This episode reviews some basic facts about these three important issues and what our conversations around them are like. The major goal is to help community members and school board candidates better articulate their positions. Everyone is for improving district finances, or for academic progress, or for teachers. Do we all mean the same things, though?

LINKS:

Tosa 2075 task force report

Secondary ad-hoc facilities page.

**FINANCES**

Wisconsin DPI all-staff (salary) report portal

Wisconsin DPI comparative cost data

Wisconsin DPI comparative revenue data

WSD's financial transparency site (through ClearGov.com)

WSD's budget and audit information

WSD's 2024 Referendum Site (incl survey results)

WSD's 2024 Referendum Progress Reporting

**ACADEMIC PROGRESS**

Tosa's report card page

Statewide ACT/Forward data

**TEACHERS**

Steven Brill's "The Rubber Room" (2009)

Vlad Kogan's No Adult Left Behind (2025)

WPR piece on teachers' health-care costs (2025)

Statewide school funding data (2025)

LINKS to background information for the survey:

1.) The Tosa 2075 Task Force website.

2.) The Tosa 2075 final report.

3.) The district's long-range facilities plan (adopted 2024)

4.) The current ad-hoc facilities committee website, incl minutes and detailed model summaries (at the bottom).

5.) Secondary model summary spreadsheet.

6.) FAQs about the proposed models and processes.

7.) Analysis of learning spaces descriptions

LINKS:

Ad Hoc Committee page (scroll down for current models)

WI State Report Card weighting calculator

Growth Score calculation specs

Target Group Outcomes explanation

Tosa's district- and school-level report cards

Nativity Jesuit Academy's report card

Dr. Amanda Lewis is coming to Wauwatosa to give a talk based on her book, Despite the Best Intentions, whose 2nd edition just came out this year.

EVENT INFO:

Where: Underwood Elementary

When: Monday, October 20th, 6:30 to 8:00.

What: A talk, followed by a Q&A session.

If you'd like to pose a question to Dr. Lewis, send it to me here.

The district has drawn up some options, a community committee has been poring over pros and cons for months, and we're going to get a survey to take in late October. So what should we be thinking about? What are our choices?

LINKS:

1.) Ad-Hoc Committee page, with a list of proposed models to consider.

2.) In-depth description of each model

3.) What "modernization" means in these models

DEPT PRESENTATIONS:

1.) Human Capital exec summary and full presentation

2.) Finance exec summary and full presentation

3.) Facilities exec summary and full presentation

4.) Academic Performance exec sum and full presentation

5.) Pupil & Family Supports exec sum and full presentation

LINKS:

Onward Tosa piece on our reassessments

WSD 2024 referenda tax impact calculator

Wauwatosa's post-reassessment 2025 tax estimator

WSD Strategic Plan (feat school-engagement indicators)

SP podcast interview on board-supt relationships

*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 metaphor

A discussion of revenue-limit and state-aid changes

A conversation on open-enrollment transfer amounts and declining-enrollment pressures

A 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!

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 Judgment

Scribner's The Fight for Local Control

Weinstein's Adam Smith's Pluralism

Neem's Democracy's Schools: The Rise of Public Education in America

Arendt's The Human Condition

Cavell's The Claim of Reason

Cavell's Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome