5-4-3-2-1, by Manfred Mann (listen)
5 school board members expressed opposition to the Lampham/Marquette consolidation.
1 (only 1) said “I will not vote to close any school in the District.”
2 school board members introduced amendments that would have stopped the consolidation of Lapham/Marquette.
4 school board members voted in favor of at least one of the amendments that would have stopped the consolidation of Lapham/Marquette.
1 school board member introduced an amendment that required the consolidation of Lapham/Marquette.
3 other school board members supported this amendment. It passed.
That 1 school board member, who did not vote in favor of any of the amendments that would have stopped the consolidation and introduced the amendment that required the consolidation, is the only one who said they would “never vote to close any school in the District.”
Thomas J. Mertz
AMPS 
You must be talking about Beth Moss.
Ed
You aren’t really that dense are you?
Follow the link in the post to Maya Cole’s website:
http://www.votemaya.com/issues.html
“I will not vote to close any school in the District as they are vital to their community and to the city’s growth plans.”
Maya never voted to stop consolidation and introduced the amendment that required consolidation. But you knew that. You are playing games with the truth, as usual.
I’m sure that everyone is thanking you for spreading the lies that helped get Maya elected.
TJM
TJ
I thought this blog was intended to be a positive forum for people to come together on common ground around change the school financing formula. I would hope we can avoid scapegoating and personal attacks. Here’s what I posted on that other blog:
Yes, she changed her position. I believe she felt backed in to a corner by the choices available. That Beth Moss, who had lots of campaign support from the M-L neighbhorhood, cast the same vote, should only demonstrate the degree to which they felt faced with a Hobbesian choice.
Just some perspective. Change is always hard. Sometimes it is unnecessary and wrong. Sometimes not. But reasonable people can disagree, and come together to make the district work for all kids.
The bleeding will continue to plague MMSD if we don’t change the districts approach to management/budgeting and change the state school funding formula. Remember, next year’s budget will require the same level of cuts as were needed this year. Where are those coming from?
Donna
Without truth and trust none of the things we both want are possible. What I wrote was true and Ms Cole has further eroded the trust of our community.
Ms Moss did not break a campaign promise. Ms Moss did vote to stop the consolidation. Ms Moss did not introduce the measure that required the consolidation. At the time Ms Moss voted in favor of Ms Cole’s proposal it was clear that the votes were not there to stop the consolidation. The vote that was not there was the vote that Ms Cole had promised the voters.
Because of her own actions, this community will never trust Ms Cole again. Blurring the lines about what happened invites the community to also distrust other board members. The truths I posted may help stop this from happening. That is why I posted them.
I will continue to post the truth, corrections to untruths and clarifications and analyses. Some may see some of these as counter productive attacks. I do not.
TJM
Maya said this in mid-March in response to one of the Isthmus take-home test questions:
“Consolidating schools will decrease school administrative costs, something the citizens’ budget has pointed out as one area to cut. The plan to move Affiliated Alternatives to the Sherman School Building will provide space for alternative programs in one location, decrease rent costs, and also save by decreasing school administrative costs.
As I have stated before, neighborhood schools are vital to the community. This is true especially for the elementary grades. If the district has no better alternative, consolidating an existing pairing into one K-5 school may be the best option. Closing a school should be our last option.”
This excerpt posted by Bill Rotherman on Isthmus Forum, Local Politics & Government.
Barb
What you quote are observations from Ms Cole. What I quoted is a pledge. There is a difference and you know it.
I wrote previously that elected officials should try to govern as they campaigned. If they don’t, then democratic institutions are doomed to failure.
The pledge was stupid pandering, but she made it and now should stand by it, resign or at least try to explain why anyone should ever believe a word she says (good luck with the last).
Ms Cole has written about the damage that might be done to the Board’s image by a reconsideration. She needs to confront the damage she has already done. She appears unwilling to do this.
Instead Ms Cole and her surrogates are trying to distract from her actions by any means possible, including blaming the administration, Beth Moss and Johnny Winston Jr. It won’t work and the attempts are eating into what faith our community has in the Board.
It has to stop.
