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Wisconsin: Governor Evers Betrays His Public School Supporters

By dianeravitch
June 22, 2023 //
8

Tony Evers ran for Governor of Wisconsin on a pro-public education platform. He had been the State Commissioner of Education, and he pledged to reverse the damage done by Republicans to the state’s once-eminent public schools. After years of Republican governors who supported privatization, Evers portrayed himself as a champion of public schools.

The Network for Public Education did not support him. One of our allies in Wisconsin warned that he was two-faced. When we did not support him, other Wisconsin friends were shocked and told us we were wrong about Evers. They said he would be a great friend to public schools.

Sadly, Governor Evers turned out to be a traitor. He just signed a bill giving more funding to voucher schools than to the state’s woefully underfunded public schools.

He betrayed his campaign promises and his supporters. Shame on Tony Evers!

The Wisconsin Public Education Network sent out the following bulletin:

Dear friends of Wisconsin students and their public schools,

You have likely heard the news that Gov. Evers signed into law today both the shared revenue bill and SB330/AB305, a bill that gives a bump to spending authority for low revenue districts while dramatically expanding state funding to private schools and independent charters. Combined with a gap-widening budget omnibus proposal that provides woefully inadequate and inequitable resources to public schools, the move is part of a larger deal that fails to meet any of the priority needs of students in Wisconsin’s public schools, marking 16 YEARS of preK-12 budgets that fail to keep pace with inflation. 

All day, our phones have been buzzing with messages of outrage, frustration, and betrayal.

Earlier today, our board of directors issued a public plea to the governor to reject this deal. The excerpts below sum up their concerns and what the passage of these bills means to Wisconsin kids.

From the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools board of directors:

The action taken by the Joint Committee on Finance falls well short of the state’s constitutional responsibilities in the area of K-12 education and must be dramatically improved by the state legislature. If not, the budget must be vetoed by the governor and recrafted in order to pass Constitutional muster.

Our chief concerns with this budget deal: 

  • Public school students have been defunded relative to inflation for fourteen years and the per pupil adjustments proposed by the Joint Committee on Finance will extend that defunding streak to 16 years.
  • During that period of time, funding for students with disabilities was frozen for a decade and the promised, but not guaranteed, 33% reimbursement rate for special education will continue to keep Wisconsin near the very bottom of all states in that category.
  • Local property tax payers will be forced to cover the costs of a massive expansion of the unaccountable voucher program.
  • Private schools will be provided more direct aid from the state than most public schools are even allowed to spend (see fiscal memo here).
  • Shared revenue deal usurps the authority of the MPS board by requiring reinstatement of police officers on school property.

We call on the state legislature to fix this budget bill by restoring special education reimbursement to a minimum of 60%, providing an inflationary increase in spendable aid to all students in public schools, and removing irresponsible provisions to expand spending on private education. We urge Governor Evers to veto any bill that arrives at his desk that fails to meet these critical needs of Wisconsin students.

Unfortunately, 15 minutes after our board of directors issued their statement on these fast-tracked proposals, we learned Gov. Evers had already signed into law the largest stand-alone voucher aid expansion in state history and a shared revenue bill that undermines Milwaukee Public Schools, so we issued this response. We hope you will share it widely, as it details some of the most harmful and gap-widening provisions of the “compromise”:

  • This deal will provide private voucher schools more guaranteed state aid than the average public school is even allowed to spend per student,
  • while public schools will see a less-than-inflationary increase to state aid and a less than 2% increase to special education, cementing funding discrimination for kids with disabilities.
  • Raising the low revenue limit ceiling by $1000 is a nice gesture, but it doesn’t even bring those districts up to the state average in spending authority.
  • Public school students and local property taxpayers will pay the price, while private schools that can legally discriminate and pick and choose their students get a blank check from the state.
  • With voucher enrollment caps set to come off entirely in 2 years, this is the most reckless and irresponsible thing Wisconsin could do with its massive surplus, especially when we consider that the nearly 80% of students participating in the statewide voucher program never attended a public school.

The three top concerns of the public at all four of the budget hearings (preK-12 public schools, higher ed, and childcare) were all put on the chopping block to reach this “compromise” and nearly $2 BILLION of Gov. Evers’ original budget proposal for public schools was exchanged for this massive, unconscionable, unconstitutional voucher expansion. The state is already not meeting its obligation to its children, and this budget demonstrates a refusal to use the biggest surplus we’ve ever seen to make a meaningful start toward doing so. It’s time to hold Wisconsin accountable for doing better.

The good news: it’s not too late to fix this.

CALL ON LAWMAKERS TO FIX THIS BUDGET SO THAT PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS’ NEEDS ARE MET BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE, AND CALL ON GOV. EVERS TO VETO THE ENTIRE BUDGET BILL IF IT DOESN’T. 

And let them know: we are watching every single vote that betrays Wisconsin students. 

