Area districts join forces against proposed education budget
By Tom Ganser
Correspondent
In an unprecedented joint effort, leadership from 12 area school districts hosted a news conference last Friday in Milton to release an 11-point statement sharing their collective concerns regarding public school policy embedded in the Wisconsin legislators’ Joint Finance Committee (JFC) education budget currently under consideration for the 2015-17 biennium.
Eleven district administrators were in attendance: Thomas Johnson, Beloit; Dennis McCarthy, Beloit-Turner; Randy Refsland, Clinton Community; Dennis Pauli, Edgerton; Jerry Roth, Evansville; Jeff Zaspel, Fort Atkinson; Karen Schulte, Janesville; Tim Schigur, Milton; Steve Bloom, Palmyra-Eagle; Eric Runez, Whitewater; and Dave Alexander, Yorkville J2. Mark Worthing, Director of Business Services, represented the Cambridge District.
Schigur, Roth and Runez read the press release followed by the 12 district officials responding to questions from the audience.
In response to the motivation for the current JFC proposal, McCarthy said, “I think it’s about political ideology. I think it’s about a minority opinion trying to tell us what is best for education. And many of those people with that opinion aren’t educators. They haven’t been a part of the system. They haven’t seen what it’s like to actually teach students, but because nationally things like this are happening, they think then that it should apply to Wisconsin, and we already have a great state, a state that’s outstanding in education… These policies are based off of what’s happening in other states that quite frankly don’t compare to what we do here.
“When Act 10 came in we were told obviously that the state was in a very difficult budget position so we were told as educators that in order to do your part we need to increase the WRS (Wisconsin Retirement System) employee contribution to retirement. We need to increase contributions to health care costs. We’ve done that. All of these districts have done that,” McCarthy said. “What we didn’t know is that we were doing it so we could create a funding system for a second educational system. That’s what’s happening.”
Schulte responded to a question regarding the impact of funds earmarked for private school vouchers.
“It would take funding away from our students that are attending public schools. We are already struggling with the funding levels that we are getting in education and it would exacerbate the problem,” Schulte said.
Considering the JFC’s proposal allowing for learning portfolios to satisfy up to half of a high school student’s graduation requirements, Runez commented, “There’s some real concern amongst all of us that how does that factor into that child who wants to pursue a four year degree. Are universities going to accept that?”
Schigur expressed deep reservations about the proposal that school districts be required to accept any home school, private school or virtual school student for participation in athletics.
“As far as the athletics, we have eligibility requirements through WIAA (Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Association). Those requirements are put in place for a reason. With students coming from homeschool or voucher schools, private schools, we don’t know what their academic standing policy is and so how do we have a system where we have a team with kids coming from different systems? So it waters down the eligibility requirements, the accountability requirements that we have for athletes,” Schigur said.
A system that works
General concerns voiced by the district representatives during the question and answer session about the JFC proposed education budget included: requiring new policies to be put into place before enough time has passed to assess results of policies implemented during the past four years, little direction or concern about how to implement the proposed policies, the absence of evidence or data upon which the proposed changes are based and the erosion of local control in the operation of school districts.
Zaspel said the proposals on the table now include “an undertone that schools aren’t doing well, and that’s not the case. Wisconsin’s had a long history of success. Even our own governor brags about our high graduation rates, our test scores, our ACT scores. It’s not broken, and quite frankly as organizations that are central to our communities and the core and the heart of our communities, we’ve done well without adequate funding and support from other places.”
Citing Minnesota’s recent increase of $500,000 in funding for public schools, Zaspel said, “We are now going to be falling from the top 12 percent of funding (among states) to the lower half. And that saddens me. And where does it lead Wisconsin, whose motto is ‘Forward?’ Forward, where? In what kind of future, when we’re taking a system that works very, very well and we’re dismantling it. That troubles me.
“And I wonder where that leaves our kids. I wonder where that leaves our teachers, because I would tell you quite frankly, it alarms me the number of people that are leaving the teaching profession…good teachers are going to leave us and guess what? They’re going to go to Minnesota. They’re going to go where people support public education,” Zaspel said.
Long list of concerns
The statement jointly signed by the 12 district administrators included concerns about several other topics including:
- “The touted reinstatement of the $150 per student categorical aid is simply giving districts back the funding they have this year… It is in reality a 0 percent increase;”
- “The special education voucher proposal is arbitrary and does not protect the interests of students with special needs… The dollar amount is completely arbitrary, as the cost to education varies drastically from student to student based on their individual needs;”
- “The proposal to significantly ease teacher licensing standards is disrespectful to the profession and to our students… The proposed policy would permit individuals without even a bachelor’s degree to be eligible to receive a license… The policy is too broad and requires too little training – 40 hours – before the individual is placed in front of students;”
- “The proposed graduation requirement that all high school students must pass a 100-question civics test appears to be another mandated assessment that will be added to the multitude of standardized tests that students are subjected to during their entire educational career. It will become another standardized test of which the actual educational value is debatable and will be difficult to determine;”
- “How can districts be compared on student performance (on a school rating system) when students will be taking a different standardized test for the third consecutive year?;”
- “This proposed state budget also allows Wisconsin students to enroll in an out-of-state school, with the home school district paying the tuition… and would result in lost revenue that would end up in a neighboring state;”
- “The proposed budget would also allow Gateway Technical College in Racine County to set up independent charter schools in Rock County, with state funding going from local schools to the technical college instead.”
The news release ends with the following statement: “We are troubled by the approach that has been taken to embed so many education policy provisions into the budget without open and public debate. Policy provisions related to teacher licensure, a required civics exam, contract renewal notices, and mandating private or homeschool student participation in public school/extra-curricular activities have not place in the budget bill.
“We believe our communities have a right to know about these policies that will ultimately impact the educational experiences of the children in our schools. We believe Wisconsin public education is at a crossroads and strongly encourage our families and community partners to contract their legislators and advocate from their public schools and their children.”
Near the end of the news conference, Zaspel emphasized the importance of citizens contacting their legislators regarding the proposed education budget, noting that legislators are telling him “they’d like to hear from parents, they’d like to hear from community members about what this means.
“I’ll go out on a limb here and say I think we’re at a break point, folks,” Zaspel said. “Something needs to be done. We need to reclaim the pride we have for public education and the good work that we’ve done.”
