[Music]
Major funding for In Wisconsin is provided by the
people of a lion's energy who brings safe, reliable
and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes,
neighborhoods, and life in Wisconsin running smoothly.
Alliant Energy, offering energy saving ideas on the web.
[Music]
Next, in Wisconsin, the 20th anniversary of one of
the most significant Indian rights cases of the 20th
century, a legal decision that also led to violence.
A look at Wisconsin's first virtual elementary school and
why some say it's illegal.
If we're going to have this in the legislature, it needs
to make some adjustments in the laws because the
laws are being violated.
And Wisconsin World War II veterans tell their stories.
A ball of fire rep right around the ball turn that I was in.
That's next, In Wisconsin.
Good evening and welcome to In Wisconsin.
I'm Patti Lowe.
We start tonight with a Wisconsin first, the
state's first virtual elementary and middle school.
This new approach to education has attracted
hundreds of children from all around the state, but
it's not without controversy.
And that controversy has even led to a lawsuit.
The virtual school is based in Appleton, but producer Art
Hackett begins his report, 120 miles away, in Oregon.
In a farmhouse, just west of Oregon, Emily,
Samantha and Silaharms are starting their school day
the way they always have.
Getting books off the shelf and taking them to the kitchen
table where their mother, Christy, will teach them.
The family decided to homeschool when their first child, Emily,
was ready for kindergarten.
We just saw that the schools weren't, I guess, academically
they were okay, but morally, there's just a lot of things
that we didn't agree with.
So from the start, we decided to homeschool
our Emily at the time.
But as the children got older, harm says she
encountered material she wasn't comfortable teaching.
Some subjects that I wasn't as knowledgeable in, like
science. I never like science as a high school, I just
am not a science person.
So I wanted, you know, another curriculum where it actually
explained the science and I could understand it more too.
And the harms wanted a testing program to
provide accountability.
It was easy for us to make a lesson plan from the
whatever curriculum we were using, but to enforce
that it actually happened.
This school gives us that kind of accountability.
This school harms refers to as a virtual school.
Christy harms checks a website every morning
for the day's activities.
I log in all their assignments, their lesson
plans are on the computer.
So I can look and it gives you some, I mean, coaching tips
and how to teach that lesson.
Harms is the learning coach in virtual school parlance.
She delivers the lessons, the computer and some
accompanying workbooks suggest.
So even though the computers use to manage what's completed and
what's still left to be done, it's very much a book oriented
activity oriented learning center where the child is
not left alone, but there is an adult with them.
Linda Dawson is an assistant superintendent with the
Appleton area school district.
The virtual school is a public school located in what used
to be Appleton's high school.
It's paid for with state tax dollars funded through
the school aid formula.
Dawson says the district started exploring virtual
education to serve students who had trouble coping in
a traditional classroom or who had been expelled.
The district also has a number of home schoolers who ask
for help from time to time.
But there weren't enough students in the
Appleton district to make the school viable.
So taking advantage of the state open enrollment law,
the district opened the school up to students like the
Harms family 120 miles away.
Thus was born the Wisconsin Connections Academy.
And although it is a virtual school, the
academy does have teachers.
Lynn Rhodes is responsible for about 50 kindergarten
and first grade students.
Your mom said you're going to try to finish your block
core work before Christmas, so you're really moving
along quickly, aren't you?
Teachers keep track of students' progress and
grade mailed-in tests.
When students start reading books on their own,
teachers will discuss the books over the phone.
You're right, and he is one of the main characters
because she's the one that changes Helen and the whole
family's life in the end by teaching Helen sign language
and how it means different things so that they can
communicate back and forth now.
And sometimes teachers have to follow up on exams
which are supposed to be submitted, but aren't.
I need to have the tests on my desk by Wednesday in
order for me to help you.
So that means you have today to finish up whatever it
is you need to finish up and then get that out in
the mail probably tonight.
If you can do that, is that sound like something you can do?
But if you eavesdrop on the conversations, there are
frequent references that sound out of place in a conversation
about a Wisconsin school dealing with Wisconsin students.
I'll put in a request to Baltimore to
get that out to you.
Baltimore is the headquarters of the Connections Academy, which
is the subsidiary of Sylvan Learning Systems, a four-profit
company that also operates franchise tutoring programs.
The Appleton School District contracts with Connections
Academy just as the school might buy textbooks and software
from a private business.
However, the Connections Academy provides virtually everything
the virtual school uses.
This tight connection to a four-profit
company is discomforting for teachers unions.
And the Connections Academy is drawing half of its students
from traditional public schools across the state.