Find your lawmakers here or call 800-362-9472 for the Wisconsin legislature hotline. Contact Gov. Evers at (608) 266-1212 or online here. 

Every single lawmaker has a vote on this bill, and needs to hear from us. Don’t assume you know how they’ll vote – let them know what local kids need!

We know Governor Evers has pledged to do what’s best for kids, and it’s not too late for him to back out of a deal that has gone way too far in selling out students in the public schools we are morally and constitutionally responsible to support. He needs to hear from you!

We continue to advocate for the following to meet the needs our kids have now: 

  • no less than $1,510/per pupil in new spendable funds to their districts to catch up with inflation; 
  • 60% reimbursement of special education costs to begin closing the gap between the state’s special ed. support for public and private schools;
  • prioritizing funds where needs are greatest; 
  • and putting a moratorium on the use of public dollars on unaccountable private and privately-operated schools.

It’s not too late to deliver a budget that meets these needs.  Our kids are counting on us to do it.

Stay tuned for additional action steps and details on how you can get involved, and please continue to follow WisconsinNetwork.org/budget for updates!

– Your friends at Team Public

LOCAL LEVEL ACTION. STATEWIDE IMPACT. Wisconsin Public Education Network is a project of the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public education advocacy organization. To support our work, donate here!

Categories Education Industry, Lies, Privatization, Shame, Vouchers, Wisconsin

Wisconsin: Voucher Schools Openly Discriminate Against LGBT Students and Students with Disabilities

By dianeravitch
May 10, 2023 //
2

A nonpartisan journalism project called Wisconsin Watch released an alarming report about voucher schools that openly discriminate against LGBT students and students with disabilities. State law requires them to admit all who apply but not to enroll those from these disfavored groups.

State law for public schools prohibits discrimination on these very same grounds. In other words, public schools may not discriminate against these two groups, but publicly-funded voucher schools may and do.

Among the voucher schools, discrimination against gay students and families is usually on religious grounds. Voucher schools may exclude students with disabilities for any reason, such as lack of staff or resources.

Wisconsin has funds 52,000 students in 373 private voucher schools, or 6% of all students in publicly funded schools. This year the state spent $444 million on vouchers. “About one-fifth of voucher schools have 90% or more of their students on vouchers, what one scholar describes as “private in name only.” Republicans want to expand voucher availability by removing any limits, so that public funds underwrite tuition for rich kids.

Wisconsin is considered the birthplace of the “school choice” movement. The nation’s first publicly funded private voucher program began in Milwaukee in 1990. Initial restrictions, such as limiting vouchers to secular schools, have disappeared as the program has expanded. Today, 32 schools — including at least one with an anti-LGBTQ+ stance — have their entire student bodies on publicly funded vouchers.

Legal discrimination against students who are LGBTQ+ or have disabilities results from a lack of state-level protections; a federal exemption that allows religious entities to discriminate against LGBTQ+ students and another that requires schools taking federal funds to make only minor adjustments for students with disabilities; and a state education agency constrained by punctilious rules and decades of litigation.

One of the cardinal goals of publicly-funded education is equal opportunity for all. In voucher schools, it’s equal opportunity for some. We are reminded once again that “school choice” means SCHOOLS CHOOSE.

Categories Bigotry, Cruelty, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Privatization, School Choice, Shame, Special Education, Vouchers, Wisconsin

Robert Hubbell: “They Will Lose; We Will Win”

By dianeravitch
April 6, 2023 //
9

Robert Hubbell is cheerful and optimistic in the aftermath of the huge win in Wisconsin for an open seat on the State Supreme Court. This outcome will have a profound effect on the state. He reviews the Republican threats to impeach the winner and sees them as a hollow, self-defeating strategy. He looks at the wave of handwringing articles that were published yesterday worrying about New York DA Alvin Bragg’s case against Trump and he sides with those who trust Bragg.

He writes:

Before all votes were counted in Justice Janet Protasiewicz’s commanding win in Wisconsin, Democrats began to worry that the GOP supermajority in the legislature would impeach and remove the newly elected justice from office. The panic was created by the election of a Republican to the Wisconsin senate on Tuesday, a victory that gives the GOP enough votes to convict Justice Janet Protasiewicz in an impeachment trial.

The details of the threat are described by The Guardian, as follows:

[Dan Knodl] has said he would consider impeaching Protasiewicz, who is currently a circuit court judge in Milwaukee, if she remained on the bench there. He did not say whether he would consider impeaching Protasiewicz as a supreme court justice.

Should we take the threat seriously? Of course, we would be fools not to! Should we live in fear of that prospect? Absolutely not! In the immortal words of Brendan Sullivan, “We are not potted plants.” If the Wisconsin GOP decides to disenfranchise the one million plus citizens of Wisconsin who voted for Justice Janet Protasiewicz, those one million voters will have something to say about that development—and it will not be good for Republicans. Indeed, it would be electoral suicide for Wisconsin Republicans.

