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Debbie McCann of Beloit (left), Jim Brancel of Wisconsin Dells, and Denise Plantenberg of Monroe were among the educators who testified in favor of Governor Doyle's budget proposal.
If school district revenue controls and the Qualified Economic Offer law stay on the books, "the state will continue to dismantle its present educational system," Wisconsin Dells teacher Jim Brancel told the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee Thursday (March 17, 2005).
"It will take two or three decades for this to play out, but it will happen and by the time we wake up it will be too late to recover from the impact," Brancel said in testimony before the committee, during a hearing on the 2005-07 state budget.
Brancel, a high school biology teacher, and other educators spoke in favor of Governor Doyle's proposed budget, which provides property tax relief and $850 million in new state school aid to bring the state's share of school costs back to two-thirds.
Republican legislators have said they are going to
scrap the governor's budget and start from scratch. However, the committee
co-chairs - Representative Dean Kaufert and Senator Scott Fitzgerald
- said they will try to find state money to pay two-thirds of public
school costs as they revise the governor’s two-year budget bill.
They said the need to maintain quality education was a strong theme
during two weeks of hearings by the committee. WEAC members showed up
in force at the hearings.
Like many educators who testified before him over the last two weeks, Brancel said state-imposed revenue caps are forcing school districts to make progressively more serious cuts to vital programs and services, threatening the quality of education our children receive. He said:
"Most school districts have not received additional revenue to keep pace with additional operating expenses," Brancel told the committee. "Returning the governor's proposed two-thirds funding will help schools ease their burdens."
Maren Mapp, a 2nd-grade teacher in Janesville, said her school budget is so tight that the school has run out of supplies such as tape, which is needed by students "to put together science fair projects, sequence parts of a story and create charts and graphs."
"Funding also affects curriculum and textbooks for students," she said. "The textbooks that teachers are supposed to use to teach about bicycle safety are so old that wearing helmets is not mentioned once. The pictures do not show children wearing helmets. Rollerblading and rollerblading safety are not even mentioned."
Debbie McCann, a 1st-grade teacher at Robinson Elementary School in Beloit, said the Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE) program is proof of how investing in education pays off.
"I am here to testify to you that after eight years in the program, SAGE works," she said. "It makes a definite impact on those children who need it most. I am also here to urge you to support Governor Doyle's proposed state two-thirds funding and in particular to pass the funding proposals which will impact SAGE in the years to come. I am proud to teach in Wisconsin schools, which are among the greatest in the nation. We need to uphold that tradition through proven programs."
Resource page on the 2005-07 state budget
More testimony of educators, with photos