Nickolas Butler, a writer in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, remembers the Wisconsin of his childhood and wonders why the current political leadership wants to destroy everything that was beautiful about the state. The schools, the dedicated teachers, the world-class university, the precious environment and landscape.
He writes:
“I remember, my days and years in Eau Claire’s public schools, well-kept buildings populated by teachers that I truly adored and admired, like heroes. My parents stood in lockstep with these educators and on those days when I arrived home with a substandard report card (and there were many such dismal report cards), I never thought to blame my teachers, nor would have my parents entertained such nonsense.
“When I left for college in Chicago, I volunteered at an inner-city elementary school. The furnace often malfunctioned, and the school was very cold in winter. One day, I waited on the school’s front steps for a bus to take me back to campus. The principal ran out of the building and taking me by the arm, escorted me back inside.
“Why, I asked, couldn’t I sit outside? Because, I was told, I might be shot. Likewise, the playground was a dangerous place for the children to play, strewn with needles and broken glass, and the chain-link fence no defense for errant bullets.
“Well, I thought, this is Chicago.
“I remember, for example, the first time I heard about mountaintop-mining in the Appalachian Mountains. Such a notion was so profoundly brutal, so antithetical to the manner in which I had been raised, that I could not comprehend the “effiency” of it all. But psychologically I distanced myself from that reality, by dismissively thinking, Well, that only happens in West Virginia, or Kentucky. That would never happen in Wisconsin. We would never scalp our landscape, our home.
“I remember, as a Boy Scout exploring Wisconsin’s network of state parks. Listening to the news or Garrison Keillor on Wisconsin Public Radio each weekend. I remember a popular Republican governor who introduced recycling during my childhood, and often voraciously fought for a public train system.
“I remember that my church invited foreign refugees into our community. I remember my years attending UW-Madison, and the elite, world-recognized professors I had the privilege to study under. I remember a childhood where every vocation, every passion, was encouraged — not just those that made “sense”/cents.
“Now, every one of those institutions is on the chopping block or threatened with fiscal starvation. And when they fail, as they will, profiteers will buy for a pittance what were once invaluable jewels in a commonwealth we all owned, as Wisconsinites, unified and unseparated by politics.
“I believe I share the same qualities as almost all Wisconsinites, conservative or liberal. I believe in kindness and hard work and decency and respect. But these are all qualities that are in diminishing supply right now in Wisconsin. It is as if we have exhausted all the kindness in our state, and all the decency.
“We quickly loot our natural resources, stripping the land of what topography there is. We insult our teachers. We allow our university system to decay, our educators to be stolen by other states and schools. Our legislators regularly give no time for public comment or feedback before thrusting a new bill upon us. It is as if they don’t care about what once was. They seem interested in conserving nothing, plowing maniacally ahead with little heed to their so-called love of institutions, history and incremental change.”
Not just Wisconsin.
Right. The wrecking crew has arrived. They tear down but they don’t build anything that lasts.
I am surprised at the attack on “sunshine laws” in these midwest states. They were always considered just basic “good government”. That shocks me because sunshine laws are popular. It’s a kind of rotting of the foundation that I don’t think can go on forever without a spectacular collapse.
AMEN!!!!
Walker wants ZERO ed. training required for teachers; just 1 test + “life experience”
In Wisconsin, thanks to Scott Walker’s “budget repair” bills
and reforms in union-busting
(though not busting ALL unions, mind you… just
lazy, greedy teachers and nurses…
… as for unions for state police, local police, firefigthers, etc….
Walker left them alone, as they are “vital” to the state,
while those others are not.)
Anyway, thanks to four years of Walker, we have the following
conditions in Wisconsin:
1) teachers are fleeing the state to work elsewhere;
2) teachers are staying in the state, but leaving the profession;
3) university students who otherwise would have pursued
teaching now want nothing to do with it;
4) mid-career folks who once considered switching
to teaching from whatever—accounting, engineering,
etc.—now want nothing to do with it;
5) the older “baby boomers” are retiring in massive
numbers;
6) some (but not all) newly-empowered administrators are’
making teachers lives miserable, and driving out teachers,
particulary the high-paid veterans.
