The movements and changes of Wisconsinites extend beyond the stories included in these 64 pages. Become even more immersed in what it means to be kinetic by visiting our online edition where you can watch, listen and interact with stories ranging from the process of creating a dance studio to the need for non-gendered bathrooms on campus.
Unless otherwise noted, all photos and photo illustrations are attributed to Katie Scheidt.
My mom always knew I was up to something when the house was quiet. In moments of silence, she could be sure I was taking every item of clothing out of my drawers or quietly escaping to the neighbor’s house — either way I was on the move: running, jumping and dancing my way to become the person I am today. These quiet, little movements were just as formative to my identity as the momentous events.
Like me, Wisconsin’s identity is made up of big and small moments. These moments, regardless of volume, generate energy and movement to create a state that is ever-changing and constantly kinetic.
“Kinetic,” the theme of Curb magazine’s 16th edition, seeks to determine how this motion shapes who we are and what we will become. Wisconsin is home to nearly 5.8 million people, and each one has the power to change the state’s identity through their movements. Whether they do this through reviving the UW–Madison volleyball team, fighting to end sex-trafficking or teaching art class, the people of Wisconsin are always on the move. As much as we would like to hope this movement is always pushing us forward, sometimes it can hold us back. We have explored those stories as well, such as the increase in meth usage across the state and racial disparities in education.
Frequently this semester, I came home to realize that, in my frantic rush to get out the door that morning, I had once again ripped all of my clothing out of my drawers. It seems ironic that in the most transformative semester of my life, I am still so similar to that little girl who deviously sat on the floor in a pile of all of her belongings. Although I, similar to my home state, may change, there are some things that will always stay the same — our traditions and sense of community.
The Curb staff has worked tirelessly to create a magazine that features the untold stories of motion in Wisconsin, whether this motion is propelling us toward change or fighting to keep us the same. The culmination of positive and negative creates an authentic portrait of the Badger State. These stories will remind you that movement is inevitable, change is powerful, and each and every one of us has the opportunity to construct tomorrow. Don’t believe me? Turn the page.
On Wisconsin!
Taylor Palmby
Editor-in-Chief......................................
Taylor Palmby
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Carly Schesel
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Darby Hoffman
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Samantha Loomis
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Trina La Susa
Copy Editor.............................................
Molly O’Brien
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Jenna Mytton
Taylor Kilgore
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Nali Mullan
Katie Scheidt
Peter Coutu
Peter Culver
Emily Hamer
Angie Requena
Krystal Lisha Du
Stacy Forster
Curb is published through generous alumni donations administered by the UW Foundation and in partnership with Royle Printing, Sun Prairie, Wisconsin
(c) Copyright 2017 Curb Magazine
Everyone quieted down as the first note of the accordion wheezed throughout the room, signaling the final portion of the night’s music was about to begin.
The silence didn’t last long, within a few seconds people began clapping to the beat and others rushed up to the stage to polka.
This was just another Friday night at the Essen Haus.
The Essen Haus, located in Madison, isn’t the only place Wisconsinites can be found polka dancing. They can be found polkaing during the seventh inning at a Milwaukee Brewers game or the Fifth Quarter at a Badger football game. Some people go to polka festivals to dance or can be found polka dancing at Oktoberfest celebrations. Wisconsinites can be found polkaing all across the state.
Polka has been a part of the culture in Wisconsin since European immigrants brought it over in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1993, polka even became Wisconsin’s official state dance. Families of the European immigrants
Throughout the years, polka has been an integral part of Wisconsin’s culture, and it has changed with the times to keep Wisconsinites moving
By Nali Mullan
have kept polka alive by sharing their cultural traditions with the community, and continuously moving those traditions forward into the next generation. Over time, polka has evolved to fit the needs of that next generation to keep them moving their feet to the music.
James P. Leary, professor emeritus of folklore and Scandinavian studies at UW–Madison, and the co-founder of the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures, calls polka “a dance of change.”
The polka emerged in Europe around the late 1820s and early 1830s, according to Leary. This was a time of movement and urbanization. People of various ethnicities were moving from their villages in Europe to larger cities, and others began immigrating to America. The people were mobile, and so was the polka.
“When people came over, they were working side by side on farms or at a lumber camp, or what have you,” Leary says. “At first they might not have been able to necessarily speak each other’s
language too well, but they all knew some version of the polka.”
The evolution of polka intensified in the 1920s when advancements in technology allowed polka to be spread to new audiences. The emergence of media would expose people to other musical traditions from far away. Leary says this allowed musicians to begin creating polka fusions with jazz, blues and country music.
Taverns also contributed to the spread of polka across Wisconsin. Taverns were an old European “peasant pattern,” according to Leary, that acted as a club for communities to get together. Leary grew up in Rice Lake, Wisconsin, in the 1950s and says there were a lot of country taverns at the time.
“You would go there, especially on a fish fry night, or a Sunday afternoon, and whole families would be there, and there would be a polka band,” he says. “You could dance with grandma or something like that … You could go and get together and have a beer and some music and some food, and maybe dance and have a good time.”
The Friday night scene at the Essen Haus could have taken place at an old tavern 50 years ago. Nobody was dancing with grandma, but there was plenty of beer and food, and the patrons were definitely having a good time. Polka has stayed around all these years because it is always changing to remain relevant to the next generation.
“If a cultural practice doesn’t change, it dies,” Leary says. “It becomes a fossil.”
These changes can be seen during Pulaski Polka Days in Pulaski, Wisconsin, near Green Bay. A lot of bands and dancers at the festival are younger and play at a high volume with a lot of dynamics. They tend to play at a slower two-fourths time, Leary says, that allows the older crowd to dance at a normal polka tempo while the younger crowd can double time it in a “really vigorous kind of athletic style of dancing.” Leary says growing up around this, especially in a place like Pulaski, can be exciting and allow for the next generation to be compelled by polka. But what does the next generation of polka look like?
Lauren Berns is a 19-year-old student studying biochemistry at UW–Eau Claire. She also plays the flute in the St. Croix Valley Polka Band, a band of high school and college students that’s active during the summer.
The band, which originates from Hudson, Wisconsin, usually has around 15 members each summer, according to Berns. They travel to community events and nursing homes around the area to play polka music and spread cheer. Their motto is “to bring joy to the joyless and polka to the polka-less,” which Berns says usually gets a couple laughs from the audience.
Like the early European immigrants in Wisconsin, Wisconsinites of the next generations will continue to move the traditions of polka forward through their families.
Michelle Lazar, an 18-year-old student at UW–Madison studying molecular biology and psychology, grew up with polka being a part of her family’s traditions. Her parents immigrated from Czechoslovakia over 30 years ago from an area that is now part of Slovakia. They originally came to Washington, D.C., then moved to Maryland, and eventually ended up in Wisconsin.
“If a cultural practice doesn’t change, it dies. It becomes a fossil.”
She says her family has a “tendency to polka” at special events or to celebrate something that happened, but they mostly polka at weddings. Whenever one of her family members gets married, the reception includes a portion that’s just for polka.
Berns says she’s never seen another group like theirs in the area that’s made up of only young members playing polka music.
“People are always commenting about how absolutely amazed they are that we are so young,” she says. “They usually see polka music as for older folks like them. But to see these 16-, 17-, 18-year-old kids that are playing polka music and enjoying it definitely leaves a real big impression on them.”
The goal for St. Croix Valley Polka Band is to keep growing, Berns says. Currently, almost every member has been from Hudson, but the band hopes to expand its recruiting to other schools. The members also want to expand their outreach efforts.
“To see the flood of memories and emotion and happiness that [polka] can bring — it’s such a cool experience,” she says.
“Polka is a part of my family’s lifestyle for celebrating happy occasions and reminding us where we came from, which, as immigrants, is always a central part of our story,” she says, adding that it’s part of an even larger story.
It’s midnight at the Essen Haus and the music is still going. It’s loud and lively, and the only sounds that drown it out are the occasional bangs of fists against the tables, egging on someone to finish what’s left of their boot of German beer. The crowd is young, almost all appearing to be millennials.
How polka is shared now parallels that of the past: through the fusions of new sounds, the connections made through the community and the traditions of families. These methods keep polka young and moving forward to the next generation of Wisconsinites.
Check out the Kohl Center - Section 112, Gate C
Written by Emily Hamer and illustrated by Nali Mullan
It’s 2:46 a.m.
My head is throbbing a bit. My hands are shaking, partly because it’s cold in the library and partly from the caffeine pumping through my system. My neck is stiff from craning over my computer for the past 15 hours or so.
As I type, I feel my shoulders rise slightly. I try to lower them back down to a neutral position, but it’s hard to relax when it’s Sunday, and I can’t start my paper that’s due Tuesday because I’m working on other homework.
The bottom line: I should be asleep.
But I have one more assignment to do, one more online lecture to watch and readings I’m probably going to skip.
While my time management skills need improvement, it’s hard to get consistent sleep when you’re an editor for The Badger Herald newspaper, an online associate in your class magazine, an intern at University Communications, a volunteer at a philosophy education program, a researcher reading for a senior honors thesis and a student at UW–Madison.
While college has always been a difficult time to get
adequate sleep, in today’s age, the stakes are higher. More jobs are requiring more prestigious credentials. Graduates are facing more student loan debt. More students are adding more careerreadying experiences to their resumes, increasing competition within the workforce. Today’s students, in turn, have to do more in less time, leaving little time for sleep.
What many students don’t realize, however, is sleep deprivation has serious health ramifications. Some even say skipping sleep impacts every organ in the body.
According to the spring 2015 National College Health Assessment survey, which contains the most recent data on UW–Madison student health, 49.5 percent of students rated academics as “traumatic” or “very difficult to handle.” At the time of the survey, 85 percent of students reported not getting enough sleep to feel rested in the morning 2 to 7 days that past week.
As the custodians make their rounds that Sunday at 3:55 a.m., there are more than 70 students in College Library with me — every one of them awake.
For UW–Madison senior Philip Rudnitzky, a journalism major with a focus in strategic communication and reporting, these pressures mean working 20 hours a week at an unpaid internship and 30 to 40 hours a week at two bars to pay for rent and food — both while taking 14 credits. All of these things are “pretty much required,” Rudnitzky says. He needs his job to pay his bills, credits to earn his degree and an internship so he can compete against others applying for jobs in the entertainment industry.
“I think there is this expectation that students can, with the help of technology and caffeine, just kind of continue on through everything.”
“If I didn’t do this internship, the problem would be if I applied … for an entertainment job, they would ask me why I haven’t been working in the industry for an entire year,” Rudnitzky says. “That would make me less competitive than anybody else who did have an internship.”
But while Rudnitzky prepares for his career, he loses out on sleep. He often doesn’t get back from his job helping bartenders at Red Rock Saloon or Chasers until after 11 p.m., sometimes even 5 a.m. After his shift, he gets a free drink. While most employees choose alcohol, Rudnitzky takes a Red Bull to power him through the night. Within the first month of school, he had already pulled an all-nighter.
These problems are not exclusive to a specific major or area of study; they pervade across campus.
Last spring semester, UW–Madison senior Kaitlyn Gabardi, who is majoring in biomedical engineering, was frequently overwhelmed.
With 19 credits and positions as a teaching assistant and a researcher in an engineering lab, Gabardi’s days started at 7 a.m. and sometimes didn’t end until 9 p.m. — and that didn’t include homework. That semester, Gabardi pulled a total of three all-nighters and was frequently sleep deprived.
As Gabardi spent her nights last semester in 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. labs, UW–Madison junior Mike Rores, who is double majoring in math and theater, was in rehearsals for the Department of
Theatre and Drama’s two plays.
His rehearsals ran Monday through Friday, 6 to 10:30 p.m. Over the course of the semester, there was only about one month where Rores did not have rehearsals.
“While you’re rehearsing, there’s a good two months of just no time,” Rores says. “Sleep is kind of one of the first things that goes.”
Pamela O’Donnell, communications librarian at College Library, says from what she observes, students seem to think it’s fine to skip out on sleep and power through the day.
“I think there is this expectation that students can, with the help of technology and caffeine, just kind of continue on through everything,” she says.
Over the years, the student mindset has shifted toward making sleep less of a priority. In 2003, College Library changed its hours to be open 24 hours, five days a week to fulfill student demands.
Around finals time, students have brought sleeping bags, pillows, changes of clothes, holiday decorations and a waffle maker into the library. O’Donnell says she gets the sense that students have “moved into the library.” She also frequently receives requests for beds and nap stations.
“We’re here so that they have a safe space to do the work that they need to do, but … we want people to take care of themselves,” she says.
‘No Substitute for Sleep’
While inadequate sleep is common among students, experts say sleep deprivation leads to a host of negative consequences for college students and society as a whole.
Dr. Cami Matthews, a UW Health pediatric sleep physician, says sleep deprivation can cause headaches, memory issues, lack of awareness, body aches, stomach aches, increased susceptibility to illness, concentration problems, mood differences and worsened symptoms of depression. More long-term issues can include symptoms of insomnia, hormone disruption and weight gain.
Rob Sepich, student relations manager at University Health Services (UHS), says issues start to arise when people get less than seven hours of sleep.
Sleep is the only time our mind engages in “neural pruning,” the process by which we forget about things we don’t need and create new neural associations for information we do need. Sepich says this is why pulling an all-nighter before an exam can backfire.
But while staying awake all night is unhealthy and often ineffective, Matthews says a consistent lack of sleep or falling out of a sleep rhythm can be worse.
