Tommy Washbush / Freepik assets
A woman erasing drawings of school buildings off a chalkboard.
The Madison school district will ask voters to approve a $507 million capital spending program in a November referendum. Voters should send them back to the drawing board. It’s the progressive thing to do.
That biggest-ever ask would replace five schools and substantially renovate two others, but some of those buildings are well below capacity now and projections are for even smaller enrollments in the future.
The biggest ticket item is replacement of Shabazz High School and Sherman Middle School, which share the same building. That project would cost an estimated $108 million. Now, there’s no question that the building has outlived its useful life and should be closed at some point. But it makes no sense to replace it.
According to a recent Wisconsin State Journal story, the building that houses Sherman and Shabazz is at 50% capacity. In 2018 Sherman and Shabazz had a combined enrollment of 548. This year that number is down to 499 and in five years it is projected to be down still further to 472. Moreover, Shabazz’s enrollment is expected to dip below 100. It’s not clear to me why we’re running a high school with less than 100 students no matter where it’s located. And yet, not only does MMSD want to spend over $100 million on a new school, but that building would be larger than the current one.
And the district’s argument in favor of what seems like madness? Enrollments may turn around some day. But that’s unlikely for two reasons.
The first is that fertility rates are down and enrollment declines are an issue for districts all over the country. In addition, the COVID pandemic resulted in an increase in homeschooling, a switch to schools outside of public school systems, and a mysterious disappearance of some part of the school age population.
The second reason that enrollments are not likely to turn around has to do with the policies of this district. District officials point to Dane County’s rapid growth projections, but the county has been growing at a steady pace for decades and yet MMSD has been losing students for over a decade. The numbers did stabilize this year, but they did not go up and it’s foolish to base hundreds of millions of dollars of long-term investments on a single year’s data.
This raises a broader question and points to the reason that I’ll be voting against both this and the $100 million operating referendum, which will also be on the ballot. The district is losing market share because it is badly managed. Test scores are some of the worst in the state, absenteeism remains high, and the racial achievement gap hasn’t improved.
Parents are voting with their kids and taking them out of the district. And it’s not because the buildings aren’t nice enough. It’s because this school board obsesses over solving all of society’s problems rather than focusing on teaching kids how to read, write, do math, and behave in a way that respects their teachers and peers. If you want to do something to solve stubborn problems of racism in our society the best way to do that is with high-achieving Black students.
And there’s another problem. It’s broadly accepted that Madison has an affordable housing shortage. These referendums, combined with the city of Madison’s $22 million question, will add about $1,600 to the average property tax bill by 2028 should they all pass. That’s bad enough for homeowners, but it’s even worse for renters because owners see a steady increase in the value of their homes while renters will simply pay more as landlords pass along tax increases to them. And because they’ll pay more in rent it will make it even harder for them to save for their first house.
I have never been quite sure why a community like ours, which values education so highly, accepts this kind of poor public school performance with such equanimity. I’m voting against these referendums not just because I think it’s too much money, not just because I don’t think the district has done enough to cut costs, and not just because it will make the housing affordability problem even worse. I will vote “no” because I want to send a no confidence message to this school board.
I oppose this referendum for progressive reasons. I’m for great public schools. I’m for closing the achievement gap. I’m for high-achieving Black students. And I’m for doing something about housing affordability so that more families can build wealth the easiest way — through home ownership. This referendum will help accomplish none of those things and it will actually be a big step backward on housing affordability.
Finally, if this capital referendum is rejected it won’t be the end of the world. It will simply force the district to be less profligate and to come back with a more reasonable proposal. I actually want to vote for capital improvements for our schools, just not for this proposal.
Dave Cieslewicz is a Madison- and Upper Peninsula-based writer who served as mayor of Madison from 2003 to 2011. You can read more of his work at Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos.
