John F. Witte, Principal Investigator
Affiliated Faculty/Researchers:
Graduate Project Assistants:
- Jason Engle
- David Fleming
- Paul Schlomer
- Arnold Shober
Department of Public Instruction Liaison:
John F. Witte (E-mail)
John Witte received his B.A. degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1968. Following three years as a naval intelligence officer he attended graduate school at Yale University, where he received a Masters of Philosophy (1974) and a Ph.D. (1978) in political science. Since 1977 he has been a Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He recently completed three years as director of the La Follette School.[Top]Witte has been a fellow at the Russell Sage Foundation in New York, and at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. His research interests include education and tax policy and politics. In 1984-85 he was the Executive Director of a Governor's Task Force studying the quality and equity of the Milwaukee metropolitan public schools. In 1988 he was awarded (with William Clune) grants from the Bradley, Spencer and Joyce Foundations to organize a conference on "Choice and Control in American Education." That conference, held in May 1989, produced two volumes on educational choice. He has also written four other books and over 40 articles or book chapters. In 1990 he was named as the state evaluator of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program. A study of that program through December, 1995 was funded by the Spencer Foundation. A book on educational vouchers, The Market Approach to Education was recently published by Princeton University Press.
Paula Crandall Decker (E-mail)
Paula Crandall Decker is Wisconsin's State Consultant for Charter Schools at the Department of Public Instruction (DPI). Paula provides technical assistance, administers all aspects of the Wisconsin Charter School Program, including the charter school grant program and the publication of the Wisconsin Charter School "Yearbook." Prior to her role with charter schools, Mrs. Crandall Decker was the DPI lead for the federal Title IV, Safe and Drug Free Schools Program and worked as a consultant on the School Improvement Team. Paula was employed with the Hamilton Sussex School District as the Student Assistance/ Employee Assistance Coordinator for six years and with the Arrowhead Area School Districts for over two years. Paula has consulted nationally and throughout Wisconsin in the areas of employee assistance programming, employer drug testing and alcohol and other drug prevention in the schools K-12. She has taught graduate level courses in prevention since 1988. Paula is a doctoral candidate in Educational Leadership at Cardinal Stritch University. Her dissertation will focus on reasons for approval or denial or new charter school petitions or proposals. She also holds an M.S. in Social Work from UW-Madison.[Top]
Anneliese M. Dickman (E-mail)
Anneliese M. Dickman earned a J.D. from the University of Denver College of Law in May 1997 and a B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in May 1994. She is currently a researcher at the Public Policy Forum in Milwaukee, which she joined in 1999 as a research associate. She is principal researcher of "Implementing a Return to Neighborhood Schools: The Dynamics and Challenges of Ending Desegregation," funded by the Richard and Ethel Herzfeld and Faye McBeath Foundations of Milwaukee. She is also co-investigator of "Evaluating Education Reform: The Effect of Charter Schools and Choices on Milwaukee Children and Their Education." Ms. Dickman previously worked as a policy analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures in Denver, Colo., and as a program evaluator for the Milwaukee County Department of Audit.[Top]
Jason Engle (E-mail)
Since graduating from Beloit College in 1996, Jason Engle has developed a strong background in statistical analysis and programming. Jason comes off two years with Research and Evaluation at the Madison Metropolitan School District. Currently, He is a first year student at the La Follette School of Public Affairs with interests in the area of education policy and quantitative methods. With the charter schools project, Jason is involved in case studies as well as data management.[Top]
Julie Mead (E-mail)
Julie Fisher Mead is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Administration at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She received her doctorate from the University of Wisconsin in 1994. Dr. Mead researches and writes about topics related to the legal aspects of education. Her research centers on issues related to special education and various forms of school choice. She is co-author with Julie Underwood of Legal Aspects of Special Education and Pupil Services published by Allyn & Bacon. A second book, Charter Schools and the Law: Chartering New Legal Relationships, co-authored with Preston Green, will be published by Christopher-Gordon Publishers in late 2002. She has also published articles in the Educational Administration Quarterly, West's Education Law Reporter, the Boston University Public Interest Law Journal, the Michigan Journal of Race and Law, the Journal of Law and Education, Brigham Young Journal of Law and Education, Educational Considerations, and School Business Affairs. She has makes regular presentations at the annual meetings of the Education Law Association (ELA), the American Educational Research Association (AERA), and the University Council of Educational Administration (UCEA). Dr. Mead teaches courses on the legal aspects of educational administration and the legal aspects of special education and pupil services. She has experience as a teacher of hearing impaired students and as a special education administrator.[Top]
Paul Schlomer (E-mail)
Paul Schlomer is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The primary focus of his dissertation research is on representation within the U.S. Congress. The dissertation will analyze how members of Congress know and interpret the opinions of their constituents and the degree to which they use that perceived public opinion in their decision-making calculus. Paul has an eclectic range of research interests including poverty policy, media effects, and the politics of expertise. With the WCCS, Paul is charged with helping to administer a survey of teachers' opinions as well as completing case studies of charter school classrooms. He received a M.A. in political science with a focus on public policy from Purdue University and a B.S. in political science/public administration from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.[Top]
Arnold Shober (E-mail)
Arnold Shober is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His dissertation will consider the ability of public bureaucracies to set their own policy agendas - specifically state education agencies. His research interests include public policy, bureaucracy, interest groups, and American political development. He holds a bachelor's degree in Political Science and in History from Bradley University. At WCSS, Mr. Shober is studying the variability of state contexts for charter schools.[Top]
David Weimer (E-mail)
David Weimer is professor of political science and public affairs. He teaches courses in methodology, policy analysis, cost-benefit analysis, and political economy. In addition to his participation in the WCSS, his current research projects include the comparison of telephone and Internet samples as modes of administration for contingent valuation surveys, access to quality health care by minorities, and the organ transplantation network as a form of private regulation. His recent work also includes two projects related to education policy. One project, done in collaboration with William T. Gormley, Jr., considers the role of organizational report cards as policy tools for increasing accountability in education, health care, and other social services (Organizational Report Cards, Harvard University Press, 1999). Another project, done in collaboration with Michael Wolkoff, estimates the magnitude of the capitalization of elementary school quality in housing prices and the implication of this capitalization for central city tax bases ("School Performance and Housing Values: Using Non-Contiguous District and Incorporation Boundaries to Identify School Effects," National Tax Journal 54(2) 2001, 231-253.)[Top]
Others
Other people who have worked on the project in the past include Malena Brookshire, Daria Hall, William Howell, Rochelle Mallett, Paul Manna, Christopher Miller, Stacey Pelika, and Emily Van Dunk.