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School funding rally marks 'Child's Side' anniversary
Posted: 6/16/2009 3:08:37 PM
A decade ago, Teri Hanson of the Phillips School District helped lead a 240-mile walk to Madison to raise awareness of school funding problems. Now, as a recession prompts cuts of 3 percent to school funding in the state budget, Hanson said she wishes legislators had heeded her warning back in 1999.
“Ten years ago I stood in front of this very same Capitol,” Hanson told more than 100 education advocates who rallied Tuesday (June 16, 2009) in Madison. “I’d give anything not to be standing here today.”
In marching down State Street in Madison, Hanson again led a call for school funding reform – this time on the 10th anniversary of the original “Walk on the Child’s Side.” This time around, as a national recession cuts into education even further than revenue caps, a new emphasis has been put on school funding and the need for reform to keep schools afloat, Hanson said.
“It’s a good time to ring the bell for school funding reform,” she added.
Educators from across the state joined Hanson in marching for the cause, chanting “put kids first” as they walked to the Capitol. Ron Martin of the Eau Claire School District said that the rally was a way to be a part of a solution.
“We feel, as a district, we can complain to the board not to make cuts, but we want to advocate to the legislators in Wisconsin that we need school funding reform,” Martin said. “We’re here because, like everybody else, we’ve really felt these revenue caps.”
In Eau Claire, budget cuts have spurred some of the state’s highest sports fees, prompted art instructors to teach to hundreds of students and eliminated all staff professional development opportunities.
“We have zero staff development,” Martin said. “We’re crying out for whatever the state can do.”
Those kinds of budget cut repercussions represent the wrong direction for our state to go in, said Randy Braun, superintendent of the Cameron School District, who took part in the original “Child’s Side” event. Cutting parts of education such as staff development will have long-lasting effects, Braun added.
“You can’t go that way,” Braun said. “You got to have more professional development.
“People say you can make these cuts and it will be the same,” Braun continued. “No, you can’t. It’s not the same.”
Like Braun, other education advocates joined teachers to support the cause. The Madison Common Council, with Mayor Dave Cieslewicz’s endorsement, unanimously passed a resolution to support the walk, and Maya Cole of the Madison Board of Education came out to join the walk.
“This is very important because this is the 10-year anniversary and now we’re looking at a 3 percent cut on top of revenue caps,” Cole said.
Even students got into the action. Thomas Aiken, of the Whitefish Bay Middle School, spoke with Pulaski High School’s Kayla LaPlante against revenue caps.
“All Wisconsin school districts must unite as one,” Aiken said. “We must think, act and work as one.”
Aiken and LaPlante are just some of the students for whom school funding reform is needed now, said WEAC President Mary Bell.
“Today we are about the future – about what these kids represent,” Bell said. “Their future will be different because we’re standing together on school funding reform.”
The “Child’s Side” mini-walk and rally comes as the Legislature debates a state budget that will have profound impact on schools, including cutting millions of dollars in state aid. The event also comes at a time the School Finance Network, of which WEAC is a part, is promoting a new plan to change school funding for the better.
In addition to WEAC, the group also includes AFT Wisconsin, the Fair Aid Coalition, the School Administrators Alliance, the Southeastern Wisconsin Schools Alliance, the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools, the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators and the Wisconsin PTA – all working for a solution.
As Hanson said: “More people join the fight every day.”
The 10-year anniversary event was sponsored by the Price County Citizens who CARE, the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools and the Northern Tier UniServ.
