Gretchen Schuldt over at the new Blogging MPS has an extremely thorough report on the proceedings of the June 19 Board meeting. Why reinvent the wheel?
A couple of editorial comments, however:
(Disclaimer: these opinions are formed after reading Gretchen's post. I wasn't able to attend the meeting or listen to the proceedings on the radio last night.)
There appeared to be much talk about how it's difficult to pass a budget when we don't know what will happen with state finances and the property tax levy this fall. This conversation ensued mostly in reaction to an amendment that was presented to add $19.7 million in spending to the budget, which would allow the district to hire 170 more teachers.
From what I can gather from Gretchen's report, Director Falk in particular was cautious about the addition, and Danny Goldberg too, who said "We simply can't do it because we don't know what the fiscal impact of our decisions is on our constituents." Fair enough - I get they're in a tough position - but aren't the students his constituents as well? Isn't it the school board's responsibility to ensure students get a quality education from MPS? And it's their job to make the tough decisions. That's why they were elected. But perhaps Goldberg has another agenda besides strengthening MPS. I wonder what that could be. Your guesses in the comment section are welcome.
Really, we need all school board members to advocate for school finance reform in Wisconsin -- they wouldn't be in such a huge pickle every year at budget time if the school funding formula weren't broken beyond repair. In fact, that appeared to be part of the discussion last night.
Gretchen reports that Dir. Jeff Spence said he would he would "like to see some sort of plan that would get us more engaged" with elected officials, but "to have us go out there as opposed to them coming back and talking to us -- their constituents -- is backwards." He's not exactly wrong about that, but it strikes me as extraordinarily naive on his part.
But good for him for admitting what he needs. So Dir. Spence, here's a plan, and I'm calling it "Lobbying." Call up legislators; ask for an appointment to meet, preferably in Milwaukee; set appointment with a scheduler; meet and advocate strongly for school finance reform, describing the unbearable and immoral choices you have to make each and every year - choosing between property taxpayers and children.
There. That's not too tough, right. And it takes very little money to boot.
In fact, I bet you could even get some teachers to come along with you to that meeting to describe how budget cuts have hurt kids in Milwaukee.
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3 comments:
Here's to early childhood teachers, education assistants and other teachers who organized and spoke out at the hearings! I think the increase in staffing of paras and the reinstatement of laid off employees are results of these efforts!
I certainly would LOVE to see the board go to Madison. I strongly believe that as "politicians" (even though some of them would deny that strongly), that is their job.
I would also welcome an invitation to join them, as long as I wouldn't have to miss school to do so. It would be nice if all of the elected members of the board would put forth efforts to work with teachers in the best interest of our students.
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