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Great Schools is the value that defines WEAC and expresses its mission. It is an overarching, all-encompassing effort to focus attention on public education and to inform every state resident about Wisconsin’s outstanding public schools and employees.
Through Great Schools, we involve and motivate parents, school employees, businesspeople and taxpayers in the effort to define educational outcomes and support program initiatives that make all our schools great schools and improve the future of the communities in which we all live.
Great Schools is the first statewide public engagement effort in the nation. It is breaking new ground in a variety of areas, and our colleagues throughout the country are watching very closely.
Great Schools is not just a ”project“ or experimental program. It not only sets forth specific goals to meet along a timeline, but it is also a new way of functioning between and within WEAC campuses and with the 626 local associations throughout the state.
Great Schools distinguishes itself from previous programs in a number of ways, including its intention to involve each WEAC member and staff member in the way they relate to their organization.
The impetus for this bold undertaking came from the negative impact state-imposed revenue controls and limitations on school employees’ collective bargaining rights were having on public school quality, and from a political climate in which politicians could win on platforms bashing public schools.
Under the state government’s revenue controls, approximately half the school districts in Wisconsin have reported a delay in the purchase of computers and other technology, a third have increased class sizes, and nearly all have made at least one cut to essential programs offered for students. Results from a survey released by WEAC and the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators in Spring 2001, show that 80% of teachers and 62% of superintendents believe revenue controls have had a negative effect on their districts’ quality of education.
WEAC member frustration began to boil over during the 1997-1998 school
year. Madison experienced the first Wisconsin teachers strike in almost
20 years. Later that year, Racine Education Association members were locked
out of their classrooms during intense labor negotiations.
Updated July 23, 2001