Matthews says even if you get seven or eight hours of sleep a night, you might feel even more sleep deprived if that sleep is out of your circadian rhythm. When you wake up at different times during the week, it’s like flying back and forth between time zones.
“There’s probably no substitute for sleep,” Matthews says. “I think a lot of people … try to get by on less sleep, but having sleep is a need, just like eating.”
Some people think the lack of sleep in today’s college students is closely tied to increased academic, career and money-related pressures.
Sepich says in the 24 years he has worked at UHS, students have been sleeping less and less and becoming more and more anxious. Many students are faced with tough competition when they graduate, causing them to load activities into their schedule.
“Over time, when the economy got much more challenging, you were never prepared enough. Your grades were never high enough, there’s always another organization to join … and, you know, maybe a job — but not just a job to earn money, a job that looks really good on your resume,” Sepich says.
“We mistake lack of sleep for accomplishment.”
In addition, Noel Radomski, managing director and associate researcher of the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education, says employers are engaging in “credential creep,” gradually requiring more credentials for the same jobs.
Fifth-year senior Cal Kirley, a mechanical engineering major, says he often sees evidence of these pressures pop up in daily conversations. It’s common for students to make small talk about how little sleep they get, framing sleep deprivation as a competition.
“Honestly, I think people use [how little sleep they get] as a bragging point,” Kirley says. “It’s kind of a mark on either how hard they’re working or all the stuff they have going on.”
More than 40 years ago, college students pulled all-nighters and got little sleep, but it wasn’t a topic of normal conversation. UW–Madison alumnus Andy Rensink says when he went to school here in the ’70s, sleep deprivation coalesced around finals time, not the whole semester. It also wasn’t something to brag about.
Still, other causes contribute to sleep deprivation, and lack of sleep is not merely a college problem.
For the past 30 years, the amount of sleep Americans get has been on the decline. In 1998, 12 percent of people were sleeping fewer than six hours a night, but in 2009, that percentage rose to 20 percent, according to CNN.
“Typically, nationally, people keep getting less and less sleep and keep just trying to function to the best of their ability on what most experts call ‘a sleep-deprived culture,’” Sepich says.
Matthews says part of the problem is an increase in technology in the bedroom. According to Online Psychology Degree, 95 percent of people browse the web, text or watch TV before going to sleep. With each added electronic device in the room, more sleep is lost, Matthews says. This is partly because of the light emitted from each electronic device. Light suppresses melatonin, a chemical we produce to help us sleep. And because these devices don’t turn off, our mind is often still engaged with them, she says.
Sepich says people generally have trouble disengaging from the day because technology is always nearby.
“There’s always something else you could be doing, and that creates an awful lot of pressure on your shoulders to say, ‘I’m done for the day,’” Sepich says.
Similar to how college students brag about their sleep deprivation, Sepich says many Americans wear sleep deprivation as “a badge of honor.”
“We mistake lack of sleep for accomplishment,” Sepich says.
But the truth is, less sleep does not equate to more productivity for college students, nor for the rest of the U.S. Though there are some people who can run on little sleep, Sepich says for most, sleep deprivation means getting less done in more time. He hopes there will be a shift in attitudes toward sleep — both on college campuses and in the nation as a whole.
“When you start sacrificing [sleep], everything falls apart,” Sepich says. “The earlier we can learn to make it a high enough priority, the more successful we will be.”
ALT Brew’s innovative, gluten-free beer allows more to enjoy an old Wisconsin tradition
By Trina La Susa
Trevor Easton didn’t want to make his wife sick.
But while he home brewed a batch of beer, milled barley dust flew into the air and settled into cabinets and appliances used for cooking. As a result, Easton spent hours deep cleaning the kitchen.
He had realized even a trace amount of barley from his longtime hobby could now give his wife a reaction, and he needed to change the way he brewed or stop completely.
“That was the last batch I did with wheat, barley and rye in it,” Easton says.
Wisconsin craft beer had always been something that Trevor and his wife, Maureen, enjoyed together until Maureen realized she needed to give up gluten — which meant giving up beer.
For Maureen and others facing a gluten-free diagnosis, making the necessary dietary changes to omit gluten means a challenging search for alternatives to their favorite foods and drinks. Easton continued experimenting with home brewing to come up with a way to show that Wisconsin beer can taste great even without gluten, and he brought that passion for his beer — and
his wife — to the gluten-free brews of ALT Brew in 2014.
What is life like for a Wisconsinite with celiac disease? For most, it means giving up deep-fried cheese curds, cream puffs, Friday’s battered fish fry and, of course, beer.
“I didn’t really want to know that it was the diagnosis because I knew how drastically I would have to change my life and that I had to give up beer, which was something Trevor and I really did enjoy together,” Maureen says.
These foods contain gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye. If a person with celiac disease consumes gluten, it triggers an abnormal immune reaction, says Kelly Wilson, a registered dietician at the UW Health Digestive Center. This reaction damages the lining of the small intestine and flattens the tissues that absorb vitamins and minerals.
There is no medication or supplement to manage the digestive symptoms and long-term nutrient deficiencies from celiac disease — the only remedy is sticking to a permanently gluten-free diet.
Maureen had experienced stomach issues for most of her life, but she
wasn’t diagnosed with celiac disease until 2007 when she was 25 years old — after her brother and sister had received the same diagnosis.
Since college, the Eastons have shared a mutual interest in drinking different styles of craft beer. Maureen even stepped in to help him brew from time to time.
“I had to give up beer, which was something Trevor and I really did enjoy together.”
“We both grew up here in Wisconsin, and we both independently were craft beer lovers, and then we started dating,” Maureen says. “In the Madison area, there’s a beer culture.”
Easton’s interest in brewing beer sparked when he first picked up a home brew supply kit with his college roommate at a Copps grocery store in
2000. At the time, he was pursuing a degree in industrial engineering at UW–Madison and actively brewing all-grain batches of beer as much as his class schedule would allow. Brewing his own beer in college did not generate a profit, but it led to many successful batches that he shared with friends and grew his lifelong passion for beer.
Wisconsin has a long, rich brewing history, with innovation often generated by home brewers.
Brewing beer with gluten-free ingredients was especially challenging since there was not a how-to book already published about it. Easton surfed the web, only to discover a single informative resource from Australia. He wanted to steer away from the typical gluten-free beer made from 100 percent sorghum grain, so he looked at the structure of other products on the market.
Over the years, he’s been using a variety of ingredients such as honey, roasted pumpkin, Belgian sugar and an Ethiopian grain called teff to develop other seasonal and limited-edition flavor profiles.
While current trends in the beer scene include barrelaging and sour beer making, gluten-free beer can bring not only a unique flavor profile, but also inclusivity for people with gluten intolerance or celiac disease.
was once one of their favorite beverages,” says Mark Garthwaite, executive director of the Wisconsin Brewers Guild. “I think there is a new awareness of gluten intolerance that has led to people who really feel that they wanted to find a way to make a beverage that tastes exactly like beer to meet that niche.”
In 2016, Easton opened the ALT Brew taproom and brewery in a 5,800-square-foot space on Madison’s east side. He still makes his beer in onebarrel batches on the same one-barrel system, and then fills and caps 22-ounce bottles by hand. (A one-barrel batch is 330 12-ounce beers.)
“Folks who cannot tolerate gluten and really like beer feel like they’re missing what was once one of their favorite beverages.”
“Folks who cannot tolerate gluten and really like beer feel like they’re missing what
This experience gave Easton a newfound insight on commercial brewing. Instead of home brewing many different styles, he learned how to focus his efforts brewing one recipe over and over again to crisp perfection.
When he first decided to take on the challenge of brewing gluten-free beer that Maureen could enjoy in 2007, he spent six months dumping beer down the drain. But the trial and error to perfect the recipe paid off, and he developed his first fivegallon batch of Alt Brew’s Rustic Badger Farmhouse Ale — which his friends quickly depleted. In 2016, Easton also gained national recognition at the Great American Beer Festival for his Copperhead Ale, scoring a silver medal for excellence in taste, aroma and appearance.
And for Maureen, the change in ingredients was the ultimate act of love that tasted just like what she had been missing.
“Now, I can experience beer just like other people with celiac and gluten sensitivity,” Maureen says. “We have this opportunity now to experience the whole craft beer movement we are otherwise excluded from.”
Wisconsin is moving toward using renewable energy sources as a cheaper and cleaner alternative to coal
By Samantha Loomis
I’m awed standing beneath the single wind turbine. The three white rotor blades spin at a pace so fast my eyes can’t follow the revolutions. This small construction, standing only a few stories high, uses the power of the wind to transform kinetic energy into a form of electricity. It’s a way of creating renewable energy — energy that could power a fridge, charge a phone or run any number of household electronics.
Imagine this on a large scale. Instead of one single wind turbine, hundreds of wind turbines — a little more than 1,900 — would be enough to provide electricity to every household in Wisconsin. With 404 commercial turbines in use, Wisconsin is more than one-fifth of the way there.
Though Wisconsin does not yet rely on renewable energy sources for the majority of its energy needs, the state is on the verge of making a transition. For the last 100 years, coal has been a main energy source for Wisconsin, and today about half of Wisconsin’s electricity comes from coalfired plants. Half may seem like a significant amount, but there has been a decrease in coal usage the past few years. The reason for this transition comes not from the government and its policies, but rather from the solar and wind power industry itself. The energy industry is fueled by money, and the cheapest option is usually the most popular.
The wind and solar industry has improved and refined its own technology to a point where renewable energy has become less costly than using coal. Michael Vickerman, program and policy director at RENEW Wisconsin, an organization that advocates, educates and collaborates for more renewable energy in Wisconsin, says there are ethical implications fueling this transition as well.
“[Some] individual companies think and believe they have a responsibility to not just the planet, but also to their shareholders, their public corporations and their customers,” Vickerman says, adding that companies transitioning to renewable energy feel they are also gaining a competitive advantage whether that be lower overhead costs or lower costs for customers.
And it’s not only businesses that are taking part in the energy revolution. Wisconsin is seeing cities revamping public schools, city halls and police and fire stations to become more energy-efficient.
Transitioning Wisconsin’s energy portfolio toward renewable energy sources is fueled by an idea — the idea that a change in energy resources is imperative to keep Wisconsin moving forward. In Vickerman’s words, using renewable energy sources is a “nationwide phenomenon,” and Wisconsin cannot afford to fall behind.
“I see the share of electricity mix that comes from coal plants declining steadily through the years [since 2011],” Vickerman says. “I can’t predict the time when coal disappears from the Wisconsin electric utility picture, but I see coal as in a terminal tailspin.”
In a national climate transfixed with the opioid epidemic, a shadow has been cast over the insidious resurgence of meth in Wisconsin and the Chippewa Valley
Written by Carly Schesel
“I knew right away, right away, that I liked that drug better than any other drug I had ever done,” Sarah Ferber says.
The drug was meth. Ferber had experimented with drugs from marijuana to cocaine — but she felt the danger of this new drug the first time she used it.
She knew it wasn’t easy to get where she lived in Eau Claire. It just happened to show up in a small, onetime shipment from the Twin Cities in Minnesota. Without access, she stayed away. But a few years later, in 2004, she moved to New Richmond, Wisconsin. There, in a quiet, unassuming town of 9,000, just an hour outside of Minneapolis, meth was abundant, and her life spiraled out of control.
In the shadows of an opioid epidemic that has overwhelmed the nation, Ferber’s story is not unique. Meth — slang for methamphetamine — has quietly crept across the country and made an insidious resurgence in Wisconsin. From 2011 to 2015, meth use rose more than 250 percent across the state, attracting new users and converting former opioid addicts. As the phantom drug has taken a hold in rural, western Wisconsin, it’s left law enforcement strapped, families destroyed and many wondering what’s next.
People’s paths to meth are different, according to Michael Mansavage, special agent with the Wisconsin Department of Justice. Most often, people cycle through a “buffet” of other drugs and stimulants before they finally land on meth.
“It’s just going through and finding that drug that you really like,” Mansavage says.
Meth changes the chemistry of the brain by increasing the amount of dopamine, a chemical that controls feelings of reward, pleasure and emotion. This sudden release creates an intense rush of euphoria. It also increases heartbeat, libido and aggression. As a powerful stimulant, meth causes people to use energy they don’t have, only to crash after the drug has worked its way out of the user’s system.
Opioids, on the other hand, depress the central nervous system by slowing the signals the brain receives from the
body. In low doses, they effectively dull pain sensations. But used in large quantities, the drug can sedate people to a point where they no longer receive the body’s automatic reminders to breathe. Breathing fewer than 12 breaths a minute causes users to enter respiratory failure. Without consistent oxygen, users can slip into comas or simply stop breathing altogether.
Because meth overdose death is less common than those from opioids, the drug’s resurgence has not gained the same attention from the general public or current political leaders. Despite the fact that 31 percent of police agencies nationwide reported meth to be the greatest drug threat in their area last year, meth isn’t part of the national conversation about drugs.
“It’s hard to quantify [meth use in Wisconsin] as a problem because with heroin, we have people dying of overdoses,” Mansavage says. “You don’t see people dying of meth overdoses very commonly. Yes, it can happen, but it’s not a common thing.”
“It’s hard to quantify [meth use in Wisconsin] as a problem because with heroin, we have people dying of overdoses.”
Fewer deaths do not mean fewer lives ruined, especially for the children impacted by this crisis.
In 2014, Chippewa County Department of Human Services placed 13 children in out-of-home care. Of those cases, 10 were related to meth. Just two years later, the organization was responsible for 127 cases, 95 of which were related to meth.
