What in the world does "culturally responsive practices" mean in the context of special education? Self-identified progressive teacher Kally Bishop not only didn't know the answer, but she also claims that the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) never informed her of their decision to prioritize it in assignments. Four years ago, the district adopted a scoring system that heavily weighted this metric -- about which more later -- and used it to push Bishop out of an assignment she loved and for which her performance had always received high marks.
Bishop is now fighting back against this DEI variant with the help of Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), which also published this video laying out Bishop's case for Title VII discrimination:
It was a very different 1st day of school in Madison, WI for one highly qualified special education teacher.
— WILL (@WILawLiberty) September 3, 2025
Here's what uprooted her career: pic.twitter.com/2bbS1cSs7Y
And they're serious about this case as well:
The News: WILL has filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) on behalf of Kally Bishop, a highly skilled special education teacher at Thoreau Elementary, a part of the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD). Kally was “surplussed” or involuntarily transferred over less qualified teachers based on the District’s race-laden scoring system. WILL’s complaint with the EEOC is the first step to taking legal action against the school district. ...
MMSD’s Scoring System Raises Serious Questions: In 2021, MMSD adopted a new scoring system for determining how educators are surplussed. Seniority was replaced by a weighted “rubric” of four scores, but the highest, by far, is so-called “culturally responsive practices.” This criterion is heavily race-based, openly encouraging teachers to prioritize “students of color” over other students to receive the highest score. When this new system was adopted, the superintendent and the school board told the public that it was intended and designed to protect “teachers of color.” And the circumstances surrounding Kally’s transfer are highly suspicious and suggest that this scoring system was applied, in practice, as a proxy for race discrimination.
First off, let's take a look at the metric itself, as well as its weighting. The notice of formal complaint sent by WILL to MMSD raise a number of suspicions about the motive of their focus on "culturally responsive practices," as well as their supposed measurement of such:
The “Culturally Responsive Practices” factor was assigned 40% of the total score and was described, at a high level, as a teacher’s ability “to articulate the systems and beliefs that may lead to inequitable outcomes for students of color.” (Emphasis added). Teachers could receive a score ranging from 0 (a “[n]egative/harmful impact on learning”) to 3 (an “[a]ccelerated impact on learning.”). Each category had a list of bullet points and examples. Notably, the examples in the lowest, negative-impact category included teachers who take a “color blind approach” or “focus on equal versus equity.”
In other words, to avoid being selected for an involuntary transfer, the rubric encourages teachers not to treat students equally, but to prioritize some races over others. Indeed, to achieve the highest score, the first bullet point required teachers to “[e]ngage[ ] Students of Color, especially Black students in learning and classroom community.” There is no equivalent bullet for white students. Another bullet in the highest category is: “Actively intervenes in harmful interactions that perpetuate racist beliefs about students of Color” (emphasis added)—but apparently not racist beliefs about white students. Many of the other bullet points also focus on “students of color” over others.
All of this is bad enough, but it still doesn't answer how MMSD measures "culturally responsive practices." That metric accounts for 40% of the overall evaluation of teachers at MMSD, by far the largest of the factors considered:
“Culturally Responsive Practices” is assigned 40% of the weight; seniority, 25%, additional language proficiency, 20%, and credentials/certifications, 15%. There is no criterion for a teacher’s effectiveness or ability as a teacher.
Shockingly, there is no measure for actual classroom performance. In other words, it doesn't matter how teachers actually educate students; what really matters is the ideology they express, along with the usual credentialism. If anyone wonders why public education produces such lousy results, this could be Exhibit A.
And it still doesn't explain how MMSD actually measures the category that comprises nearly half of the evaluation used to determine teacher assignments. In fact, MMSD deliberately refused to explain how they measure this "rubric," as WILL lays out in their complaint letter. The "culturally responsive practices" metric calculations are apparently secret, and MMSD refuses to allow teachers to know how they measure performance to them:
Third, the administration told principals that they were not allowed to share with staff how their rubric scores were calculated, strongly suggesting that the administration is trying to hide how it is applying the rubric. After she was told she had been selected for surplus, Kally asked to see her rubric score. Her principal shared that her “composite score” was 1.45. Kally then asked to “see[ ] the individual scores of the four rubric criteria.” Her principal responded, in an email on March 10 (attached), that “[p]rincipals received guidance that [they] can only share the composite score. This was in a recent communicat[ion] late last week.”