Justice Janet Protasiewicz’s election demonstrated that Republicans in Wisconsin are hemorrhaging support in major suburbs, a previous GOP stronghold. See this discussion by Steve Kornacki on MSNBC. Disenfranchising the voters in the suburbs of Madison and Milwaukee will do nothing to bolster GOP prospects in those former strongholds.

And then there is this: Imagine for a moment that the Wisconsin GOP decides to overturn the mandate of the people by removing Justice Janet Protasiewicz. Would those voters “go gently into that good night?” Or would they, for example, call for a general strike? Or walk out of state, county, and municipal offices to shut down the government? Or hold continuous massive demonstrations in front of the state Capitol? Or all the above?

(Hint to Wisconsin Republicans about your future if you remove Justice Janet Protasiewicz: Look at ongoing protests in Tennessee over the GOP legislature’s callous and underwhelming response to the mass shooting in Tallahassee last week.)

If Republicans in Wisconsin want to tell Democrats they have no voice in running the state in accordance with democratic rules, there is no reason for Democrats to support an institution that exists merely to oppress them. Do I think it will come to that? I don’t.

But it doesn’t matter what I believe about the likelihood that the threat will materialize. My point is that we cannot live in fear. We are not powerless, we are not potted plants, and Wisconsin Democrats are shifting the electoral landscape by championing reproductive liberty, protection from gun violence, and fair elections. That is a powerful combination of issues on which Democrats have the high ground—politically and morally.

We should resist every effort and all talk of impeaching Justice Janet Protasiewicz. But no one should live in fear of that development. Indeed, post-Dobbs, Democrats have been on a winning streak in which reproductive liberty has been front and center. See NYTimes, Wisconsin Rout Points to Democrats’ Enduring Post-Dobbs Strength.

But even if Republicans remove Justice Janet Protasiewicz, the Democratic Governor Tony Evers fills the vacancy by appointment. Article VII, Wisconsin Constitution – Ballotpedia(“The vacancy shall be filled by appointment by the governor, which shall continue until a successor is elected and qualified.”)

Details aside, if Republicans decide that we must have a political fight over whether elections matter in Wisconsin, then we must not shrink from that fight or live in fear. Indeed, if Republicans insist on forcing the issue, the sooner the better. They will lose; we will win.

And the same logic applies to the indictment of Donald Trump, where similar angst is driving public handwringing and second-guessing by commentators. Republican prosecutors in red-state counties across the nation are grumbling about indicting President Biden. Should we take the threat seriously? Of course! We would be fools not to. Should we live in fear of that happening? Absolutely not!

The lunatic conspiracy theories on which Biden might be indicted would be litigated through the US Supreme Court—which, as of this writing, still recognizes Article II of the Constitution. The theories being bandied about include a ludicrous allegation that Biden has “opened” the southern border when, in fact, he has (unfortunately) reimposed many of the Trump-era policies. See, e.g., Los Angeles Times, Biden’s new immigration strategy expands on Trump border policy and continues Title 42.

What about “Hunter Biden’s laptop? Be my guest! Or claims that Biden runs an international pedophilia ring? GOP prosecutors couldn’t do more to drive persuadable Independents away from their fringe political leader, Donald Trump. Or a claim that private citizen Joe Biden was (allegedly) on a single conference call with his son in 2017 that discussed a Chinese energy investment? Last time I checked, “conducting business” is not a crime.

So, we cannot permit ourselves to be dissuaded from upholding the law because Republicans threaten to break the law. This point is made in a brilliant essay by Josh Marshall in his Editor’s Blog,

But let’s address the argument head on. Will all future presidents now face a gauntlet of post-presidential judicial scrutiny?

It’s worth remembering that Donald Trump is the first and only president in American history to attempt a coup d’etat to remain in office illegally and that was before any history of presidential prosecutions. The problem isn’t incentives. It’s Donald Trump.

It amounts to the same specious argument . . . “Don’t follow the law because we’ll break the law”.

We have no choice but to enforce the law; indeed, it is our duty if we want to maintain a civilized society governed by laws rather than brute force. So, can we please stop the collective handwringing about prosecuting Trump for something that every other American would be prosecuted for if they engaged in the same conduct? I, too, regret that the Manhattan indictment was first, but that is not Alvin Bragg’s fault.

After the rash of articles on Tuesday explaining how weak the case against Donald Trump is, supporters of the case made strong arguments that it is no different than other cases successfully prosecuted by Bragg. And on the key question of whether state or federal election crimes can be used to leverage misdemeanors into felonies, commentators with extensive experience in New York responded, “Of course, they can!” SeeKaren Friedman Agnifilo and Norman Eisen op-ed in NYTimes, We Finally Know the Case Against Trump, and It Is Strong.

With the release of the indictment and accompanying statement of facts, we can now say that there’s nothing novel or weak about this case. The charge of creating false financial records is constantly brought by Mr. Bragg and other New York D.A.s. In particular, the creation of phony documentation to cover up campaign finance violations has been repeatedly prosecuted in New York. That is exactly what Mr. Trump stands accused of.

So, depending on which legal commentator you cite, the case is “novel” and “weak,” or “routine” and “strong.” Here’s my advice: Let Alvin Bragg do what prosecutors do and stop worrying about bad faith attacks on the prosecution. Will Kevin McCarthy succeed in forcing Alvin Bragg to appear before a House committee? Maybe, but I doubt it. If he does, my money is on Alvin Bragg being able to handle himself.

But, as in Wisconsin, if House Republicans believe their path to victory in 2024 involves “defunding the FBI and DOJ” to rescue an indicted, twice-impeached, failed coup plotter who is raging against the trial judge, his family, and the prosecutor, Republicans have made the wrong bet. We should be confident in that assessment. After all, Trump lost in 2018, 2020, and 2022 using the same grievance-based script he repeated at Mar-a-Lago after his indictment.

So, let’s not obsess over the bad-faith, self-defeating tactics Republicans are using. If Republicans decide that we must have a political fight over whether former presidents are above the law, then we must not shrink from that fight or live in fear. Indeed, if Republicans insist on forcing the issue, the sooner the better. They will lose; we will win.

Categories Accountability, Courage, Democrats, Education Industry, Elections, Extremism, Republicans, Wisconsin

A Great Day for Democracy in Wisconsin!!!

By dianeravitch
April 4, 2023 //
15

The Koch brothers funded the Republican takeover of Wisconsin in 2010 and the election of Scott Walker as governor. Walker quickly cracked down on unions and stripped them of their rights. He pushed vouchers. He attacked Wisconsin’s great public university system. Meanwhile, the Republican legislature gerrymandered the state to guarantee control of the legislature. The state is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, but Republicans control both houses of the legislature.

That is why many observers considered the election of a new State Supreme Court to be the most important election in the nation. After the retirement of a Republican justice, the Court was split 3-3.

A liberal—Janet Protasiewicz—ran against a conservative—Dan Kelly. The liberal won. This means that the Court will have a Democratic majority.

The two biggest issues likely to be resolved by the Court are abortion rights and gerrymandering. The new Court now has the votes to restore abortion rights that were withdrawn by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Dobbs decision. It is likely that a lawsuit will challenge the deeply unfair gerrymandering of the state, and the new majority is sure to insist on a fair reapportionment.

A great day for democracy!

Categories Dark Money, Democracy, Democrats, Education Industry, Elections, Evil, Extremism, Failure, Freedom, Unions, Walker, Scott, Wisconsin

Heather Cox Richardson: Tomorrow’s Vote Offers Chance to Curb Wisconsin GOP’s War on Democracy

By dianeravitch
April 3, 2023 //
10

Heather Cox Richardson is a historian who writes on today’s issues with a critical lens. Here, she analyzes a very important election in Wisconsin that is key in reversing an unfairly gerrymandered state map and restoring abortion rights.

A key fight over democracy is currently taking place in Wisconsin. On April 4, voters in the state will choose a new judge for Wisconsin’s Supreme Court. That judge will determine the seven-person court’s majority, a majority that will either uphold or possibly strike down the state’s gerrymandered voting maps that are so heavily weighted toward Republicans as to make it virtually impossible for Democrats to win control of the legislature.

Political scientists judge Wisconsin to be the most gerrymandered state in the country. The state is divided pretty evenly between Democrats and Republicans, although the Democrats have won 13 of the past 16 statewide elections. But despite the state’s relatively even political split, the current district maps are so heavily tilted for Republicans that Democrats have to win the statewide vote by 12 points just to get a majority in the assembly: 50 of the 99 seats. Republicans, though, can win a majority with just 44% of the vote.

The process of changing Wisconsin into a stronghold of Republican power began in the 2010 elections, when Republicans launched Operation REDMAP to take over state legislatures before the redistricting process based on the 2010 census began. That year, the billionaire brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch pumped money into Wisconsin. Along with a strong talk radio media ecosystem, they helped to elect Governor Scott Walker to curb the power of public sector unions, which they blamed for what they considered excessive state spending.

The election of Governor Walker and a Republican legislature began the process of taking control of the state. Using granular voting data and sophisticated mapping software, the Republicans gerrymandered the state so severely that they retained control of the assembly going forward even though Democrats won significantly more votes.

As Ari Berman explained in Mother Jones, Republicans used that power to take away the bargaining rights of public sector unions in order to defund and demoralize one of the Democratic Party’s core constituencies. Berman quotes right-wing strategist Grover Norquist, who wrote that the Wisconsin policies were a national model. “If Act 10 is enacted in a dozen more states, the modern Democratic Party will cease to be a competitive power in American politics…. It’s that big a deal.” The assembly also passed at least 33 new laws during the Walker years to change election procedures and make it harder to vote.

When Democrat Tony Evers won election as governor in 2018, Democrats won all four statewide races. They also won 53% of the votes for state assembly—203,000 more votes than the Republicans did—but because of gerrymandering, the Democrats got just 36% of the seats in the legislature. The Republicans there immediately held a lame duck session and stripped powers from Evers and Democratic attorney general Josh Kaul. Then they passed new laws to restrict voting rights. The legislature went on to block Evers’s appointees and block his legislative priorities, like healthcare, schools, and roads.

Polls showed that voters opposed the lame duck session by a margin of almost 2 to 1, and by 2020, 82% of Wisconsin voters had passed referenda calling for fair district maps.

But when it came time to redistrict after the 2020 census, the Republican-dominated legislature carved up the state into an even more pro-Republican map than it had put into place before. Ultimately, the new maps gave Republicans 63 out of 99 seats in the assembly and 22 out of 23 in the state senate. They came within two assembly seats of having a supermajority that would enable them to override any vetoes by the governor, essentially nullifying him, although Evers had been reelected by 53.5% of the vote (a large margin for Wisconsin).

With gerrymandered districts virtually guaranteeing their reelection, Republicans are insulated from popular opinion. In the 2021–2022 session, they ignored the governor, refusing to confirm Evers’s appointees and going nearly 300 days without passing a single bill. They also ignored popular measures, refusing to let 98% of Democratic bills even be heard and refusing to address gun safety issues—although 81% of Wisconsinites wanted background checks for gun sales—or abortion rights, even though 83% of Wisconsin residents wanted at least some abortion rights protected after the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade last June put back into effect a law from 1849.

This radicalized Wisconsin assembly also mattered nationally when it became a centerpiece of Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Nearly 75% of the Republicans in it worked to cast doubt on that election. After an audit turned up “absolutely no evidence of election fraud”—according to a Wisconsin judge—they tried to take control of elections away from a bipartisan commission and turn it over to the legislature they control. Senator Ron Johnson led the effort, calling for Republicans to take control of the elections because, he said, Democrats can’t be expected to “follow the rules.” In the 2022 election, the Trump-endorsed Republican candidate for governor, Tim Michels, promised, “Republicans will never lose another election in Wisconsin after I’m elected governor.”

Their effort failed only because they fell two seats shy of the supermajority they needed.

By shaping the state maps and limiting the power of Democratic constituencies, Republicans have also taken control of the state supreme court, which sides with the Republican lawmakers’ attempts to cement their own power. Now voters have the chance to shift the makeup of that court. Doing so would make it possible that new challenges to the gerrymandered maps would succeed, returning fairness to the electoral system.

Wisconsin journalist Dan Shafer, who writes The Recombobulation Area, is following the race closely. His coverage reveals how the candidates’ framing of the election mirrors a larger debate about democracy. Theoretically, the election is nonpartisan, but Republicans paid former state supreme court justice Dan Kelly $120,000 to consult on Trump’s false elector scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and he was on the payroll of the Republican National Committee until last December. In 2012 he defended the Republicans’ gerrymandered maps in court.

For her part, Milwaukee County judge Janet Protasiewicz has made it clear she opposes the gerrymandered maps. “Let’s be clear here: The maps are rigged. Absolutely positively rigged,” she said in a candidates’ forum in January. “They do not reflect the people in the state. They do not reflect accurate representation, either in the State Assembly or the State Senate. They are rigged, period. I don’t think it would sell to any reasonable person that the maps are fair.”

Shafer notes that supreme court terms are for ten years, so if the court does not shift in this election, it, along with the gerrymandered maps, will remain in place “for the foreseeable future.” The race ultimately comes down to checks and balances, he says. The court has not checked the legislature, which has entrenched one-party rule in Wisconsin.

“This isn’t to say the maps should be redrawn to instead benefit Democrats,” Shafer continues. “Far from it. It’s about fairness. Some years Democrats will win a majority, other years Republicans will win a majority. If one party isn’t doing their job, voters should be able to do something about it. It’s about crafting a system that reflects the people of Wisconsin and can be responsive to the state’s voters. We don’t have that right now. And that has to be the goal.”

—

Notes:

https://rpubs.com/jdjohn215/redistricting-plans-submitted-to-scowis

The Recombobulation Area

Wisconsin is the most gerrymandered state in the country. The race for Wisconsin Supreme Court could change that. 

