MMSD Underperforms

If things go as planned the Madison school district will have a new superintendent named by the end of this month. From the limited information available it looks to me as if there’s one very good candidate, one really bad candidate and one candidate likely to be picked for all the wrong reasons. But I could be pleasantly surprised. We’ll see what the school board decides.

What makes me worry about the choice they’ll make is the criteria that this board adopted to select candidates. Here are the minimum qualifications adopted by this board:

• At least three years of teaching/classroom experience or experience in a direct student-facing role.
• Demonstrated track record of success with improving student and data-driven decision making ideally in an urban public school district setting.
• Administrative experience leading an organization matching the scale and complexity of an urban school system; includes managing a budget and leadership team supporting multiple units or organizations spread over a geographic area.
• Successful experience working in diverse economic, multicultural, and multilingual communities and environments. Proven cultural-competence skills with a history of inclusive and relevant equity practices.
• Knowledgeable about Madison and/or committed to becoming an engaged and longstanding member of the community.
• Deep understanding of the complexity of education systems and evidence of leading large scale change in urban public school contexts.
• Experience and successful track record of collaboration with labor unions and collective bargaining units.
• Experience working in conjunction with a board to identify priorities, establish goals, monitor progress, and produce outcomes in service to stakeholders.
• Exceptional written, oral, and visual communications skills and a desire to develop and maintain deep relationships with a variety of diverse constituents.
• Meets eligibility criteria for a Superintendent’s license in the State of Wisconsin.

Notice what’s missing? There’s nothing in there about a track record of actually improving, you know, education. Nothing about a record of improving test scores.

That’s concerning because MMSD’s record in that regard is not good. This morning the New York Times ran a story that allowed readers to check on how their district was performing with regard to math test scores. Here’s the chart for Madison:

We have been below the national average for at least seven years while Wisconsin as a state performs above the average. We came close in 2019 and then dipped again during COVID. Our recovery since then has been anemic, running below both the national and state average.

While the Times didn’t cover it in this story, the scores for reading aren’t any better. And yet there’s nothing in the MMSD’s criteria for the new superintendent that mentions any of this. But they better be good administrators, know how to get along with unions and the board and have plenty of cultural competency. They need to have been in a “student-facing role” but they could have been terrible at facing students and helping them actually learn stuff.

All this underscores my long-standing concerns with the majority of the Madison school board: they have the wrong priorities.