TJM
TJ,
I think you are conveniently ignoring the fact that the candidate whose campaign you managed voted the same way as Ms. Cole on the consolidation, and both had very similar positions in their campaigns — closing schools should be a last resort.
Sounds to me like you’re playing politics a bit.
From the Capital Times, April 24:
“Recently re-elected board President Johnny Winston Jr., Vice President Lawrie Kobza and Arlene Silveira have said they are planning to vote in favor of the administration’s consolidation plan, which would save about $1 million in the 2007-08 school budget.
The complicated, interlocking plan would close Lindbergh Elementary, the district’s smallest school, on the edge of the city’s northeast side. Students would move to Gompers Elementary, which shares a campus with Black Hawk Middle School. Black Hawk also would close, and students would be divided between O’Keeffe and Sherman Middle Schools. The plan also recommends combining paired elementary schools Lapham and Marquette on the near east side, and moving some of the affiliated alternatives programs to Marquette.
Silveira, Kobza and Winston have said they support the closings because they believe the changes will improve educational options for students as well as save money.”
So Winston wanted not only to close Marquette or Lapham, but also Lindbergh?
Steven
Yes politics are involved. They are always involved, but you are wrong about everything else.
One, I am not ignoring the vote Beth Moss did make.
“At the time Ms Moss voted in favor of Ms Cole’s proposal it was clear that the votes were not there to stop the consolidation.”
Two, Beth Moss and Maya Cole did not vote the same way. Beth Moss supported Carol Carstensen’s amendment. Maya Cole did not. Had Maya Cole supported this amendment (as every statement and document she produced indicated she would), there would have been no consolidation.
Three, Beth Moss did not and would never make a stupid pandering statement like Ms Cole did. Their positions were not similar. One revealed an understanding of the difficulties of the situation and stated her beliefs and intentions (beliefs and intentions that she acted on once elected); The other pretended it was simple in order to gain votes (and abandoned her promise at the first opportunity).
Before pointing the finger — saying that this is about playing politics and trying to distract from the truth — maybe doing a little fact checking would be a good idea (especially when all the facts that you got wrong were on the very page you were posting on).
TJM
I copied this from elsewhere on this blog site, just fyi:
AMPS Commenting Etiquette
AMPS is designed to promote positive practices in MMSD, while offering constructive ideas for improvements. The site is designed to provide accurate information and to create a forum for civil dialogue. Please keep in mind these guidelines:
– No pseudonyms or initials allowed REAL NAMES ONLY
– Avoid personal attacks toward all and challenges directed at specific posters.
– Respect the privacy of private citizens that do not want to be mentioned publicly.
– Avoid misrepresentation of articles, research and events.
– Critique ideas; do not criticize people.
Postings that do not adhere to these guidelines will be deleted. Posters who repeatedly ignore etiquette will be removed.
Donna,
Could you be more specific in what you are implying and to whom?
Thanks, Robert Godfrey
I think Donna was clear.
Donna and Barb
I helped draft those rules and understand why they are important. The only place where I see that I may have come close to violating them was in response to Ed Blume (and I do not think I crossed that line).
I see plenty of other places in this thread where the “Avoid misrepresentation of articles, research and events,” rule has not been respected (is this what you mean Barb? Like Robert, I am not clear). I won’t list them because that may violate the “Avoid personal attacks toward all and challenges directed at specific posters” rule.
TJM
TJM
To be a little more direct, TJ, your negativity, nitpicking and personal attacks do not come across as constructive to some of us.
Steven,
Personal attacks should be taken seriously, are you suggesting that you’ve been personally attacked?
As to negativity, well, if you are like anyone in town at the moment with a take on Monday’s board decisions, I would think anyone would find it hard, in their heart of hearts, to put a completely positive spin on what has transpired. Sure, one can highlight the positives, which some have already done in earlier postings (including TJ), but to argue against the decisions of public officials certainly falls into the realm of legitimate public policy dialectic. One can in turn choose to disagree with that assessment, and I hope everyone does. Our newest School Board configuration has reached an early tipping point, school advocates in our community are still in the process of analysing their own thoughts on these matters and are reading and listening to how each board member is responding in these difficult times to the people who elected them. It is indeed not the most positive of times.