Many of these children are under 10 years old — and testing positive for meth in their system.
According to Larry Winter, the director of Chippewa County Department of Human Services, this is because the meth they battle in Chippewa County today is much more complicated, more sophisticated and more lethal than what it was just nine years ago.
“This stuff is coming across the border the same that we always fought with cocaine and heroin and marijuana,” Mansavage says.
The meth coming from Mexico is different. It’s not made in garages; it’s made in labs by chemists — and its purity is over 95 percent.
“What I’ve come to terms with, is that I’ve been doing the work for 25 years, and there’s always a next drug,” Winter says. “We always seem to be chasing the next drug.”
Winter believes the root of addiction and substance abuse is not the drugs themselves, it’s the systemic issues within the community. Currently, he thinks addiction is viewed as an individualized, criminal, moral issue, rather than a population-level health issue — and this approach isn’t accurate.
After Ferber received her first criminal conviction for drug possession in 2006, doors slammed shut. For the next four years, her conviction history made it impossible for her to find a job or a place to live, or to keep her kids with her. She fell deeper into meth use and cycled through inpatient treatment.
Without effective, affordable or widely available treatment options, relapse is common among meth users. Unlike opioid treatment, there aren’t any drugs to counter meth cravings.
Rather than blocking receptors like opioid addiction medications do, meth users need to rebuild their dopamine levels. Most treatment programs don’t last long enough for recovering addicts to do this. What’s more, the long-term nature of treatment means it costs about two and a half times more than standard substance-abuse treatment.
“I’ve been doing the work for 25 years, and there’s always a next drug.”
After falling in and out of treatment, Ferber hit her lowest point in the middle of 2013. She was using meth intravenously, and within a year was completely homeless and begging others to let her kids stay somewhere safe.
While she was in inpatient treatment programs, she made progress, but she quickly relapsed when she was pushed back out into the real world. These programs taught her about drugs and their risks, but they didn’t address the root of her drug problem. It wasn’t until she entered Alternatives to Incarcerating Mothers Court in 2015 that she started receiving services that did more than simply teach her about meth. Here, they also taught her how to cope with the underlying trauma that led her to drugs in the first place. After that, her life changed.
“I don’t want to be anonymous.”
“I don’t want to be anonymous,” Ferber says. “They can look me up on CCAP [Wisconsin Circuit Court Access, the state’s online court records system] and look at all my charges and see everything bad that I ever did. So why not get out there and say, ‘Yeah, I’ve done all those bad things, but look at all the good stuff I’ve also done?’”
Ferber has been sober for three years. Today, she’s back in school full time and studying social work. She’s also involved in EXPO, an advocacy group connecting former prisoners to resources and the community to help them successfully re-enter society. Her goal is to be the voice for others who can’t advocate for themselves. Already, she’s learned this is a slow, tedious process, but she’s in it for the long haul.
Breaking the anonymity of meth in rural, western Wisconsin is half the battle. Between 2011 and 2015, the number of meth cases analyzed by the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory Bureau rose nearly 350 percent. During those same four years, heroin cases rose 97 percent.
But the focus of public policy is still centered on opioids. To fully account for the growing trend of meth in Wisconsin, the drug needs to come out of the shadows and into the forefront of policy change.
“Where we are at this point is getting the information out,” Winter says. “And I guess what I go back to is, you know, what do we do with it?”
There is no magic answer. In rural Wisconsin, meth continues to cost lives and ruin families. It’s happening in the shadows, out of sight and out of mind. There is no one path to meth.
Just the problem: fighting two drugs at the same time, and losing sight of one.
By Katie Scheidt
Home to over half a million people, Milwaukee is slowly but surely setting itself apart from other midwestern cities. With up-and-coming neighborhoods, a developing downtown area and a vibrant arts scene, Milwaukee is making strides in innovation while still remaining loyal to the traditions that its locals love.
After a public past filled with personal struggle, Montee Ball is working to move forward for his son and for himself
Written and photographed by Brandon Fishman
In 2012, Montee Ball seemed destined for NFL stardom. The UW–Madison senior from Wentzville, Missouri, was coming off arguably one of the best seasons in college football history. He had rushed for 1,923 yards, scored a record 39 total touchdowns and finished fourth in voting for the prestigious Heisman Trophy. Ball also carried the Badgers to a Big Ten Championship and Rose Bowl appearance, leaving many wondering if he had a weakness. He did.
Alcoholism. And Ball says it has long been woven into the fabric of his family. So when pressures mounted at home and from coaches and fans alike, Ball turned toward what he characterizes as “selfmedicating” with alcohol.
But now he’s making a comeback. Not on the football field, where he rushed his way into national record books with more than 5,700 total rushing and receiving yards and a whopping 83 touchdowns from 2009 to 2013. But rather in life, which has been anything
but a walk-in touchdown since he left Madison for the NFL.
After careful consideration, Ball, who turns 27 on Dec. 5, is back on the UW–Madison campus. He needs 30 credits to complete his undergraduate sociology degree, which he plans to finish in 2018. This theme of forward movement holds true for Ball in many respects, as he aims to further confront his mistakes, share the story of his turbulent journey and continue to demonstrate his progress.
With his degree on the horizon, Ball says he is considering several business opportunities. One such avenue may be a career in wealth management — working with former athletes to manage their finances and advise them on investment decisions.
Ball’s huge game-day performances masked his alcoholism in a way that even his close friends, including former UW–Madison fullback and team captain Bradie Ewing, never knew the extent of his relationship with alcohol.
“I knew Montee liked to go out,” Ewing says. “But it’s nothing I ever noticed around the facility or had any worries about.”
Everything still seemed promising for Ball. Four months after the Badgers’ third consecutive Rose Bowl appearance, Ball was drafted by the Denver Broncos, his favorite team growing up.
But the temptations of alcohol stalked Ball. He estimates that he got drunk four times a week while playing for the Broncos.
“I felt that I had an issue when I was going into the following morning hungover, and hopping in the steam room [or] hopping into the hot tub to pretty much sober up,” Ball says. “Then shower, just so the coaches couldn’t smell it.”
Ball was limited to just five games in his second season due a groin injury. The ailment lingered into 2015, and Ball was eventually released by the Broncos. He kept drinking. He had the opportunity to try out for multiple teams, but he
declined some of their calls, instead taking the time to party.
By February 2016, the party was over. Ball was arrested after his thengirlfriend told police he threw her into a table at a downtown Madison hotel. He was drunk at the time. Ball was swiftly cut from the New England Patriots’ practice squad, which he had joined two months earlier, and watched from jail as his former Broncos teammates celebrated their Super Bowl 50 win.
A domestic abuse allegation followed in March 2016. And one month later, Ball was back in police custody for violating the terms of his bond, which prohibited him from consuming alcohol or being in a bar.
Ball ultimately received a plea deal, which committed him to two consecutive 30-day jail sentences, 18 months of probation, and mandatory alcohol and domestic-violence treatment. He knew he had a choice — either assume responsibility for his actions and confront
his addiction or remain defensive and continue to avoid his problems. Ball says he accepted the deal despite his mother’s concern the plea deal would hurt him.
Like many people struggling with addiction, Ball found sobriety difficult at first. With a nudge from his mother, Ball underwent further treatment for his alcoholism through intensive outpatient therapy.
Therapy has helped Ball understand why he started drinking in the first place, why his habits escalated over time and why he attempted to hide it for so long. In addition to combatting his addiction, therapy has helped Ball come to terms with the conclusion of his football career.
“I was so depressed because once my NFL career didn’t go the way I wanted it to go, I thought that was it for me,” Ball says. “What therapy has helped me with was football was a piece of my puzzle rather than the entire puzzle.”
– those who valued him more for his stardom and less for the person behind it. He deleted their phone numbers and unfollowed them on social media.
Now 16 months sober, Ball is pursuing things he never had the time for when his life was on a constant play-party cycle. He has filled the void left behind by alcohol with newfound hobbies, ranging from reading to golf to the arts.
While this self-exploration has allowed Ball to recapture his essence, it is his 20-month-old son, Maverick, who has catalyzed Ball’s revival. Since learning of his son’s birth, every step Ball has taken in his recovery has been for both himself and Maverick.
“I hope my son is proud of me for what I am doing now more than what I did as a player.”
Through this sort of introspection, Ball soon internalized the changes he needed to make to ensure a physically, mentally and emotionally healthy lifestyle. This began with a difficult, yet essential, “diagnostic” of his friendships. He severed ties with his party friends
“I hope my son is proud of me for what I am doing now more than what I did as a player,” Ball says.
With his son, his girlfriend (Maverick’s mother), his family and the rest of his intentionally small circle in his corner, Ball is now focused on giving back to the community. He raised money with the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County for those affected by Hurricane Harvey. He also teamed up with mentor Bob Wynn to be a judge in his entrepreneurial, “Shark Tank”-style nonprofit for young people, called “Go For It.”
This school year, Ball is also making
his way through local high schools to share his story. While speaking to students about making the right decisions, Ball plans to shed particular light on passion. As Ball knows from his time in the NFL, some things may not unfold exactly as anticipated. He also stresses the importance of having other paths to pursue, in case dreams don’t align with reality.
“He’s learned a ton,” says Ewing, Ball’s former UW–Madison teammate. “And I think that’s part of the process … being able to open up and share. I truly think his heart’s in the right place.”
Ball is also putting the finishing touches on a book, which he expects to be released next year. While it covers his life and his football career, Ball says the book also focuses on how alcoholism has shaped his family. Ball dedicates the book to Maverick, seeking to break this cycle together.
“I’m going to focus on building our foundation on love so, if the building crumbles down, we still have that foundation,” Ball says.
And while his transformation is by no means complete, Ball is a man in motion — continually moving forward by placing his own personal comeback ahead of any career, NFL and beyond.
“My therapist told me that I would not get anywhere in life by standing with my one foot in the NFL and one foot out,” Ball says. “He told me I had to make a decision, and I am very content with my decision.”
Written and illustrated by Carolina Silva
The opportunity of a lifetime was within his grasp, but he still wondered if he was good enough to hold on.
Ridwan Sakidja, a university student from Manado, Indonesia, debated whether or not to pick up his results. He had recently taken a nationwide exam, and the top performers would be rewarded with a scholarship to a prestigious university in the United States. His lingering thoughts of self-doubt were interrupted by the arrival of a letter from his mother.
The letter expressed how much pride she had for him. No matter the outcome, she wrote, she was so happy he took this chance and gave it his all. The kind words gave him the confidence he needed to set out into the rainy night. He took the next possible bus. It didn’t matter that he would travel for hours in darkness — he had to see his score.
After Sakidja and his wife, Upik Yunengsih, moved to Wisconsin, they had a baby. Anisa Yudawanti was born in Madison’s Meriter Hospital on Park Street. She is the first member of her family to be born in the United States.
Anisa, now 20 years old, is a UW–Madison student who grew up in a Muslim family and identifies as a person of color.
Though she is a Wisconsinite by definition, Anisa struggles to relate to the state whose identity is so often connected with its love of football, cows and cheese. While many think of Wisconsin identity as something concrete, to embrace all of its residents’ experiences — especially those outside of the state’s white Christian demographic — it must be in constant flux. Anisa expresses her definition of Wisconsin identity by reflecting on her and her family’s experiences living in the state.
“I remember that I would try to fit this mold of this white Shorewood girl,” Anisa says.
Lo and behold, he received one of the highest marks. With this exam score, he was on his way to Madison to get an undergraduate degree in materials science and engineering and to completely change the fate of his family.
Young Anisa tried to disassociate from what made her different. After some kids made remarks about the strong smell of the Indonesian food her mother had made for her, Anisa would ashamedly sneak over to the trash can to throw it away. She wished she could have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch instead.
“I remember that I would try to fit this mold of this white Shorewood girl.”
Growing up, Anisa believed Madison was a progressive place, but in high school she started noticing the way many of her white peers reacted to issues of race said otherwise. In 2015, when Tony Robinson was shot by a police officer in Madison, many white students would calmly say to wait for more details or mention he was on drugs in an accusatory tone. Anisa wondered if Robinson, a young Black teenager, might have been treated differently because of his race, and she felt hurt and enraged that not many of her classmates were actively expressing their disgust and anger. All of a sudden, the people she thought were on the same page weren’t.
After graduating high school, Anisa began attending UW-Madison. Her experience at UW-Madison has been a formative one — with both positive and negative moments. She began to see how often acts of subtle discrimination occur in Madison. Anisa actively seeks out places on campus where she feels comfortable and avoids those that could be potentially offensive, hateful or dangerous. She believes there is a cloud of complacency in Madison. Outside of the campus, passersby will often ask, “Where are you from?”
Even through the struggle, Anisa is grateful to be able to go to school at UW-Madison. It allows her to be close to her tight-knit family, which has put so much on the line for the sake of their
When her family first came to Wisconsin, her parents did not have visas to work, so they did whatever was necessary to make ends meet.
Anisa’s mom catered and baby-sat. Her father would wake up every day at 3 a.m. to deliver newspapers before driving Anisa to school and then going to his graduate school classes.
Though she is — and feels — American, most refuse to accept that answer. Some even take it a step further by saying she looks so exotic. “Yeah, like what am I? A bird?” Anisa asks.
It is clear that for Anisa’s family, the Wisconsin identity is defined by opportunity and education, along with struggles along the way. When her father received the opportunity to get an education in Madison, he might not have been fully ready for all of what was to come. But Anisa’s parents were determined to give their children the best lives they could give them.
