Scott Walker will face off against Democrat Tony Evers in November’s gubernatorial election.
Evers is the state superintendent of education.
Walker is running on his “education record,” which includes busting the teachers’ union, expanding vouchers and charters, defunding education, both K-12 and higher education. At one point, he even tried to rewrite the mission statement of the University of Wisconsin, changing its emphasis on “the search for truth” and “improve the human condition” to one focused on career training (“meet the state’s workforce needs.”)
Politico reports that the Koch brothers are investing in another term for their puppet:
SEVEN-FIGURE AD BUY TOUTS WALKER’S EDUCATION RECORD: Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin is launching a $1.8 million television and digital ad campaign highlighting Gov. Scott Walker’s education record. Specifically, the conservative group details past praise of Walker’s education record from his Democratic opponent in the governor’s race, Wisconsin state Superintendent Tony Evers. Watch the ad here.
— Caitlin Emma and Daniel Strauss reported last month that Walker is staking his reelection on his education record — and his political future could rest on how that message plays with voters. Walker essentially broke the state teachers union with Act 10, explosive legislation that he championed in 2011, gutting the collective bargaining rights of labor unions. Rather than run from the controversy sparked by the bill, Walker is embracing it, insisting that battling the teachers unions gave school districts more control over their staffs and helped officials balance the state budget, both of which have made schools better.
— Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin notes that Evers praised Walker’s most recent budget as a “pro-kid budget.” But Evers, one of the few statewide officials elected with Democratic support, has gone after Walker for cutting education funding or keeping it flat during the early years of his administration. Evers said the cuts prompted school districts to push for increases in property taxes. When he spoke to POLITICO last month, he took credit for “90 percent” of Walker’s recent budget proposal.
— Democrats, through the Democratic Governors Association, also recently announced a $1.8 million ad buy backing Evers. The ad campaign paints Walker as an insider politician who shunned Wisconsin residents while pursuing higher aspirations and traces Evers’ career from the classroom to superintendent of 2,000 public schools
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
He is a special kind of stupid.
It’s politically astute to say you support public education during campaign season.
All the ed reformers in Ohio are doing it too.
Ed reformers say over and over that people don’t vote on education. They better hope that’s accurate. If it’s not accurate a lot of them are going to be losing their jobs in November.
Good riddance.
Wrap vouchers and corrupt charters around their neck and vote them out!
If the edureform people are correct, then the interesting question is why. The primary expenditure of most states is education? Is this not true? Maybe people should be debating it rather than avoiding it in order to get elected. And yet, a local candidate for county executive here recently sent out campaign material featuring pictures of himself juxtaposed with pictures of Trump. He won.
You obviously didn’t vote often enough then, Roy!!
I must not be a good Jacksonian.
Ed reformers in Ohio did nothing for 15 years while White Hat charter management robbed 60 million dollars.
Miraculously, now that they’re all running for re-election, they suddently remembered how to file a lawsuit:
.@OhioAG filed a lawsuit to recover ECOT $ from Bill Lager and co. that was improperly received for inflated attendance numbers for the 2015-16 and 2016-17 school years and that Lager received from management companies paid to serve the charter school
Bush and Obama were both “education presidents”.
Trump said in an address to Congress that “education is the civil rights issue of our time,” copying Obama and Duncan.
Of course, what they meant was that school choice “is the civil rights issue of our time.” Trump didn’t know what he meant.
Your last sentence holds true in the present tense also.
Well, they were right in one regard:
We all got educated to pay attention to their actions and not their words.
Diane this just reveals the delusional silo-land that Walker lives in. CBK
Puke on Walker. Gag me.
Reblogged this on What's Gneiss for Education and commented:
I wonder what data/research he has that would make him think this strategy will work?
…and Bush was the “education president” with NCLB. As we used to say in the L.A. Valley in the ’80s, gag me with a spoon.
