A tale as old as time

I'm just gonna go ahead and pseudo-quote Kanye here: "Scott Walker doesn't care about black people," which makes this latest little battle is especially rich (i.e. gross). Walker hasn't had one word to say about the damning Race to Equity report, did nothing good for extremely segregated Milwaukee County while its executive, and has passed a series of measures that have a disproportionately negative effect on minority communities--but yeah, now that it's campaign season, it sure is expedient to pretend you give a crap about the non-white, non-rich citizens of your state. It's a tale as old as time...

To wit:

Gov. Scott Walker took the campaign against Democratic opponent Mary Burke to her front door Wednesday, accusing the one-term Madison School Board member of not doing enough to improve black students’ graduation rates in Madison. Walker argued that the Madison School Board could have put more money toward raising graduation rates and academic achievement if it had taken advantage of his controversial 2011 measure known as Act 10, which effectively ended collective bargaining for most public workers, instead of choosing to negotiate a contract with its teachers union for the 2015-16 school year earlier this summer. 

Read more.

The truth is that the graduation rate of African American students statewide, but especially in Milwaukee and Madison, should be viewed as an inexcusable shame on us all. No one gets to pass the buck here, especially not Walker. But it's telling that the governor is beginning to lash out willy-nilly like this, now that his polling numbers aren't looking as hot and various scandals just keep nipping at his heels.

Welcome to shitty politics 101.

Battle for Wisconsin, pt. 2

Today all Madison public schools are closed due to a massive teacher sick-out (most, I can only assume, are headed for the capitol, where the vote on Walker's union-busting bill is scheduled to happen today at 3 p.m.).

Yesterday, their students showed support by walking out and joining the protests downtown. I shot some video of the action, which you can check out right here:



Updates as I get them today...

Major reform needed in funding for public education

It came as a breath of fresh air when the Legislature managed to pass a state budget before the July 1 start of a new fiscal year. After the painfully drawn out process of '08, it was a welcome change.

Unfortunately, that timeliness came at a cost. Namely, a 15% cut in funding to nearly 100 school districts, including Madison. That's $9.8 million dollars lost, and combined with the $2.8 million in other state cuts, we're talking a $12 million reduction for the Madison School District.

According to Rep. Sondy Pope-Roberts (D-Middleton), this worst case scenario is the result of lawmakers using outdated data to make their funding predictions. They'd originally thought that cuts would be limited to no more than 10%, but just a few days after passing the budget, the Department of Public Instruction "worked up preliminary general school aids figures for the 2009-2010 school year a few days later, about 100 districts wound up with a 15 percent cut."

Not good. Not in the least.

And the news only got more glum after Pope-Roberts added, "I don't think it can be fixed...I think we're going to have to live with it."

As Forward Our Motto pointed out, Pope-Roberts is one of the good ones, working hard for meaningful education funding reform, so hearing the dire news from her may be especially poignant.

Madison School Board President Arlene Silveira has also chimed in to voice her displeasure with the way things were/are decided:

This grim situation is a result of a poor economy, outdated information used by the Legislature, and a Department of Public Instruction policy that penalizes the district for receiving one-time income (TIF closing). Federal stimulus funds will, at best, delay cuts for one year. We are left with a gaping budget deficit when many fiscal decisions for the upcoming school year cannot be reversed.

There are several different theories about what needs to happen for the situation to be improved. Pope-Roberts backs the School Finance Network (SFN), which advocates, among other things:

...increasing categorical aid for children with disabilities and special needs, for small, rural school districts, and for low income students — making the system more equitable while ensuring that all children have the opportunity to learn. The proposal also reconfigures how annual per pupil increases are calculated, moving them from $264 to $350 in year one, and then tying future increases to overall statewide economic growth...The plan increases state aid and expands homestead property tax relief, generating lower property taxes and providing tax relief for homeowners.

The state Legislature has the responsibility to fully fund public education, as mandated by the state’s Constitution. There are many funding options for state leaders to improve our school funding system, including closing corporate tax loopholes, eliminating tax breaks and subsidies for companies that do not keep jobs in Wisconsin, changing the sales tax system, eliminating sales tax exemptions, and adopting strategies to increase federal support for the state.

Holding the Legislature accountable for fixing the system appears to be the most common theme, and indeed, their past insistence on placing caps on revenue for school funding and general disregard for the public system has certainly contributed to the current crisis.

