The virtues of magnanimity and goodwill await more favorable conditions.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 2.3.20

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of forty-one.  Sunrise is 7:06 AM and sunset 5:10 PM, for 10h 04m 22s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 64.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

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

On this day in 1959, musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, “The Big Bopper” J. P. Richardson, and pilot Roger Peterson are killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa.

Recommended for reading in full —

Mitchell Schmidt writes The Iowa caucuses are Monday, but in 2020 the center of the political universe is Wisconsin:

All eyes might be on Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses Monday, but political experts say the road to the White House this year will likely once again run through Wisconsin, where the battleground state’s sliver-thin margin could tip either way and potentially decide the 2020 election.

Wisconsin is the only state listed as a toss-up by all three of the major national political prognosticators, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Cook Political Report and Inside Elections.

“Wisconsin could be the decider,” said Larry Sabato, founder and director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and Sabato’s Crystal Ball. “There are only a handful of states that are truly competitive and that switch sides with any regularity, and Wisconsin is one of them.”

Wisconsin’s significance in the presidential election, where close to a dozen Democratic candidates are vying for the nomination and their shot at derailing President Donald Trump’s re-election plans, comes down to the Midwestern state’s nearly even partisan split.

Desmond Lachman writes This Too Shall Crash:

During the 2008 global financial market meltdown, we were painfully reminded of the teachings of the late economist Hyman Minsky, the renowned expert on financial and credit market cycles. Minsky never tired of warning that credit bubbles and prolonged bull markets generally end in epic economic and financial market collapses.

Evidently President Trump and his economic team have either never been warned about “Minsky moments” – sudden, drastic collapses of asset values following prolonged growth — or else they are making the classic mistake of thinking that this time will be different. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain why, 10 months before the election, President Trump is placing a booming stock market and a strong economy at the front and center of his re-election campaign.

There can be no doubt that we have been experiencing a global credit market bubble that would have made Minsky shudder – one that an unprecedented and prolonged period of ultra-easy monetary policy by the world’s major central banks helped to inflate. Indications of this monetary largesse can be found in the world’s four largest central banks’ balance sheets, which together have increased by a staggering $10 trillion.

….

Minsky taught that markets and politicians have short memories and that they repeatedly delude themselves into believing that this time will be different. Sadly, once again he is being proved correct. President Trump is giving too much prominence to the stock market in his re-election campaign. Today’s market exuberance – and the political exuberance it begets – are foolish in the face of mounting economic and political risks.

Toyota’s 2020 Super Bowl Commercial: