Follow-up questions on educational outcomes

This week we asked the candidates to discuss the educational outcomes that they would like to see from a restructuring of the Oshkosh school system. Unfortunately one of the candidates, incumbent Karen Bowen, did not respond.

So our follow-up question to Karen Bowen is based on the assumption that she believes that Scenario 7 will result in positive educational outcomes. Our follow-up question to her is this: “Is Scenario 7 the best way to improve educational outcomes? Why or why not?”

In her response Michelle Monte identified several educational issues that she says Scenario 7 would not address: the freshman failure rate, high school disparities, block scheduling.

Out question to her is this: “Do you think Scenario 7 can be adjusted in a way to accomplish these goals, and if it were, would you support it?”

Teresa Thiel’s response is the one the most directly addresses educational outcomes: more classes of reduced size, more evenly distributed special-education programs, more teacher collaboration among teachers of the same grade level. While she expresses misgivings about some aspects of Scenario 7, overall she appears to give it at least a passing grade.

Our question to her is this: “If there were one thing about Scenario 7 that you could change, what would it be?”

In his response Dan Becker stresses the importance of neighborhood schools, particularly at the elementary level. Our question to him returns to the issue of education outcomes.

Our question to him is this: “While smaller, closer schools appear attractive from a philosophical perspective, do we know if they lead to higher levels of educational attainment?”