“They hustled so much just to keep the family afloat,” Anisa says. “For a lot of it, I didn’t even notice. They didn’t want their kids to know that so much hustling was going on.”
A Wisconsin native once caught in the dark life of human trafficking now helps women like herself find hope and healing
A Wisconsin native once caught in the dark life of human trafficking now helps women like her find hope and healing.
By Laura Schmitt
By Laura Schmitt
Brown County’s centrality to highways like I-94 makes the area an easily accessible place for sex trafficking.
Colleen Stratton met the man who would nearly destroy her outside a gas station when she was withdrawn from alcohol and drugs. He asked if she was okay.
“Anyone could have taken one look at me and known I wasn’t okay,” Stratton says, nine years later, recounting the story in Starbucks in De Pere, Wisconsin. With her bright smile and calm demeanor, Stratton looks like any customer in the coffee shop on a Saturday morning. No one would assume this Sheboygan-area native has a past unimaginable for most Wisconsin residents.
The man outside the gas station asked Stratton if she had a place to stay. Homeless and struggling with addiction, Stratton said no and took him up on his offer to stay with him. She didn’t care that he was a stranger. All she cared about was getting off the streets.
For a week, Stratton stayed with this man and lived in a haze of drugs. There were other girls in the house, and they would come and go. Stratton didn’t think much of it, until one day when the man returned to the house with three other men she had never seen before. They raped her.
“His words were, ‘If you wanna stay here, then there’s something you gotta do. Nothing is free in this life, so if you wanna stay, you gotta earn it,’” Stratton says.
This is the moment Stratton was initiated into what is referred to as “the life,” the dark subculture of human trafficking that is filled with manipulation, deception and violence. For two years, Stratton was trafficked in Florida, forced to sell her body and meet nightly quotas in exchange for basic shelter.
Human trafficking is the business of buying and selling people for the purpose of physical or sexual exploitation. It is a form of modern-day slavery, and it occurs every day in the United States. It is not a problem confined to foreign countries or major cities.
According to Dr. Joy Ippolito, Anti-Human Trafficking Coordinator with the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families, human trafficking occurs in all 72 counties of Wisconsin and in all 11 tribes.
“His words were, ‘If you wanna stay here, then there’s something you gotta do. Nothing is free in this life, so if you wanna stay, you gotta earn it.’”
“This is not a uniquely urban or rural issue,” Ippolito says. “It’s something that can happen anywhere in Wisconsin to Wisconsin residents.”
In short, Stratton’s experience is not an isolated incident. Her story, however, should be viewed as a symbol of hope and a testament to the human spirit’s ability to move forward in the face of even the most horrifying circumstances. Today, Stratton, 38, works at the Rose Home, the first safe home in Wisconsin for adult women who have been trafficked. As a survivor of human trafficking, Stratton helps women who are in the same position she was not long ago. Her mission is to show women they are worthy of a better life and help break the bonds of deception and shame their traffickers have imposed upon them.
The Rose Home opened in October 2017 in Green Bay, as part of Eye Heart World’s effort to combat human trafficking in Brown County. Eye Heart World, a nonprofit founded by Brian and Season Russo in 2010, began as an awareness and fundraising effort, but has since grown into an organization offering a full scope of services for preventing and addressing human trafficking.
Brown County has access to major interstates such as I-43 and I-94. This centralized location makes the area an attractive and easily accessible place for sex buyers, or “johns” as they are referred to in “the life.” Eye Heart World decided to open the Rose Home in Brown County because the demand for a safe home was so high. Since 2014, Eye Heart World has worked with 58 people who have been trafficked in Brown County alone.
“Law enforcement was contacting us so often to go into the jail and police department to meet with girls, and we were finding these girls were homeless or they were living with their trafficker with nowhere to go after,” Stratton says. “We just knew we had to have a home.”
The Rose Home is a renovated house that can accommodate up to eight women. For the safety and security of the women, the exact location of the Rose Home is confidential. The women, typically between the ages of 18 and 25, will live in the Rose Home for 6 to 14 months. During their stay, they participate in trauma-informed therapy, counseling and job-readiness training. They also undergo a transitional living component so they can be successful after they leave the home.
Stratton leads a group called “Ending the Game” at the Rose Home, a course dedicated to helping survivors break the trauma bond that often develops between the women and their trafficker.
“It’s a level of deception that’s hard for most to understand if you haven’t lived through it,” Stratton says. “This course helps the women recognize how they were manipulated and made vulnerable.”
Manipulation and preying upon vulnerabilities are two things traffickers or “pimps” know well. Stratton says the amount of shame and fear traffickers instill into women who already have a history of trauma plays a major role in keeping the women trapped in “the life.”
According to Stratton, her past was the perfect storm for a trafficker to target. At the age of 5, Stratton was sexually abused, which led her to start cutting herself at the age of 7. By the age of 13, she was coping by abusing drugs and alcohol.
“There is definitely a link between addiction and abuse that a trafficker can sense and then preys right on that,” Stratton says. “A trafficker can spot that out in a second and play on it because that’s what they do. They instill shame and instill fear in people who already have that bondage in them.”
When Stratton was in “the life,” her days were dominated by fear and a sense of hopelessness. She would be taken to a stretch of highway, a truck stop or a motel and be expected to make at least $800 to $1,000. Once she did, she could get picked up.
“None of that money was ours,” Stratton says. “Our bodies were searched. There was a lot of violence and a lot of deception added. It just kept me stuck.”
Stratton’s trafficker would often walk around with a gun and go from girl to girl pointing the weapon asking, “Who feels like dying tonight?” He’d pull the trigger, and it would be an empty chamber.
“I can vividly remember thinking, ‘I’m not even scared to get a bullet in my head anymore,’” Stratton says. “‘I’m just scared to continue living like this, and I don’t know how to get out.’”
Stratton did eventually get out, but it wasn’t one single moment or event that finally gave her the courage to leave. There were many “seeds of hope,” as Stratton calls them, that reminded her of her self-worth and provided her with resources and people who offered a way out. An incredibly faith-filled person today, Stratton is a firm believer that God played a role in helping her survive in order to be a voice for women who are trafficked today.
Stratton was often in and out of detox and treatment centers during her two years in “the life.” It was in these places that Stratton encountered women who provided her with words of encouragement and hope, gradually breaking down the deeprooted deception and dependence her trafficker had fostered.
“These women would say, ‘Colleen, someday you are going to do something great. You are going to help people,’” Stratton says. “I can remember a lot of times when my trafficker, his words would go through my head, ‘You’re nothing but a dirty crack whore, baby. That’s all you’re ever going to be,’ but then I would hear these women, and it was just a little shift where I’d think maybe they’re right.”
A nurse named Linda, who worked at the Wayside House Treatment Center for Women in Florida, befriended Stratton, who slowly started to tell her what was really happening in her life. Linda gave Stratton her number, telling her to call night or day if she ever needed help. Stratton had the number for months before she finally used it.
“One day I had woken up on the floor, and it was just after a really bad beating from my trafficker, and I remember looking around at the filthy, nasty place with bugs everywhere and hearing those positive voices in my head,” Stratton says.
With no access to a cellphone, Stratton walked down the street to a payphone and called Linda.
“She said, ‘Just keep walking. I’ll come and get you,’” Stratton says. “That’s the day I left.”
After getting out of “the life,” Stratton spent a year in the Refuge, a safe home located seven hours from her trafficker to ensure he never found her. She came back to Wisconsin shortly after to seek help for substance addiction.
Doctors once told Stratton the likelihood of her being able to have children would be slim due to all the internal damage done to her. Today, she is married and has four boys.
“It’s been an amazing gift to be with a man who is just gentle and respectful and prays with me, versus the kind of men I was used to associating with,” Stratton says.
In addition to her work at the Rose Home, Stratton works tirelessly to bring awareness to the problem of human trafficking in Wisconsin and help survivors begin the healing process. She has spoken at anti-human trafficking events across the state and makes regular visits to jails and hospitals to speak with women who law enforcement or medical staff believe are being trafficked.
This one-on-one work with women who are being trafficked is what Stratton finds most meaningful. She understands what they are going through and can provide those words of hope that helped her when she felt trapped in “the life.”
“My heart really is with the girls, in the home or in the jails,” Stratton says. “Sometimes I’ll see girls who are more hardened, but I love those girls because that’s how I was. I was super angry and hardened. While I don’t see their reaction, I still know what I’m saying is getting to them because that’s how I felt. That’s how I was.”
Eye Heart World also works closely with law enforcement, and Stratton has sat in on undercover stings conducted in Brown County that help save women who are being trafficked and identify sex buyers.
According to Stratton, there has been an important shift in the way law enforcement handles human trafficking. Ten years ago, they would prosecute the women and call them prostitutes. Now, police officers see them as victims who need to be given the opportunity and resources to turn into survivors.
“I can vividly remember thinking, ‘I’m not even scared to get a bullet in my head anymore. I’m just scared to continue living like this, and I don’t know how to get out.’”
a strip in Brown County where people see human trafficking occurring, but it is happening every day.
“With the evolution of the internet, it’s made it easier for us to get to the victims and the sex buyers,” Wilson says. “But it’s also made it way easier for the sex buyers to get in contact with the girls.”
As a result, Wilson and other investigators regularly conduct undercover stings where they either pose as the women who are being trafficked in an attempt to bring “johns” into custody or they pose as “johns” to help offer resources to the women.
“No little girl lays in bed at 5 years old and thinks, ‘I want to grow up and sell my body to 10 different men in a night,’” Stratton says. “They see these girls how we see them. That they need help, and that they are worthy of help.”
According to Investigative Sgt. Matthew Wilson, who specializes in human trafficking within the Brown County Sheriff’s Office, much of the sex trade scene in Wisconsin is taking place online through sites such as Backpages and Craigslist. There is not
“Our focus is to get them in custody and away from the people who are hurting them, whether through assistance from Eye Heart World or the Sexual Assault Center,” Wilson says.
On the outside, the Rose Home doesn’t look like anything too special, but the inside has been thoroughly renovated to offer a serene and welcoming place for the women. When they arrive, the entire basement is set up with clothes, toiletries, makeup and anything else the survivors might need.
A lot of the women, like Stratton when she arrived at the Refuge, have nothing but the clothes they are wearing and the desire to leave “the life” behind.
“We know they aren’t going to come in and it’s going to be easy-peasey uphill progress all the way,” Stratton says. “It’s going to be tough. It’s healing. It’s a journey, and we’re in it for the long haul.”
Jennifer Hillard found passion from her past to make a difference in children’s lives across the state
By Emily Holzberg
Jennifer Hillard’s family was in the process of becoming a foster family with the intention to adopt, but she was not having any of it. What then-8-year-old Hillard didn’t understand was how adopting her younger brother would impact her own life and her family. It opened her eyes to the world of foster care and sparked a passion and career she found years later.
That spark came in 2010, when Hillard was in her second semester at Denison University in Ohio, going through the sorority recruitment process. She came across Court Appointed Special Advocates, or CASA, an organization supported in part through philanthropic efforts by Kappa Alpha Theta, and she felt something familiar from her past.
“I remember [the sorority] talking about CASA, and they explained that it’s volunteers who represent children who have been abused or neglected [and are going through] the judicial system,” Hillard says.
Since its founding four decades ago, CASA has transformed how court systems handle cases involving vulnerable children experiencing abuse and neglect. In 2016 alone, the organization supported 280,316 children across the country. In Wisconsin, the Wisconsin CASA Association has nine locations and serves 12 counties.
The organization was founded in 1977 by a judge in Seattle who thought there needed to be a voice in the legal system dedicated solely to the child. Unlike the child’s lawyer or social worker, who both serve crucial roles in the case, the
advocate’s only duty is to serve the child and assure his or her thoughts and feelings are being heard in the courtroom.
A 1999 report in the Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal showed that children with advocates are more likely to spend less time in the foster care system and reach desirable permanency plans. Evidence also suggests children with an advocate receive more services while in the system and perform better in school.
Although Hillard’s brother didn’t have an advocate during his adoption process as far as she was aware of, she had somewhat of an understanding of abuse and neglect, the foster care system and the concept of speaking with a social worker.
Hillard was familiar with the hardships children faced during the adoption process. For her family, adopting a child came with great joy and love, but it also
caused tension and fighting between family members. She remembers feeling the need to protect her brother and serve as a caregiver at times.
“You’re taking on a child who has been potentially neglected and abused, and you’re placing them with complete strangers. It really does rock everybody’s worlds.”
“You’re taking on a child who has been potentially neglected and abused, and you’re placing them with complete strangers,” Hillard says. “It really does rock everybody’s worlds.”
After completing a degree in communication with an emphasis on interpersonal communication at Denison in 2013, Hillard went straight back to school at UW–Madison for her master’s degree in social work, focusing on children and families. The internships Hillard held in graduate school shaped her career.
Time after time, Hillard found herself in contact with foster care and child protective services.
“I knew in the back of my mind that foster care was really my passion, but at the same time, because of my personal experiences, I was a little anxious to dip my toe in that,” Hillard says.
Despite her apprehension, she continued working in the system. Fifteen years after Hillard’s family adopted her brother, she found herself on the other side of the equation, locating the best fit for foster kids and families in need.
Hillard, already familiar with the benefits of the organization because of her college experience, felt like fate was intervening when she came across a job opening at Dane County CASA on her very first search.
Hillard started at Dane County CASA in November 2016 as a case coordinator. She supports the volunteers in various endeavors, such as helping with legal paperwork, advocacy efforts and general
guidance. Hillard explains many of the volunteers are not coming from any sort of legal or social work background, so she offers direction as to what services are available and can be recommended by the advocate for the child. Currently, she oversees 23 cases.