Frankly, I've never understood arguments for less education funding. Most districts do a good job of cutting out waste and programs that don't work--they've had to, as law makers continue to strip resources from them--so we can't readily place all blame on their shoulders.

Unfortunately, then, it is too often our elected representatives who set out to slash costs, seemingly ignoring the short and long term benefits of an educated populace.

And now we may just have a perfect storm on our hands. Years and years of imposed revenue caps now combine with those "accidental" 15% cuts, and all smack dab in the middle of a recession, and it's the children who'll suffer the worst. They're about to lose essential programs (art and music are usually the first to go - but we're talking assistance for those with learning disabilities and after school programs that are often life savers for kids from lower income neighborhoods or troubled home lives).

How do we, as a state, find the money to keep all of these things, to keep up with meal programs and up-to-date textbooks, fixing leaky school buildings, paying good teachers what they're actually worth, etc.?

That's the question, isn't it. Traditionally, school funding is tied to a particular district's property taxes - but what about those areas that are less affluent? Why shouldn't kids from lower income families/neighborhoods get the same quality of education experience as those lucky enough to be born into greater wealth? They should, no question.

And that's where state money is (supposed) to come in. The problems arise when your lawmakers aren't willing to throw down the cold hard cash to keep things equitable. That should be unacceptable, but we in Wisconsin have allowed them to withhold and place limits on what can be raised for going on 15 years now. It's caused a steady and pernicious backslide in our state's national standings in things like per-pupil spending, decreasing our ability to properly meet the needs of all children.

So what do we do?

We hold the Legislature accountable by only electing those representatives who actually see through campaign promises to increase support for public education, work hard on funding reform, and place greater emphasis on the importance of public education.

We then make sure that they have as accurate and up-to-date numbers as possible with which to work when they're crafting the state budget.

We remove and/or ease overly restrictive school funding revenue caps, allowing individual districts to make decisions about how to raise money based on the needs of their areas.

We may even look into refining how property taxes are determined and used (Christian Schneider recently penned a column for WPRI that I thought offered up an intriguing plan regarding taxes, though I don't know enough of the details to say whether or not it might actually work).

Most importantly, we get back to placing a premium on the importance of quality public education in this state (and country, for that matter). Private institutions have their place, but it is crucial that we maintain access to truly great instruction for every child, no matter their financial background, location, or any other factor. Period.

Carolyn "Biddy" Martin, next chancellor of UW-M

It's all but official at this point: now-former provost of Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, Carolyn "Biddy" Martin has been selected as the new chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. From all accounts, she seems well-qualified for the role, and I am optimistic about her tenure.

Martin, 57, is familiar with UW-Madison. She was a lecturer at the university in the early 1980s and earned her doctorate in German literature from the school in 1985.

...

Martin has spent more than 20 years at Cornell and has been at her current post of provost -- the university's chief academic officer and chief operating officer -- since 2000. As provost, Martin helped raise $110 million for a life science building, developed a program to make financial aid available to students and put together a retention plan for faculty -- something which currently is an issue at UW-Madison due to its relatively low pay scale for professors, at least when compared to peer institutions.

In relation to that last point, Martin, too, will be dealing with that low pay scale. While she'll be making more than former chancellor Wiley--he made $327,000 a year and her pay range has been set at $370,000 to $452,000--this will actually be a pay cut from what she made at Cornell. Not to read too much into it, but this strikes me as a good sign that Martin took the job because she wanted it and thinks she can make a positive difference, rather than because of money.

I'm also encouraged by her history of fundraising and scholarship programs at Cornell. She has stated a desire to "build a strong relationship[s] with members of the legislature, and to sell to leaders how important UW-Madison is to the state's economic, political, social and cultural well being." With the current legislature, this will surely be an uphill battle, but one well forth the fight. Proper funding of the university system, and making sure it's accessible to all students who are interested and qualified, is crucial not just for saving face but too because it helps lead to better lives, a better workforce, and a better environment overall state-wide. Education is and should remain a top priority for any community or society.

In addition, Martin also plans to advocate for and support efforts to secure domestic partnership benefits for UW faculty. Sadly, the UW is the only Big Ten school that doesn't currently offer them, and that's both bad for retention and recruitment, and just poor policy for a school and city that prides itself on being forward-thinking and egalitarian.

Martin's hire won't be official until the Board of Regents meets in early June. After that, only time will tell what her tenure at the school will mean for students, faculty and alumni.

