Politics & Government
In Two-way Dialogue, School Board Members Express Concerns to Legislators
State Assemblymen Vos, Craig answered questions posed by Board members at last Monday's School Board meeting, but also sought feedback, as well.
In a , state Representatives Dave Craig and Robin Vos appeared before the Muskego-Norway School Board at its meeting July 18 to field questions from Board members pertaining to such issues as the state budget and school funding, and the direction the Assemblymen would like to see education take in the coming years.
But Vos and Craig sought to make it a two-way street, asking questions of the Board members and inviting them to share their concerns and offer feedback.
Vos talked about a system used in Florida in which all of that state’s school districts receive a grade. He suggested that such a system could help drive real estate sales and local economies because, “everyone wants great schools.”
But Board member Brett Hyde is cautious about such a grading system, saying that it could become more of a control mechanism rather than a true way to improve schools. Superintendent Joe Schroeder said he agreed with Hyde to some extent. He expressed worry that a grading system could come to drive fear more than true improvement.
On school choice, Board member Rick Petfalski noted that he has seen a lot of waste in school choice, saying that he has seen instances with “…XYZ Academy, where, halfway through the school year, the principal is seen driving a Mercedes and it’s discovered that the teachers haven’t been paid in six months.”
“I’m leery of expanding the program to the suburbs,” Petfalski added about school choice.
To that, both Vos and Craig conceded that school choice may not always prove to be the be-all-end-all solution and that it may not necessarily work in every district. “Probably, for a lot of districts, there’s no need,” Vos said.
Speaking on merit pay, Vos said, “We need a system that measures how students and teachers are doing, and reward based on that system.” He cited the state of Colorado as having developed a good merit pay -based system.
But Superintendent Schroeder said he wasn’t convinced personally that there may be enough money to fund a merit pay system, and said he feared merit pay could cause more of a hostile environment, stripping, to some extent, the collegiality found in education.