Monday, January 6, 2025
Gov. Tony Evers calls it a 'mistake' to change state test score benchmarks
Molly Beck
MADISON - Gov. Tony Evers, a former state superintendent and public educator, said it was a "mistake" for the state Department of Public Instruction to change how school children are measured on state academic tests without gathering input from educators and parents.
The Democratic governor's comments put him at odds with his successor at the state's education agency, who has defended the changes as providing a more accurate picture of student achievement.
But the category changes have been met with criticism and mean the test is no longer aligned with the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly said in October that the benchmarks created an "extremely high standard to meet, beyond grade-level knowledge."
Evers, who in 2012 as state superintendent adopted the previous standards that were recently changed by Underly, said Friday he was surprised by the changes.
"I hate to even talk about things that aren't my purview anymore in the Department of Public Instruction but I just think there should have been some information and dialog happening with all sorts of people before that decision," Evers told reporters in a press conference. "It's hard to compare year to year if one year you're doing something completely different ... I think it could have been handled better."
Evers said he believes there were school officials who didn't know the changes were coming.
"The mistake was there wasn’t enough conversation with stakeholders, parents ahead of time," he said.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, told CBS58 that the new testing standards were "preposterous" and expects to introduce legislation to address the changes during the upcoming legislative session beginning this month.
"We want to pass legislation to guarantee the standards are the same and you don't get to jigger then every time you want to run for reelection," Vos told CBS58.
Underly is seeking a second term as DPI superintendent this spring. She faces Sauk Prairie School District Superintendent Jeff Wright and Brittany Kinser, an education consultant in a Feb. 18 primary election. The two candidates who receive the most votes will move to the April 1 spring election.
Laura Schulte of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.
Molly Beck can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com.
The dumbing-down of the USA continues. If the students can't hit the mark in testing, then just lower the standards. This is not only an insult to the students and their parents, it's also an insult to future generations that have to adjust and tolerate more ignorance and more stupidity.
Hope grows for young Racine County boy in need of lifesaving kidney transplant
Foxconn acquires 20 acres near its Mount Pleasant complex. No plans have surfaced yet for the lots
Tom Daykin
A Foxconn Technology Group affiliate has acquired 20 acres of undeveloped land near its Mount Pleasant complex.
The parcels, at 4529 U.S. Highway 41, 13027 Braun Road and 10640 W. Prairie View Drive, were recently transferred from the Village of Mount Pleasant to Fewi Development Corp., according to a deed posted online by the Wisconsin Department of Revenue.
The transaction is valued at just under $4.9 million.
The lots were acquired by the village as it was assembling the site for Foxconn. Their transfer to the company's ownership was made under the development agreement between the village and Foxconn, said Sean Ryan, village communications director.
"The company recently requested title to these properties that were owned by the Village, and the Village transferred the properties to the company," Ryan said, in a statement.
There are no pending development proposals under village review for the properties, Ryan said.
Foxconn declined to comment on its plans for the parcels.
Then-Gov. Scott Walker and Taiwan-based Foxconn in 2017 agreed to a $2.85 billion tax incentive package ― including state and local funds ― if the company met annual hiring and capital investment goals.
Foxconn promised to bring 13,000 high-tech jobs to Wisconsin and create a massive large-screen LCD manufacturing facility in Mount Pleasant.
But those plans failed to materialize, and Foxconn instead shifted to contract manufacturing.
A 2021 renegotiated agreement under Gov. Tony Evers' administration allows the company to receive up to $80 million in state tax credits through 2025.
In return, the job target was reduced from 13,000 to 1,454, and Foxconn's estimated capital investment was cut from $10 billion to $672 million.
The company so far has received tax credits totaling $52.5 million since 2000, according to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., a state agency.
Meanwhile, much of the land planned for Foxconn has since been sold to Microsoft Corp. for its data center campus.
Tom Daykin can be emailed at tdaykin@jrn.com and followed on Instagram,Bluesky, X and Facebook.
Microsoft pauses construction on Mount Pleasant datacenter
Caroline Neal
MOUNT PLEASANT — Microsoft has paused construction on its Mount Pleasant datacenter campus.
When the deal with Microsoft and Mount Pleasant was first approved, the company intended to spend $1 billion. In May, it announced plans to triple its spending to $3.3 billion with an artificial intelligence datacenter.
“We have paused early construction work for this second phase while we evaluate scope and recent changes in technology and consider how this might impact the design of our facilities,” a Microsoft spokesperson said.
