The Cold, Hard, Numbers

Why am I running for School Board? Some may be wondering. Well, as a parent with two beautiful children in the Fall Creek School District, I want the very BEST education for them, as I’m sure you all do as well. As Whitney said, “I believe that children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way.”

So, to me, it is IMPERATIVE that our children get the best possible education. I started this venture, this campaign, because I wanted a bigger say and a greater voice in my children’s schooling, and I could think of no better way for a parent to do so than to be on the board itself.

However, I started to second guess myself today, about a week and change before the election. Perhaps everything is fine, and nothing needs to change? Was I making a mistake in my running for School Board? Most importantly – how can we KNOW that our children are receiving the best education? The only way to do that is to look at the cold, hard, numbers. There is no other objective, logical way to measure such a thing. We can have all of the best feelings about our schools and our teachers, but those good feelings won’t help our children become productive and valued citizens out in the “real world”, if they don’t match up with reality.

When we are judging how our schools are doing, what better way, than by using a standard school grading system, wouldn’t you agree? Here’s what I’m going with, which is pretty standard for many school systems across the country, and allows a greater granularity than just the simple letter grades:

Now, where can I get some data from? Well, I think the best possible place to get that information would be from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction’s Accountability Report Cards. You can find their site, and get the data for yourself right here, it’s freely available for all Wisconsinites to view and download, either in PDF format, or in Excel format to do the number crunching, as I’ve done:

https://apps2.dpi.wi.gov/reportcards/

What I’ve done is taken the last five school years that we’ve had data for (excluding the 2019/2020 school year which is missing data for obvious reasons), and consolidated that data all to one Excel sheet for all of the Districts, and one Excel sheet for all of the schools. Below are the results for each of the last five school years, the average of the entire state of Wisconsin, and the average for the District/School. I also took those scores and applied the appropriate “grade” above to those scores. You can click the image to enlarge it, and I suggest you do so to see all of it.

Fall Creek School District

Fall Creek Schools

You can find the raw data that I collected for the districts here.

You can find the raw data that I collected for the individual schools here.

Let me start here by stating that I hold nothing but the highest respect for our teachers, for the teachers of the Fall Creek School District. They are some of the hardest working people I’ve ever seen. I can also see the passion and compassion in their faces and voices whenever we have our sessions together, or even when I see them interacting with the students around the school. These are GOOD people, working their hardest to do their damned best at educating our students.

What I found here when I looked into the data, frankly shocked and confused me. Wisconsin as a whole has abysmal ratings using a standard grading scale. I was extremely surprised to see that the entirety of the state has such low numbers that they can’t break even a basic “C”. Would we accept this report card from our own children as something to be proud of?

More shocking to me however, was Fall Creek’s record for the past few years. Fall Creek has been known in the past to be a fantastic school system, and still has that reputation publicly; it is “well known” as you may say. All that being said, these numbers seem to be contrary to this public notion. And I can’t reconcile that rationally with what I’ve heard and what I’ve personally experienced firsthand. If you look at the overall trend even in just the colors though, you can see that as the grade level goes up, the numbers appear to go down, so perhaps with my children being in the second grade, I’ve gotten to see the best that we have? I can’t say for sure.

What I can say for sure is my opinion, which is that I can’t accept a series of “Cs” and “Ds” as acceptable grades for the school my children go to. I want, and demand, better for them. The thing that bothers me most about this is that the state of Wisconsin states on their own report cards that these numbers either “Meet” or “Exceed Expectations”. Well I’m sorry, but they don’t meet or exceed my expectations for my own children. I want better for them, and for your own children.

I’m going to do whatever I can as a parent to ensure that our children have the best results possible. If I can be blessed to do it on the School Board, then I will much appreciate that opportunity and chance, and try to do my best for my fellow parents to turn these numbers around.

But if I don’t get elected? I’m not going to stop. I’m going to keep digging, keep pushing. I’m going to do what I’ve always done with every problem I’ve come against – take it apart piece by piece, understand and learn about the pieces, then figure out how to put them back together again, but better.

Because that’s what I do. That’s what I do in my professional life as a computer programmer, that’s what I do in my personal life as a husband and father, and that’s what I hope to do on the School Board, if my fellow citizens will vote me in.

I will fight, for all of us, and for all of our children. For our future.

Addendum

While typing up this article, a fellow concerned citizen who chose to remain anonymous contacted me and provided me with the document below, which I have not verified for its veracity. If this information is correct however, then it’s another source of data that shows that we have reasons to be concerned as parents about the current direction of the school:

Board Info Spring 2020

Tribalism and Cooperation

Tribalism and Cooperation

Well, there it is, officially in black and white at http://myvote.wi.gov. I’m on the ballot for both the Village Board and the School Board:

I am happy to see all of the candidates for the Village Trustee position. I’m sure that any three of them would make worthy Trustees to help steer the course of the village. Vote your heart, I know I will.