The dedicated volunteers are the driving force behind the organization in the community. In Dane County, the advocates spend between 10 and 15 hours a month between visits with the child and working on the case. The role also requires emotional energy. Hillard says it can be very hard to stop thinking about the case and child outside of work hours.
The volunteers also play a role in spreading the mission of CASA by
sharing their work with friends and family. The organization depends on community members caring about the health of children and families around them, and it works to ensure these issues do not get ignored. Hillard finds people often think of abuse and neglect as uncomfortable topics to discuss, but that does not mean they should go unnoticed.
Hillard’s personal story allows her to approach her work with compassion and understanding.
“Especially children who have been through anything — abuse and neglect, hearing fighting, seeing a sibling be hurt, being separated from a sibling — it’s so much easier for me to kind of put myself in their position, because I get what it feels like to be a scared kid,” she says. “You never forget that feeling.”
With the help of old photos, Hillard discusses her experiences with CASA.
During a Pow-Wow in Eau Claire, Native Americans perform traditional dances.
Every dollar the members of the Ho-Chunk Nation receive after graduation represents an opportunity for progress
By Taylor Palmby
Gabrielle White dances alongside her sisters to the beat of the Bear Trail drum group. Her hair is pulled back into a tight braid, and she has traded her typical outfit of jeans and a T-shirt for a traditional Native American jingle dress, complete with an eagle feather and intricate beading.
White has been dancing Ho-Chunk appliqué, a traditional style of dance that gets its name from the floral designs appliqued on the dresses of Ho-Chunk females, for as long as she can remember. But this performance is different. She is dancing for the students of DeLong Middle School in Eau Claire.
The performance itself is exciting, but what might be even more compelling is how some young Ho-Chunk adults are using a financial benefit through a tribal trust to invest in their future. One of those young adults is Ashley Rave, who recieved roughly $200,000 through the Ho-Chunk Nation’s Children’s Trust Fund Program. The check allowed Rave to attend college at UWMilwaukee, with the hope of becoming an art teacher. For Rave’s final semester, she is student teaching at DeLong, and her work at the school allowed her to organize the dance performance.
The Children’s Trust Fund is a Ho-Chunk Nation program that gives members of the tribe about $200,000 when they turn 18, graduate from high school and complete a newly implemented financial literacy course.
The program has a negative reputation due to stories of members spending the funds irresponsibly, but this money represents an incredible opportunity for those who receive it. With every pull of a slot machine comes the chance to improve not only the HoChunk community, but also Wisconsin as a whole. In some cases, these funds have helped two cultures converge, and this unity makes for positive progress.
The Ho-Chunk Nation consists of 7,700 members, each of whom receive $12,000, primarily from casino revenue, every year. This check is mandated by the Per Capita Distribution Ordinance, a part of tribal law that dictates how much money goes to the people and how it is distributed. Roughly 80 percent of the Nation’s profit is distributed back to its members.
For members of the Nation who are younger than 18, this money is held in a trust. Once a member meets the mandated requirements, he or she can access the trust. The amount of money in the trust depends on when a person is enrolled, but it can reach as much as $216,000.
Non-Native American media sometimes use the term “18 money” to describe the Children’s Trust, which has contributed to negative connotations of the program.
Professor Richard Monette, the faculty director of the Great Lakes Indian Law Center, says when the news media report rare, outlier stories about people who use their money irresponsibly — driving fast cars and doing drugs, for example — this narrative can create a self-fulfilling prophecy. But the majority
of Wisconsin tribes have overcome this negative rhetoric and have found positive ways to spend the money, he says.
White, 26, used part of her trust fund to attend college, but she concedes it caused tension with her mother. They had different ideas about how the money should be spent, and neither had experience handling a large amount of money.
“It was really overwhelming to receive that much money and have no background of any kind in budgeting,” White says.
Collin Price, the Ho-Chunk Nation public relations officer, says for some of the children who are growing up below the poverty line, receiving this money can be daunting. They may need guidance on how to make sound financial decisions, so they don’t inadvertently fall back into a cycle of poverty.
Price says tribal legislators are aware of this potentially dangerous cycle and are constantly trying to improve the system.
Michelle Cloud, manager of the Ho-Chunk’s Culture and Community Education Division, says the tribal legislators revised the law to mandate that everyone must pass a financial literacy course before they receive their money. The tribal government believes this new requirement will help members gain skills they need to responsibly handle their trust funds.
The course covers a range of moneyrelated issues, such as budgeting, investing and filing taxes, and offers information about employment and education options
specific to the Ho-Chunk Nation. For example, it describes how to access the Ho-Chunk government’s Department of Higher Education and file taxes on their per capita distribution funds.
White wishes the program had been a requirement when she received her trust because she believes she would have been able to thrive in college the first time she attended. She originally enrolled at UW–Milwaukee, but took a few years off to decide on a major. During her time off, White worked for her tribe as an aide in the Ho-Chunk’s Office of the President.
White wants the program to help students understand their options in terms of higher education, enlisting in the military or finding a job after high school. She believes this will increase the number of students who choose to go to college.
According to Price of the Ho-Chunk Nation, there are more Ho-Chunk students enrolled in higher education than ever before. White believes her mentorship program could help increase this number even more and make the transition from high school to college easier.
“I’ve noticed there needed to be more role models for the Ho-Chunk youth to prepare them more for college.”
Price says he thinks the increase in college enrollment is largely due to the Children’s Trust Fund.
and there is a lot of discussion about how the education system lacks accuracy of the tribes of Wisconsin,” White says. “It helps for these students to be in these communities to show them the HoChunk culture and share our history.”
Cultural education was the point of the dance performance at DeLong Middle School.
As White and Rave danced, the students cheered and clapped along to the beat of the Bear Trail drum group, but they also learned something vital about a culture that may be very different from their own. The performance gave non-native students a new perspective and Native students a sense of pride for their heritage.
Rave says she noticed one Native American student was profoundly impacted by the experience.
While working, White noticed the Ho-Chunk Nation had a lack of mentors and role models in the community. This realization inspired her to use the remainder of her trust fund to go back to school at UW–Eau Claire and earn a psychology degree.
“I’ve noticed there needed to be more role models for the Ho-Chunk youth to prepare them more for college,” White says. Going back to school was a way of “giving back to the community and trying to make things better for my tribe.”
In addition to going to school, White has been interning at UW–Eau Claire’s Office of Multicultural Affairs, speaking at events and creating a mentorship program to help Ho-Chunk youth transition into college. She says in addition to informing students of their options after graduation, the program would help them navigate some of the most difficult parts of college, such as filling out financial aid forms and embracing their Ho-Chunk identity.
The trust fund makes going to college an option for students who might not otherwise have the resources to attend.
According to White, the trust fund is not only beneficial to the Ho-Chunk Nation, but to Wisconsin as a whole because it allows the Ho-Chunk members to accurately educate communities beyond the Native American nations.
“When the Ho-Chunk students go to these different colleges, they are able to show different communities their culture,
During the performance, the young girl joined Rave and danced along to the music. In the days that followed, Rave noticed the little girl was sitting up a little straighter, being more engaged in art class and overall seeming prouder of her Native identity.
“Being able to experience that part of the culture at the art fair helped her become a little more confident by just being her,” Rave says.
One Madison nonprofit uses bicycles to create a continuous cycle of service and involvement in the local community
By Lauren Lewandowski
Asilver garage door protects hundreds of bicycles in all shapes, sizes, colors and conditions. Some look brand new, ready to ride away, while some sit waiting, stacked in a pile soon to be cleaned and repaired, and others lie in hundreds of individual pieces.
“It’s always a mess in here, but none of us ever seem to mind,” John Cronn, an onsite volunteer, says. “It helps us do exactly what we need to do.”
This is the organized chaos of Wheels for Winners, a nonprofit organization serving Madison and the rest of Dane County, which takes donated or recycled bicycles, fixes them up and gives them away mostly to low-income children who have met a specific community service requirement.
Although Wheels for Winners primarily serves youth, anyone who comes to the shop having completed 15 hours of community service with the proper paperwork verified by a partner organization is eligible to receive a bicycle. Having the community engagement requirement ensures meaningful long-term connections with community members of all ages and valuable organizational partnerships the nonprofit relies on for support.
Bike recipients not only receive a bicycle fitted perfectly to them by volunteers on site, but a helmet, a bike lock and a City of Madison bike registration sticker. But the organization takes greater pride in helping teach recipients the value of
community service, self-reliance, responsible bike ownership, the joys of sustainable transportation and how to lead a healthier, more active lifestyle.
“When you get something that you’ve worked for, you have a greater … investment in what you have, and it also, helps get people involved in the community — also outside of, just biking — makes them expand their views,” says longtime volunteer and board member Fred Appleton, 80, who started volunteering with the organization 15 years ago.
Just like the bike recipients, volunteers at Wheels for Winners come from all walks of life, with different ages and backgrounds. For Appleton, all it took was a search for ways to keep active in the summer of 2002 after retiring. As a selfproclaimed avid bike rider, he simply wanted to help promote cycling in his community and learn more about bike mechanics.
“I like bicycling,” Appleton says. “I wanted to learn how to fix them better, and I thought it was a wonderful program to get it primarily to children and get them interested in biking.”
No matter the use for bicycles from Wheels for Winners, every bicycle that leaves the chaotic shop goes home as more than a bicycle. It leaves as a tool for allowing its riders to go further — not only in distance, but through empowering the rider and giving them the confidence that they can make a difference in their communities.
Where Highway 45 and Highway 54 meet, you’ll find a small city called New London. Driving into town, a large wooden sign bearing the phrase “reflecting the pride” greets you, and not long after, so do its residents.
New London, Wisconsin, which covers 5.78 square miles with 7,295 residents, is split between Waupaca and Outagamie counties in the northern half of the Badger State. Founded in 1851, people have been calling New London home for almost as long as Wisconsin has been a state, and although the town has predictably changed over the years — with new roads, buildings and residents — fundamentally, the sense of community always stays the same.
The city is called New London, but for those who stay there, the fact it doesn’t change much — that it doesn’t become “new” — is part of its charm. In the fall, the many trees change to reflect the warmth of autumn. In the winter, lights are strung on the exteriors of homes, snowmen pop up in the front yards and after a fresh snowfall — not the fluffy stuff, but rather the snow that packs well — people of all ages head to the sledding hill behind the municipal plant. When they aren’t at T-ball or soccer practice, neighborhood kids spend their spring and summer months at the parks with friends. As the seasons change in New London, the sense of community never wavers. People move on — and sometimes move out of town — but the sense of belonging and community will always be tied to them.
“Their Roots are Here”
While the town of New London bears many of the same features it has always had — the rivers, the library and schools to name a few — the people of New London remember growing up in different ways.
Phyllis Johnson, 94, lives in a small red home she and her late husband, Richard, built over 60 years ago on Pershing Road — one of the “main” streets in town — on five acres of land, which is uncommon in most urban areas.
Johnson has lived in New London her entire life. As a child, she remembers growing up — constantly playing with a deck of cards, she adds — on her family’s farm near the Pine Tree Tavern, now Pine Tree Supper Club, just eight minutes outside of town on Highway 54.
“We had good neighbors, and people were like a family, or a community. We knew all of our neighbors, and one helped the other,” she says.
One community in northern Wisconsin embraces small-town living and a sense of belonging that spans generations
Written and photographed by Jenna Mytton
After graduating from Washington High School — which has since been turned into a senior living facility — Johnson worked in New London for a plywood company and at an attorney’s office before getting licensed for real estate. If anyone could talk about the development of New London during the mid-to-late 20th century, it would be Johnson, who sold homes in New London, Manawa and the Fox Valley.
While she was raising her daughter and building her real estate career, Johnson never had to think about why staying in New London was the best option for her and her family.
“Oh gosh, it’s everything. Everything. I think we’re in good hands,” Johnson says when asked what her favorite aspect of New London is.
“We had good neighbors, and people were like a family, or a community. We knew all of our neighbors, and one helped the other.”
Now, Johnson, a seasoned New London citizen with a lifetime of experiences, is still able to go out and get involved in the community. She is a member of the New London Lionettes, a women’s version of the Lions Club, and she also is involved with Most Precious Blood Catholic Church. In her free time, Johnson still finds pleasure in getting together with friends to play bridge, taking care of her landscaping, and visiting her daughter, Mary Anne, in West Bend, Wisconsin. Although her daughter got married and moved away, Johnson has remained in her quaint red house in New London with no intentions to leave.
“No, I want to stay right here,” Johnson says as she sets both hands on the table. “I don’t want to go across the street, across town.”
Having lived in New London for her entire life, Johnson knows everyone and says she feels comfortable with her neighbors.
“Like your granddad — you know who to call when you need to — well, and your grandmother, of course,” she says to me with a smile.
Johnson, a grandmother herself, would also take care of the small children living next door, if needed. They even called her “grandma,” although she bore no biological attachment to them.
That is something I look back and remember, too. Often, my family was able to call another family member if we needed something — because they also lived in New London — but we also had family friends and neighbors who were around to lend a hand.
Take Laurie Shaw, 48, for example. She and her two daughters — with whom I played sports from grade school through high school — lived in my neighborhood on Pearl Street.
The Shaws’ house was like my second home. Alongside her daughters’ school photos, Shaw also displayed mine. In the summers during middle school and high school, I spent more time up the street at the Shaws’ house than I did at my own, and my parents were content with that. They knew Laurie Shaw, and Laurie Shaw knew them. Shaw went to high school with both of my parents and even worked with my mom at Hardee’s in high school.