The Recombobulation Area is a six-time TEN-TIME Milwaukee Press Club award-winning weekly opinion column and online publication written and published by veteran Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer. Learn more about it here…

Read more

12 days ago · 13 likes · Dan Shafer

https://www.wpr.org/daniel-kelly-jill-karofsky-emerge-state-supreme-court-primary
https://www.wpr.org/voting-begins-look-back-fight-over-wisconsins-voter-id-law
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/13/america-is-full-of-democracy-deserts-wisconsin-rivals-congo-on-some-metrics
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/dec/21/chris-larson/yes-majority-wisconsin-jurisdictions-support-nonpa/
It’s Time To Take Back Wisconsin for the Voters
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/wisconsin-supreme-court-primary-janet-protasiewicz
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/29/885096130/federal-court-in-wisconsin-upholds-voting-restrictions-favored-by-republicans

The Recombobulation Area

The race for Wisconsin Supreme Court kicks into gear at WisPolitics forum

The Recombobulation Area is a six-time Milwaukee Press Club award-winning weekly opinion column and online publication written and published by veteran Milwaukee journalist Dan Shafer. Learn more about it here…

Read more

3 months ago · 5 likes · 3 comments · Dan Shafer

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-wisconsin-lawsuits-elections-election-recounts-5b0fc57d521eb6e53ff1f78a695188b5
https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-wisconsin-lawsuits-presidential-16d90c311d35d28b9b5a4024e6fb880c

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Categories Dark Money, Democracy, Education Industry, Elections, Equity, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Injustice, Unions, Vouchers, Walker, Scott, Wisconsin

Wisconsin: The Most Important Election of 2023

By dianeravitch
February 20, 2023 //
6

Here is the most important election of 2023: Control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The election is April 4, 2023.

The current Court is 4-3, with a Republican majority. A win by Democrats will reverse the balance and be crucial on issues of abortion, gerrymandering, and schools. It is also a chance to reverse the damage done by Republican Scott Walker.

Charlie Sykes writes in The Bulwark, a site established by Never-Trumpers:

The election that the media has dubbed “the most important election nobody’s ever heard of,” is just weeks away, and has already drawn international attention.

The “Stakes are monstrous,” declared Britain’s Guardian. “Wisconsin judicial race is 2023’s key election.”

Voting is under way in an under-the-radar race that could wind up being the most important election in America this year.

The NYT headlined: “2023’s Biggest, Most Unusual Race Centers on Abortion and Democracy.” Within weeks, the Times reported, “Wisconsin will hold an election that carries bigger policy stakes than any other contest in America in 2023.”

The state’s high court now has a 4-3 conservative majority, but one of the conservative members is retiring, which has created an opening for progressives to flip the high court for the first time in decades.

And everything is on the line: from Act 10, which limited public employee collective bargaining rights, to gerrymandering, abortion, and the way presidential elections are decided.

“If you change control of the Supreme Court from relatively conservative to fairly liberal, that will be a big, big change and that would last for quite a while,” said David T. Prosser Jr., a conservative former justice who retired from the court in 2016.

The contest will almost certainly shatter spending records for a judicial election in any state, and could even double the current most expensive race. Wisconsinites are set to be inundated by a barrage of advertising, turning a typically sleepy spring election into the latest marker in the state’s nonstop political season.

The Wapo reports that the election “will have sweeping consequences, as the court in the coming years is likely to decide whether to uphold the state’s near-total ban on abortion. It also could wade into disputes over gerrymandering and the outcome of the next presidential election.”

The Bulwark’s headline also captured the stakes “Wisconsin Supreme Court Race a Test for Democracy.”

On paper, the contest is non-partisan, but nobody even bothers to pretend anymore. Next Tuesday’s free-for-all primary includes four candidates: two progressives: Janet Protasiewicz and Everett Mitchell; and two conservatives: Dan Kelly and Jennifer Dorow.

The conventional wisdom (which is likely correct) is that the primary will set up a contest between left and right. The same conventional wisdom (on both sides of aisle) thinks that Protasiewicz is the strongest progressive candidate, while Dorow — who achieved a sort of media stardom for presiding over a high-profile criminal case — is the most electable conservative. Kelly, who was named to the Court by former Governor Scott Walker at the urging of the Federalist Society, has already lost a statewide election — a rare defeat for an incumbent justice.

**

But now we get to the strangest twist in this high-stakes story: After decades of ignoring or downplaying crucial judicial elections like this one, Democrats and their allies are very much focused on the Wisconsin contest.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin conservatives have chosen this moment to crack up.

While progressive dollars pour into the state, Republicans have launched a bitter, high-stakes, and often quite personal, civil war that seems designed to take out the candidate who may give them the best chance to hold onto control of the state’s high court…

To finish the article, subscribe to The Bulwark.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Democrats, Education Industry, Education Reform, Elections, Republicans, Unions, Vouchers, Walker, Scott, Wisconsin

Wisconsin: A Victory for Democracy and Decency

By dianeravitch
November 16, 2022 //
16

Tony Evers was the Wisconsin Superintendent of Public Instruction when he first ran for Governor and was elected. His first election was a triumph, because he succeeded the rightwing extremist Scott Walker, who hated unions, public schools, and public higher education, three of the jewels in Wisconsin’s crown. The celebrated “Wisconsin Idea” was centered on those policies, policies that advanced opportunity and equity.

