If anybody was holding out any hope that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker would see even a modicum of reason and refuse to savage public education in his state, they can now let it go. A day before jumping into the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, Walker on Sunday signed a new state budget that, among other things:
* slashes $250 million from the University of Wisconsin, one of the country’s great public institutions of higher education, and ensures that most K-12 school districts will get less funding than they did last year;
* removes from state law tenure protections for University of Wisconsin professors, a move that educators say will seriously harm the school’s ability to retain and attract talented faculty;
* expands the state’s voucher program that uses public funds to pay for tuition at private schools, including religious schools — even though there is no evidence the program has helped improve student achievement in the past — and creates a new “special needs” voucher law that cuts into protections for special needs students.
The Associated Press reported that Walker said in a statement that the budget he signs “brings real reform to Wisconsin and allows everyone more opportunity for a brighter future. ” Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, a Democrat, said in a statement that the budget “throws the people of Wisconsin under Governor Walker’s campaign bus.”
There’s much more that is damaging to the state in Walker’s budget than the measures mentioned above. Here’s a closer look in a post written by Bob Peterson, founder of the Rethinking Schools magazine and former president of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association. This appeared on his Education for Democracy blog and I am publishing with permission.
By Bob Peterson
Gov. Scott Walker signed a biennial state budget Sunday afternoon that accelerates his quest to destroy the public sector in Wisconsin. Within 24 hours, Walker will formally announce his candidacy for president to take his right-wing agenda nationwide.
The Wisconsin budget accelerates Walker’s four-year attack on the public sector, in particular the public schools. Among its measures are an expansion of a voucher program that provides taxpayer funding of private schools and cuts of $250 million to the state’s nationally renowned public university system.
Walker has the most far-reaching budget veto powers of any governor, and some people had hoped that he might ameliorate some of the more draconian measures of his budget, which was approved by the Republican controlled legislature last week. But Walker by and large let the 1, 500-page budget intact, using his line-by-line veto powers to make minor tweaks.
