Wisconsin's Public Schools Under Siege

This week’s guest perspective comes from Trygve Danielson—a school teacher at Parker High School in Janesville, Wisconsin for almost 40 years. Danielson gave the following speech at The State of Rock County Rally on January 26, 2012 as an educator's response to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s State of the State Address.

I was raised on a small farm in southeastern Wisconsin. Neither of my parents graduated from high school, but they believed in the American Dream that if you got a good education your life would be better.

As a result, all of my brothers and sisters, all seven of us, went on to college. One retired as the principal oboist of the Seattle Symphony, another was a pilot for United Airlines, one was a nurse, one a steamfitter, and three of us are teachers. All products of two, decent, hardworking Wisconsin farmers whose kids were given the opportunity to attend Wisconsin’s public schools, one of the finest school systems in the country, even in the world.

But today that school system is under siege. I have been asked to speak today about the damage done to my school by the ill-conceived budget cuts made by the Governor and the Wisconsin State Legislature. The most obvious impact has resulted from those things most of you already know about. I’m sure you all know the story of the freeze on basic supplies when teachers returned to work last fall. We at Parker were left to scramble to find materials to get the year started. Thankfully, a makeshift plan was established to get by, but there is no doubt it affected planning at the start of the year.

Parker has also been affected by the reduction of support people and guidance counselors in our building. Grade checks, credit checks, and simple emotional counseling have been reduced. More students who need guidance will fall through the cracks because fewer counselors are available.

Most significant, of course, is the loss of quality teachers. If you lay off teachers, programs are affected. Parker has one of the finest choir programs in the state. Eliminate one of the two choir instructors—as happened at Parker—and you have damaged the education students will receive. If you raise class sizes or eliminate sections, student learning is diminished. Dozens of teacher’s were laid off in Janesville. You do the math.

That does not include the number of excellent young teachers who saw what was coming and now give the experience and expertise they learned at Parker to another school district. Nor the excellent veteran teachers—two in my own department—who decided that they had seen enough and retired. To suggest that our schools will be the same is a lie. If you believe that excellent teachers make a difference then you must know that Parker High School has been damaged by the Governor’s budget cuts.

I should also point out that my wife Jeanette is a teacher in the Orfordville-Parkview District. Her salary—along with all the teachers in her district—has been cut and her payments for health care and retirement have gone up. Has this helped Parkview solve its education problems and keep quality teachers in the classroom? Read the paper and you know it has not. 

The Governor’s budget cuts have put the Parkview School Board in an impossible situation and split the community. Why? The Governor believes it is more important to give tax breaks to the wealthy – including the money taken from hard working teachers – than it is to support quality schools and education. As my Dad used to say, “You can call a jackass a race horse, but everybody knows it's still a jackass.” The Governor can say he is improving schools, but everybody knows that is a lie.

The worse part about this whole mess is the damage it has done to the morale of our young teachers. They are losing faith in the promise that Janesville has made to teachers and to students in the past. The Governor will try to convince you that collective bargaining is the reason for the problem, but common sense and long experience tells us that Wisconsin schools are excellent BECAUSE collective bargaining gives a voice to the teachers and students of our state.

After listening to Governor Walker last night, it is clear his vision of  Wisconsin and its schools are a long way from the vision offered to my mother and father not so long ago. You know that Janesville has one of the finest school systems in the state simply by looking at the citizens who are graduates of Parker and Craig. You know that everyday children in this community are finding their way with the help of the skilled people who make up our schools. You know the very future of our children depends on the quality of their education. 

Our Governor is willing to sacrifice our public schools because he does not understand what education provides. Please stand with those of us who have committed our lives to the Janesville Schools to resist this misguided plan and keep the Wisconsin promise of excellent schools for our children a reality.

Governor Walker, It's Personal

Last night, I did my social studies duty and suffered through Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s State of the State Address. I agonized through Gov. Walker’s disingenuous thanks to public school teachers, his reiteration of his largely gratuitous education reforms, his excitement over eliminating the state deficit solely on the backs of teachers and public employees, and his self-promotion in ending collective bargaining for public employees.

Gov. Walker’s address chiefly pandered to his conservative colleagues and the Wisconsin business community. However, he did have some parting advice for angry Wisconsinites, like me. Gov. Walker’s final thought:  “Don’t personalize your differences.”  

Instantly, Gov. Walker’s concluding message reminded me of the often-repeated Godfather line, “It's not personal Sonny, it's strictly business.” Similarly, Gov. Walker might view this past year as strictly business from his distant perch, but for those of us directly affected by his radical initiatives—it’s not business, it’s justifiably personal. 

Public education is personal. Schools involve people—not products. Gov. Walker may be able to emotionally detach himself from the educational funding policies he implements, but I take Gov. Walker’s political agenda personally when I see my students (and my own children) going without important services and programs thanks to his radical shift in the public school aid formula.

It is understandably personal when Gov. Walker’s initiatives directly harm my family. The adverse effects of Gov. Walker’s cuts to education hurt my children—now serviced in factory-like class sizes. My wife and I (both educators) now have to manage more with less and for less in our classrooms. Additionally, the unexpected tens of thousands of dollars my wife and I will pay out over the course of our professional careers as part of Gov. Walker’s initiatives is a real hardship on our middle-class family budget—especially on the heels of funding our own professional development (graduate work).

Discrimination feels personal—especially when Gov. Walker talks of “shared sacrifice,” but targets only teachers and public servants to fill the state deficit. Gov. Walker is well aware that the state budget deficit was the direct result of a recession created by unregulated investors--who recklessly spurred and crashed a housing bubble. I take it personally when these same investors get out of paying one extra penny while hard-working, middle class public workers foot the bill for their mistakes. Equally egregious, Gov. Walker gushed in his speech about a $100 savings in property taxes for some Wisconsinites, yet he insensitively ignores the thousands of dollars individual teachers and public servants sacrificed to make this happen.

I am personally offended when Gov. Walker fawns over the ideas business leaders have for running our state, but then hypocritically ignores the insights and experience of educational leaders. It is personal when I see non-educators, like Gov. Walker and his bureaucrats, implementing unproven business measures—like merit pay, data-driven education, and competition—into our collaboratively designed profession. I take it personally when my union rights--that have provide steadiness, perspective, and common mission to public education—are stripped for political purposes.  

Education is an intricate, intimate, and people-driven profession. Business-minded politicians, like Gov. Walker, must learn that public education is much more personal, complex, democratic, and multifarious than most business environments. A diversity of educators, taxpayers, parents, and students all have a voice in this complicated conversation.

This teacher’s final thought:  “Education is not a business Gov. Walker, it’s personal. To sincerely move Wisconsin’s schools forward—let’s use more personal touch.”