Evers brought that rightwing extremism in the governor’s office to a halt, but he still had to deal with a Republican legislature, intent on frustrating everything he hoped to do.

Despite Republicans’ smear campaign, Evers was re-elected by a margin of 51-47, while his Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes lost to Republican Senator Ron Johnson, a reprehensible Trumper, by 1%.

Categories Democracy, Elections, Higher Education, Supporting public schools, Unions, Wisconsin

Nora de la Cour: Wisconsin Is a Battleground for the Future of Public Education

By dianeravitch
November 6, 2022 //
5

Journalist Nora de la Cour describes the dire situation in Wisconsin, where incumbent Governor Tony Evers is in a close race with an election denier/school privatizer, Tim Michels. There are many other states where education is on the ballot. Wisconsin was once known for its great public schools and public universities. Former Governor Scott Walker declared war on both. Twenty-five years ago, the far-right Bradley Foundation funded the voucher movement in Milwaukee, which has spread to other parts of the state and to other states. The Trumpist base of the Republican Party has declared war on public schools, based on lies and fantasies spun by rightwing think tanks.

She begins:

New research finds that market-style education reforms, like those pioneered in Wisconsin decades ago, have devastating consequences for students. This election, Wisconsin and the rest of the nation must choose whether to plow ahead or reverse course.

Wisconsin’s Democratic governor Tony Evers is neck and neck with his challenger, Trump-endorsed Tim Michels, whose campaign has lauded abortion bans, election denialism, and a beefed up carceral–policestate. Robert Asen, who studies political discourse at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, told Jacobin that because education has gotten relatively less airtime, it is “a bit of a stealth issue analogous to [labor law in] Scott Walker’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign,” which didn’t prepare voters for Walker’s vicious attacks on workers. But make no mistake: this election will determine the existential future of K-12 schooling in the state.

Following the now-familiar Chris Rufo playbook, Michels plans to sign a restrictive “parents’ rights” bill and move up the timeline on a universal school choice plan that would destroy what’s left of Wisconsin’s once-great public schools. Formerly the state’s superintendent of public instruction, Evers has pledged to increase school funding and prioritize the public system. In reality, though, even if Evers prevails he’ll at best continue to be “the man of a thousand vetoes,” given that Republican opposition will prevent him from pursuing his agenda. So as Marquette University senior fellow and veteran education reporter Alan Borsuk put it when speaking to Jacobin, this governor’s race amounts to a choice between treading water and veering hard right.

In many ways, Wisconsin blazed a trail for the rest of the country with market-style reforms that increase competition by weakening teachers’ unions and privatizing schools. Decades later, researchers have mapped the devastating impact of these reforms on Wisconsin students. So, as voters across the United States face grave education questions up and down the ballot, it makes sense to look back at what’s happened in the Badger State.

Please open the link and read this important article.

Categories Education Industry, Elections, Extremism, Higher Education, Privatization, Walker, Scott, Wisconsin

Study: Weakening Unions Increases Gender Gap in Wages

By dianeravitch
January 26, 2021 //
16

Barbara Biasi, assistant professor of economics at the Yale School of Management, recently published a study that concluded that eliminating unions increases the gender gap in wages.

She looked at data from Wisconsin, before and after Scott Walker eliminated collective bargaining rights in 2011, in his Koch-funded effort to destroy unions.

For every dollar earned by men in the U.S., women earn about 82 cents, according to 2018 census data; this pay gap is even larger for Black and Hispanic women.  Some public schools have avoided the gender wage gap because they follow a strict salary schedule, in which each teacher’s pay is determined based on objective factors such as seniority and academic degrees. But what happens when schools switch to a more flexible pay system?

Barbara Biasi, an assistant professor of economics at Yale SOM, had an opportunity to examine this question when Wisconsin passed Act 10, legislation that essentially weakened the power of teachers’ unions. Afterward, schools had much more latitude in deciding how much to pay teachers.

Five years after union agreements expired, male teachers earned about 1% more per year than female colleagues with similar experience and skills, reported Biasi and her co-author, Heather Sarsons at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. The gender gap was even higher among younger teachers.

While 1% might not seem like much, such a gap can substantially affect income in the long run, Biasi says. It “can add up pretty quickly over the course of a person’s career,” she says.

The results suggest that women may start earning less than men when they have to bargain on their own, rather than being supported by a union that negotiates for them. This effect could be seen in many industries as union membership shrinks. “The decline of union power might have an increase in the gender gap in pay as one of the unintended consequences,” Biasi says.

