Bringing Learning Alive
We believe kids are the most important people in our education system and should be personally connected to the people and experiences needed to bring learning alive.
We have plans to make Wisconsin’s public education the best in the world.
Our plan begins by ensuring that the basic needs of every child are met at home, school and in the community. If these needs are met, a student will be in the “just right” place to learn throughout every phase of formal education.
W-Alive™ connects learning to life-bringing education in WisconsinAlive™. This type of education enables kids to solve all kinds of life challenges to create inspired futures for themselves and others. Only if we place our kids at the center of our strategy can we build this type of education system. Their relationships with family, teachers, other kids, their community, higher education and the future all need to be nurtured in realistic yet ambitious ways.
StageW™ has created ideas to make this possible – ideas inspired by conversations with teachers and kids, administrators and parents, and business and community leaders.
StageW honors the education debate to provide the world’s best public education. Here’s what we’ve heard:
- Parents want the ability to choose another school for their kids when public schools in their district are underperforming
- Employers are concerned that attacks on education will affect their ability to attract qualified people needed to grow their businesses
- Homeowners feel that attacks on education will reduce property values
- People of Wisconsin consider education a priority that helps drive our state’s economy and the glue that holds many of our rural communities together
- People of Wisconsin fear that all of the benefits of their great system of education are at risk, thus affecting the quality of life in our state
Education Plan
Please watch/read, question, encourage and challenge our ideas. Your voice will influence how the plan evolves.
Pay Back Student Loans
W-Alive™ recruits new graduates to come live, work, play and stay in Wisconsin by repaying their outstanding student debt until it is fully retired. All they have to do is work six uninterrupted months of full time employment in the state to be eligible to apply 100% of their Wisconsin income tax due that year and, in all subsequent years when they are employed full time, to the repayment of their student debt.
Connect Kids To Education Early
W-Alive connects kids living in poverty to early childhood education. We create partnerships between leading centers and daycare operators to teach best practices and scale capacity cost effectively; partnerships with healthcare providers to offer the support and resources that promote early learning; faith partnerships to engage entire communities in supporting early education for parents and babies and; technology partnerships that keep parents connected to healthy parenting reminders.
Virtual Internships & Apprenticeships
Connecting schools to employers makes learning relevant and experiential. W-Alive facilitates virtual internships by allowing employers to leverage the WisTalk™ Learning Channel to engage kids in real world assignments that reinforce the teaching curriculum. This helps businesses achieve short- and long-term objectives of attracting young people to their industry. By connecting schools to employers, kids also have the opportunity to explore apprenticeships that teach job and life skills.
Coming Together for Inspired Education
Our W-Alive plan envisions the appointment of a non-partisan state commission to identify best practices by considering the achievements of all education models and proposing an implementation strategy that gauges performance fairly and consistently. W-Alive also envisions the appointment of local non-partisan commissions consisting of school board members, educators, parents and other community stakeholders.
ScoreA’s™ Academic Teamwork
ScoreA’s is a team-building academic program that helps teammates lift each other to academic success. Peer supported education is a productive complement to learning programs and an added benefit for kids more likely to succeed when they feel support/positive pressure from their friends and teammates. Student athletes committed to higher education but struggling in school are mentored from willing and able teammates, boosting learning for everyone involved. The program is being piloted. www.scoreas.org
Education Revolves Around Kids
W-Alive make kids the central and most important people in our education system and connects them to the people and experiences needed to bring learning alive.
Create Connections For Kids At Risk
W-Alive™ establishes BaselTree™ to create connections between schools, kids at risk and their families so everyone is tuned into a kid’s readiness to learn. Teachers and staff team up with counselors, social workers, psychologists and volunteers to provide support to kids and families in ways that help everyone find ways to thrive.
Bridge Support For Higher Education
W-Alive™ improves high school graduation rates and reduces college dropout rates by bridging support for kids transitioning to higher education. GroBridge™ promotes early engagement between kids and tech schools, colleges and universities so support systems started during high school years stay with kids through their first year of higher education. GroBridge™ helps kids better appreciate their options and allows providers the opportunity to demonstrate why their institution is the best alternative for kids.
One-On-One Teaching
Teachers connecting with kids one-on-one are best positioned to accurately assess their skills and provide focused instruction. This finely tunes the educational experience to each kid’s academic, emotional and social development and allows teachers to inspire classroom participation, reduce fear, eliminate boredom and empower creativity.
WisTalk™ Learning Channel
W-Alive creates the WisTalk™ Internet learning channel to give kids and teachers virtual access to that “great teacher” and his or her best teaching practices. It also gives kids and teachers instant classroom access to expert learning programs that complement the curriculum and frees teachers to spend more one-on-one time with kids.
Recruit Bright Young Minds
W-Alive makes higher education affordable so we attract the world’s brightest young minds to come to Wisconsin. We want the first shot at recruiting this talent to stay and innovate in our state.
Make Public Schools The Best Choice
W-Alive appoints a non-partisan commission to identify and implement, 1) the best education practices so Wisconsin’s public schools can provide the world’s best education, 2) metrics by which success will be measured, 3) consistency in the process by which academic performance is measured by all public, private and charter schools so kids are transitioned back to their neighborhood public school districts when they are the best choice.
Eliminate Achievement Gaps
W-Alive eliminates achievement gaps by bringing kids together in grade-level classrooms to receive the same quality instruction, encouragement, support and mentorship.
Test Kids Appropriately
Testing kids should benchmark learning not define it. W-Alive gives teachers immediate test results to inform individualized learning plans. We eliminate unnecessary paperwork to maximize time in the classroom for individualized learning.
Reward Inspired Education
W-Alive™ appoints a non-partisan state commission to recommend budgets and compensation plans for public schools, colleges and universities. Plans are designed to reward success for inspired education that achieves statewide goals to provide the world’s best public education. The plan rewards local schools for realizing efficiency improvements and cost savings and returns these savings to local school budgets to enhance learning programs.
Locally Controlled Flexible Spending Plans
W-Alive invites local school districts to appoint a non-partisan local commission consisting of the school board members, educators, parents, and stakeholders to decide how new flexible funding categories will be used to address the unique requirements of kids in their district. A statewide non-partisan commission will be appointed to develop a universal structure for these locally controlled flexible spending plans.
Computer and Internet Literacy
Kids must be computer and Internet literate in order to be employable so graduating with advanced computer skills and proficiency in accessing and deciphering information from the Internet must be core curricula. W-Alive makes 21st-century learning possible by connecting every inch of Wisconsin to the highest speed broadband Internet.