“People want to feel that wrap of the community, they want to feel safe, they want to feel secure, they want to know the people whose kids their kids are friends with. It’s a comfortable feeling,” Shaw says.
Shaw, like Johnson, has also called New London home for her entire life. Growing up, she remembers spending time on her grandparents’ farm out in the country, going to the Dairy Queen and the school dances.
Although many people, like Johnson and Shaw, live in New London for their entire lives, others move away for various reasons — leaving for college, a new job or a new experience. Whether or not people stay or go, they all share a common identity of being from New London.
Evan Taber, 20, grew up 15 minutes outside of town in Fremont, but attended school in the New London School District.
Taber, who was able to develop lasting relationships with some of his teachers, says he doesn’t know if that would have been possible if he hadn’t gone to school in a small town.
After graduating from New London High School in 2015, Taber packed up and drove two hours to start college at UW–Madison, in an area far different than what he — alongside many others who hail from a small town — was used to. UWMadison was perfect for Taber.
“It’s not close enough where I was worried I was going to go home every weekend, but not so far that if I wanted to come home I couldn’t,” he says.
Even though Taber goes to school at Wisconsin’s largest university, he still stays connected to his friends from high school and even shares an apartment with some of them on Spring Street.
Johnson, Shaw and Taber all invited me into their homes to reminisce and talk about being from New London. Growing up in a small town, this is what we remember: always having a neighbor to call, always seeing a friendly face at the grocery store and always feeling like we had a sense of belonging in our town.
Proudly supporting the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication and all aspiring students who produced Curb Magazine.
Written and photographed by Krystal Lisha Du
On a bright October day, a cloak of brilliant sunshine drapes over the Whistling Valley Farm. The farm sits on the Wisconsin River Valley near Lake Wisconsin, where the water brings in a moist breeze while the animals romp through the pasture or take a nap. The farm was founded by Jan Clingman, 57, and Jim Hellenbrand, 53. The pair immediately decided to buy a herd of alpacas after visiting the Great Midwest Alpaca Festival in 2009: They fell in love with the alpacas for their endearing personalities and soft fiber. The farm has become a project Clingman and Hellenbrand have worked on together with love and joy ever since. Here’s an introduction to some of the alpacas and their personalities that have enchanted Clingman and Hellenbrand.
Gracie is the diva in the herd, but she likes rolling in dust and sand as much as her alpaca friends do. Her favorite activity is to rub against the big bristle brush in the pasture. She was one of the first alpacas born on the farm, but she now belongs to another couple who is moving to the area soon. Gracie and her two other daughters, Mary and Trinity will be moving to their new home in the spring.
Tempest, 15, is the oldest in the herd. She simply waits for visitors’ attention. A neck rub is her favorite treat. She is also very fond of the pasture mate, Birdbrain.
Lightfoot, Tempest’s grandson, is the new baby of the farm and is 6 months old. He and his mommy, Tessa, 4, are inseparable, as he always follows Tessa and wants to lay in her arm. When he was born, Tessa didn’t accept him as her own because she was a new mom. The next day, Tessa led him out into the pasture. When Tessa looked back and saw he was following, she realized he was her son. Since then, they have bonded. Tessa always protects Lightfoot when other elder alpacas try to pick on him since he is little. She is very friendly, except when she is competing with Lucy for treats.
Birdbrain is the constant companion of the 28 alpacas. He trots in the pasture with his head held high. Sometimes he’s a vanguard breaking into a gallop, and sometimes he’s a loyal follower blending in with the rest of the fuzzy herd. He may certainly look like a guinea fowl in our human eyes, but he is convinced he’s an alpaca in his heart and soul. In the summertime, he basks in the sun and zips around in the pasture with his friends. In the winter, he stays in the barn to keep warm.
Rendezvous, 2, is the junior herdsire — meaning father. Rendezvous has shown he is more than ready to prove his
abilities with the girls in the spring. He is obsessed with his stylish light-fawn bang.
Everyone loves Lucy, 9. As the friendliest girl in the herd, she is always the first one into the barn to greet people when they visit. Her passion for people also comes from food, because she knows people visiting means feeding time. The only time Lucy, a real foodie, has tension with her friends is when they are competing for treats.
CAPTIONGOEHERE
CAPTIONGOEHERE CAPTIONGOEHERE
After years of declining membership, organized labor reaches out to a younger generation
By Peter Coutu
Kevin Gundlach began developing tendinitis about a year after his high school graduation.
While most people don’t see this condition until they’re older than 40, inflamed tendons and sharp pain came early for him and many of his co-workers.
He was laboring in a local, non-unionized factory, which he describes as “oppressive toward workers.” Gundlach, at 19 years old, didn’t know what a union was.
“None of us knew what unions were. Some people died. [There were] high injury rates after two years — people started developing carpal tunnel, tendinitis, things like that,” Gundlach says. “It was awful, atrocious working conditions.”
Most people did not stay at the factory for more than two years. Gundlach lasted a little over a year, leaving when a doctor told him to because of health concerns. He moved, and now, nearly 30 years later, he oversees organized labor in 11 Wisconsin counties as president of the South Central Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO. He’s led the organization
during what might be Wisconsin’s most tumultuous period for organized labor.
Following a nearly 40 percent drop in union membership since 2010, Gundlach and other leaders throughout the state are figuring out ways to best connect with new groups, including younger Wisconsin workers, in an effort to boost connections throughout the community and avoid gaps in awareness in the next generation of labor.
Gundlach, now 50, grew up in a non-union home in Washington County, just north of Milwaukee. His grandparents, though, had been in a union — an association of workers who together guard and further their workplace rights and interests.
The one-generation gap in union membership left Gundlach unaware of organized labor’s existence. So, he worked low-wage jobs that came with risks of injury. With union density in Wisconsin significantly dipping since 2010, Gundlach is worried the next generation of workers might be faced with the same struggles.
“The younger generations, yeah, they may not see the value,” Gundlach says. “They might think, ‘Oh, this is a dinosaur, it’s archaic. Unions are dead, that’s what we see in the media. Unions are under attack. What’s the point?’ All those things. I think that is a concern.”
The decline of union membership in Wisconsin is often traced to Gov. Scott Walker’s administration, and the effects of two pieces of legislation: Act 10, which came in 2011 and is also known as the “Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill,” and a 2015 “right-to-work” law. Proponents of these measures say they provide workers with more flexibility and help balance the state’s budget.
“We can’t expect our children or our grandchildren to pay off the debts of the state,” Walker said in a February 2011 press conference announcing the budget repair bill. “We have to get things under control so that we can continue to have a stable government — a government that is stable not only for the services we provide, but ultimately it sends a message to our employers in this state that this is a good place to invest in and grow in.”
part of their union and not being required to have payroll deductions,” Walker said. “They can opt to be a part of a union, but they don’t have to have those dues.”
Opponents have assailed the pieces of legislation as attacks on organized labor in the state, aimed at reducing union membership and subsequently minimizing their influence. Following the passing of both bills, Wisconsin union membership plummeted.
Nearly 15 percent of public and private workers in Wisconsin were
Then Wisconsin’s union membership started to drop. By 2016, the portion of Wisconsin’s workforce in unions was roughly 8 percent — a decline of nearly 40 percent since 2006 and now about 3 percentage points lower than the national rate. In 2014, Walker said Act 10 saved taxpayers some $3 billion, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, a claim Politifact rated as “mostly true.”
“Now, we have to play defense and protect what we have and do what I would call internal organizing,” Gundlach says. “I think there needs to be — and there is with some unions — a plan to organize more workers into unions so that they know that’s the way out.”
“I think there needs to be — and there is with some unions — a plan to organize more workers into unions so that they know that’s the way out.”
“This bill will be a change in terms of state employees not being required to be a
members of unions in 2006, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was about three points higher than the national rate of the time and remained steady until 2010. In terms of union density, Wisconsin looked like other Midwestern states in 2010, closely mirroring both Minnesota and Michigan, two states that hovered around 15 percent.
Decades earlier, David Newby, a longtime leader of labor in Wisconsin, worked to do the same thing: reach out to more people outside of labor.
Newby has seen significant changes to organized labor in Wisconsin, both good and bad. He’s been involved with unions in the state since
“I think there’s a big disconnect, and they don’t realize that they do actually have the ability to ask for more or less.”
the mid-1970s, first with UW-Madison’s Teaching Assistants’ Association, which was the first graduate student workers union in America and a group he continues to advise.
He eventually ran for leadership positions for the AFL-CIO in Dane County in the early 1980s. When he took over, he describes organized labor in the county as separate from the rest of the community and concerned largely about issues that only affect unions.
“There was a new labor movement in town, and it was not isolated, huddling by itself,” says Newby, who later served as president of the state AFL-CIO for more than two decades. “We wanted to be a part of the community, and we wanted to build coalitions with other progressive groups.”
With shrinking union membership today, Gundlach has been working hard to avoid these same pitfalls. He’s tried to make what have typically been union spaces into more communitybased spaces. The field outside the organization’s office has hosted many events, ranging from a middle school ultimate frisbee team’s practices to
Madison’s Juneteenth celebration.
The hope is to be present in the community, extending the value of unions to others, even those in the working class who are attending college.
During his freshman year at UWMadison, Zaakir Abdul-Wahid, now a member of UW-Madison’s Working Class Student Union, says he opened a credit card to pay for student housing. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to enroll in classes. Since then, he says there hasn’t been a semester when he’s been able to buy textbooks for each of his classes.
“A lot of people don’t understand that actual layer of stress makes it so much harder to be able to focus on school and to focus on real things,” Abdul-Wahid says. “Because if I don’t have money to pay rent — if I don’t have money to eat — I can’t worry about my classes.”
Abdul-Wahid is now a junior at UWMadison. He grew up in Milwaukee in a family with a tight financial situation. And though his mother changed tax brackets since then, he says his money situation is still difficult, and he’s sometimes late paying his rent.
He knows of organized labor’s history in Wisconsin, but he says a lot of the information just isn’t “getting to enough students.”
“I think a lot of students are really unaware of [unions], especially with the [dining hall] staff and a lot of the university staff,” Abdul-Wahid says. “I think there’s a big disconnect, and they don’t realize that they do actually have the ability to ask for more or less.”
Many people involved with organized labor are working to get union history into schools — starting as young as elementary school. In December 2009, Wisconsin became the first state in the country to require public schools to incorporate the history of organized labor as a part of social studies standards. Still, some have questioned how fully this has been implemented.
Some are trying to spread a map of pivotal moments in labor history, which started as a partnership between organized labor and UW-Madison students. The Wisconsin Labor History Society, which is dedicated to “preserving and telling the stories of workers and unions in Wisconsin,” has essay contests and scholarships to encourage students to write more about labor’s past.
Ken Germanson, 88, and president emeritus of the society, says education in schools about union history is still lacking. He says it’s vital union leaders continue reaching out to younger people because they “have to figure out how to organize the new generation of labor.”
One way they’re doing this is by going directly into schools.
The Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership Big Step program goes to middle and high schools to reach out to students about the option of joining the building and construction trades. Gundlach says unions in the building trades pay for the program to exist.
The Big Step program connects students with other organizations to pay for schooling and training, and then puts them on a list to get a job. Gundlach says even though unions need to do a better job of publicizing the program, it still turns many students’ heads when they learn about it.
Gundlach has seen firsthand the impact this education, and the idea of unions, can have on young students.
One day, a couple of years ago, an elementary school class walked up to the labor temple, a building on Madison’s south side that houses the South Central
Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO and many local unions. After showing the kids around the temple, the instructor of the class told Gundlach he could take over as teacher.
So Gundlach did an exercise. He started by asking students to raise their hands if they liked going to the zoo. Though the students were reluctant at first, most hands soon shot up. Then he asked how they got there. Did they walk or take the bus? He quizzed the students on what lions ate, who took care of them and if they liked “The Lion King.”
Then he walked the students through how unions were involved in each step. Manufacturing union workers made the refrigerators and freezers that stored the meat that fed the lions. Members of another union repaired the roads to make them drivable. The stagehands union put on “The Lion King” musical. And the zookeepers are in a union, too.
At the end of the lesson, one student said, “My mommy works in a factory.”
“The teacher will say to me, ‘That’s the first time that kid was proud and ever said anything about her mom working in a factory,’” Gundlach says. “A worker is a worker is a worker. The value of all these jobs is, in my opinion, equitable.”
For Wisconsin’s homeless population, things are looking up, thanks to revitalized services and out-of-the-box solutions. From shadows on the street to neighbors of our own, this is the way home
Written and photographed By Angie Requena
It is not something he would wish on anyone else, but it is his reality. A survival mode like no other, it is a vicious cycle that is easy to fall into and nearly impossible to escape.
Bob VanKampen, 57, endures the cycle of homelessness every 24 hours. It throws him around and hits him where it hurts, but it doesn’t keep him down.
After 12 years on the streets, VanKampen finally has the keys to his own home.
Madison has formed a unique coalition of services and alternative approaches to end the housing crisis that forces more than 500 people onto the streets every night. These revamped channels focus on individualized services that recognize each person’s story.
The transformation of Madison’s approach to homelessness started in the mid-2000s by testing a housing-first policy. Housing first means offering homeless individuals and families immediate access to permanent or supportive housing, with fewer and lower barriers to entry. People can move into housing without the pressure of sobriety, employment or treatment requirements. Instead, they work on getting help through housing-provided services once they have a roof over their heads. In 2017, housing first is the community standard.
