MMSD’s Bad Trip

Next to the million-plus people it killed, the greatest long-term harm from the pandemic was the education deficit. Kids lost months of school and most of them haven’t caught up.

That’s a national problem but it’s worse here. According to a just released report, in Wisconsin, students are half a grade level behind where they should be on reading and a third of a grade level behind on math. This ranks us 16th among the states in math and 30th in reading.

But the scores are even worse in Madison where students are 84% behind on math and 72% behind on reading.

We did, in fact, keep schools closed for too long, but that doesn’t explain the Madison results because hundreds of school districts kept their schools closed as long as Madison did and they’ve recovered faster.

A couple of weeks ago the School Board extended Superintendent Joe Gothard’s contract for another year at $300,000 a year with automatic annual pay increases not tied to performance. They did that after Gothard had been on the job only about seven months and the Board cited no accomplishments to justify the extension. It did follow voter approval of two massive referendums, so maybe there had been an implied promise that Gothard would get the extension upon passage. I don’t know, but it’s odd and disrespectful to taxpayers for the Board not to give reasons tied to student performance to justify a contract extension.

“I think it’s a really strong move to make this early in your leadership journey with us,” Board President Nichelle Nichols told Gothard at the meeting where the new contract was announced. “We’re really appreciative of you being here.”

If Gothard is on a leadership journey let’s hope that at some point he makes it a priority to stop off at the student achievement station.

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