{"id":11250,"date":"2024-06-19T11:36:30","date_gmt":"2024-06-19T11:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=11250"},"modified":"2024-06-19T11:57:18","modified_gmt":"2024-06-19T11:57:18","slug":"west-bend-schools-ape-milwaukee-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=11250","title":{"rendered":"West Bend Schools Ape Milwaukee Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.bootsandsabers.com\/2024\/06\/19\/west-bend-schools-ape-milwaukee-schools\/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=west-bend-schools-ape-milwaukee-schools<\/a><\/p>\n

Heh<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

WEST BEND \u2014 The West Bend School District (WBSD) announced on Monday the results of their recent community survey on facilities showed a majority of respondents support a capital referendum on the November ballot to address urgent needs in the district.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the release, 86.02% of respondents believe the district\u2019s urgent facility needs must be addressed immediately, and 72.28% of respondents support a $100 million capital referendum to address a large portion of Phase 1 needs.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There are two possible explanations for these results in the current economic climate in conservative-leaning West Bend. Fist, it\u2019s a BS survey. This is certainly true. They even say in the survey results<\/a>, \u201cby design, this data is not based on a scientific sample. Therefore, it should be treated as qualitative data.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also worth noting that the survey questions were long and intrusive. Rather than a simple survey, this one took some effort to respond to. What does that do to results? It ensures that only people motivated will fill it out. Who is that? People who really want the referendum and people who hate it. The indifferent or uninterested won\u2019t take the time. But those people vote.<\/p>\n

The second possibility is that even with the goofy survey structure, that the majority of people in the West Bend District do actually want to drop another $100 million into buildings. In this regard, they would be going the way of Milwaukee. There are many of the same factors at play.<\/p>\n

Milwaukee\u2019s educational performance has been bad and declining for years despite more money. West Bend\u2019s educational performance is better but has been mediocre to declining for years<\/a> despite increasing funding every year. Are Benders satisfied with less than half of their kids being able to read at grade level? I guess so.<\/p>\n

Milwaukee\u2019s school board has been opaque about the district\u2019s finances to the point of outright fraud. West Bend\u2019s school board has been opaque about the district\u2019s finances. Go to the district\u2019s website and try to find budget information<\/a>. It\u2019s there. Kind of. There are occasionally a couple of high-level slides in a board meeting if you know which board meeting to go look at. Years ago, the district published actual detailed budget information. That no longer happens. Every school board candidate for a decade has run promising more \u201ctransparency\u201d and the board has gotten increasingly less transparent. Where is all of the money going? Your guess is as good as mine. Wherever it\u2019s going, it\u2019s not improving outcomes for kids.<\/p>\n

Milwaukee has been facing declining enrolment for years. West Bend has been facing declining enrollment for years. A district that once served over 7,000 students with the same building structures is projected to serve just over 4,000 students by the end of the decade<\/a> (table 12). That is a 40% drop in enrollment. Why is spending not decreasing with the decline in enrollment? Why does this school board want to spend another $100 million on top of their already bloated budget? If the taxpayers are stupid enough to let them, they will.<\/p>\n

The West Bend School District is only different from the disaster of the Milwaukee School Board by a matter of degrees. Let us pray that the voters are not so stupid as the voters of Milwaukee to give them more money to waste.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.bootsandsabers.com\/2024\/06\/19\/west-bend-schools-ape-milwaukee-schools\/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=west-bend-schools-ape-milwaukee-schools Heh. WEST BEND \u2014 The West Bend School District…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-boots-sabers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11251,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11250\/revisions\/11251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}