Torrie Kopp Mueller, 38, is the continuum of care coordinator for the Homeless Services Consortium. She was hired to streamline housing resources and get people into housing as quickly and efficiently as possible. To Kopp Mueller, housing first is the obvious choice.
demographics are veterans, children, families and those who are chronically homeless. Chronic homelessness occurs when a person has been without residence for more than one year. Individuals, or singles, experiencing homelessness are often left behind. They are at the bottom of every priority housing list, receiving little to no assistance and scraping together whatever resources are left after more urgent needs are met. Nationwide, Wisconsin has experienced the fourth largest increase of homeless individuals from 2007 to 2016. Gene Cox, 44, lived out of his van for more than a year and parked in a south Madison Walmart parking lot before moving for a time to a parkand-ride lot. He is a markedly positive person, with a hearty laugh, a jolly grin and a tendency to put others first. He navigated homelessness alone and struggled to find solid help.
“It seems like there’s always somebody worse off that needs it more.”
“Getting housing is the big thing. It’s really hard to reach goals when you don’t know exactly where you’re going to be at night,” she says.
In Dane County, the most critical homeless
“Getting connected with resources is very tough. The only thing I had going for me, as far as getting connected to resources, was that I was a veteran,” Cox says. “I haven’t been diagnosed with any mental illness. I was getting close to what they consider chronic homelessness, but it seems like there’s always somebody worse off that needs it more.”
The hierarchy of homeless needs and the system of “who needs it the most” leaves a lot of people to fend for themselves. One way Madison has found to address the overwhelming number of singles is through
Top: Occupy Madison’s Tiny Village offers mobile micro homes to those in need.
Bottom: Torrie Kopp Mueller works to find homes for Madison’s homeless. Her goal is to prevent and end homelessness in Dane County.
Tiny Village, an alternative living setup established by the nonprofit Occupy Madison in 2014 that uses cheap and mobile micro homes.
Standing at the corner of East Johnson Street and North Third Street on Madison’s east side, the village community is made up of people who live in their own personalized cabins on wheels. They do not pay rent but instead cover their living costs with “sweat equity.” Community members maintain the homes and the site by woodworking, gardening and contributing to a food share among residents. They also demonstrate their talents in jewelry-making, weaving and beekeeping to stock the Tiny Village merchandise store, which funds the community with sales.
The village’s approach to preventing and ending individual homelessness gives previously unsheltered people a purpose — something
Cox, who is now a resident, calls a “meaningful occupation.” Cox says living out of his van isolated him from others. Now, he feels like part of a community, and, more deeply, he feels useful to others experiencing homelessness.
“On a deeper level, it’s really about making connections with people because we’re so isolated,” Cox says. “That can make a world of difference, just having community.”
A person would have to earn $16.11 an hour or work 89 hours a week at the $7.25 minimum wage to afford a two-bedroom rental home in Wisconsin. Some homeless folks have jobs while they are displaced or find jobs after they are in housing, but the cost of living alone negates their wages and makes it nearly impossible to pay rent or save for a home. Combined with upscale developments, such as the luxury apartment boom downtown area, there are not enough attainable homes for the displaced.
VanKampen acknowledges his poor credit score, as well as the decades he will have to put in at minimum wage in order to improve it. He is almost retirement age, but plans to work until he is more than 80 years old if that is what it takes to afford his dream: owning his own home.
Cox now has a permanent mailing address at Tiny Village. He just opened his first mailed paycheck in a year.
As for VanKampen, he has been approved for housing through the Porchlight Inc. Veteran’s Transitional Housing Program. After more than 10 years on and off the streets and one year of continuous homelessness, VanKampen has the keys to his own private living unit. He can’t stop smiling as he talks about it.
“What’s next for Bob is getting into an apartment, close the door and lock it,” he says.
By Mel Tobiasz
When Agoston Haraszthy, a Hungarian immigrant, established vineyards and a wine cellar in Wisconsin in the 1840s, he may not have predicted he would one day be known as the Father of American Grape Growing. Haraszthy’s land, tucked away in the hills across the Wisconsin River from Prairie du Sac, is today’s Wollersheim Winery.
Grapes have been grown in Wisconsin since the 1840s, including those planted by Haraszthy. However, cold winters and humid summers made grape growing for wine a challenge for many Midwestern states. As interest in wine and wineries increased across the country, the introduction of cold-hardy grapes in the industry followed. The state currently has 80 wine producers and 200 acres of vineyards, with more than half of the wineries coming into existence in the past decade. Such recent growth in the Wisconsin wine industry has attracted attention and highlighted the advancements in grape growing and winemaking in the Midwest.
The first step aspiring winemakers in the state took toward success was finding a grape that could withstand extreme seasonal changes. They needed a coldhardy grape. This proved to be no easy feat, as finding such a grape would take extensive trial and error. Julie Coquard, current co-owner of Wollersheim Winery, highlights the processes her own father took while planting vineyards at the Wollersheim property.
Her father eventually found the right grape varieties that would do well on their site and would produce the Wisconsin wine consumers enjoy today. In addition to the right varieties, winemakers require expertise and vineyard know-how.
Sarah Botham, marketing director of Botham Vineyards, says when it comes to Wisconsin wine, the weather dictates the types of grapes grown in the state, which in turn dictates the kinds of wines that can be produced here. Consumers of Wisconsin wine are sipping on a different product.
“We don’t grow the same grapes that they grow in California,” Botham
says. “We can’t grow merlot, we can’t grow cabernet, we can’t really grow chardonnay, we can’t grow riesling. The grape names that are most familiar to the consuming public, we don’t grow.”
Instead, Wisconsin grows multiple red grape varieties. Some of the most popular red grape varieties grown in the state include Marquette, Frontenac, Marechal Foch, Sabrevois and St. Croix. Such varieties contribute to the uniqueness of wine from Wisconsin.
Botham encourages wine aficionados to embrace and enjoy Wisconsin’s blossoming wine industry.
“Get out and do some tasting and find what you love,” Botham says. “Visit the wineries, visit the vineyards, take part in the events, bring your friends. It’s a great way to spend an afternoon.”
The revitalization of this post-industrial city has community members in a tug-of-war for its control
By Darby Hoffman
Smack-dab on the WisconsinIllinois border lies Beloit, a small, industrial town of approximately 37,000 people. Within the city’s limits, you can enjoy high-class dining at Merrill & Houston’s Steak Joint, walk along the Rock River’s edge and even attend a Snappers semi-professional baseball game — all while enjoying the feel of your average, Midwestern town.
These recent projects have allowed Beloit to keep pace with other Wisconsin cities. Local billionaire power couple Diane and the late Ken Hendricks, Beloit 2020 and the Greater Beloit Economic Development Corporation are among those backing these revolutionary development projects.
Although these projects bring jobs to the city through their construction and maintenance and provide new attractions for those from in and around the city, some are left wanting more. While Beloit’s shifting blueprint has appeared to put it on the up-and-up, a number of
structural issues continue straining its foundation. As shiny, new apartments and trendy sushi bars open near Beloit’s State Street, the city continues its struggle with crime, poverty and the added consequences left by the developments.
The newest plan to expand the Beloit Memorial High School campus has removed rental properties from the market to make room for new additions, thus displacing Sixth Street’s primarily low-income residents and forcing them to relocate.
José Gutierrez and his family landed in Beloit eight years ago, spending their first years on Sixth Street. After moving from Mexico to California and Illinois, the lower housing and education costs drew the family to Wisconsin.
Now, after moving to Vine Street, a mere two blocks away from their first home, Gutierrez finds himself stuck between appreciating the generosity of investors and questioning their motivations on a project that hits
so close to home. He believes these developments emphasize an alreadypresent dynamic between Beloit’s “haves” and “have-nots.”
“The progression of Beloit and the development kind of uphold that standard and put in a divide between people that can afford this stuff and people that can’t,” Gutierrez says.
Despite this apprehension, the projects come with very little reservation from the greater community. Beloit’s city manager and council give each project almost unanimous approval, and the majority of Beloit’s residents seem to think the additions are exactly what the city needs.
This lack of concern is exactly what another portion of Beloit’s population finds so frustrating. Before relocating to California this past September, longtime Beloit resident and City Council member Sheila De Forest decided to confront this unquestioning majority. With a history of advocating for Beloit’s most marginalized
groups, De Forest became frustrated with city leadership’s lack of attention to the developments’ wider social impacts.
In her 2016 parting statement to the City Council, De Forest wrote:
“Beautiful spaces are important, but without strong, vibrant, healthy neighborhoods and thriving people, only those who are welloff or visiting from out of town have the luxury of enjoying those wonderful spaces and reaping the rewards. As City Councilors, our responsibility is to represent the people and ensure that we keep the safety and welfare of the residents as our highest charge.”
“The progression of Beloit and the development kind of uphold that standard and put in a divide between people that can afford this stuff and people that can’t.”
Historically, Beloit’s structural pitfalls have inhibited this safety and welfare. The city is known for its relatively high crime rate, with gun violence and drug issues circulating throughout the community. According to the FBI, the city had 175 violent crimes in 2016. In Greenfield, Wisconsin, a city with a population close to that of Beloit, 68 violent crimes happened that year. In Brookfield, Wisconsin, with approximately 2,000 more residents,
there were 25.
Additionally, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, Beloit’s median household income is $37,500, with 25.6 percent of residents living below the poverty line and an unemployment rate of 4.6 percent –– exceeding the state’s average of 3.2 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The vulnerable economy left residents in need of a hero — enter the slew of local organizations looking to help fund Beloit’s revitalization.
The Hendrickses have become household names in Beloit. Their influence is everywhere throughout the city, from the Ken Hendricks Memorial Bridge to Beloit College’s Hendricks Center for the Arts.
According to Lisa Furseth, director of community initiatives for Hendricks Holding Company Inc., “the overarching goal [of Hendricks’ investments] is to increase economic opportunities, investments in the community and jobs.”
Furseth says the developments are “intended to support a strong and healthy community.”
Beloit 2020 is another change agent in the community. Originally Beloit 2000, this nonprofit organization focuses specifically on developing downtown and the surrounding area. The group also backed The Riverfront Project, which included the addition of a hiking and biking path, a children’s playground and various art pieces.
More recently, however, Beloit 2020 has set its sights on a new venture –– the expansion of Beloit Memorial High School, which includes proposals to renovate a five-block perimeter surrounding the high school. This $23 million renovation will include new oncampus luxuries, such as practice fields, a building for the district’s administration and a pedestrian mall.
“I like the campus plan, as it puts the focus on Beloit Memorial,” says Carole Campbell, principal of Beloit Memorial High School. “Beloit Memorial High School is the comprehensive educational institute for students in our city and the
campus plan will highlight [the school].”
The community is not asking to call off construction or withdraw financial support for the projects. Instead, some residents want to know more about who the projects are intended to benefit and what role they really play in Beloit’s progress.
By Peter Culver
Dec. 10, 2016. The UW Field House crowd stood in disbelief. The Wisconsin Badgers volleyball team had just lost a five-set thriller to Stanford in the NCAA regional final after winning the first two sets. The Badgers walked off the court, dejected, as their opponents celebrated.
But shortly after, cheers echoed through the Field House. As head coach Kelly Sheffield tells it, the Badgers headed toward the locker room. He stopped the four seniors and turned them around, ushering them back to the court. These women, who worked so hard to turn around a program that had fallen to mediocrity, watched as more than 6,000 people stood and cheered, clapped and cried for them.
“The crowd’s reaction was just one of the most amazing things I’ve ever witnessed in sports,” Sheffield says. “Everybody that was there, those four players still get emotional about that moment.”
The Stanford team that had stormed back from 0-2 to take the match went on to win the national title. Badger team member Lauren Carlini knew then that she would never play another match in red and white.
“Everyone else had kind of left, and we were just sitting there in our jerseys. We didn’t want to leave, we didn’t want to take it off, we didn’t want it all to end,” Carlini says now.
Standing in the Field House felt like watching the dynasty built over the past four years falling apart. It seemed like the end of an era.
Until it didn’t.
Even after losing a senior class that made a national title game, two regional finals and a regional semifinal, the Badgers haven’t lost a step. They cruised to their first undefeated nonconference season since 2010, losing only one set in the process.
Open ESPN Magazine or Sports Illustrated and you’ll find sports journalists spinning long passages about football or baseball. But volleyball never gets that, which is somewhat mind-boggling.
The simple progression of perfect pass to a set to a thunderous swing from a hitter can be beautiful. The sport offers dramatic swings in momentum, a variety of different styles and spectacular one-minute rallies. On any given point, you can see a hitter near the net tip a ball gently over a blocker on the other side or hammer a ball to the floor past them.
However, there weren’t a whole lot of points to love for Wisconsin before Sheffield and the new class that included freshmen Carlini and Nelson arrived together in 2013.
That year, the Badgers earned their first postseason berth since 2007. After storming through their regional, Wisconsin arrived in the Final
A player from the opposing team attempts to block an incoming hit from the Badgers.
Four facing Texas, the defending national champions. On paper, Wisconsin was completely overmatched next to a bigger, more physical and more experienced Longhorns team.
But paper doesn’t always translate. Paper wouldn’t predict the Badgers returning to the conversation of national title contenders. Paper wouldn’t put Carlini, Nelson and their teammates in a position to contest the national title. Paper couldn’t see all of the moments that would define the Badgers over the next five years.
POINT ONE: Wisconsin vs. Texas, National Semifinal. Dec. 19, 2013. 24-23 in the fourth set (UW leads, 2-1)
After the Badgers shocked the audience — and presumably Texas — by winning the first two sets and reaching a match point in the third, the Longhorns appeared to be reasserting themselves.