Afterward, the spokesperson said it will be important for the company to discuss with local and state authorities whether these changes will impact its current or prospective permits.
Sean Ryan, communications director for the Village of Mount Pleasant, said the company paused construction work to “incorporate new datacenter designs.”
The pause affects Area 2 and Area 3A, on the west side of the railroad tracks Area 3.
Area 3B, on the east side of Area 3, is on track to be operational in 2025, Ryan said.
A Microsoft spokesperson said the company anticipates the pause lasting “months.”
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A map from the Village of Mount Pleasant depicts the boundaries of Microsoft's datacenter.
Despite the delay, a Microsoft spokesperson said the company is “fully on track” with the first phase of the datacenter and still intends to spend $3.3 billion on the investment before the end of 2026, as mentioned in the May 8, 2024, announcement.
Ryan said village officials have “no reason” to believe the pause will impact the “overall scope or nature” of the project.
“We appreciate Microsoft being transparent with village leaders about the construction timeline for its Mount Pleasant datacenters,” Ryan said.
Sunday, January 5, 2025
Saturday, January 4, 2025
Some USPS workers stealing mail, according to report | Morning in America
UPDATE: Inmate who reportedly was assaulted in Racine County Jail has died
Annie Pulley
RACINE — An inmate who reportedly was assaulted by another prisoner Dec. 31 at the Racine County Jail was pronounced dead Jan. 1, according to a news release issued Friday afternoon by the Kenosha County Sheriff’s Office.
Joseph Lee reportedly remains on life support as his family considers organ donation, according to his attorney, Jamie McClendon.
KCSO, which is conducting the investigation of the incident, identified Davonte Carraway as the alleged assailant and is recommending that the Racine County District Attorney’s Office charge Carraway with one count of first-degree intentional homicide.
According to online court records, Carraway has multiple cases pending in Racine County Circuit Court, one of which includes a charge of attempted first-degree intentional homicide.
McClendon said Lee was transferred to RCJ from a correctional facility in Dodge County and was awaiting a hearing for a Racine County case in which he was facing multiple felony drug charges.
Lee’s next status conference had been scheduled for Jan. 10.
The alleged assault happened about 12:15 p.m. Dec. 31, according to a news release issued by the Racine County Sheriff’s Office.
The RCSO release said that the emergency buttons in every cell were functional, but none were activated.
RCSO has not responded to a request for further information.
Friday, January 3, 2025
Clergy Gone Wild: Judge suspends abuse case against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick until his death
Laura Schulte
According to online court records, on Dec. 27, Walworth County Judge David Reddy declined to dismiss the case against McCarrick but agreed to continue the suspension until the defendant dies. McCarrick did not appear in court for the hearing, and his attorney said there had been "extreme deterioration" in his health since the case was last in front of the judge in early 2024.
Prosecutors in Walworth County and the Department of Justice in 2023 charged McCarrick with sexual assault in a 1977 incident. He was charged with fourth-degree sexual assault, and if convicted, McCarrick would have faced up to nine months in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Prosecutors in Wisconsin charged McCarrick after someone reported the abuse to the state Department of Justice's ongoing clergy abuse investigation. The investigation is ongoing with no end date set.
In the incident for which he is charged, prosecutors said McCarrick groped an 18-year-old while they were both staying as guests at a residence on Geneva Lake. According to documents, the teen was in the lake off a dock when McCarrick and another adult man entered the water. Both groped him and discussed his genitals, the complaint alleges.
The teen tried to get away from the men and splashed and made noise, according to the complaint. He got out of the lake with one leg in his swim trunks and ran to the house. He got dressed and asked for a ride to the train station, according to the complaint.
The complainant said McCarrick began sexually assaulting him at age 11. According to the complaint, he reported several incidents in which McCarrick inappropriately touched or assaulted him before he was 18 years old.
McCarrick took the teen to lavish parties and events, the complaint said. The accuser also reported that McCarrick had taken him to an event where several adult men assaulted him. The accuser also said McCarrick had sex with him the day before the incident on Geneva Lake.
In 1977, McCarrick would have been 46 years old. He was a priest in the Archdiocese of New York and was working as the private secretary to Cardinal Terence Cooke. The incident is said to have occurred a month before McCarrick was named auxiliary bishop of New York. He would go on to become the bishop of Metuchen, N.J., then the archbishop of Newark and the archbishop of Washington. He was named cardinal in 2001.