Robert Godfrey
Robert, I agree in general with what you are saying. But I think TJ is unfairly calling out Maya Cole for decisions the board made last week. And his tone is eerily reminiscent of the nasty divisiveness that has caused so many problems with this board in the past.
Thanks Steven.
Hi Barb Schrank,
Sorry a little slow to pick up who that Barb was. Barb, like me, you’ve been dealing with district issues for quite a while. I’m curious to hear your take on this issue of campaign promises. Does it all come down to different levels of trustworthiness of the “read my lips” variety (GHWB) in which we must all filter to a certain extent what level of accountability we are willing to assign a particular candidate’s fidelity to their pledges, depending upon whether we are a supporter of theirs or not? Changing circumstances or new information could certainly be one reason to break a promise, but I draw a blank on that one in this case. Do you understand what happened?
Robert Godfrey
I have resisted getting further into this, but now I feel compelled to do so.
Ressonable people can disagree about whether or not Maya’s vote was a betrayal of a pledge or a compromise of a strongly stated intention. I believe that Maya came to her decision because she genuinely does not consider the final vote the equivalent of “closing a school” and a violation of her stated principles (to which she did provider conditional language, as mentioned in an early post.)
Here’s another way to view the LM change:
The LM school community remains in tact. Same kids, same attendance area, same teachers (as of agreement reached yesterday between MMSD and MTI), and same grades. It is changing the use of one of the buildings in the school pair, but not breaking up the school community and sending kids off to different attendance areas. The two buildings are within 1.1 miles of eachother, in very closely linked neighborhoods. The Marquette builidng site and immediate neighbhorhood will still have MMSD O’Keefe middle school, thereby retaining the attraction for families near Marquette of living in walking distance to neighbhorhood schools.
Truly, some people do not really view this as “closing a school” at all. You may disagree. I may or may not disagree. The point is that reasonable people can disagree on this, and thus disagree on how they perceive Maya’s vote.
Instead of allowing a dialogue and genuine effort to understand differing viewpoints, this thread has characterized judgement as fact, for example, stating that Maya made “stupid pandering statements” only to gain votes. This, in my view, easily falls into the realm of assigning motives where they are unclear and criticizing character rather than debating issues.
Sorry for the length of the post. But truly, I joined this blog to try to help advance the united action of solving the funding formula and approach to budgeting, and I encouraged a lot of other people to join with that in mind. Sadly, it now appears that it is devolving into another forum for internecine warfare. I’ll spend my energy elsewhere.
Hi Robert,
I think you need to ask the board members yourself. I’m not ready to be so black and white about either Ms. Moss or Ms. Cole. While the budget decisions to date are painful –
I continue to have problems with an annual budget process where Board members are only talking about the $7 million proposed for cuts (2% of the budget), and then spending inordinate amounts of time digging for additional information for any adjustments they might propose, knowing the admin. does not support changes and they may not have the votes of support from their colleagues all the while being pressured to make major decisions in a ridiculously short timeframe.
Yes, the school financing is broken, but that is no excuse for an annual budget process like the one Madison has. There have been improvements for sure, and I know improving the process will not alter the cuts that need to be made. But how the current process unfold, in my humble opinioon, is unnecessary, unproductive and pits parent groups against parent groups, arguing over the same $7 million not talking about educational priorities, not seeing what the admin does not want us to see (such as $2 million for extracurricular activities – important but maybe not affordable when increasing class sizes and consolidating schools, so why is not work done on this from year to year). Am I saying there’s oodles of money lying around and it’s the administration’s fault – absolutely not! But, something’s missing locally, and it’s not helping us to plan and to work together.
Much here since I went to spend a nice day with my family.
I’m going to go bottom to top.