Katie Jo Powell of the Dean County Town of Windsor
is a fourth grader at the Connections Academy.
Her mother Joanne says, until last year, Katie was enrolled in
her local public school system.
I felt that she was slowly getting lost in the system.
I started noticing it a little bit in second grade.
But more than that, her mother says it was the stress that
went with homework assignments.
Last year, she also used to be involved in swimming, horse
riding, and she basically quit all of those extra
activities because she said I just have too much homework.
Here, it's more hand-stung, and my mom teaches me more
and more until I get it.
And at the regular school, they just do one problem on
the board and say, "Okay," and they just slam a book in your
face and say, "Then do it."
But not all families have been happy with the
Academy's curriculum.
Principal Nicole Schweitzer says about 30 of the schools,
264 original students, had dropped out by the
end of the first semester.
In some cases, the curriculum is either too
rigid for the student or too rigid for the parent.
It's about 192 days of education, which typically
traditional public schools go 180 days and they maybe
get five days for field trips, and I have to day
off for the spring concert, half day off for the winter
concert, things like that.
We've got 192 solid educational days.
And depending lawsuit alleges, the Wisconsin Connections
Academy may not be legal.
The Connections Academy is a charter school.
It's students, as this pin map shows, are spread
all over the state.
The state teachers union points out in a lawsuit that state
law forbids the district from setting up a charter school
outside of the district.
Diane Lang is the president of the Affleton Education
Association, the local teachers union affiliate.
Because this is statewide, it really does violate what
the law says, and I think we ask for concern is, if we're
going to have this, then the legislature needs to make some
adjustments in the laws because the laws are being violated.
You know, and how can you have laws violated?
Violated just because you want to try something new.
Assistant Superintendent Linda Dawson contends the academy
is no different than any other afflton school, all are allowed
under the open enrollment law to take out of district students.
It's just that at Connections Academy, most of the
students aren't from afflton.
Why should the afflton district be using its resources to
run something that's primarily not benefiting afflton?
And that's a good question.
And one of the things that we've brought up repeatedly is
that we're doing it because it also serves the needs of our
kids that benefit from this.
Even though we only have a less than 20% of the
students, those students are still being benefited
by having this as a choice.
Dawson says the district has suggested the State
Department of Public Instruction take over the
school to resolve this issue.
It should be pointed out that the entire cost of running
the school is paid for with state aid dollars, not
local property tax money.
If the courts rule it legal, the Connections Academy
is expected to expand to 350 students in the fall.
Parents, like the flexibility, the program provides.
I mean it's a trial and error.
We're seeing what works for us.
And I think overall it's going really well.
How many would you have?
All right.
Good. The Academy's teachers say
they are happy they can reach students who otherwise
might be totally outside of the public school system.
But teachers being teachers, they miss the kids.
I love being in the classroom and I love the kids.
I'm missing some of that, but I do see kids
occasionally. They'll come by and see us here and I'll
talk to them on the phone.
But instead of face-to-face contact, a picture on
her cubicle wall will have to represent a
student 120 miles away.
[Music]
This week in Northern Wisconsin, Ojibwe Indians are wrapping up
the annual spear fishing season.
It was 20 years ago that the U.S.
Court of Appeals affirmed the right of the
Ojibwe to hunt, fish and gather on the land they had
sold to the U.S.
government nearly 200 years earlier.
But it's come to be known as the Void Decision was one of the
most significant Indian rights cases of the 20th century.
And ushered in one of the most violent chapters
in Wisconsin's history.
One woman who found herself in the midst of the
turmoil was Carol Brown.
The controversy she witnessed inspired her to set some goals
and make a difference, not only in her own community, but for
Native Americans nationwide.
The 1983 Void Decision touched off seven years of
intense civil unrest, idyllic legs became battlegrounds.
Thousands of protesters opposed to Ojibwe
spearfishing demonstrated at Northern Wisconsin boat
landings, some hurling rocks and racial insults.
The depth of anti-Indian sentiment surprised many Ojibwe.
It was at such a level that I think it shocked people,
shocked Indian people into thinking that, "Hey, we've
got us now, we have to stand up and assert ourselves.
We have to stand up for our rights."
Carol Brown was a single mother living on the Lacta
Flambo Reservation.
In a 1986 documentary, she
talked about her community at the center of the storm.
We're talking about people here.
And I think if you have a group of people that are
very proud of where their ancestors came from, I think
that ought to be restored and saved and respected.
And we're not just talking about crafts and the language.
We're talking about a way of life.
The name itself, Lacta Flambo or Lake of Torches,
speaks to that way of life.
