ICYMI: Here's a great editorial about what's happening to our schools from @JonErpenbach

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I clinck on the tweet url but only a pdf file came up.


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Chris Taylor ?@ChrisTaylorWI 45m45 minutes ago

ICYMI: Here's a great editorial about what's happening to our schools from @JonErpenbach http://ow.ly/KTgUZ



http://thewheelerreport.com/wheeler_docs/files/0327erpenbach_01.pdf
A School Near You:
Public Education
Budget Crisis
By State Senator Jon Erpenbach, 27
th
Senate District
Great things happen in Wisconsin schools every day, but this budget puts in jeopardy
those successes, especially for our poorest rural and urban communities. In 2011
Wisconsin had the deepest cuts in public education ever made. Those cuts were offset by
al
lowing school districts to break contracts with unions and by making employees pay
more for their health insurance and retirement. That budget also capped what school
districts could fund without going to referendum. To increase school spending in 2013,
th
e Legislature created a whole new per pupil aid that has unfortunately not been
supported in this budget, leaving school districts with fewer resources to do the job we
expect them to do.
We face another crisis in public education in the 2015
-
2017 budget
caused by past
stripping of funding and flexibility at the local level, Governor Walkers 2015
-
2017
budget now
is missing any
increase in per pupil revenue limit. There is no increase in
general school aids in the first year of the budget. There is a cut t
o schools in the first
year with the elimination of the per pupil categorical aid. This budget also draws funds
for private school choice students out of public schools funds at an amount unknown.
Asking schools to operate with these cuts is simply unreali
stic.
The result of this short funding of public schools is playing out all over Wisconsin. Given
the lack of state funding, more and more money for schools is coming out of the property
tax on referenda questions. There have been 230 local referenda ques
tions just since 2010
for schools. Support for our schools locally has been remarkable with 65 percent of the
referenda passing. People know in the school communities around this state how
important education is to the success of their communities.
This
trend continues; 56 school districts are going to referenda on 73 questions just next
month. It is good to have local support for referenda, however this constant referenda
race creates a system of haves and have not’s simply because the Wisconsin Legislat
ure
is not meeting its obligation to provide an equal opportunity education for every child as
set in our Constitution.
A startling 40 percent of Wisconsin’s students are now low
-
income; our outdated system
of funding is cheating these students in both u
rban and rural areas of the state. Education
is the great equalizer. Since the beginning of our modern society, we have known that
with an education, anything is possible. With an equal opportunity to education, great
things can happen no matter where you
are from or how much money your family had at
home.
For more information on public school funding in Wisconsin or Governor Walker’s
budget contact my office at 888
-
549
-
0027 or 608
-
266
-
6670 or via email at
[e-mail]