Barb, I agree that the budget process could be improved, but as long as the cuts are at the levels they have been, nothing will stop pitting one group against another. That’s a pipe dream. If we want to move from “least harm” to “most good” discussions the fix is at the state level, not anything amiss locally. I would add that an operating referendum will move us part of the way there for a number of years. I also disagree that work is not done from year to year. I also think your evasion of Robert’s question is part of the problem. A simple review of the sequence of events doesn’t show much grey — except I would say on the matter of whether Ms Moss should have held out longer to make it obvious to all that Ms Cole had abandoned her pledge and that she was standing by her campaign positions. She counted the votes correctly, but there seems to be some confusion, confusion you continue to cultivate.
Donna, your attempt to parse Ms Cole’s statement is another example of cultivating this confusion. “Never” means never. How can we ask anyone to trust a board whose credibilty rests on an assertion that “never” can reasonably be used to preface a “strongly stated intention” and not a pledge? I want to convince this district that an operating referendum is needed because we have good people doing the best they can and they need more money to do what should be done. We need to mobilize statewide to convince the legislature that the same is true around the state. I know you do too. Starting by insisting that “never” is a part of a “strongly stated intention” isn’t going to help. Credibility is key and (no doubt for what she feels are good reasons) Ms Cole has damaged the credibility and has compounded this by not confronting what she has done in this area.
On the “stupid pandering” characterization, I think the stupidity is manifest in what has happened. I may be wrong about the pandering and intention, but I don’t think so. Some may disagree, but I think that informed speculation about the motives of candidates and elected officials is essential to our system. The alternative is to simply accept whatvever they choose to tell us. And there has been dialogue on this and other issues and you have been part of it.
I understand why you wouldn’t want to continue to pay attention to this thread (if I didn’t think attempts to shift responsibilty from Ms Cole were damaging the broader credibilty of MMSD, I wouldn’t either), but I hope you do pay attention to many of the other things AMPS has to offer.
To Steven all I can say is that your misrepresentations are not constructive. Correcting them is. In the future, also please use your full name. That’s a rule.
TJM
What did I misrepresent?
And one final thing, and I promise to get out of here. Since you are focusing on that word “never,” did Cole use that word? I didn’t see it anywhere, but of course you might have seen it somewhere I didn’t look.
Steven
My (honest) mistake. The correct quote was “I will not.” That doesn’t change my point. Substitute “I will not” and you get “How can we ask anyone to trust a board whose credibilty rests on an assertion that “I will not” can reasonably be used to preface a “strongly stated intention” and not a pledge?” This is a distinction without difference. If you see a ddifference, perhaps you could explain.
I think I detailed your misrepresentations (maybe they were sincere confusions, if they were I am sorry if my tone indicated otherwise) above. I did not ignore Beth Moss’s votes in either the initial post or the comments. Beth Moss did not vote the same way (she supported Ms Carstensen’s amendment, Ms Cole did not, nor did Ms Cole offer amendments to Ms Carstensen’s or Ms Mathiak’s, which is how compromises are reached). Judging the similarity of their campaign postions is subjective, but I think there are and were essential differences between how they represented themselves to the voters and I explained these.
Even if we accept the “sincere intention” construction, Ms Moss acted on her stated intentions and Ms Cole did not and proposed an amendment counter to these intentions (the amendment that passed, with Ms Moss’s vote).
You and others have found what I have written here to be very negative. After Monday’s meeting, I was doing my best to be positive (see here and add something positive or tell me you think I’m wrong about one or more yourself): http://www.madisonamps.org/component/option,com_jd-wp/Itemid,31/p,154/). I’m still positive about many things, but Ms Cole not confrontiong what she has done and others enabling this is not one of them.
TJM
I don’t agree with you. It is simply not reasonable to expect these types of judgments to be absolutes. The decisions are not made in a vacuum. From what I read (and I saw part of the meeting on TV but not all of it), I did not see any reasonable alternatives that would have gotten the majority to arrive at a budget that contained no closings or consolidations.
I guess you wanted Cole to take an absolute position, even if she couldn’t come up with a better alternative. I haven’t seen what that better alternative is, and I don’t think you’ve offered one, which makes me think think you’re playing with words and you must have some political purpose.
Sorry to mess up your blog. I’ll try to chime in later on a more positive subject, if we can find one.
Well, this isn’t a very productive thread. Thanks Steven.
