I've been curious about how Advocates for Student Achievement, the group pulled together in Milwaukee in 2007, views the job of serving on the Milwaukee Public Schools Board, since their stated Public Agenda was to recruit challengers to run for the MPS Board. After all, the MPS Board oversees $1.2 billion in public funds. It faces great public scrutiny. There's no limit to the diversity of strong opinions aired against the board after most of its major decisions. Board members likely have to grow thick-skinned to withstand it. To get people to volunteer for that sort of abuse -- after first running a full-scale campaign in a city like Milwaukee -- ASA probably had to put on a full-court press, really dig deep and apply pressure.
Turns out, I was completely wrong about serving on the MPS Board. As the Advocates for Student Achievement explained on their website, it's just "a part-time job."
Check it out: Serving on the MPS Board nowadays only involves
Attendance at a monthly meeting of the full board. These evening meetings can run anywhere from two to eight hours, with 3-4 hours being the norm.
- Attendance at one or more committee meetings per month, which typically run 2-3 hours.
- Preparation for meetings. Conscientious board members typically spend an hour preparing for every hour of meeting time.
- Time spent visiting schools and in side meetings.
Some people spend more time per month just sitting in traffic, right? How hard can serving on the school board be?
And better than sitting in traffic, this comes with a little salary and benefits!
Think of it as a part-time job. (In fact, it actually does come with a compensation package – currently $18,000 a year plus benefits.) Done well, it averages out to a time investment of about 10 hours a week.
Seriously, I don't know why more people don't take advantage of it.
But I understand that there's some campaigning involved. Say I've never run a campaign. What's that about? Who's going to help me?
Running an effective campaign requires time, contacts and money. ASA’s goal is to provide well qualified candidates with help in all three categories.
ASA will help me out? My first instinct is to ask what exactly ASA hopes to get out of helping me. But instead, what if I don't know anything about the issues? I've never come close to helping run a $1.2 billion budget.
According to ASA:
As soon as you know you’re seriously considering running for the board, it’s a good idea to start taking in school board meetings once a month – and select committee meetings, if possible – to bone up on the issues facing the board. You can attend or simply listen to these meetings on WYMS.
...
You don't have to be super well-connected to consider running for the school board. But if you run a good campaign, whether you win or lose, you'll have greatly expanded your network of relationships by Election Day. For most candidates, this is the best side benefit of running.
So even if I run and don't win, I've built a kick-butt network of business contacts. That's cool.
But what about money? Running a campaign takes money, and I don't have it to spare. Maybe you've heard: The economy's bad.
In the last election cycle, the cost of running a serious race was in the $15,000-20,000 range (except for the citywide seat, which takes more resources.) Common expenses include the printing of literature and signs, the purchase of voter lists, creation of a simple web site (if you can’t get someone to do it for free), and – for some candidates – the use of a paid campaign manager. Of course, candidates strive to tap as many free resources as possible, e.g., a "phone bank" made available by a local business.
To cover these and other expenses, candidates and their campaign organizations typically conduct several fundraising events. They make one-on-one contact with potential major donors. They may also send out direct mail appeals to individuals they believe will be supportive, both within and outside their district.
So candidates and their campaign organizations do the fundraising. If I'm the candidate, then is ASA the campaign organization that's going to help me raise the money to campaign?
.
I'm sorry, I didn't understand that. Is ASA a campaign organization?
Many people who would be excellent school board members are intimidated by the prospect of running a campaign. But while it’s true that it requires a substantial commitment of time and energy, it’s also true that running for the school board or any local office can be an exhilarating, richly rewarding experience. And with the creation of ASA, well qualified candidates have gained a new resource.
Ah, I get it. ASA IS a campaign organization but it can't SAY it's a campaign organization, just a "resource." Right?
ASA was created to seek out individuals who have what it takes to be effective board members and to provide them with the information and support they need to run for election.
So, word on the street is that ASA was put together by Milwaukee's business interests, like the chamber or the realtors, to push vouchers. Is that true?
ASA is a non-partisan grassroots organization formed by area citizens who represent diverse interests and ideologies.
So, it is a group of businesspeople or not?
Some of us are parents, worried about the quality of our own children’s education. Some of us are business leaders, concerned about the quality of our future work force.