McCarrick never lived or worked in Wisconsin but made visits to the state. He was able to be charged because the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse tolls, or pauses, if the perpetrator leaves the state and does not return, meaning a case can be charged at any point, instead of within a limited number of years.
The Walworth County charge is the latest development in a years-long fall from grace for the once-powerful cardinal. He was also charged in a Massachusetts case, which alleged he assaulted a teenage boy at a wedding in 1974. He pleaded not guilty in 2021. That case was dismissed last year, because McCarrick, who lives at a residence for troubled priests in Missouri, has dementia and was deemed not competent to stand trial.
McCarrick is the only U.S. Catholic cardinal, current or former, to be criminally charged with child sex crimes.
More:Case against disgraced Catholic cardinal suspended; McCarrick not competent to stand trial
His legal issues began in 2017 when a former altar boy came forward to report the priest had groped him when he was a teenager in New York. The next year, the Archdiocese of New York announced that McCarrick had been removed from ministry after finding the allegation to be "credible and substantiated," and two New Jersey dioceses revealed they had settled claims of sexual misconduct against him in the past involving adults.
Pope Francis defrocked McCarrick in 2019 after a Vatican investigation determined he sexually abused minors, as well as adults.
The two-year internal investigation into McCarrick found that three decades of bishops, cardinals and popes downplayed or dismissed reports of sexual misconduct. Correspondences showed they repeatedly rejected the information outright as rumor and excused it as an "imprudence."
The investigative findings released in 2020 pinned much of the blame on Pope John Paul II, who appointed McCarrick archbishop of Washington, D.C., despite having commissioned an inquiry that confirmed McCarrick slept with seminarians.
Laura Schulte can be reached at leschulte@jrn.com and on X @SchulteLaura.
Cops Gone Wild: Two guards at Milwaukee County Jail charged with abuse of inmates, misconduct in office
Drake Bentley
Two former correctional officers at Milwaukee County Jail face felony charges for abusing restrained inmates by repeatedly striking them, deploying pepper spray, and in one case pulling an inmate's dreadlocks, according to prosecutors.
Rafael Gomez III, 30, and Marques T. Reeder, 25, were charged Thursday by the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office. Both men are no longer employed by the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office.
Gomez, who was the supervisor on duty at the time of the incidents, was charged with abuse of a resident of a penal facility and two counts of misconduct in public office. Reeder received two counts of abuse of an inmate and two counts of misconduct in public office.
According to prosecutors, on Sept. 24, the two guards abused a restrained inmate, only identified by the initials SEH, who recently stripped down naked and threatened assault of the guards while in the unit that houses inmates on suicide watch. The officers would then make false and contradictory statements about the incident, prosecutors said.
Most of the events were captured on surveillance and bodycam video, authorities said.
Inmate repeatedly pepper sprayed, struck, complaint says
According to the complaint:
As Gomez and Reeder arrived for their 6 a.m. shift, SEH was already attached to a restraint bench in the hallway and was also wearing a belt that restricts movement of his hands, which are cuffed in front of him.
SEH was yelling threats and obscenities at the officers, which included Reeder. After being served a breakfast tray, SEH said he was having chest pains because he swallowed a piece of metal. Officers had Gomez and medical staff respond to the unit. The medical staff checked SEH's vitals and determined he should be escorted to the clinic.
Officers assisted SEH with getting dressed but SEH insisted that Reeder not touch him. SEH accused Reeder of threatening him the day before. Another officer told investigators that Reeder had threatened to "hurt" SEH.
Gomez did not attempt to replace Reeder as SEH grew increasingly unruly by threatening and spitting. Gomez and Reeder then unlocked SEH from the bench before attempting to stand him up and "stabilize" him so they could take the inmate to the clinic.
But soon, SEH was ordered to "get down" while Gomez and Reeder directed him to the ground onto his back and right side as SEH was "actively resisting," the complaint says.
Gomez then delivered two hand strikes to SEH's chest, according to prosecutors, before deploying two bursts of pepper spray. After the second burst, Gomez raised the spray canister and struck SEH's face twice, prosecutors said. Reeder then struck SEH twice, the complaint says.
Two other officers in the unit responded to help before Gomez deployed a third burst of pepper spray to SEH's face, according to the complaint. Reeder then grabbed SEH's dreadlocks, the complaint says.
SEH's level of resistance "lowered" when prosecutors said Reeder began rubbing his hands in SEH's face in an attempt to worsen the effects of the pepper spray. SEH began apologizing, saying, "I'm sorry, bro," as Reeder continued to rub his hands in SEH's face while Gomez held SEH's hands away from his face, the complaint says.
