Thursday, March 29, 2012

Walker's Education Plan Is Already Working!

The entire state knows that Scott Walker and his Republican hoodlums who control (for the time being) the state legislature did to the education system in the state.  They slashed hundreds of millions of dollars from the budget.  Walker tried to tell us that his "tools" from Act 10 would give the school districts the ability to deal with the shortfalls from his malevolent budget.

Those on the right who, for some unknown and ungodly reason refuse to face up to reality and admit his plan is an epic failure.

But the truth cannot be hidden, and to make it more graphic (pun intended) here is what Walker hath wrought, per the Wisconsin Department of Public Education:

Essential Learning and Support Program Losses:


Teacher Losses 2011-12:


K-12 Class Size Increases:


Change In Student Teacher Ratio 2010-11 to 2011-12


And most significantly, Budget Outlook 2012-13


Now, unless you're one of Walker's Kool-Aid drinkers, it's pretty obvious what he is up to.  It's the same gambit he kept trying to pull when he was Milwaukee County Executive.  Walker is trying to starve the school system until it breaks, then use that as an excuse to privatize the entire state's educational system.

By continuously cutting into their budgets, school systems will be forced to cut more and more programs and lay off more and more high quality teachers.  Then the kids will start failing to meet the requirements.  He will claim that the public school system is unable to do the job and make the false claim that privatizing the schools through the voucher program will save money and give better results.

Both of those claims will be false though.

The voucher schools are already crying that they need more money than what they are currently drawing away from the public schools.  If they are finally able to force public schools out of the way, it will become a feeding frenzy as they keep demanding more and more taxpayer money.

And as for quality, we are already seeing that that is most definitely not the case:

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Tuesday released a comparison of private school choice students and public school students on the WKCE. The test was given to grades three through eight and 10 last fall. 
For Racine Unified, 60 of the 62 private school choice students in those grades were tested, DPI stated. They averaged 50.8 percent proficient or advanced on the WKCE math tests, while Unified students averaged 61.5 percent. 
Those private school choice students also scored well below the state average math proficiency of 78.0 and the statewide average for economically disadvantaged students, 64.7 percent, DPI said. 
In reading, the private school choice students from Unified averaged 55.7 percent proficient or advanced, compared with the district average of 69.2 percent. 
The statewide average was 81.9 percent proficiency in reading and 70.5 percent for economically disadvantaged students.
The article goes on to show the disreputable Robin Vos claiming these lower scores as somehow being proof that we need to privatize schools, even though it might take "five to ten years" to show any sort of improvement in the private schools.  Methinks that Vos is apparently a result of privatized education since he can't figure out that failing is not a good thing, especially when one was having great success.

And I can tell you with full confidence that if Walker somehow manages to survive the recall and to elude John Doe long enough to devise another budget, it will only get worse.

That's why we have to continue reclaiming Wisconsin.  Make sure you help with a GOTV movement and get ready to vote the bums out on Tuesday.

H/T to two savvy readers

10 comments:

  1. The Wisconsin Coalition for Virtual School Families presented Walker with their "Rock Star for Education Reform" award this afternoon at the Concourse Hotel. You wouldn't have known about it, though, because it was a private MacIver event where no outsiders were allowed. Somehow a few of us slipped in...

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  2. Keep sharing far and wide......

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  3. Did they throw a rock at him?

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  4. You wrote: "Those on the right who, for some unknown and ungodly reason refuse to face up to reality and admit his plan is an epic failure."

    Is it really that hard to see that the right views this as anything but a failure?

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    1. Take a drive around Wisconsin anywhere north of Madison, see all the signs and bumper stickers saying "I stand with Walker". Is it really that hard to see that many of our fellow Wiconsinites are still bamboozled?

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    2. drive around grant,iowa,lafayette and crawford counties.stand with walker signs are outnumbered 20 to 1 by recall walker signs.now if you want to drive around luther olsons turf yeah you might be right.

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  5. Bamboozled by reality...

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  6. Here's the rub, and someone as stupid as Vos understands this, only people who can afford to pay more than the voucher will be able to get their kids into good schools. The rich know that their kids aren't any smarter than other kids, so they need to disadvantage everybody else, to pass on their plutocracy. Managed by their idiot children.

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  7. Excellent post great coverage. Best sources!

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