I am however, surprised and slightly disappointed that the School Board listing was for only one position, and that there’s only myself and Mr. Wright running. Surprised, because I didn’t pay enough attention to the bylaws of the school district that states that every third year only one position on the board would be open rather than the typical two. Disappointed because only the incumbent and myself chose to list ourselves on the ballot.

I, for one, would have been happier to see a half dozen people interested in and vying for the position of School Board member. Because… aren’t our children worth it? I admit that this is the first year that I threw my hat in the ring. Previous years, I didn’t feel like I was yet in a good enough place in my life to perform or commit to such duties. So perhaps most of the rest of the eligible persons in the community are in the same place that I was in years prior.

But still, out of almost a thousand eligible persons, only myself and the incumbent Mr. Wright were interested in helping to shape the direction of our School District? That’s quite concerning to me.

In the future, I hope and I plead with all eligible residents of Fall Creek, please consider putting your name down for future elections. We need to hear all kinds of different voices, ESPECIALLY the voices of those that haven’t been in public service before. We need good, fresh ideas, and different perspectives.

Why am I so adamant about this? Why do I **WANT** to have more “competition” for the positions that I’m running for? Shouldn’t I want to be able to run with as little competition as possible to increase my chances of “winning”?

I believe that to have a thriving democracy, we have to have active participation by as many eligible and interested citizens as possible. I believe that NO position should ever be on the ballot “unopposed”. I also believe that having only two people on the ballot leads to tribalism, which can only result in a worse outcome for everyone.

That word… tribalism… why do I keep bringing it up? Why is it prominently displayed on my main page, and in the title of this post? Because it is the not-so-secret poison that’s harming our entire society and draining it of all positive cooperation. By setting up elections as a “horse race” between two people, you end up creating two “groups”… Group A, and Group B. And that begins the “fight” of “us vs. them”, or “me vs. you”. And all people are expected to pick and align themselves with one “side” or the other. This leads to not only competition, but competition’s ugly cousins… Rivalry and Belligerence.

I don’t want to “fight” with anyone, and I refuse to. We ALL care about our community, and every single person has had valid and valuable experiences in their lives that can contribute to good governmental decisions. By splitting ourselves into separate groups, we are starting from a place of OPPOSITION towards each other, rather than cooperation WITH each other. And the productive conversations necessary for successful compromises can’t form when each of these “sides” are at each other’s throats. We’ve seen this for decades at the national level, and it needs to stop somewhere.

I’m stopping it here at our local level, at least as far as I have the ability to. Which means, such rhetoric won’t be coming from me, period. I will say nothing negative about Mr. Brock Wright, who is also running for the same position of School Board member. That is neither beneficial, nor desired, and will NOT contribute to our community. It could only harm it. Thus, I will not perpetuate such things.

Not that I expect that Mr. Wright would perpetuate such rhetoric, let me make that clear as well. Just that with only two persons in the race, it’s EXTREMELY easy for us to get into the mindset of “A vs. B”. I implore you, let’s not do that. Each person must simply make their own choice over the best possible person for the position. How they make that choice, is entirely their prerogative.

And again, I implore all eligible persons to look at themselves, and at their lives, and give a second or third thought to running in the next election cycle. I’d like to see that next ballot filled with at least more than two interested candidates for each position!

When we all have an interest in the future of our community, and a desire for its success, then we all win, together. So every extra name that pops up on those ballots shows that a community is filled with more people that are actively engaged in and care about the future of it.

And that is a win for us all.

Building a Brighter Future

Building a Brighter Future

We should seek out ways to make our lives, and the lives of our children better. Not just for ourselves, but for those that come afterwards. I need you to help me build Fall Creek in a smart way.

I’d like to learn about you, your interests, what either brought you to Fall Creek, or is causing you to stay here. I want to learn what your desires for our village are, what your concerns are, and what we can do to alleviate those. Most importantly, I want to know what you think is the best path forward for our little village.

A Foundation in Tradition

A Foundation in Tradition

I have a hope that we can preserve the small town feel of Fall Creek, and make our village flourish without turning it into a clone of its biggest neighbors.

I will work towards building our shared traditions, our shared spirit of community, and our enthusiasm for working together to solve our own problems. I believe that Fall Creek, the State of Wisconsin, and the United States of America all have fantastically conflicting traditions of freedom and community, prudence and progress, forward thinking and nostalgic love. I believe that we can reconcile these concepts, and work with all of them together to build a harmonic community.