I invited a terrorist and a Klan member over for tea and scones just to prove I'm tolerant.

This is hilarious, it shows how much of an impact those that support equality can make.

I only have anecdotal evidence to go by, but I get the feeling that people initially supported him for being local and then quickly backed off once they learned about his political positions. I don't think he will be enough to swing the state red.

In some polling data I read today, Paul Ryan has a statewide approval rating of 41% in Wisconsin.

Also found it interesting that Tammy Baldwin has overtaken Tommy Thompson in a few polls this week in the WI Senatorial race. Tommy had a big lead after a hard fought primary and has basically been sitting on his thumbs lately hoping to coast to victory. If Baldwin can pull it off, I'll be pretty shocked. I didn't think Baldwin, a gay Madison liberal, would be a good play statewide. Especially with the whole backlash against Madison liberals during the Scott Walker/union thing.

LOL, I was actually thinking about this a few minutes ago.

Honestly, I wonder if a whole bunch of folks just got played.

edit to add: Err, not "just got", but rather got played a few weeks ago.

If I understand what you're saying, Jon:

That they allowed this to be big news, to encourage people to show up to "defend free speech" to support Chick Fil A, but then several weeks later when the news was no lon=ger big, tried to soften the blow from people who would see the name "Chick Fil-A" and their first impression would be negative (people who were speaking about boycotting, etcetera).. In other words, they tried to crest the wave and then reduce the shallow dip afterwards?

Close enough.

Fairly elementary business strategy, most likely worked both sides of the revenue potential about as well as it could have been handled. From a business standpoint I can't really knock it.

But it's an exponentially sleazier handling than the image they've tried to project for so long. Pretty much kills any credibility they've previously had as being any different than any other business.

I read somewhere that she had a pretty significant edge in money raised, which could be a big factor if she is ahead or it is close down the stretch. I wonder if she may be getting a lot of out of state donations, given that she would be the first openly gay senator in the US.

Correct. Thompson had a pretty tough primary fight and ended the primary season with $352,000 on hand while Baldwin went uncontested in the primary and had $3.1 million on hand after primary season. Part of why Thompson has been sitting on his thumbs is his lack of money.

It also seems like a lot of the Republican base isn't behind him that strongly. He won the primary with 34% against far move conservative candidates and his support may have been from the fact that he was the only one polling ahead of Baldwin. If it looks like Romney doesn't have a chance in Wisconsin come November who knows if Republicans will turn out for candidates they're lukewarm on.

Maybe he just needs to make another drunken speech at Lambeau Field:

My dad used to like Thompson because he said that Wisconsin had the best rest stops in the country. He was a travelling salesman and those things mattered.

yeah, but their nuggets and waffle fries kick ass. Plus it has the cleanest fast food playgrounds for the kid.

Not unless Democratic turnout is severely depressed here.

Even when Walker was surviving recall, Obama's support in WI was higher than Walker's support. It wasn't "YAY TEAM ELEPHANT" that saved Walker.

It was people deciding that he may or may not be a sack of shit, but that being a sack of shit isn't a recallable offense on its own.

Fair enough, but I daresay you give too much credit to the voting masses being able to differentiate between the two and voting accordingly.

Interestingly, a new WI poll came out today that had Obama up by 14: https://law.marquette.edu/poll/wp-co...1_Toplines.pdf

Their previous poll was just after the Ryan announcement and had Obama up by 3 points (within the margin of error). Seems like there was a temporary Ryan bounce, but it wore off.

538 has Baldwin at a 60% chance of winning, which is kind of shocking since the last time I'd checked I think it was something like 70-80% likelyhood for Thompson.

I think this is a fairly accurate assessment. A lot of my networks were saying much the same thing. The way to get rid of someone you don't like is by voting him out in the next election...not a recall.

It also didn't help when the Democrats fled the state to avoid a vote. People were pretty pissed at both parties.

Woohoo!!

Fuck yeah!!!

Woohoo!!

Motherfucker!!!!

What's Russ Feingold up to these days?

SI

He runs a PAC called Progressives United. He was pressured to run against Scott Walker in the recall election but wisely chose not to. He hasn't really given too many hints about any future aspirations for office. I'd like to see him get back into things one way or another. I had thought he may run for the open seat this year but he let Tammy Baldwin go after it.

On the other hand, if I remember correctly the Republicans shut the Democrats out when it came to crafting the bill, and there's no mechanism in the Wisconsin Senate for filibusters or other delay.

If you can whip your caucus effectively and you control the state apparatus (as the Republicans did), you can run roughshod over the opposition's protests.

Put another way, if the United States Senate operated the way the Wisconsin Senate does, the Republicans would have been steamrolled, and I'm not sure I can articulate the level of pissed-off that would have emanated from the party.

The 'cross the border' stunt was literally the only arrow the Democrats had in the quiver when it came to opposing the budget "repair" act, and even that didn't stop the business of the Senate - it just denied the Republicans the quorum necessary to conduct business related to state finances.

