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Parents don’t have to settle for a race to mediocrity
Scarlett Johnson is a suburban Milwaukee mother of five and one of the organizers of an effort to recall members of the Mequon-Thiensville School Board — an effort that drew national attention. The incumbent school board members survived the recall attempt, and when Johnson and another reformist ran to replace two members whose terms expired, they were defeated by a former school board member and an education bureaucrat.
Johnson remains undaunted — she is still active in trying to reform the district. She sat down with Badger Institute Policy Director Patrick McIlheran this week to explain what drove her to act on behalf of her local schools, and why more parents should do so.
Our district releases, every year, a report card, and we started to see that this decline did not start with COVID. It had actually started as early as 2015.
When my son graduated, (Mequon) was still – it was starting to decline, but it was still one of the top districts in the country, definitely in the state. It is no longer those things.
Our district, we expect more. We're very engaged parents. We're a very engaged community. And excellence used to be the mantra of our district until we replaced excellence with equity.
Equity is a race to the middle. When we are focused on excellence, then you are trying to give every child the equal opportunity at the best education possible. When you're focused on equity, it is more about equalizing the outcomes. It acts as a ceiling, not a floor.
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