Categories Teachers, Unions, Walker, Scott, Wisconsin

Wisconsin, South Carolina: Two Teachers Die of COVID-19

By dianeravitch
October 11, 2020 //
109

Yesterday, I posted an article by an economist who wrote that schools are not super spreaders, and that the rate of transmission of COVID has been very low among students and teachers. Some readers got angry at me for posting this article. Let me be clear that I am not a scientist or a doctor. I do not know whether it is safe to reopen schools. I am as uncertain about the right course of action as many other people.

I am not qualified to offer any guidance. The decision about reopening depends on the community and expert judgment. Everyone should follow the science, wear a mask, practice social distancing both indoors and outside, and wash their hands frequently. It may be safe to reopen schools in some places but not safe in other places. What is important to know is that the COVID is surging again in many states, that the infection rate is rising nationally, and that this is a contagious and deadly disease. Be informed.

The stories below tell what happened to two teachers. They loved teaching; their students loved them. It is not clear where they became infected with the disease.

HOWARD – Even after a diagnosis of COVID-19, Heidi Hussli didn’t plan to give up teaching.

After being hospitalized last week, she told a friend she planned to teach via video the week of Sept. 14-18.

Hussli, who’d most recently taught in-person on Sept. 8, “said she would Zoom with her kids from the hospital,” the friend said via text message.

But “by Sunday, her condition worsened.”

Hussli, who’d taught German for 16 years at Bay Port High School, was unable to teach again. She died Thursday morning at a Green Bay hospital.

Family members, in a statement distributed by the Howard-Suamico School District, said the 47-year-old mother of one had recently tested positive for COVID-19.

Heidi Hussli

It’s not known when Hussli, of Suamico, was infected with the coronavirus.

She’d taught classes in person Sept. 1, 2 and 8.

Hussli followed social-distancing protocols and wore a face mask while teaching, district communications director Brian Nicol said.

Hussli taught two International Baccalaureate classes, each of which had 15 to 20 students enrolled, the district said. Because Bay Port has split its student body into groups that attend on opposite days, the classes would have seven to 12 students attending in person. The remainder watched via a video feed.

She had not been in the classroom since being diagnosed and had “no close contact” with students after learning she was infected with COVID-19, district officials said.

In South Carolina, Margie Kidd, a veteran elementary school teacher, died of COVID.

Margie Kidd loved to teach.

She was good at it and had spent 26 years moulding youngsters.

But doing the thing she loved most put her at risk of contracting COVID-19, her family says, and contributed to her recent death.

Kidd, 71, died at Coastal Carolina Hospital in Hardeeville after complications from COVID-19 on Sept. 28, first reported in-depth by the Jasper County Sun Times.

She was born in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, and spent the beginning of her life in the city. After she married Frank, the couple moved in 1972 to Bluffton, where they lived for more than 30 years.

She earned her teaching degree in Savannah and then began her more than two-decade career at Ridgeland Elementary School, first working with kindergartners and later moving to first grade.

Kidd’s daughter, Essa Jackson, told multiple news outlets that her mother, who was active and healthy, was nervous about going back to school in person with so many COVID-19 cases in the area. She said her mother wore a face shield, mask and gloves wherever she went.

In August, Jasper County teachers returned to school to conduct state-mandated, face-to-face assessment activities and instruction for preschool through eighth-grade students. It was the first time students had returned to the school since the pandemic began in March.

Kidd was initially released from the hospital despite testing positive for COVID-19, but soon after was readmitted after calling an ambulance because she had trouble breathing. She was eventually put on a ventilator for 21 days until her death.

“My family believes that being in the school building during the pandemic did have something to do with her getting sick,” Jackson told the Jasper County Sun Times. “She was very afraid of going back to work and catching COVID-19, but she felt like she didn’t have a choice because she needed to work to pay her bills because my father was just getting over having colon cancer and heart surgery this summer, so she was the only one working.”

The Jasper County School District released a statement about Kidd’s death.

“We lost a most beloved member of our school district family,” it said. “She served the people of Jasper County as a professional educator for 26 years. Our deepest sympathies go out to her family, friends and co-workers at RES.”

The district is providing grief counselors for Kidd’s coworkers and students.







As of Oct. 5, more than 1,000 confirmed COVID-19 infections were associated with schools across the state, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control reported. There were 741 among students and 301 among staff.

In the Jasper County School District, fewer than five COVID-19 cases have been confirmed among faculty and staff at both Ridgeland Elementary School and Ridgeland-Hardeeville High School, according to DHEC.

Two private schools in the county, John Paul II Catholic School and Thomas Heyward Academy, have reported fewer than five positive cases among students at each school.

None of the cases within the Jasper County schools was confirmed within the last 30 days, according to DHEC data.

Categories Education Reform, Health, South Carolina, Wisconsin
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