As a result, there’s now a crisis-level teacher shortage that’s
only going to become more and more desperate as time goes on.
What’s Scott Walker to do? Why… de-professionalize teaching.
I’m wondering exactly WHICH Wisconsin parents—folks who
voted for Walker?—relish the idea of having their children
taught by people who:
1) have ZERO training in teaching: no degree, no alternate training
(Jeez! Even TFA demands 5 weeks of training plus a Bachelors!!);
2) have only passed a brand new, untested, and unproven
competency test…. designed, naturally, by Walker’s people—
no educators;
3) have a required threshold of relevant “life experience”, as again,
defined by Walker’s people.
A teacher / blogger hit the nail on the head:
http://bustedpencils.com/2015/01/scott-walker-for-social-studies-teacher/
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Tom Slekar:
“It’s obvious this group of republicans has done their reading on “disruption” theory.
“Oh let me count the ways that this silly proposal can be dismantled. 1,2,3,… What? I’m counting. You don’t really want me to waste your time do you? You know like pointing out that if it’s a good idea for people with “real life experience” to become a teacher simply by taking a test then surely it must also be a good idea to apply the same standard to a host of other professions.
Real Life Experiences
“Hey I like going to the airport and I have even been on a plane 10 different times. I want to be a pilot!” OK. Just take this test.
“I ate nothing but fat and sugar during my adult life and had to have open heart surgery and during recovery I watched Dr. Oz for 3 weeks. I want to be a surgeon!” …………….OK. Just take this test.
When I was little I made really cool lego structures and I made my cat walk across them. I want to build bridges.” OK. Just take this test.
“Sorry. I said I wasn’t going to do that. But hopefully you get my point.”
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The writer BELOW compares his own compelling life story (including military service)
to Walker’s, and parallels that with Walker’s… the sacrifices both financial and personal that the writer endured to attain his degree—the same demands that Walker eschewed in favor his cushy ride while becoming the Wisconsin Republican Party’s and the Koch brothers’ new water boy…
The writer also also pointing out the value of a university education, and the
downsides to lacking one:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/18/1357280/-Wisconsin-Gov-Scott-Walker-claims-to-have-a-master-s-degree
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MARK E. ANDERSON:
Everyone is almost certainly aware by now that Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin does not have a bachelor’s degree. He left the University of Marquette, and in his words,
“I’m someone who went to college, had the opportunity in my senior year to go and take a job full-time job (…)like a lot of folks in America, you know, your family and your job take the time away from you finishing it up.”
In that same recent interview, Walker stated:
“I’ve got a ‘Master’s Degree’ in taking on the big government special interests, and I think that is worth more than anything else that anybody can point to.”
Gov. Walker was unable to finish college. There are plenty of websites and blogs out there full of accusations about why he left Marquette, but we’re not exploring that today. This is about how he has the audacity to suggest that he has a master’s degree when he does not even have a bachelor’s degree.
While Walker was at Marquette, I was serving my country, hoping to come out after four years with enough money to put myself through college. After four years of being a U.S. Army Combat Engineer, I left the service. I got out a little too late to start classes that fall. So I would start school the following semester. I made it through three semesters of school and then the Gulf War started. Unsure if I would have to go back on active duty or not, I dropped out of school and went to work full time waiting to be called up for duty.
It would be over 10 years before I would return to a classroom as a non-traditional student, and after my GI Bill expired. I was a 40-year-old single father when I received my bachelor’s degree. I sacrificed a lot to earn that degree to give my family a better life. I worked full time and went to school full time. I gave up time with my then-wife and son to complete assignments. I had a lot of sleepless nights and missed weekends. I had to write papers while on the phone with a divorce attorney. (Want a challenge? Take a course on wealth and power in America while in the middle of a divorce.)
