Tomorrow February 19 (Primary), and following that April 2, 2019(general), are important local/non-partisan elections for the State and the city of Madison. In April there will be another Supreme Court race where we will be replacing the irreplaceable Justice Abrahamson. Judge Neubauer is running as the sane intelligent centrist, while Brian Hagedorn, is running on the Bradley Foundation ticket, that likes to put up far right Bible misinterpreters for the court. That race is not until April, so we need to focus on the Madison School Board.
Tomorrow is the primary and we need to take a closer look at some candidates. Kaleem Caire is running for seat 3. Caire has been involved in working with children in the Dane County area for some time now, but unfortunately, his work with kids have all been based around his and his alone “expertise”. Caire, first came up with the idea of “Madison Prep”, which was thankfully voted down by the Madison School Board. Recently, Caire jumped back into the siphoning money from public schools business, and open One City Early Learning Center. One City is a 2x Charter school, and takes money from the money starved Madison Public Schools to operate.
Everyone has a right to earn a living and people are more than welcome to send their children to any school( or even homeschool) that they want, to be a private school profiteer and run for public school board, is like driving only Hondas and trying to be put on the Board of Directors of Ford.
While I do applaud Caires passion for working with kids, as long as he feels the need to make a profit off of it, while continually criticizing public schools, then he is unqualified to be a public school board member. Plus he has a very troubling privatization past by partnering with the Bradley Foundation and a veritable whose who of public education enemies.
Also, something that has really bothered me since I heard it, was his lack of respect for the dignity of work. By the infamous quote – “A Janitor is a Janitor.”.
I highly recommend Chris Carusi for Seat 3!
Seat 4 is a rougher one with 4 people running. It appears to me that one of them is not even trying and another is Dave Blaska, so that leaves it down to Ali Muldrow and Laila Borkohim.
I just want to point out one troubling event in this race. There has been a public spat between Ms. Muldrow and a district art teacher. Without getting into the details, because the details do not matter, who thinks its ok for someone who wants to be a school board member to publicly attack(verbally) a teacher in the district? Even of Ms. Muldrow is 100% right, would not of a better plan been to meet individually with the teacher, or even the teacher and the principal and resolve differences and gain understanding that way? To attack publicly and try and create a divide is not the actions of someone that wants to be a school board member and as Maya Angelou says “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”.
There are 3 people running for Seat 5. One of them, an old music teacher is running on the i want to carve the district up platform so is not a serious candidate. The other two, Ananda Mirrelli and TJ Mertz(incumbent) are both quality candidates.
I agree with many, that we need more diversity in everything we do, but not at the expense of firing someone who is very good at their job. The ultimate case study of this is recently the MMSD hired a consultant from Massachusetts (at the tune of north of $100,000 taxpayer dollars) to come to Madison to review the staffing model for student services. TJ, Anna Moffitt and Nicki Vander Meulen all voted against, but lacked the fourth vote to stop it.
“(ERS has) no demonstrated expertise… when it comes to special education and assessing needs,” Mertz said. “I don’t see them as an organization with integrity. These are people I don’t want coming to my house.”
They were then hired, and one big check later, ERS came to Madison and came up with a recommendation that said they should cut student service positions from middle schools. Anyone who has stepped foot in a middle school knows that that could be the worst possible place to cut positions from. They came to this ridiculous conclusion by consulting very few teachers, and no parents or students. 100K down the drain of the Massachusetts economy.
Instead of voting out people who are watching over our money that closely(Anna Moffitt was voted out last year, you need to get rid of the people who perpetually cheerlead for the Superintendent and approve such crazy spending.
Edit Note (the people that voted for this crazy spending, have written OP-eds supporting the opposite people of this blog, saying we need new leadership. They are correct that we do need new leadership, they just are wrong on who needs to be replaced (and by whom) to bring that to the district.)
I really like Ananda and her work in restorative justice is important and valuable, however I think its imperative that TJ Mertz continue his work on the board.
I will wholeheartedly support Ananda on a run against Mary Burke, but this year I think it is important TJ Mertz continues to be a voice for the taxpayers and children of Madison.
