To the editors: In response to your article, �Connecting the Dots,� which appeared in the March 4, 2009, issue of the Shepherd Express, I think some clarifications should be made. It seems that one person in particular has needlessly drawn journalistic fire�Eric Hogensen. I think that fire is misplaced. Instead of talking about the issues that plague Milwaukee�s schools, you inadvertent...

A controversial �reform� group involved in the Milwaukee Public Schools campaigns�Advocates for Student Achievement (ASA)�is the target of a complaint by Citizen Action of Wisconsin. The complaint, filed with the state Government Accountability Board this week, alleges that ASA and three candidates for the MPS board have not properly disclosed all of their activities. Accordi...

Thought that the controversial anti-incumbent, anti-union �reform� group Advocates for Student Achievement (ASA) was up to more than they were letting on? Well, according to the e-mails they posted on their Yahoo Group, they were. The unidentified yet highly resourceful and entertaining blogger SixandSevens has posted some of them online at DailyKos.com. The gist of the e-mail...

To the Editor: We are dismayed by the Shepherd’s biased reporting of the MPS school board contest between ReDonna Rodgers and Peter Blewett, and deeply offended by the mischaracterization of Ms. Rodgers. For more than 20 years, ReDonna Rodgers has been a widely respected member of the Milwaukee civic community and an opinion leader in the city’s African-American community. She has ...

One question has been nagging at me for days: Why would Advocates for Student Achievement, a political action committee co-founded by a member of the MPS board, Bruce Thompson, and whose treasurer is a former MPS board member, Joe Dannecker, not submit campaign finance reports to the City Election Commission? After all, ASA�s been around since 2007. The Shepherd reported on its firs...

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but I’m having a hard time believing that Advocates for Student Achievement (ASA) is, as they claim, simply a “good government group” interested in fielding quality candidates for the MPS board and not a pro-voucher, pro-privatization front group that's trying to swing the election. Take, for example, support for the three candidates ASA recruited...

I read Dan Bice’s column about Advocates for Student Achievement with great interest, since it basically updated and rehashed what I’ve been reporting on for weeks: that ASA has very questionable ties to three candidates for the MPS board, and it hasn’t filed any campaign finance forms with the City Election Commission. Well, ASA hadn’t filed any forms until last Friday, appa...

Well, lookie-loo. Looks like some bad press and the attention of the District Attorney’s office finally forced Advocates for Student Achievement’s PAC to submit tardy campaign finance forms. A first! Here’s what ASA-PAC treasurer Joe Dannecker signed and delivered to the City Election Commission on Friday, March 27: January Continuing 2008: $100 from Joe Da...

You know, I hate to target people personally, but ASA-backed MPS candidate Annie Woodward released a pretty unhinged press release attacking my blog post on her campaign finance report. I’m not going to rehash Annie’s criticisms—they don’t make any sense whatsoever and she employs typical right-wing smear tactics to divert attention away from her own actions. ...

One of the more fascinating e-mails among the 300-plus e-mails on ASA’s Yahoo Group is the one sent by ASA member Anne Curley on Feb. 17, to ReDonna Rodgers. Rodgers was recruited by ASA-er member Kevin Ronnie to run against MPS Board President Peter Blewett. Ronnie lost to Blewett in 2005, so I and many others have been considering the Blewett-Rodgers match-up as a proxy war w...