It was the name given to this band of Ojibwe by the
French, who saw them spearing fish at night by torch light.
"You got to wait for them.
You got to wait for them."
The Ojibwe reacted in different ways to the crisis.
Some fished.
Others offered support at the boat landings.
Carol Brown developed a long-range strategy.
"I like to entertain the thought of going to law school.
We don't have enough people out
there fighting on our side.
And I would eventually like to be out there fighting
and doing something good."
Hello. 20 years after Voit, Carol Brown is
the tribal attorney she predicted she would become.
"The Malax band was the tribe that initiated the war."
From her office overlooking the state capital, Brown
represents the legal interests of the Lacta Flambo and
several other Indian nations.
Looking back on the Treaty rights battle, Brown says
the struggle revealed the cultural disconnect between
the tribes and the state.
It was embarrassing and it reflected a lot of ignorance
that could have been avoided.
Had we attempted to communicate in a different
way, more cooperative voice?
What did the Ojibwe learn from that whole experience?
Communication is key.
Education is key.
"And I don't think we'll ever overcome some of the
prejudgments that are imposed and the stereotypes
that are still today 20 years later in existence."
Five years after the violence had subsided, the
same Ojibwe Treaty rights case emerged in Minnesota.
Then moved on to the U.S.
Supreme Court.
Among the attorneys arguing for the Ojibwe, Carol Brown.
Everyone knew how traumatic an adverse decision would be.
And I have never been so emotionally caught up in a case
before as I had this one knowing the full impact they would have
if they had ruled against us.
Brown joined spiritual leaders and activists who
ran from the Malax Ojibwe reservation in Minnesota to the
courthouse in Washington, D.C.
There were fasts and ceremonies along the way.
There was just a strong spiritual movement and undertone
throughout the entire process.
Every single phase of the litigation was always supported
or supplemented or connected with some kind of spiritual
ceremony, some activity that invoked prayers and some
strength from the creator.
It was an incredible experience to go through that whole
process as an attorney, but yet still understand what it
truly means to have those rights and have them possibly taken
away by the stroke of a pen.
In May 1999, with tribes and states around the country
nervously awaiting this landmark ruling, the court
issued a five-four decision and affirmed the right of
the Ojibwe to hunt fish and gather in their ancestral land.
That decision was huge.
It was huge because if it had been
decided the other way, the one vote had turned the other way.
It would have turned the Wisconsin case on its head.
Brown says many people still don't understand that tribal
sovereignty, the right of Indian nations to govern
themselves, was at the heart of the spearfishing dispute.
It's the same legal principle that's at the core of
the current controversy over Indian gaming.
There seems to be a lot of misinformation that all tribes
are rich and all tribal members are driving around
and receive these bans, which is obviously not the case.
We're supplementing local governments.
We're contributing to charitable organizations.
We're not a boastful people.
We don't break, we don't carry signs and
tell everyone what we do.
So there is a misperception that, therefore, we must be
doing something underhanded or illegal or self-serving.
That's very sad to me.
It's very sad.
Brown's Indian law cases lately have involved sacred
sites versus corporate rights.
For her, it's about protecting native religion,
culture and tradition.
What lies ahead?
In the 1986 interview, I asked her
where she'd be in five years and she said law school.
And five years from now?
Five years from now, I'd like to be sitting on the bench in
that building across the street as a Supreme Court Justice.
Carol Brown's work and those court rulings continue
to have an impact on state and tribal relations.
We'll have more on treaty rights and the current casino
gaming controversy tomorrow night on here and now.
Here and now airs Fridays at seven and repeats on
Sundays at 6.30 here on Wisconsin Public Television.
[Music]
Every week in Wisconsin brings you stories about the people
of our state.
Who we are and how a single individual
can dramatically shape the world in which we live.
It's those types of stories that also make up a new Wisconsin
Public Television documentary.
Wisconsin World War II stories is devoted to documenting the
tales of state residents who were instrumental in the Allied
war effort.
The documentary was produced by Mick Durks.
And tonight we bring you a sneak preview
narrated by Jerry Huffman.
[Music]
Allied bomber crews out of England suffered
higher casualty rates than any other combat force.
Less than one out of three reached their full
tour of 25 missions.
When a crew was shot down and the crew was from your barracks
by the time you got back from your barracks from that mission,
there are already new personnel in those bucks.
They never wanted us to see empty bucks.
And the first casual we had was in the back of a formation.
It wasn't from our group but it was another group back,
they back there.
And all I saw was a burst of flame.
And you know it to be 17 that got a red direct hit.
