Alan J. Borsuk – Page 97 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

A Bold, but Optimistic Call for Higher Educational Achievement

Post author:Alan J. Borsuk
Post published:May 23, 2012
Post category:Education & Law Marquette Law School Milwaukee Public Schools Public Speakers at Marquette

David P. Driscoll, who started his career as a math teacher, says that when it comes to improving education, he likes addition and multiplication, not subtraction and division.

Driscoll, now chair of the National Assessment Governing Board, which runs the testing program often called “the nation’s report card” for elementary and high school students, brought a message to a conference at Marquette University Law School on Tuesday that was premised on that. He said Wisconsin faces major challenges as it raises the bar on student achievement, but he was optimistic and supportive in saying the challenge can be met.

With a capacity audience of education leaders filling the Appellate Courtroom in Eckstein Hall and with a roster of influential education figures also speaking at the conference, it sometimes seemed that Driscoll was the most optimistic person in the room when it came to prospect for great educational success in Milwaukee and across Wisconsin.

The heart of his message was that, whatever the political picture in Wisconsin and the challenges and problems, it is time to set aside what he called sideshows in education and come together to do the work of improving overall student achievement. He called for pursuing bold gains in achievement while staying away from the” subtraction” and “division” that often shapes education politics and policy making.

Walker Leads Barrett by Six Points in New Poll Results

Post author:Alan J. Borsuk
Post published:May 16, 2012
Post category:Marquette Law School Political Processes & Rhetoric Public

Gov. Scott Walker has opened a lead over Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett of six percentage points among likely voters in the June 5 recall election, according to results of the Marquette Law School Poll released Wednesday. The Republican incumbent was the choice of 50% of those in the poll, while the Democratic challenger was the choice of 44%.

In results released by the Law School two weeks ago, Walker held a one point edge over Barrett. But the new results are within the margin of error for the poll. Professor Charles Franklin, director of the poll, said in releasing the results that the race remains close enough that either candidate could win in the end.

Awareness of the candidates for lieutenant governor, Republican incumbent Rebecca Kleefisch and Democrat Mahlon Mitchell, is much lower than that for Walker and Barrett, but the results at this point are very similar, with Kleefisch ahead by six points. The June 5 ballot includes separate voting for governor and lieutenant governor.

Opinion in the presidential race in Wisconsin also has shifted toward the Republican candidate in recent weeks, the poll found. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama, the Democratic incumbent, were tied at 46% each among likely voters in the new round of the year-long Law School polling project. In results in January through April, Obama led Romney. In addition, results when people were asked if they had favorable or unfavorable opinions of the candidates improved for Romney and declined for Obama between the April round of polling and the new polling, which was conducted last week.

Complete results, including data on every question asked, can be found by clicking here.

Gaddis on Kennan: Insight into a Key Figure of the 20th Century

Post author:Alan J. Borsuk
Post published:May 10, 2012
Post category:International Law & Diplomacy Marquette Law School Public Speakers at Marquette

The first half of the 20th Century was terrible, including two world wars. The second half was much better. “Who developed the ideas that made the second half of the 20th century better that the first half?” Yale Professor John Lewis Gaddis asked in an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” session at Eckstein Hall on Wednesday.

“I don’t mean to say that George Kennan did all of that,” Gaddis said, answering the question. “But if I were to pick one central idea that was key to making the second half of the 20th century more peaceful than the first half, I think it was the idea of containment, I think it was the idea that you could deal with the Soviet Union without having a new world war with them on the one hand and without appeasing them on the other hand. And that really was George Kennan’s idea. So I would say if we back off and look at big ideas and big consequences, this man is extraordinarily influential.”

Kennan, a Milwaukee native, was the subject of Gaddis’ biography, “George F. Kennan: An American Life,” which was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in April. Gaddis came to Milwaukee at the invitation of the Law School. He spoke with Gousha, the Law School’s distinguished fellow in law and public policy, before an audience of about 200.

Gaddis painted a picture of Kennan as a brilliant, but complex person who had great, almost prophetic insights into global issues, but who was almost never happy with himself or how things were going in the world. He was “one of the greatest American writers of the 20th Century,” Gaddis said (Kennan won two Pulitzer prizes for memoirs he wrote) but “he was one of those people who was incapable of self-congratulation.”