I mean, thanks Steven, I feel similarily to you about decisions not being made in a vacuum.
Steven
Ms Carstensen offered an alternative at the meeting. Ms Moss offered an alternative in her budget amendments prior to the meeting. Mr Winston offered an alternative in his budget amendments prior to the meeting. Ms Cole even offered an alternative in her budget amendments prior to the meeting. Plenty of alternatives.
I really don’t care if Ms Cole takes absolute postions or not, however she did take one and should have lived up to it. When she not only supports, but introduces a policy exactly opposite of the absolute position she voluntarily took then she should be held accountable. She had a lot to say about accountability during the campaign.
I’ve always considered public education to be political (what else would it be), so it doesn’t bother me that you see this as political.
“Playing with words”…you called me on misquote as if there was some important difference between what I misquoted and what she said. I took responsibility for my mistake (you have never addressed the disconnect between your assertions and the truth) and invited you to explain that difference you apparently saw. Instead you come back and accuse me of “playing with words.” I’m not the one playing with words here.
“Playing with words,” I really don’t understand how anyone can defend the combination of breaking a pledge and evading responsibility. I haven’t seen anyone try either. People change the subject, parse phrases, point to failures in the process, call for odd forms of relativism (no absolute standards), “play with words,” try to make this about Beth Moss or Johnny Winston Jr. or even me…distractions and evasions. We deserve better from our Board members and I will continue to demand it. Those who insist on aiding the continued evasion of responsibility should be ashamed.
TJM
On to the next debate, TJ.
Again – thanks, Steven. I suggest folks read Ms. Swedeen’s comments made yesterday.
This link to a Capital Times editorial by John Nichols entitled “School closings critical in board race” (http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/column/index.php?ntid=128678) may shed some light on TJ’s assertion that Maya made a campaign pledge and even John Nichols believed this pledge was the catalyst to Ms. Cole’s victory. John Nichols has been a staunch supporter of Ms Cole through two campaigns both of which centered on the value of Neighborhood Schools.
“There is still a good deal of discussion about Maya Cole’s win last week in the race for an open seat on the Madison School Board.
How did Cole upset the equation that says an able candidate backed by key liberal groups and officials is close to unbeatable — especially on the same night that saw two other School Board seats go by roughly 2-1 votes to candidates favored by those groups and individuals?
So how did Cole secure her 3,000-vote majority?
The answer would appear to have a lot to do with threats by school administrators to consolidate and perhaps close schools on the isthmus. A few months before the election, the administration floated the notion that budgets could be balanced by radically altering how Lapham and Marquette elementary schools and O’Keeffe Middle School are organized.
When the School Board toyed with the question in January, Cole told board members that balancing the budget by cutting neighborhood schools would be a mistake. And she sided with neighborhood school advocates who proposed holding a referendum to raise the funds needed to keep the schools open and operating as they traditionally have.
Passman was sympathetic but, like several current board members, she said she was leery of proposing a referendum.
As the race wore on, both candidates worked their way around the issues in more detail.
But those initial responses resonated. I heard the comparison made again and again by parents in isthmus neighborhoods. While Cole and Passman were both sound liberals — a prerequisite for winning votes on the isthmus — Cole seemed to be more committed to preserving neighborhood schools. The line may or may not have been fair, but it stuck.
The election night numbers from the isthmus closed the deal for Cole.
In 2006, when she narrowly lost to School Board member Arlene Silveira, Cole was trounced on the isthmus. Silveira beat Cole by a combined total of almost 1,000 votes in the vote-rich 2nd and 6th aldermanic districts on the isthmus.
In 2007, Cole lost District 6, which is home to the Marquette and O’Keeffe schools, by barely 300 votes. And she actually won the 2nd, which is centered around the Tenney-Lapham neighborhood that is most devoted to preserving the Lapham school.
Cole also swept every ward in the downtown 4th aldermanic district, where concern about the future of neighborhood schools on the isthmus runs high. And she carried every ward in the 12th and 17th aldermanic districts, which are home to lively discussions about the fate of east side schools.