I'm not sure people were as pissed about that as you think, though, because the Democrats still flipped three or four seats over the course of the next year's worth of recall elections. They recovered Republican seats and didn't lose any of the seats they held that got targeted for recall in retribution. In the world we inhabit, I think it was a combination of recall fatigue and the sack-of-shit analysis I gave earlier that saved Walker.

If state law didn't require a politician to hold office for at least a year before being the target of a recall, I bet Walker would've been out on his ass shortly after that bill passed. Time was his ally there. It's tough to keep passions inflamed for 12+ months, and the effort to "reclaim" the Senate to stonewall the remainder of Walker's agenda helped to fuel the fatigue that probably led people to question whether Walker should have been removed.

Catch-22.

Probably an outlier. Obama was +8 to Romney (or so) during the Walker recall. I wouldn't be surprised if Ryan has tightened that. It's possible that the state has moved away from Ryan as they've heard more about him (but I don't think that meshes with BrianD's assessment of the voters' reaction to the Democrats-to-IL move, FWIW).

But my guess is the +8 or so we saw at the recall is closer to the truth than either +3 or +14.

You do remember correctly that the Republicans shut out the Democrats on the "repair" bill. They had all the required majorities and didn't need input from the Democrats, so they also didn't welcome it. To be fair, lots of people were unhappy with both parties for the way this went down.

The +14 is probably high, but I don't think Ryan is going to be much help for Romney is Wisconsin.

Interesting, I haven't been paying attention to his education policy. I don't know if its the correct answer but think we need to change the dynamic by forcing the issue ... so overall I'm good with it and I appreciate his initiative to make something happen. Teacher unions can't be too happy with him.

Rethinking the Classroom: Obama’s overhaul of public education - The Washington Post

The irony is, I grew up Republican. I didn't cast a ballot for a Democrat until I moved to Wisconsin, and the Wisconsin Republican Party has pretty much ensured that I won't *be* voting for a Republican for a long, long time.

Race to the Top - Obama's education policies
 

I figured that this really deserved its own thread. What do our resident teachers think of Race to the Top?

Inside Politics: GOP Senate candidate blames Romney for drop - Washington Times

I am not an NEA supporter at all but I don't get why people can't see how ludicrous it is to tie teacher evaluations to test scores. I will just use the local St. Louis school districts as an example but I am sure the results are similar across the country. Ever since NCLB the poorer school districts have seen a huge (unexplainable) jump in state test scores while the richer school distrcits have seen test scores remain steady. (high but steady) Can anyone say teaching to the test? And I don't mean teaching concepts to a test that changes every year I mean here in Missouri the test stays exactly the same every year and so they are teaching what the answers are on the tests. The SAT/ACT scores of the poorer schools aren't changing but their "standardized" test results are? Please. I guess if it makes people feel better that the kids in the St. Louis public school system can't read or write but can score a 95%ile on the standardized test than the program works. Otherwise if someone really cares about the future of poorer schools come up with a plan that doesn't just call for widespread cheating and union protection of the cheaters. I have actually had to sit and listen to St. Louis city administrators come to my school and discuss how they miraculously raised their test scores in statistically impossible ways. Hey I am all for merit based pay but all that aligning it to test scores does is encourage widespread fraud and even less learning taking place.

PS: And the common response I always hear is that teachers are "afraid" of being evaluated on test scores. Shit I teach in a rich district and my scores are always in the upper 90's but I am not naive enough to think the results aren't mostly related to their upbringing and the attitude of the community. Throw me in a city school and my scores are probably in the 20's. Did I all of a sudden become a shitty teacher? Did a person making the opposite move all of a sudden figure out how to teach? No test scores are meant to evaluate individuals and trying to evaluate large school systems with them is kind of missing the point and an oversimplified solution to a very complex problem.

Hell, don't even factor in moving schools. You could get stuck with the much lower kids any given year, get a whole classload of kids who more likely belong in special ed, etc, etc, etc. You don't get to pick your kids from year to year.

Cain took a shot at Romney, too. At some point enough people will hint that Romney is a loser that everyone will believe he's a loser and it's tough to recover from that.

What the hell. Romney is apparently releasing a letter from PriceWaterhouseCooper that will state:


If that's true, why didn't he release this a few months ago? Why did h let this issue beat down for weeks?

Maybe that's the problem?

Correct me if I'm wrong (since I very well could be), but I was under the impression that test score evaluation is based on how the students did compared to how they did on last year's test.

In some instances, I believe this is the case. But one of the big problems is the fact that there is enormous pressure on teachers to get their kids to score well, and there's no shortage of unscrupulous teachers who will happily cheat to get their kids scores higher. (Not hard - teacher can just be a little more helpful than they're supposed to during a test, boom.)

In IL at the very least, schools get labeled 'problem schools' if their test scores aren't up to par, completely independent of prior year scores. Doesn't matter the quality of kids, if their tests are low, they're a bad school. Period. (This part I know because my wife's school is one such problem school. She regularly gets kids in 3rd grade who can barely read, several kids who have MAJOR mental issues, and a whole slew of kids who don't speak English as a first language. These kids scores are still factored in just the same.)