Draft 'em all and let the Neo-Cons sort 'em out

Yikes kites! Don't read the comments section under today's WSJ article about people speaking out against military ads at public high schools if you're not prepared to be nauseated. Just to get you up-to-date, the issue at hand is whether or not it's right (and indeed, whether it goes against school policy) to have US Army ads posted next to the scoreboards in public high school gyms and stadiums.

I already explained how I feel about the matter, but I think it bears further study and thought.

I'll start with the more inflammatory side of the pro-ad party. Here are a few gems from the comments section:

"Wow - how progressive of these people to protest the very organization that gives them the freedom to protest." (isn't that one of the essential ingredients of a healthy democracy?)

"If the protesters truly belived[sic] in doing right by children, they would focus their efforts on raising awareness for adoption and reducing abortion in the US instead of protesting to thwart the efforts of people braver then they are who fight to give them the right to spew idiotic rhetoric."

"If it weren't for the military, we would corresponding in German or Japanese right now, if we had the right to express our opinion at all. I really wonder how 'Peace Activists' hope to achieve peace, without strength."

"As a military-member, it scares me to think that one of those bleeding-heart liberals might end up in the foxhole next to me...we don't need any cowards or pansies to be drafted into our ranks."

All that vitriol loaded with fallacy makes my brain and my heart hurt. Is it even worth it to dignify these sorts of empty rhetoric-filled arguments with a response? Heck, I guess I'm a glutton for punishment, so I'll give it a go.

First off, stop comparing the current war with World War II. They are in no way analogous, and to bring up the whole "we'd be speaking German or Japanese right now" argument is pure ridiculousness. WWII was what it was--a necessary horror (because the best a war can ever be is a necessary horror) to rid the world of some of the greatest evil it had ever known. How on Earth are you going to compare it to the Iraq War? We knew Hitler and the Emperor were up to no good and we had solid proof: millions killed or displaced, invasions of sovereign countries, genocidal policies, etc. etc. We worked hand-in-hand with a serious and dedicated bunch of countries and the Allies were, in fact, greeted as liberators pretty much everywhere they went.

Iraq? We had a vague notion that Saddam might be in possession of WMDs (completely debunked by an official government report, no less), a notion based on extremely faulty intelligence that experts in the intelligence community even knew was bogus, and we had a president with some cowboy grudge against the man who tried to kill his daddy. We had a population that was grateful for the initial ouster of a terrible dictator, but that we then thoroughly screwed over by handing the rebuilding process over to corrupt contractors and greedy politicians. And yes, by underestimating the military size and strength that would be needed to properly contain the threat. It was a poorly planned, poorly executed debacle that has cost us the lives of thousands of good American men and women, not to mention countless numbers of Iraqi civilians.

THEY JUST DON'T COMPARE. So cut it out, already, because your argument does nothing to further your point and only serves to muddy the already murky waters surrounding the issue. The same goes for throwing abortion into the debate. What the hell does abortion have to do with military ads at public high schools? Cripes almighty people, stay focused!

And then we have the final comment, the "Liberals are all cowards and pansies and I don't want one of 'em next to me in a foxhole, damnit" thing. There's so much wrong with that statement that I'm not even sure where to begin. There's the blatant homophobia implicit in the use of the word "pansies," and the idea that anyone who identifies as a liberal is automatically a coward and anti-military. Someone skipped out on the their Logic 101 classes back in school.

Look, school district guidelines state that "all military information be posted in school guidance offices." A gym or stadium scoreboard is not a guidance office. Of course, the argument goes that these ads are not recruitment materials, but what do you call a slogan and a phone number for the local recruiting office? Let me spell that out again: r-e-c-r-u-i-t-i-n-g office.

Again, I'm pretty sure it's a bad idea to place advertisements of any kind in our public schools, let alone ones for the military. Keep recruitment materials in the guidance office, where students can learn all the details about a potential military career with the help of a qualified counselor. Keep all of the insidious advertisements, military or otherwise, off school grounds.

Our public schools need better funding, and this is just one (very clear) example of why we need to do better by them. They shouldn't be tempted to accept advertising dollars so they can meet their budgetary needs, the state should be covering them. The right to a good, public education is one of the things that makes our country great, and we're failing ourselves and our fellow citizens by allowing things to deteriorate as they have. And judging by the comments from the WSJ article, I'd say we're in desperate need of better education all around.