This is flat-out insane. How can employees perform to expectations when the measures and metrics are kept secret -- especially when it comes to such ambiguities as "culturally responsive practices"? Imagine working in the private sector and being told you got demoted for measures that not only have never been explained to you before, but management refuses to explain them to you when they are applied to your employment status.
And here's where it gets even more suspicious:
Fourth, the only possible way that Kally could have scored lower than the black teacher is if she was given a “1” for “culturally responsive practices” and the black teacher was given a “3.” Both Kally and the black teacher had the same scores for “academic credentials” (2 out of 3, for a “specialized certification”) and “additional language proficiency” (0 out of 3; neither spoke an additional language). But on seniority, Kally had the highest score (3 out of 3, for more than 10 years at MMSD), and the black teacher had a 1 out of 3 (4–5 years at MMSD). To get a 1.45 composite score, Kally must have been given a 1 out of 3 for “culturally responsive practices.”38 The only way the black teacher could get a higher rubric score is if she were given a “3” for “culturally responsive practices,” which would give her a composite score of 1.75.39 If she were given a “2” for “culturally responsive practices,” her composite score would be 1.35—below Kally. Or if Kally were given a “2” for “culturally responsive practices,” her composite score would be 1.85—above the black teacher.
So what exactly are "culturally responsive practices," and what is their real-world performance metric? For that, WILL goes back to the public statements of board members at the time of the metric's adoption. And guess what their intent was in imposing this secret metric on MMSD teachers?
The Board first discussed this proposal at a meeting on July 20, 2020. 12 During that meeting, the Board Members expressed their racial motivations for supporting the changes. Ali Muldrow stated that “the phenomena we are trying to address with this language is that people of color are the last hired and the first fired.”13 Gloria Reyes, the Board President at the time, said “with any equity work, with what we’re trying to do here today, I think we’re all on the same page. We do want to get to the point where we are increasing diversity of teachers.”14 (Cleaned up). Savian Castro noted that “if you look up the chart, you know, the chart of who’s been here the longest, it gets whiter and whiter as you go up.”15 Ananda Mirilli said, “we’re really talking about racial justice.”16 And Cris Carusi agreed the changes would “help us achieve our goal of bringing more teachers of color into this district and making sure that we can retain them.”17 No one objected to or disagreed with this hyper focus on the racial makeup of staff as a justification for the changes.
In other words, the metric for "culturally responsive practices" isn't a teacher metric as much as it is a district metric. They are measuring their own racial composition in their staffing and are penalizing white teachers in order to cancel out the impact of their seniority as a means to increase "diversity." That's why MMSD can't provide an explanation or an achievable goal for "culturally responsive practices" that apply to all teachers equally.
Let's return to Kally Bishop, who starts off the video by proclaiming herself to be "a very proud Madison progressive liberal." Perhaps the teacher has learned a lesson about "progressivism" in this painful and deeply unfair chapter of her career; the video doesn't really address that point further. However, this is an object lesson in "progressivism," which by definition can never be satisfied with any status quo. It must always advance, because its activists keep demanding more and more change that inevitably relies on top-down redistribution of social goods in all forms, capital and otherwise to pursue ever-changing goalposts for its Utopias of the moment.
I certainly hope that Ms. Bishop wins her case against MMSD, and I hope that the Trump administration takes the case as WILL has petitioned. But mostly, I hope Ms. Bishop has learned about the nature of progressives, Madison or otherwise, and has more appreciation for systems of justice that rely on constitutional foundations and responsible self-governance to ensure equality rather than secretive progressive systems that autocratically impose "equity." And I hope everyone learns it as well.
