Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, June 10
In fighting crime, solutions work better than threats
Those who are extolling state Rep. Janel Brandtjen for her political courage in threatening to cut state funds to Milwaukee are confusing courage with political opportunism. It doesn’t take courage to make threats; that’s easy. What takes courage is to pitch in and help to find solutions for Milwaukee’s crime problems.
But threatening to propose reductions in state aid to Milwaukee because a successful police chase from Milwaukee ended up in Brandtjen’s suburban district is simply an attempt to score points with her constituents.
Do Mayor Tom Barrett and Police Chief Edward Flynn need to do more to stop the explosion of carjackings this year and the still too-high number of shootings? Absolutely. But giving them fewer resources to deal with crime is not the answer, as Gov. Scott Walker said in response to Brandtjen’s shoot-from-the-hip statement.
In fact, one can argue that the state has been following Brandtjen’s crime-fighting strategy and there’s no indication that it’s working. City figures show that state shared revenue in 2005 was $230,605,000, more than covering the Police Department budget of $185,962,917. This year, the aid doesn’t come close as shared revenue is at $218,992,000 and the department’s budget is at $277,233,534.
Less aid hasn’t helped. Critics may be quick on the draw with cheap shots, but their aim is way off. Milwaukee needs more help from the state, not less, in financial aid and in new laws that will keep guns out of the hands of criminals.
Beyond that, they also need to acknowledge that while Barrett and Flynn can do more, this isn’t a problem that rests solely on the shoulders of city government. The district attorney’s office and the courts are just as critical in dealing with crime. So are community leaders, families, churches and businesses.
And beyond that, the critics are missing what is going on in the city. The mayor and the police had a strategy that had been showing improved numbers until recently (and keep in mind that many other major cities across the country have experienced similar dramatic hikes in homicides and other violent crime categories).
And under the leadership of Common Council President Ashanti Hamilton, aldermen have been stirred into action. A few weeks ago, they called for a community response that includes having fathers talking to kids about crime and its consequences. That should be going on anyway, but a concerted and more intense effort would certainly help.
Meanwhile, Alderman Bob Donovan’s committee is holding a series of meetings with the agencies that are dealing with crime. The police and the district attorney’s office spoke to the committee last week, and more meetings are scheduled with other offices and agencies.
Donovan has been a frequent critic of the police and the mayor. We haven’t always agreed with his criticism but he’s taking the right approach here. Instead of just carping, he and Hamilton and the rest of the council want to bring everyone together to find a strategy that will work.
Now, that’s political courage.
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The Journal Times of Racine, June 12
Federal aid is needed for our Lake Michigan bluffs
When we talk about “federal assistance” for disaster relief, we obviously mean money and personnel subsidized by federal taxpayers. That includes those of us living here in Wisconsin. We didn’t personally deliver the federal aid in times of need. But indirectly, through the taxes we pay, we did.
We haven’t had a full-fledged disaster here along the Lake Michigan shoreline in Racine County. But in the erosion of the bluffs along the lakeshore in Mount Pleasant and Caledonia, we do have a crisis which requires federal assistance. Put simply, it’s our turn to be helped by the federal government.
Late last month, Racine County Executive Jonathan Delagrave issued a declaration of emergency due to the erosion. Such a declaration better positions the county to get state and federal assistance and gives the county authority to make personnel and resources available, according to a news release.
The declaration also allows the county to close public streets and, if necessary, evacuate residents from their homes, Delagrave said.
High Lake Michigan levels have eroded the bluffs, putting homes in Mount Pleasant and Caledonia in danger. One home has already been removed and officials say 10 to 12 other homes in Mount Pleasant and multiple properties in Caledonia are threatened.
In addition to homes, officials are worried about public utilities and streets, Delagrave said, and fear a strong storm could move through and erode more of the bluffs. “We don’t want homeowners to lose their houses unnecessarily and we’re also concerned about erosion encroaching on public utilities,” Delagrave said.
State Rep. Peter Barca, a member of the Federal Emergency Management Agency National Advisory Council, said he has also contacted federal and state entities and hopes for a quick solution.
“There are people in Wisconsin right now who could wake up tomorrow without a home. We need to take action as quickly as possible,” said Barca, D-Kenosha, whose district includes the Lake Park neighborhood of Mount Pleasant. “For the people of Mount Pleasant, time is of the essence.”
This is most definitely true, in Mount Pleasant and in Caledonia.
During Tuesday night’s meeting at the Mount Pleasant Village Hall, several residents called for the state and Gov. Scott Walker to get more involved. Walker has not issued an executive order regarding the erosion, but has directed staff to provide support in the area, said Pat O’Connor, director of the Bureau of Response and Recovery for Wisconsin Emergency Management.