In every case, Cole’s numbers were dramatically up from 2006 — despite the fact that Passman had taught on the isthmus and had many friends there.
If neighborhoods on the isthmus and in adjoining stretches of the east side had followed normal voting patterns, Cole would not be on the School Board. And the threats to neighborhood schools in those areas played a significant role in altering the results.
That’s something that every member of the board, including Cole, would be wise to remember.”
Some of the fault lies squarely on the shoulders of the voters in the Isthmus and the 2nd district as well as every ward in the downtown 4th aldermanic district and she carried every ward in the 12th and 17th aldermanic districts, which are home to lively discussions about the fate of east side schools. These single issue voters apparently forgot to go to any of the Candidate Forums in 2006 or 2007. Perhaps if they had seen Ms Cole, who jokingly quipped at the 2007 Northside Forum, “Oh, a flip flopper. Life is full of contradictions…” When asked this question by Ms Passman:
Marj: A few weeks ago you testified before the board that you were opposed to closing any schools. Last week your written response to the Marquette Neighborhood Association appears to say that closing might be OK. Last year you attacked your opponent for her union endorsement, yet you accepted the endorsement of AFSME, why did you change your mind on these two issues?
Maya: Oh, a flip flopper. Life is full of contradictions. The Marquette Neighborhoods Association didn’t come to me directly, it was done through someone who is currently running for office and is a member of PD and asked me to respond to what I thought of Art Rainwater’s budget presentation and I directly responded what I thought of it because I’m about consensus building. I am not about looking at issues that are black and white and for the second part of the question, the reason why-and I do believe I earned the endorsement of AFSME-is not because I have friends in high places or because I knew somebody, its because I looked them in the eye twice and when they asked me the question, will you cut positions, what is your position in how we budget in this process, I said to him that I can’t even keep my own house clean and that people like janitors are very important and that this goes back to that health insurance question. Why is it that the teacher’s health insurance is so important, that the board can’t even say we might need to look at this, we might, we probably won’t but we might. The principle’s have had to change their health insurance, the janitor’s have had to change their health insurance and its starting to look rather classist.
Moderator to Marj: You have 90 minutes (laughter) I’m sorry 90 seconds to answer.
Marj: I happen to have the entire budget here (holds up budget document) more laughter. I don’t know what the question is anymore. It went from insurance to budget and then back…Funny, I gave the same exact answer to AFSME but I didn’t get their endorsement so it must be something else for both of us. The simple fact is you’ve got to come up with a definitive answer and you’ve got to give it in a nice, clear, lucid form or we don’t know what you’re talking about. And I think in the future we would expect answers from you that are clear and that we can say yes you believe this, or no you don’t believe this, or yes you believe that, that’s all.
Maya: On my website it says in bold print, I will not vote to close a neighborhood school. I ran last year on the importance of neighborhood schools, however, this district needs to recognize that there are diverse opinions and that democracy is messy. It is not something where I am going to march out with one opinion, my own opinion and not look at all the evidence.”
The handwriting was on the wall for Maya’s “change of heart.” To their credit, “In 2007, Cole lost District 6, which is home to the Marquette and O’Keeffe schools, by barely 300 votes.” Caveat emptor–“Let the buyer (voter/journalists) beware”.
My intent is not to rub salt in the wounds of east side voters but rather to remind them not to remain single issue voters/journalists and to encourage them to attend a Candidate Forum in 2008.
To end on a more positive note here is a poem written by Sheila Eichorst after attending the public hearing at Leopold in 2005. She read it at the Crestwood gathering.
What is a Neighborhood School?
By Sheila Eichorst
A neighborhood school
is loving and kind.
It accepts ALL students
and challenges the mind.
Kids who live close
and those far away,
Can call it home
from day to day.
Teachers and staff
love to be there,
making it special
however they dare.
Families are welcome
from day one,
to volunteer in the classroom
and join in the fun.
The halls are filled
with smiles each day
with friends of ALL colors
who have learned how to play.
Many cultures are blended
in a way that’s unique
to make learning possible
each and every week!
Therefore, a neighborhood school
may be hard to define,
if it’s enrollment depends on
a boundary line!
Janet