Three years later I decided to work towards a master’s degree in communications to fulfill a lifelong dream of becoming a writer. I worked a full-time job, coached my son’s football team and went to school full time. I busted my ass to get my master’s. Writing my thesis was one of the most difficult things I have ever done and it cost me the love of my life—she could not take coming in third after my son, and after my thesis. I cannot blame her, she did not sign up for the sacrifices—I did that.
When I look back at what my education cost me, precious time with my son, and a relationship with a woman I loved deeply, I am filled with rage when I hear that Walker claims to have a non-existent “Master’s Degree.” He is no better than wannabe soldiers who parade around in military uniforms claiming to be something they are not.
He has no idea of the sacrifices that a non-traditional student has to make to attain a degree, a degree that they hope will lead to a better life for their families. That was my hope, for a better life for me and my son. In the end I found that my education gave me far more than what I put into it—and I am not talking about a great job with high pay and amazing benefits (graduating in the middle of a recession did not help). It made me a better person; it taught me how to think, and how to express myself.
Walker has only briefly worked in the private sector. For most of his life he has been in public service while railing against the very government that provides for him and his family. He chose that life, he chose to attend fundraisers instead of classrooms, and he chose to spend his time campaigning instead of learning, instead of growing as a person.
He does not get to say he has a non-existent “Master’s Degree.” He has not earned one—he does not know what non-traditional students have to sacrifice for their education. He has never wondered if he will have enough money for food after he pays his tuition bill, or if he can afford diapers after purchasing a textbook. He has never slaved away for months on something, putting heart and soul into it, only to have a professor rip it to shreds in less than five minutes, and to have loved ones walk out of your life.
No, Walker does NOT have “a Master’s Degree in taking on the big government special interests.”
He is a college dropout.
Originally posted to Daily Kos on Sun Jan 18, 2015 at 12:00 PM PST.
I agree. The sense of civic pride and civic duty that my generation experienced is gone. The worst things got was Warren P. Knowles – and he was pretty good! (I still have a letter opener I got at his inauguration in January, 1965). Gaylord Nelson (founder of Earth Day), William Proxmire (who I heard speak many times, including when I attended Badger Boys State in 1974), Les Aspin… Now Ron Johnson, Paul Ryan, Scot Walker?
Butler is so very correct. (And, no, it isn’t just nostalgia for “the good old days”!) In Wisconsin (& other states too, I’m sure), there was a time when you could drink water out of a clear, cold stream & not worry about it… there was a time when an education degree from a Wisconsin college was respected most places in this country… Wisconsin education grads were in demand then. Now… not much different than other states… I am so sad to see what Walker (the dropout) & others have done to the state & its people…
I recently gave a talk at Marquette University in Milwaukee on what the New Deal did for the U.S. and specifically for Wisconsin. (See here e.g. http://nddaily.blogspot.com/2015/04/a-new-deal-for-wisconsin.html.) What I learned about what Scott Walker and his Koch-fueled wrecking crew is doing to that once-progressive state literally shocked me. The term fascism is, of course, overused and abused, but Wisconsin has clearly become a laboratory for its encore, and this is not what Bertram Gross called friendly fascism but one that is actively hostile to the citizens and which the Kochs hope to export through D.C. to the other 49 states. Their father, after all, was one of the founders of the John Birch Society whose once-extreme ideas their money is nudging ever more towards the center.
How did Walker survive the recall, and then win re-election? Clearly there are enough people who either buy into his political philosophy or allowed themselves to be snookered by his and the Koch’s lies.
And yet people keep voting for Walker. Wisconsin has not seen a dime of my vacation dollars since he was re-elected. What is wrong with the majority up there (I live in IL and speak from experience…we are the bad state…not beautiful Wisconsin). I miss my weekends up there, I missed the great fall colors this year…I’m saddened by what is happening across a state that was once known for having great public schools and universities (I went to a private one…but still really wanted to go to Madison). It used to be harder to be a public education teacher in WI than IL, now it’s probably the same (though who would want to be a teacher in either). I totally agree with this writer and, though a flatlander, am saddened too.