Apparently, Racine County got the governor’s attention, and he responded: On Friday, he made public a letter he sent to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, requesting assistance under Section 14 of the 1946 Flood Control Act, which gives the corps emergency authority.
During his June 3 visit with The Journal Times Editorial Board, House Speaker Paul Ryan said that his office is working with the Army Corps and local officials, including Delagrave and Mount Pleasant Village Administrator Kurt Wahlen.
The Army Corps is determining whether the issue fits under the agency’s Section 14 emergency authority, Ryan said. Under Section 14, the Army Corps “is authorized to construct bank protection works to protect endangered highways, highway bridge approaches, and other essential, important public works, such as municipal water supply systems and sewage disposal plants, churches, hospitals, schools, and non-profit public services and known cultural sites that are endangered by flood-caused bank or shoreline erosion.”
“We’re moving as fast as can be done, meaning we’ve gotten this moving faster than I’ve ever seen it,” said Ryan, whose district includes all of Racine County. “The question is, how long will it take for them to study this situation, and what resources are available there.”
We don’t seem to have reached the higher threshold required for Federal Emergency Management Agency assistance, but we definitely have an issue with regard to local infrastructure: It’s a short trip north along the shoreline from the worst of the existing Caledonia erosion to We Energies’ Oak Creek Power Plant.
Our situation isn’t at the level of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, or the New York-New Jersey area after Superstorm Sandy in 2012. But with our shoreline erosion crisis, we have an issue which calls for a remedy from an arm of the federal government; in this case, it’s the Army Corps of Engineers.
To our fellow federal taxpayers, we say: We helped you then. You must help us now.
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Green Bay Press-Gazette, June 11
Use education, not politics, as a guide
Wisconsin public school students last month took their third different standardized test in three years.
The changes in tests make efforts to gauge improvement, or decline, difficult, if not impossible. Different tests. Different preparation. Different results.
Not only have public schools lost the ability to track year-over-year comparisons, school teachers and administrators have wasted time in creating a test tied to Common Core state standards and learning how to administer it. The state has also spent millions in the process.
Presumably, you can compare against schools in your district, if you have more than one elementary, middle and/or high school, but you can’t gauge how schools are progressing.
It won’t be until results from next year’s tests are released that you can compare year-over-year results and then your sample size is only two school years. It’s difficult to come to conclusions based on any historical context.
So what have we learned? Nothing that will help our students this year, but hopefully we’ve learned not to play politics with education.
Public schools had been using the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Exam since the 1996-97 school year. Those tests were changed starting in the early 2000s to meet federal mandates and again in 2002-03 to comply with the No Child Left Behind act.
Schools started using the Badger Exam in the 2014-15 school year. (It was first called Smarter Balanced Assessment exam.) It was designed to test students on Common Core state standards that all but one school district in the state had adopted since 2010.
However, support of the test eroded as support for Common Core became political. Tea party Republicans saw the standards as federal overreach and a loss of local control, even though no school district was required to adopt it. One misconception was that the federal government was dictating curriculum. That wasn’t the case. It was up to each school to develop a curriculum that met the standards of the Common Core.
The makers of the Badger Exam didn’t help matters any. The web-based exam was supposed to adjust the difficulty of test questions based on a student’s ability. That never worked.
So last summer legislators flunked the Badger Exam and forced schools to come up with a new test.
Enter the Wisconsin Forward Exam, which students took this spring. The test is aligned to Common Core standards in English and mathematics. It is given in grades 3 through 8 for English Language Arts and mathematics, grades 4 and 8 for science, and grades 4, 8 and 10 for social studies.
We hope that the state has better luck with this exam and that it doesn’t fall prey to prevailing political winds. That proposition would prove costly, both educationally and financially - the state agreed to a 10-year, $79.8 million contract with Data Recognition Corp. in March to create the Wisconsin Forward Exam.
Standardized tests have many opponents who don’t see them as an accurate reflection of how students are doing academically. We believe they represent a part of a school’s and student’s performance and should be viewed as such. Results also need to be reported in a more timely matter instead of waiting for up to a year to find out how students did on the exam.
However, when you’re constantly changing the test, you lose the ability to gauge any kind of performance.
And if you’re going to spend tens of millions of dollars on a state standardized test, let’s make it worthwhile and not switch every year based on party politics.
As we are in an election year, you should ask your candidates their stance on the Forward Exam. Do they support it? Are they planning to change the test? Do they support any major changes in education in our public schools?
Listen to their answers and consider the implications of any more changes - not the political ones, but the educational ones. Use the latter to guide your vote.
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