The officers moved SEH back to the restraint bench and they continued to strike him and pull his hair despite him not being resistive at this point, prosecutors said.
Gomez and Reeder would go on to give false statements about the events to investigators both in reports and during interviews, the complaint says.
Second inmate says he was abused
Reeder is also accused of abusing a second inmate, identified as TTS or Sullivan, in the complaint.
According to the complaint:
The inmate, TTS, was threatening to harm himself after witnessing the excessive use of the force by officers on SEH. Officers removed TTS from his cell and then moved him to a restraint bench before he attempted to spit on officers and tamper with the handcuffs.
About 40 minutes after officers removed TTS from his cell, Reeder approached TTS and began taunting him saying "spit" multiple times while holding pepper spray. TTS taunted back saying "spray me." After grabbing the inmate's neck, Reeder deployed pepper spray directly into TTS's face.
Officers scuffled with TTS, striking him as he resisted. TTS received a bloody nose during the incident but prosecutors said the clinic said he did not have any broken bones or fractures as a result of this incident.
Eventually, the officers decided that Reeder needed to be removed from the situation and initiated an "officer override," the complaint says. Similar to the first incident, Gomez and Reeder provided false statements in reports and during interviews, prosecutors said.
Both officers are no longer with MCSO
The Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office released a statement on Thursday announcing that both Gomez and Reeder are no longer employed by MCSO.
"MCSO holds its members to high standards, given the weight of our responsibility to protect and serve the public," the statement says. "Our commitment to those standards is evidenced by the fact that upon learning of these now-former officers’ alleged actions, MCSO detectives initiated and led a thorough investigation that provided the evidence needed for the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office to file criminal charges. Subsequently, these officers, who were still in their probationary employment phase, were separated from their employment with MCSO. MCSO will continue to cooperate with the District Attorney’s Office as these cases make their way through the criminal justice system."
Gomez and Reeder do not have permanent attorneys listed yet in court records.
Both inmates received pepper spray aftercare from medical personnel, prosecutors said. Authorities began investigating the incidents after the inmates made verbal complaints regarding excessive force being used, the complaint says.
More:Milwaukee County Jail audit finds suicidal inmates handcuffed for hours, lack of training
Thursday, January 2, 2025
Racine County Jail inmate seriously injured in assault on New Year's Eve
Chris Ramirez
Authorities are investigating an assault that occurred at the Racine County Jail on New Year's Eve that sent an inmate to the hospital with life-threatening injuries.
The incident was reported Tuesday around 12:15 p.m. in the jail's dayroom.
The Racine County Sheriff's Office said in a statement a corrections officer had just completed a safety and security check there moment beforehand as part of the department's protocol.
More:Panel upholds firing of former Milwaukee police detective convicted of disorderly conduct
The correctional officer continued to supervise inmates on the same wing when the inmate, a 35-year-old man from Racine, was attacked.
The officer found the victim unresponsive during their next safety and security check, and initiated lifesaving measures.
Security cameras in the dayroom captured footage of the assault, which Sheriff Christopher Schmaling said in the statement lasted "less than one minute."
All the emergency buttons in every cell were functional, but were not activated by any of the inmates who witnessed the assault, the sheriff's office said.
More:Darrell Brooks sentenced for intimidating witness before Waukesha parade killings
The victim suffered life-threatening injuries. He was immediately transported to a hospital, where he is currently receiving medical care.
The inmate who carried out the attack has been identified, and was segregated from all other inmates, the sheriff's office said.
The Kenosha County Sheriff's Department is investigating the incident.
Wisconsin lags behind progressive states by not legalizing and taxing marijuana | Letters
The potential for substantial tax revenues that would accrue from the legalization of marijuana across the board is not a myth but an established fact as evidenced by the revenues reaped by our neighboring states of Illinois and Michigan, who both made millions last year.
Once again Wisconsin lags behind other, more progressive states concerning an issue that a majority of Wisconsin residents support. There are many reasons to legalize marijuana in Wisconsin, not the least of which is "the will of the people."
Susan Gambetta, Greenfield
Kristin Brey:Hotboxed Wisconsin must regulate delta-8 and have debate about legalizing pot
Opinion:UW-Milwaukee would be demoted by plan to split apart Wisconsin university system
Letters to the Editor:Evers is making same historical mistake as Democrats before the Civil War
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