Well, ESSA accountability is beginning to hit Illinois. They are going to grade schools A-F based on proficiency and growth scores yet to be determined. Schools will be placed in one of four tiers, Tier One being the best where all the testing subgroups must reach some predetermined standard. If you are a Tier 3 or 4 school (guess which schools those will be) then you can expect state intervention. Aach!! We need to get back to discussing more education issues. Accountability through test scores is still king.
RE: Higher Ed – Impact of Walker’s $250million budget cut to U WI. [currently there is a plan to restore about 1/2 of that over the next 2 yrs].
U of Wisc ranked #2 [NSF research rankings] in research 2008; in 2015 it was knocked out of the top 5 for the first time since the figures have been tracked. Per R Blank, chancellor of U-WI-Madison, Scott’s 2015-2017 cuts resulted in the raiding of her faculty by better-endowed institutions. The U went to extraordinary lengths & mgd to keep 121 of the 140 faculty approached w/ job offers from other U’s. Each member who left takes an ave of $272k research funding w/them [$8million lost].
Context: “Public U’s in the Midwest have historically conducted some of the nation’s most important research. These schools are desperately needed to diversify economies that rely disproportionately on manufacturing and agriculture and lack the wealthy private institutions that fuel the knowledge industries found in Silicon Valley or along Boston’s 128/I-95 corridor.” [Note: Trump’s proposed slashing of billions from NSF & NIH will exacerbate issue, as will affect public more than private uni’s.]
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/10/midwestern-public-research-universities-funding/542889/
In short, “The Education Governor” chose to lower taxes in part by zeroing in on one of its major employers – which was already fragile due to recession cuts – and taking a hatchet to it, putting it at a disadvantage with its neighboring-state competitors.
RE: K12:
Between passage of Act 10 (2011) & figs available for the 2015-16 sch yr, Dept of Pub Instr stats show teachers rec’d far lower compensation [median compensation down 12.6%], annual turnover rates increased [from 6.4% to 9-10%], teacher experience dropped significantly [those w/less than 5 yrs’ exp increased from 19.6% to 24.1%] & %teachers changing jobs to another district tripled. The changes clearly track to passage of Act 10, & are larger in WI than in other states. At the time of this report, the only info available on how this affected student outcomes was a working paper finding Act 10 reduced statewide student achievement in math and science “in large part because it caused many experienced teachers to leave the profession and facilitated the hiring of teachers away from more poorly-performing schools to better-performing schools.” Note is also made of research showing that students perform better when taught by more experienced teachers, and increased teacher turnover harms student outcomes.
https://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/economy/reports/2017/11/15/169146/attacks-public-sector-unions-harm-states-act-10-affected-education-wisconsin/
Way to go “Education Governor”: as of 2 yrs ago results already indicated your “Act 10” [ = tax cuts] paid for gouging WI kids’ STEM ed.
As has been pointed out above, the main budget item for any state is K12 ed. And the main goal for a rust-belt state is bringing in jobs. Presumably Walker’s tax cuts at the expense of K12 & higher state ed are all about enticing new biz. So how is that working out? It’s a mixed bag. In 1/14 he promised to bring in 250k more private-sector jobs in a year. He still hasn’t gotten there (he’s at 214k after 7+ yrs as govr). WI has been pretty far down in priv-sector job growth [in the 30’s]. Walker’s main success has been in bringing WI’s unemployment rate from 8% down to 3%.
Context: compare to my state. NJ has also been ranked low in priv-sector job growth since low point of recession [30’s]. Our state has 50% higher population: Walker brought in 214k added private-sector jobs 2010-2017 — Christie brought in 334,400 during same period [56% more]; so NJ is doing somewhat better on that score – but we have 4.2% unemployment whereas WI has only 3% (altho both fall under Fed Reserve “full employment” definition [4.1-4.9%]). Both states have poverty levels of 11+%.
Richard Nixon ran for President, on a “law and order” platform. Politics is all about marketing.
Also, lies.