I do think this honestly is the issue. If you're expected to get your students to improve their scores from last year (and again, I could be wrong about that), I think a lot of teachers think they could do a great job, but still get screwed due to what's essentially randomness.

On the other hand, what's the alternative? Should evaluating teachers be the sole discretion of the principal? The school board? I'm guessing that most teachers would say their principal does a piss poor job of evaluating teachers. So what's left?

I was just responding to the idea that if you're stuck with underperforming kids, that you're worse off. Cheating is of course an problem, but I think that's one that can be dealt with instead of scrapping the whole idea.

Yeah, note my edit though. Improvement from year to year isn't a metric they use in every case.

Even worse I guess. Can you imagine being a 5th grade teacher at school with rampant cheating in 4th grade? Their scores would drop 20% just because you had integrity and had honest test results!

My point was simply that individual teachers don't effect individual test scores unless they cheat. I will use myself (6th grade math teacher) as an example...

Joe Schmoe: Parents read to him as an infant, taught him to read and do some math before he even started school, attends rich schools for 2 years of pre-school and 6 years of elementary. Come into my class where I see him 45 min a day compared to 8 years of schooling and 11 years of great parenting. That kid is maxed out. Sure I could bring him up a point or suck and bring him down a point but he is where he is. (And on top of that if I really suck it probably won't hit him until he gets to 8th or 9th grade anyways since the state tests are way lower than the level we teach anyways)

Joe Blow: Parents kind of suck. Very little interest in kid. Attends city public schools with terrible environment. So superstar 6th grade math teacher is going to turn this kid around 45 min a day?

So I guess I could read the test the day before we give it out and go over some ideas so they are fresh in kid's minds. I work with teachers that do this. Is that integrity? Is that the point of these tests? I know it sounds like I am trying to get out of something here but in reality I am just saying this is a really shitty way of evaluating good and bad teaching. The next question is always well what is the answer? I don't know it's far more complex than that and the higher the authority gets (city--->state--->federal) the furthur we get from getting an answer that falls outside the one size fits all box.

Sure. And ten years ago the state used to print different versions of the tests and gave them out in several subjects. (math, reading, science, history) Now with budget cutbacks they only give them every year in math and reading and only have one version of the test. Adding another level of burreucracy isn't going to solve the problem of having no money to pay for a new version of the test every year. I know I am known by some on this board as the anti-fed shit disturber but how exactly is taking this federal going to solve the "we have no money to do this" problem?

I don't think there has been a Chicago teacher strike thread on here but that really is part of the core issue. They were talking 50% test scores and you had better believe some of your peers are going to cheat. What do you do? Kind of like the PED era in baseball. Do you have integrity and possibly lose your job because of rampant cheating or do you say "everyone else was doing it"? And if you don't think cheating is as bad as I am saying I work in a rich St. Louis county public school and am aware of cheating. You really think the poor public schools that jumped 20-30% found new and creative ways to reach kids in one year? Seriously?

I think you underestimate the effect a teacher can have on a kid - I do agree parents have a HUGE influence on children, but teachers can also ... especially with regards to motivation.

Both my sons have had issues with Speech, my youngest is still struggling with it slightly and turns 10 today (it doesn't help that we moved to America so he went from being an English boy with a speed issue to living in America, talking with an English accent and a speech issue).

Because of this he had various problems with communicating which obviously affected his school work - my wife and I try to be good parents and help our kids with their homework, cajole them along, encourage reading etc. ... but for him one of the biggest influences which encouraged him was his second teacher when he attended school in America, she was fantastic and really helped him find confidence and blossom both as an individual and a student.

In case I've never mentioned it before I'm slightly dyslexic and had speech problems as a young child - this combined with (cough) slightly inattentive parenting made me a real handful at school, again with myself it was a small group of very talented teachers who encouraged me and literally helped change my life for the better in ways which at the time I really didn't appreciate or comprehend fully.

PS - The problem with a LOT of good teaching imho is that sometimes it takes a while to blossom, with Keegan his grades were obvious, with myself as a teenager it was a matter of soaking into myself that I could do it and it was worthwhile to undertake - the first few years the effect of this on my grades was negligible however the effect of the accumulated effect on my life was huge (so I'm not a big fan of holding teachers ransom to test results myself, there is far more to good teaching than grades imho).

You also have a problem when the tests carry enormous consequences for schools and teachers but no consequences for students.

Another take on it

Oh yes. I was in the group of students that got the new Michigan standardized tests before someone tacked on a 1-2 thousand dollar scholarship onto them.

We went somewhere off campus for it, was supposed to be an all-day thing. I burned through it in under 2.5 hours and got 4 hours off of school to go dick around. Bombed the new experimental "essay session" that they ended up paying people minimum wage to grade in their spare time. Complete waste of time.

Well, at least we have our stories straight.

I don't really care whatever rate Romney paid as much as I think he's a total dick for not releasing the tax returns. we know he's rich, no shit.

Poor Paul Ryan. Tries to sell his medicare plan to the AARP and gets heckled and booed consistently through his speech.

Yeah - I wasn't sure about that either, but I wanted to like...keep the quote from the website and what-not attached.