And it went right on straight on down.
To our lost sight of it there was no shoots coming
out. And of course that means you lost 10 men.
They're 10 men on a on a B-17.
Starting up in the nose you have the bombardier.
Right behind him is the navigator.
And right above him is the pilot
into his right co-pilot.
Right behind them we have the engineer.
There's the radio operator.
And right behind the radio operator is Walter Gunner.
And two waste gunners.
Open the windows.
The machine got mounted on a post.
And then the tail gunner in the tail.
And I wanted to be a ball turret gunner.
Well the ball turret gunner, it's different than anything
else. First off you can't bury a parachute in the ball turret.
And when you're in combat it's very helpful
to have your shoot on.
When you get in the turret you actually step down into it
because more than half of it is taking outside of the plane.
If anything jammed in the turret and you crash land
it's over.
I mean you're gonna...
that ball turret is gonna hit the ground first.
The guns are all 50 caliber.
Fire 750, day 150 rounds a minute.
Well the hit was targeted.
1500 yards.
And I had two of them.
One on right about here and that's why I don't
have a hearing today.
But I didn't mind it too much.
I got used to it pretty quickly after the first mission.
Scored me half the death when the flag
started hitting the ball turret.
I don't think there was ever a mission that I flew.
That we didn't come back with holes,
lots of holes in our plane.
We flew 12 missions prior to being shot down on the 13th
on the 25th of February 1944.
February 8 1944 on a mission to Frankfurt.
We took a drag hit on number two engine
and it's just a ball of fire wrapped right around the
ball turret that I was in.
I immediately got hold of the cargo in the comm
and told my situation.
He said something to the navigator and that's the last
word I heard from the pilot.
At that point I just flown the turret around and I picked up
a point where 190 is coming in.
By the way when they come in like that they're only
so fast that you only get a short burst.
That's it.
And then I swung the turret around to follow them because
I knew they were going to circle back and come back again.
And when I did that I saw two shoots open up below me.
And somehow another, my clippings and my god they
bailing out.
And I immediately got the turret up and sure
enough there wasn't nobody in the plane where I got out there.
We all bailed out.
We didn't have experience with that.
Air Force told us there was no sense in practicing
for something that had to be perfect the first time.
The reason they told us that because they didn't have
anything to train us with.
But when you remember that we carried either 12,
500 pound bombs or 51, 100 pound in syndiaries.
Plus our wings were loaded with 100 octane gasoline.
You didn't have to decide whether or not
you wanted to bail out.
You're sitting in a pile of dynamite.
And I got to the back door.
It was already kicked out.
And I bailed out and pulled my rip cord came down.
If you want to find out what happened to these veterans
after they pulled their rip cords and hit the ground.
Be sure to watch Wisconsin Public Television this
coming Monday night.
You'll hear their stories and many more as part of a new
documentary called Wisconsin World War Two Stories.
The premieres at 8 o'clock Monday night, May 12th.
Also on Monday night, the State Historical Society and Wisconsin
Veterans Museum will operate a phone bank from 8 to 10 pm.
They'll provide information on how you can preserve
your own historic photographs and documents.
Finally, you can find more information on all of this
as well as everything you've seen on tonight's show.
On our website, wpt.org/inwisconsin.
From there, you can also link to our special Wisconsin
World War Two Stories webpage.
That's just about all we have time for on this
edition of In Wisconsin.
We hope you'll join us again next week when
we'll take a further look at life in our state,
including a report on a shortage of denists that's
affecting the health care of tens of thousands of people.
We'll also meet a musician who, without touching an
instrument, seems to pull music out of thin air.
That's next week on In Wisconsin.
Meanwhile, we leave you this evening with a scenic visit to
Avan Bottoms in Rock County.
Joanne Garrett is our travel guide.
I'm Patti Lowe.
Good night.
[Music]
State natural area, Avan Bottoms.
Tom Meyer describes.
Avan Bottoms is what we call a floodplain forest,
a southern wet forest.
And it's in the floodplain of the sugar river, a place
where waters typically rise during the spring floods.
They cover the entire ground.
And when the waters go down, the landscape is left with
small little pockets of water, great places for amphibians
and reptiles and misty turtles and things like that.
Things like this, fields of spring flowers, part of this
floodplain forest, a special place, a unique place, saved.
Avan Bottoms on a day in May.
[Music]
Major funding for In Wisconsin is provided by the people of
Alliant Energy, who bring safe, reliable and environmentally
friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods and life in
Wisconsin running smoothly.
Alliant Energy, offering energy saving ideas on the web.
[Music]