Okay, well, since you're only interested in taking over the Milwaukee school board, you must all be Milwaukeeans, at least.
While most of us own homes or businesses in Milwaukee, some of us live in the suburbs but understand that a healthy MPS is critical to the long-term success of Southeastern Wisconsin.
Aha! So you ARE a group of businesspeople pushing vouchers.
All of us are taxpayers, seeking a good return on the huge investment we already are making in MPS and looking for strong fiscal management to hold down future spending increases. Our strongest common bond is a shared belief that all of Milwaukee’s children, regardless of where they live or their household income, have an equal right to an education that enables them to achieve their full potential.
Yeah.
Hey, I heard that Kevin Ronnie, the guy who ran against MPS Chairman Peter Blewett last time around, is a big part of ASA, but I didn't see his name on any of the official ASA webpage. So is this like a behind-the-scenes grudge-match kind of thing? Ronnie lost last time, so he's coming back with a different "campaign organization" and a different strategy to take Blewett out? Is that it?
.
Okay...
I wondered what the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has said about ASA, since it's the major media in Milwaukee. But when I looked, I didn't find much there. I did find an interesting article in the Shepherd Express though:
Connecting the Dots
Voucher backers’ behind-the-scenes support in school board races
By Lisa Kaiser
A new "reform" group was launched in late-2007 to recruit anti-union, pro-voucher candidates for the Milwaukee Public Schools board of directors. We’re just now seeing the results, but only if you know where to look.
I like that part: If you know where to look.
The group, Advocates for Student Achievement (ASA), is supporting three candidates in the April 7 election: David Voeltner, running against Donna Peck on the Southwest Side; Annie Woodward, challenging Michael Mathias for Charlene Hardin’s old seat; and ReDonna Rodgers, challenging MPS Board President Peter Blewett.
So these are the ones who responded to ASA's offer of help to win a "part-time job"?
What has ASA been doing for them, according to the Shepherd Express?
The ASA has been operating under the radar—and none of the ASA candidates have returned phone calls seeking comment for this article—but evidence of the group has been popping up in these weeks before the MPS board election:
- According to a campaign e-mail sent to "friends of ASA," Voeltner, Woodward and Rodgers "have taken advantage of the candidate orientation sessions we held last fall, the issue papers we commissioned to help candidates understand the key challenges facing MPS, and the candidate roundtables we host on Saturday mornings to provide continuing education and moral support."
- The e-mail then asks "friends" for donations to the candidates’ individual campaign committees, and also the Orwellian-named campaign conduit "Milwaukee Fund for Public Education," which dumped $50,000 into voucher-supporting incumbents’ campaigns just before the 2003 board elections. The "Milwaukee Fund for Public Education" is an odd choice for a name, considering that they want to destroy public education. MPS board member Bruce Thompson, who spearheaded the voucher movement in Milwaukee, has been involved with this fund. George Mosher, who lists the fund as his employer, contributed $500 each to Woodward and Voeltner.
- ASA registered as a political action committee (PAC) with the Milwaukee Election Commission on Aug. 16, 2007, but it has not filed any financial disclosure forms with the city since its inception, so the public doesn’t know where ASA’s funds are coming from or, as of this date, how its funds are being used. The treasurer is listed as former MPS board member Joe Dannecker, a voucher supporter who was ousted by Terry Falk.
- Campaign strategist Eric Hogensen’s cell phone is listed as the contact number for ASA’s PAC. Hogensen is also the campaign strategist for the ASA candidates, and his fees show up on the financial forms for Rodgers and Voeltner.
- As reported in the Shepherd on Feb. 4, ASA commissioned a highly questionable poll seeking voters’ views on MPS issues. Included in the poll were inaccurate, misleading questions about MPS Board President Blewett, who is facing ASA-backed candidate Rodgers in April. Blewett has blasted the "push poll" as a "classic sleazy campaign trick."
- As reported in the Shepherd in November 2007, ASA held a fund-raiser sponsored by voucher backers Thompson; former MPS board members Jeff Spence, Joe Dannecker and Ken Johnson; and former state legislator Dennis Conta. Thompson told the Shepherd at the time about its focus on recruiting pro-voucher, anti-union candidates: "We’re looking to the next election, when four [of nine board] seats will be up."
So ASA IS a front group for Milwaukee's voucher guys. That's what I thought. Why not just say so?