Students, teacher want school board president ousted for demanding higher test scores
Dave Huber - Associate Editor •June 21, 2025 • The College Fix
OPINION: They want her ‘extreme reconciliation’ or resignation for ‘disheartening’ remarks
Two students and a teacher at a Milwaukee, Wisconsin high school are demanding the resignation of the school board president — because she condemned the school’s low ACT scores and said teachers need to do better.
School District of South Milwaukee Board President Sophia Williams said at last month’s board meeting that the ACT scores of the district’s lone high school “were nowhere near where they are now,” and that she “wouldn’t have sent [her] child here,” according to WTMJ.
Williams also told South Milwaukee HS teachers “That’s your job, that’s why you became an educator, and if that’s not the job you think you should be doing, this is not the district for you.”
The news station found two disgruntled South Milwaukee HS students, Nathaniel Paff and Mason Brandt (pictured), who were pretty cheesed at Williams’ comments.
The former said “To hear that from someone else in our community, especially a board member, it was very disheartening […] “I either hope for an extreme reconciliation where she apologizes and she truly makes steps forward to make things better, or I hope that she resigns.”
Brandt said “Honestly, I would ask for her resignation” and added “I also really hope that the community understands that her behavior diminishes the opportunity of the students in the building.”
South Milwaukee HS teacher Tim Backes (pictured), also a local alderman, said he wanted Williams’ resignation by the end of the month “because it is imperative that we enter the next school year with a clean slate with a school board that respects us.”
Williams explained to WTMJ via email she was “frustrated that some teachers ‘have not engaged in critical conversations about resource adoption and instructional improvement,'” and that every teacher needs “to come to the table, offer solutions, and take part in the work ahead.”
MORE: Milwaukee schools: Almost half a million bucks for Black Lives Matter curriculum
There’s a bit to unpack with all this. First, Williams’ comments, while seemingly “disheartening,” “diminishing” (in the words of Paff and Brandt), and a bit harsh towards teachers, actually aren’t that bad — and certainly not worth of a resignation.
If her constituents feel her remarks were beyond the pale, they can oust her in the next election.
Williams has a point, after all: According to U.S. News & World Report’s report on South Milwaukee HS, its ACT percentile score is 15.4 (11 in math, 20 in reading, and 18 in science), which equates to an approximate mid-800 score on the SAT.
For comparison’s sake, the Wisconsin state average ACT scores in each subject were 30, 40, and 30 respectively.
I asked both Williams and Backes for comment, but neither responded.
What Williams needs to realize (and she indeed may) is there is only so much individual teachers can do to get test scores up. The U.S. News report notes the South Milwaukee HS student body is over half “economically disadvantaged” with 44 percent getting free lunches. This isn’t insignificant.
As Williams said, teachers (and especially, I’ll add, administrators) at all levels within the district need to “come to the table” and come up with solutions. In my experience, a no-nonsense/no-excuses approach is the most successful, but given Milwaukee’s long history of progressivism I can’t see this happening.
We’ve seen the chaos sown in blue states and cities via progressive leadership (Los Angeles and Chicago, anyone?), and how the teachers’ unions are intertwined with progressive/Democratic politics (did you know American Federation of Teachers head Randi Weingarten was a member of the Democratic National Committee’s Rules Committee for 19 years?).
And then, of course, there’s the “research” out of blue states — like believing kids should be “well-behaved” makes one an “authoritarian.” C’mahn.
So is it a surprise that these areas’ overriding concerns for students are “equity,” “social and emotional learning” and the like … over tried-and-true (i.e. successful) learning methods?
But that’s what red states have been doing; for example, The Federalist reports Mississippi and Louisiana have prioritized the teaching of phonics for reading instruction … and now its students have “surpassed those in deeply Democratic states such as California and New York.”
It seems to me Ms. Williams was merely expressing many of the same frustrations against progressive leadership that voters did last November. And that is anathema for folks like Paff, Brandt, and Backes.
MORE: Pressure builds — even in blue states — to reform Schools of Education, reinstall phonics training
IMAGE CAPTION & CREDIT: TMJ4 News/YouTube, South Milwaukee government.
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