This man does not understand what the word, "reform," really means.
My son just finished up his freshman year at James Madison Memorial High School in Madison, Wisconsin. I have nothing but good to say about the education he is receiving, and the dedication of his teachers, and coaches; however, I do see cracks forming in the foundation of our public schools.
When I go to my son's school I see a building in disrepair and other than the lawn being mowed, the grounds are not kept up. There just are no funds available to to plant flowers in planters, repair benches, or pull weeds out of landscaping.
Last night I received this e-mail from the school district:
Dear MMSD Families:
Did you know that each year MMSD spends almost $30,000 to print copies of the Student Handbook/Policy Guides? Did you also know that state statute requires our district to provide the guide to every family, every year? In order to save on printing costs we are now offering families the opportunity to opt out of receiving a printed version of the Student Handbook/Policy Guide and read it online instead. Please note - families who do not opt-out of a paper copy will continue to receive a guide.
Money is so tight that the school district wants to suspend printing the student handbooks, which is mandated by state law, to save $30,000. Now, Gov. Scott Walker and his GOP cabal could have changed that law at any point to give school districts the tools they actually need to save money—but that would not enrich his donors.
More below.
Instead, our schools get what Walker calls "reforms." You may have heard about them—a few of us protested Act 10 back in 2011:
Walker touted changes to tenure and seniority among public school teaching ranks as a result of Act 10, the 2011 legislation that significantly limited collective bargaining rights. He also praised the expansion of school vouchers in the state over the last few years.
Of course, Walker was not reforming in 2011, and his new "
reforms," are anything but.
Anyone with a bachelor's degree could be hired and licensed to teach sixth- through 12th-grade English, math, social studies or science...And any person with relevant experience — even a high school dropout — could be licensed to teach in any other non-core academic subject in those grades.
This proposal is a slap in the face to all of the dedicated educators in Wisconsin—that their years of education, training, and experience are essentially worthless, if even a high school dropout could do their job.
And that is not all. This past week, a proposal was made to eliminate the Legislative Audit Bureau, the nonpartisan agency responsible for auditing Walker's Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), and finding all sorts of problems with the replacement for the Commerce Department. What a great idea! Get rid of the very agency that found a lot of problems with Walker's WEDC!
But tucked into the Legislative Audit Bureau statutes is this:
The same statute that provides authority to the LAB also explicitly protects academic freedom at UW System schools from audit review by the bureau.
The 1965 statute reads in part: “the legislative audit bureau shall not examine issues related to academic freedom within the University of Wisconsin System. A postaudit shall not examine into or comment upon the content of the various academic programs, including degree requirements, majors, curriculum or courses within the University of Wisconsin System, nor shall any such postaudit examine into the manner in which individual faculty members or groups of faculty members conduct their instructional, research or public service activities.”
Now, I don't know if you have heard, but there has already been a bit of a kerfuffle over
tenure the last couple of weeks in Wisconsin, and if this bill passes there would be no academic freedom in Wisconsin anymore.
Walker calls the attacks on public education "reforms," yet obviously none of his proposals is a reform. Over the years, starting before Walker, we saw budget cuts that took driver's education out of the schools, which benefited businesses because you now have to pay a driving school significantly more money that what was paid to the school for driving instruction. The cuts have kept coming—class sizes have grown as state funding declined and caps were put on what schools could raise via property taxes. Now money is being taken out of our public schools and being given to private schools—schools that have no accountability.
Walker and his allies scream that our schools are failing. They are failing due to years of neglect and the weight of budget cut after budget cut. This is exactly what the GOP has wanted all along—cut funding until schools start failing, then say, "Look, our schools are failing! We must do something." With that "something" being giving tax dollars to private schools—and corporations, under the guise of "reforming" our education system.