Anyone in the Madison area, paying attention or not, knows that there are some serious races in the upcoming Spring elections, from the Mayoral election (Soglin V Rhodes-Conway) and for the Madison School District, there are three seats up. While there have been numerous forums, and discussions on who would best represent the district, the race took a surprising turn recently as Superintendent Jen Cheatham injected herself into the race.
Technically, the org chart shows: Community elects the School Board, who oversee the Superintendent, who oversees the administration, who oversees the staff. Its very simple, but Superintendent Cheatham skipped the first part, and openly campaigned against certain candidates.
Madison School District Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham said Wednesday next month’s School Board election “will demonstrate the extent to which our community wants to follow through on” a commitment to better serving black students after what she called a “trying” school year.
There is no doubt that it has been a trying year in education in all of Wisconsin. We have had 8+ trying years in education since Scott Walker “dropped the bwomb” and surprised everyone, but his bosses at ALEC, with his introduction of ACT10.
When $1.5 Billion is cut from education and one of the two political parties stated goal is to “divide and conquer” making enemies of public school teachers, that by design, leads to “trying” times in education.
Which 8 years of these trying times behind us, a toothless(by law) teachers union and everyday stress of ever increasing workload, the teachers have been unable to organize with the same strength and power they used to have.
As we know from basic economics models, someone has to have the power. In our economy, as the Government gets less and less, the corporations step in to fill that void. In the schools, as the teachers are left powerless, the Superintendent ends up with more.
Which leads to statements like Ms. Cheatham recently unfortunately let slip.
Another problem we have in Wisconsin, is a toothless media. No one felt the need, or was allowed to ask important questions or get another side to the story, so let us here at FL step in.
(Edit Note: All three seats that are up, have an candidate of color and a white candidate for the board. One seat has an incumbent, the other two do not.)
Ms. Cheatham, how EXACTLY will this election show if we have a “commitment to better serving black students”? Are there candidate that do not have that commitment? Does the board as constituted currently have that commitment?
Ms. Cheatham, as superintendent of the district, making almost $240,000/yr(more than the Governor), what initiatives have you been hindered in enacting by the School Board? Specifically who and how?
Ms. Cheatham, do you feel we should or should not get rid of police in our schools? Your recommendation will go along way to deciding the issue.
Ms. Cheatham, since the candidates who win this election, will technically be your boss, who specifically are you advocating for and will you be able to work with any candidate who wins?
Ms. Cheatham, Board Member TJ Mertz, realized that police are in our schools to stay for the time being and decided to work on controlling who was actually assigned to the schools, which made Chief Koval upset. Koval then took to the airwaves of the hate sqwuaker Vicki Mckenna, to complain about TJ. You were quiet on the issue. Do you feel its fair to have some say over people who are serving full time in your schools?
Ms. Cheatham, the BEP was conceived over the fact that the previous behavior policy of zero tolerance was not successful with anyone. While there have been a handful of racial incidences in the Madison Schools with a few staff, do you feel that zero tolerance in dealing with these few employees is working?
Ms. Cheatham, do you feel that a person of color is automatically more qualified to serve on the School Board than a white person? How about in the classrooms?
Ms. Cheatham, we all know we have a shortage of resources, and especially Madison has been getting hard hit by the budget priorities of our old Governor. Do you feel its appropriate to have a board member who also runs a competing charter school and whose paycheck is reliant on MMSD resources?
Ms. Cheatham, who will you be voting for on April 2nd?
