Jan Resseger writes here about Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers’ efforts to repair the damage done to education in Wisconsin by ex-Governor ScottWalker, who used his time in office to try to destroy education.
She writes about Gordon Lafer’s brilliant book The One Percent Solution as context for the siege of the schools and universities by Walker.
She begins:
In Gordon Lafer’s 2017 book, The One Percent Solution, in the first chapter entitled “Wisconsin and Beyond: Dismantling the Government,” Lafer makes Wisconsin the emblem of what happened in the 2010 election, as corporate lobbies, the Tea Party, and the collapse of state revenue following the Great Recession converged to fuel a Red-state wave that took over state governments:
“Critically, this new territory included a string of states, running across the upper Midwest from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin, that had traditionally constituted labor strongholds… Starting in 2011, the country has witnessed an unprecedented wave of legislation aimed at eliminating public employee unions, or, where they remain, strictly limiting their right to bargain. At the same time, the overall size of government has been significantly reduced in both union and nonunion jurisdictions. The number of public jobs eliminated in 2011 was the highest ever recorded, and budgets for essential public services were dramatically scaled back in dozens of states. All of this—deunionization, sharp cuts in public employee compensation and the dramatic rollback of public services—was forcefully championed by the corporate lobbies, who made shrinking the public sector a top policy priority in state after state.” (The One Percent Solution, pp. 44-45)
Wisconsin was Ground Zero for the attack o the public sector unions, public schools, and public higher education.
Resseger describes Governor Evers’s first steps toward putting together what Walker destroyed.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
One of the most satisfying events of the 2018 was Scott Walker’s (belated) realization that people in Wisconsin actually value public schools.
Amusing to me, to watch him turn on a dime and start saying he supports public education. I was thrilled when his cynical, wholly self-interested 11th hour conversion didn’t work.
Go back sometime and look at some of the rhetoric ed reformers were using in 2010 towards public schools, including the Obama Administration. It was truly remarkable how anti-public school they were.
I still feel that’s the true position of the “movement” and they have moderated only because they started to lose elections. They can’t put the veil back on as far as I’m concerned. They worked to eradicate our schools and if they hadn’t have been halted by a more moderate and less radical and reckless public, they would have continued.
It was Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. The whole upper middle tier of states. They’ve (now) lost every one with the exception of Ohio.
That the Obama Administration went along with it and in many cases made it worse shocked me. There was NO recognition that this would harm public school students. None. It was if our students didn’t exist.
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It will be a long road back and the 1-percenters are now fighting guerrilla warfare using Faux Fake News and its vast Russian supported assembly line of misinformation in hit and run attacks similar to what the Vietcong did in the Vietnam War and the Taliban in Afghanistan are doing to destroy infrastructure as it is rebuilt after they originally destroyed it.
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I just hope people realize how long it took to get into this state. It is going to take quite awhile to repair the damage especially while the legislature is solidly Republican.
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“Lafer makes Wisconsin the emblem of what happened in the 2010 election, as corporate lobbies, the Tea Party, and the collapse of state revenue following the Great Recession converged to fuel a Red-state wave that took over state governments:”
This is the astounding reality. The right wing of American politics was able to convince so many people that the Great Recession came not from a de-regulated economy that had been allowed to run amok for so many years, but that it was the result of too much government. Astounding. Two years after the collapse of what free market enthusiasists had believed since the Reagan years, my conservative friends were already focusing on nothing but Obamacare as the mid-terms swept the tea party republicans into power, complaining mightily about how government was taking over their lives.
You have to give them credit for one thing. They did their homework. Back in the Great Depression, the Roosevelt democrats built a coalition to rule the country that lasted a long time. It was only torn asunder by the Nixon Southern Stragety, an appeal to fear of race and general xenophobia. They have ridden this horse ever since.
Still, when I look around me in a city where the ethnic make up of things is wildly diverse, I cannot help but wonder how long this holds up. I also wonder what paradigm supplants the narrow view of what this country is about.
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These fraudsters focused a lot of their ire on scapegoats like teachers and immigrants. DJT is continuing with a xenophobic campaign so regular people will not notice he and his 1% deplorables are robbing us blind.
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This just came out. I’d like to know how a kindergartner is already behind in reading. Shame on testing a k student.
What a great surprise that hispanic, American Indian, economically disadvantaged and students with limited English proficiency tested poorly. The state of Idaho spends money to learn that? They actually are thinking that the new test will help in some way bridge that gap.
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Idaho’s spring reading test
25,720 — the number of kids (K-3) not reading at grade level (2019).
24,000 — the number of kids (K-3) not reading at grade level (2018).
$11 million — 2018 literacy investment
$13 million — 2019 literacy investment
$26 million — 2020 literacy investment
How do schools and districts compare? The state and its reading test vendor, Istation, released copious district- and school-level data from the fall test.
The spring data is important, and not just because the numbers allow parents and patrons to see how their local schools stack up. The numbers can offer a glimpse into what works for at-risk readers. For example, do schools with all-day kindergarten post larger improvements in reading scores?
Did demographic gaps increase or decrease? Again, the fall numbers offered a detailed data dive. A host of student groups lagged well behind the state averages: Hispanic students, American Indian students, economically disadvantaged students and students with limited English proficiency, among other groups.
These demographic gaps aren’t unique to this test, or to Idaho. The detailed spring numbers will give an early indication as to whether the new test is helping teachers and schools bridge demographic gaps.
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