The Catch Up: Audit School of Education

It was a week where both Gov. Tony Evers and Speaker Robin Vos were right and where the Packers were oh so very right.

Evers is right. In an interview last week with the Associated Press Gov. Tony Evers said that he thought Donald Trump should remain on the Wisconsin primary ballot. Evers acknowledged the reality that the U.S. Supreme Court will almost surely over rule Colorado and Maine in their decisions to keep Trump off their ballots by invoking the insurrection clause in the Fourteenth Amendment. He suggested that people should just vote against him when they get the chance.

Evers is right again. In that same interview Evers also said Pres. Joe Biden should focus on middle class issues and the economy. In saying that, he implied that Biden’s speech last week about this next election being a referendum on democracy was not the way to go. I think he’s right. I agree that electing Trump again would, in fact, deal a serious blow to American democracy, but for most people that’s an abstract concept. They care about tangible things. Evers is a practical politician who got elected statewide here several times, both for schools superintendent and then governor. He knows how to win here — and probably in other swing states — and Biden should listen to him.

Vos is right. Speaker Robin Vos is now calling for something we’ve been advocating for for a long time: a comprehensive audit of diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The controversy over DEI has lacked data. Vos seems to think that it’s all about critical race theory and “anti-racist” intolerance. The Democrats see touching a hair on the head of a single DEI bureaucrat as equivalent to establishing Jim Crow in Wisconsin. Neither is true. DEI can be a lot of things and now Vos seems to want to go beyond the stereotypes. While he’s called for an “audit” he hasn’t yet specifically mentioned the Legislative Audit Bureau, but that’s the way to go. The LAB is respected, non-partisan and thorough.

Vos could be more right. He now wants to extend his audit beyond the UW to all of state government. I’m not sure that’s necessary, but I would like to see a separate audit of the UW School of Education, not over its DEI programs but focussed rather on its overarching philosophy. I’m concerned that it might take that philosphy from controversial Brazilian thinker Paulo Freire, who wrote a book called Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which is said to have achieved near iconic status in American teacher training programs. In it, Freire writes, “No pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed by treating them as unfortunates and by presenting for their emulation models from among the oppressors. The oppressed must be their own example in the struggle for their redemption.” Oh, for cryin’ out loud… If Paulo Freire is at the heart of what’s being taught to new teachers then look no further for why 60% of our students can’t read, write and do math at grade level.

You gotta Love them Packers. Any season they beat the Bears twice (well, okay, that has become more or less expected) is a good season for the Pack. But to beat them in the final game on the Frozen Tundra in a dominant performance to make the playoffs and to go to Dallas in the first round… well, Vince is smiling.