The fourth set swung back and forth, with neither team able to seize control. But Wisconsin’s Deme Morales sent the ball off the Texas block and out of bounds.
After a rapid back-and-forth, Carlini sent another ball out to Morales. She wound up and smoked the ball, sending it careening into the stands. The Badgers collapsed into a dogpile on the court. They had knocked off the defending champs.
While Wisconsin would go on to fall in the title match to Big Ten rival Penn State, this match re-established the Badgers as a name in the national conversation.
POINT TWO: Wisconsin vs. Penn State, Louisville Regional Final. Dec. 13, 2014, 7-8 in the first set
After their surprise run to the title game in 2013, Wisconsin didn’t miss a beat. The Badgers breezed through their season in 2014, meeting Penn State in the regional final with two match losses on the season.
Halfway through the first set, Carlini, the sparkplug for the Wisconsin offense, went down with an ankle injury. After she left the court, the Badgers pulled together and stayed in it, but the experience and power of Penn State proved too much for a depleted Badgers team, and the Nittany Lions won the next three sets — and eventually another national title.
POINT THREE: Wisconsin vs. Nebraska. Oct. 24, 2015, 24-22 in the fourth set (UW leads 2-1)
A lot changed for Badger volleyball after 2014. Seven seniors graduated, and the Badgers had to rebuild their offensive attack.
The 2015 season got off to a rocky start, but they quickly recovered, winning 13 of their next 18 matches. Then they faced No. 3 Nebraska.
After the Huskers marched their way through the first set, it looked like they were well on their way to another victory.
But the Badgers fought back. On match point in the fourth set, University of Southern California transfer Lauryn Gillis took a dig and set it out to Kelli Bates, who hammered the kill home, sealing the Badgers’ stunning upset.
POINT FOUR: Wisconsin vs. Ohio State, Madison Regional Semifinal. Dec. 9, 2016, 14-19 in the fourth set (OSU leads 2-1)
This was the year. Carlini and Nelson were seniors, and they strolled through their first two NCAA tournament rounds.
Wisconsin’s opponent in the round of 16 was Ohio State, a team they had soundly beaten twice during the regular season.
But something was different that chilly December afternoon. The Buckeyes played with an unexpected fury. After the Badgers cruised to a victory in the first set, Ohio State claimed sets two and three.
Wisconsin looked overmatched. Despite the fact that they were the superior team in terms of talent and past results, they were simply getting outplayed. Sheffield called a timeout in an attempt to pull his team together.
Nelson stepped into the huddle with one thing on her mind: victory.
“We were kind of spiraling, and we couldn’t stop them,” Carlini says. “Kelly calls a timeout ... and Haleigh [Nelson] just goes, ‘This is not the end.’”
Wisconsin scored six straight points to take the lead and went on to win the match. While they lost to Stanford in the regional final, the comeback win will live on in the memories of players and fans forever. “That Ohio State regional match was my favorite match of my entire career,” Nelson says.
The young Badgers on the 2017 team demand to be taken seriously. Led by budding superstars in freshmen setter Sydney Hilley and middle blocker Dana Rettke, you see hints and flickers of Carlini and Nelson, powering kill after kill over the net. However, you also see something new and different. The similarities are there, but it’s clearly a new team.
They’re not rebuilding. They’re reloading.
By Taylor Kilgore
“When [Sammy] was in third grade, the teacher that he had was not paying attention to him. He was an advanced student. It’s like they would just give him something for him to learn, but he already knew the stuff — pretty much all the stuff,” says Gabriela Garduño, a Madison parent.
Sammy’s mom was very involved, and she talked to Sammy’s teachers many times about giving him extra homework. Once she realized the school wasn’t doing all they could to help him, she had to think of something different. Garduño took both of her sons, Sammy and Danny, out of the Madison public schools the following year, frustrated by what she perceived as a lack of effort to educate her children. Sammy is currently in the fifth grade at Lighthouse Christian School, Dane County’s first and only voucher school.
Wisconsin’s academic achievement gaps, which disproportionately affect students of color, have been persistent since long before Sammy was born. School districts continually leave parents frustrated and, in some cases, searching for a way out, year after year.
“It seems like the structure is falling apart,” Garduño says about her sons’ experience in the public schools. “And it seems like it’s not changing for the good … And it is really terrible, because the kids go by and pretty soon they are going to be in high school. By that time, they have to be ready and prepare for college.”
Tests show large gaps between white students compared to Black and Hispanic students since the 1990s, according to the Nation’s Report Card. In 1990, among eighth graders, 5 percent of Black students, 18 percent of white students and
7 percent of Hispanic students were at or above proficiency in math.
Fast forward to 2015, and, among eighth graders, 13 percent of Black students, 43 percent of white students, and 19 percent of Hispanic students were at or above proficiency in math. According to the same report, in 2015, the percentages of white and Black eighth grade students who performed above the basic or proficiency benchmarks were lower than in 2013.
For parents in Wisconsin, trying to find the best school for their children to attend can be a complicated decision, especially when faced with such disparities in education outcomes.
Low-income parents and parents of color in particular may not have many school options to choose from. Their children are forced to go to their neighborhood schools, which may be failing to educate students. Many white families who have money have more of an opportunity to buy into neighborhoods with the best schools or can afford private schools or home schooling, say parents like Garduño.
Garduño says she felt stuck until she was able to find the opportunity of a voucher for her boys to attend Lighthouse Christian School. The private school first joined the taxpayerfunded Wisconsin Parental Choice Program in 2013. It allows students who meet income-eligibility guidelines to attend private, magnet and charter schools or to be tutored. According to the Wisconsin State Journal, the program is controversial because some believe that vouchers take taxpayer money away from the public schools.
But Garduño thought that this was a chance for change.
“So there was a great opportunity when I heard that families, like low-income, have the possibility to go to private school — that something might be different,” Garduño says.
Howard Fuller, a longtime education reformer and past superintendent of the Milwaukee Public Schools, was among those pushing for parental choice in Milwaukee when state legislators approved the first program in the country in 1989. According to his book, “No Struggle, No Progress: A Warrior’s Life from Black Power to Education Reform,” Fuller believes that in some cases, parent choice is crucial for AfricanAmerican success.
“I support [school choice] for low-income and working-class parents because I don’t think that we ought to have an America where only those of us with money have the ability to choose the best school for our children,” Fuller says.
Fuller points out that some argue that the academic achievement gap should actually be called “the opportunity gap.” Using the term “achievement gap” places the blame on the students and not the system itself. Many low-income students and students of color simply do not have all the same opportunities as many white families with resources.
“I wish other students can have the opportunity to go [to Lighthouse Christian School], because I see there that the people care about the students, whether they are an up level or a low level,” Garduño says.
Social justice issues have a direct impact on education issues. Education is an avenue that can make a child’s life better. According to Fuller’s book, education is a rescue mission for poor children. When children are educated, it can improve their life chances, and if a lot of kids have that happen, it can ripple out to the greater community.
It is difficult to pinpoint just one thing that can help Wisconsin move in a direction that would reduce and eventually eliminate the academic achievement gap. Fuller, among others, believes that there needs to be a greater sense of urgency when it comes to addressing this.
“When it just comes to education per se, we should provide students with a 21st century education and not a 20th century education. But, at the same time, for poor children, just making changes in school or education environments is not enough,” Fuller says.
• We publish six separate youth-written newspapers, including two bilingual publications.
• Our writers and reporters are students (grades 3-12). They write about science, geography, history, the arts, and more.
• All our students have business cards and real assignments.
• We teach productive academic habits and clear, concise writing. Our process is designed to foster curiosity and core subject learning. Writing, skill acquisition, and academic confidence are central to SSFP pedagogy.
• Assignments and activities grow in complexity with age and ability. High school students provide support for younger peers.
Despite its shrinking presence in schools, art continues to serve as a canvas for childhood development, linking subjects and critical thinking Writen and photographed Molly O’Brien
Twenty or so kids gather next to Keegan Lynch, hanging on his every word. He reads them a story to spur their creativity, and the students are set loose to work. It’s art class.
Pressing hard with a hot pink Crayola colored pencil, a second-grader focuses intently on his paper. Sharpie marks outline misshapen circles collaged with a vibrant background to create a pink, blue and green explosion. Taking a step back, he announces he is done.
“This is a sea lion, and right there is a meteor coming toward him, and he needs to escape it,” he tells his classmate, pointing to a brown blob, followed by a circle the size of a small fist slightly resembling a beach ball. “But then there’s also the bad sea lion coming after him, and he has to swim away from that. He’ll make it, though.”
Lynch nods. As a first-year art educator at Van Hise Elmentary in Madison, he encourages self-expression from his students.
Schools often allocate funding to core subjects such as math, reading and science, but when budget cuts happen, arts
can be a quick target. This means less personalized attention and fewer supplies in the art classroom — a space integral to wholesome childhood development. In art class, students take time to explore their interests and express themselves, providing comfort in a setting that can sometimes cause stress. Developing creative thought processes can possibly promote innovative thinking in core subjects as well.
While the boy coloring with the hot pink colored pencil was one of many students assigned the same project in Lynch’s class, he was the only one to transform a few ambiguous circles into sea lions. Other students decorated their papers with donuts, pizzas, monsters and other imaginative creations.
These kinds of projects give elementary students time to explore their own interests in a creative environment. Lynch’s class shows that everyone has their own unique perspective to share, even if they start from the same guidelines.
Similarly, Lynch starts his fifth grade art class with an activity called blind contour portraits, where students only look at the face of someone near them and draw what they see. The
result is 20 or so muddles of lines and colors, none of which really resemble a portrait. The class-identified “artist” has a paper as messy as the girl who prefers multiplication tables rather than coloring.
“I don’t want them to feel super pressured to create anything amazing. I want them to be able to take ownership of whatever they do,” Lynch says. “If you can kind of get them to create something that’s sort of cool looking right away, that’s a huge confidence boost for the kids that have lower self-esteem in the class.”
Elementary school crucially shapes children’s self-esteem. Children typically act as independent for the first time in school, and the power of institutions becomes present, according to Professor Erica Halverson of the UW–Madison Department of Curriculum and Instruction.
Halverson says that showing what a child can offer in comparison to their classmates evokes a sense of pride in this new setting.
“When kids are sharing what they already know, they
feel like they are contributing positively to the learning environment,” Halverson says. “And creative expression, which often starts with your own ideas, your own perspectives, your own joys, your own sadnesses … immediately puts kids in the driver’s seat.”
The National Coalition for Core Arts Standards outlines the major foundations and lifelong goals of artistic literacy. One of these facets is the arts as communication, specifically in a multimedia world. Using artistic creations and imagery as a language can enhance a person’s life as it improves capabilities to communicate with individuals they otherwise may not.
Students use art projects to articulate ideas they otherwise may not express, especially in younger age groups. Mary Hoefferle, the undergraduate art education program director at UW–Madison, says pictures are children’s first language. Before children can write, they use images to depict their families, their homes and their understanding of the world. Like the boy with his sea lions, the work young people create expresses the knowledge bouncing around in their brains.
After creating masterpieces, kids further their selfexploration as they talk about their art using details more vivid than their favorite bedtime story.
In Lynch’s room, the students gather in a circle on the floor surrounded by white boards, bookshelves and abstract art. The physical piece of paper in front of them provides a chance to explain their own perspective of the world — where one child sees farmland, another sees a hurricane.
When the picture is hung on the fridge, the impact becomes much greater than a kitchen decoration.
“I don’t want them to feel super pressured to create anything amazing. I want them to be able to take ownership of whatever they do.”
Nationally, funding cuts often bring art class to the chopping block, since it is not a core subject. This can result in fewer art supplies and less class time. Or no arts or music programs whatsoever. It happens in Wisconsin, too.
Hoefferle remembers one former student who was teaching in northern Wisconsin. The woman’s schedule had her teaching in multiple schools with classes scheduled back-toback. With a jam-packed schedule and hundreds of students, the teacher is spread thin and unable to provide the care and attention students need.
“Her teaching schedule told you [indirectly] how little that district valued art,” Hoefferle says. “She taught in three different schools …What kind of quality are you going to get
out of that? I was so disgusted on her behalf.”
Currently, Lynch says he’s seeing a void of creativity, which he believes may have something to do with the digital age. Technology moves fast, information is readily available and kids no longer have to create their own fun. The average age for receiving a smartphone is 10.3 years old and half of kids are connected to social media by the age of 12, according to the 2016 Digital Trends Study by Influence Central research agency.
“Kids are doing less stuff with their own heads, like out and about,” Lynch says. “I’ve kind of had this philosophy the past few years that I want to kind of reinstate or introduce them to these cool aspects of the world that maybe they’re not getting otherwise, and art is just my vehicle for doing this.”
Making links across subjects gives students an understanding they may not get without hands-on experience. Lynch always starts his class by reading a story related to the project. On this day, the story was of a bear creating abstract art. Others did not see anything specific in his work, but when the bear flipped his canvas upside down, a self-portrait emerged. The book showcased the bear’s unique perspective, reflective of what the students were learning.
“I usually try to tie in a little bit of literacy, science — or sometimes, weirdly, even history or math — into these things. Because that’s what I learned is really good practice, and that’s what keeps your art department alive,” Lynch says.
As the second graders finish up their abstract art, one student asks her friend how many faces she can find in the illustration. Her friend cocks her head to the side and guesses three. She’s close, but when the little girl rotates the paper, there’s a fourth one hiding.
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