Governor McCallum's Budget Puts Great Schools at Risk

Background:

By virtually every measure, Wisconsin schools rank among the finest in the nation. Students learn here. They graduate here. They go on to get jobs here, keeping our state's employment rate among the highest in the nation. Inside and outside the classroom walls we are shaping the future.

Building great schools requires consistent effort and hard work, and we face greater challenges today than ever before. That is why we must all play a part. Educating our children is a wonderful, rewarding experience that belongs to the entire family, the classroom and the community as a whole. We must care about our schools. We must be willing to work hard for them, even fight for them.

All children need and deserve a great school. The Wisconsin Education Association Council believes that Governor McCallum's budget puts our public schools at risk. Governor McCallum's budget does little to place students in classrooms that work, shows no commitment to develop quality staff through collectively bargained approaches and promotes education schemes that will not benefit everyone in the community.

Governor McCallum's budget ratchets down even harder on revenue caps, makes dramatic cuts in the successful SAGE K-3 class size reduction program, grabs authority away from the DPI, expands the scope of the voucher and charter school laws, lowers the standard for licensing teachers and includes several direct assaults on the bargaining rights of education employees. These budget initiatives put our great schools at risk.

GREAT SCHOOLS PLACE STUDENTS
IN CLASSROOMS THAT WORK

Governor McCallum's budget puts great schools at risk by:

Dramatically reducing the highly successful SAGE K-3 class size reduction program.
Ratcheting down even harder on state imposed revenue caps.
Expanding the voucher program in Milwaukee.
Limiting state funding of special education programs.
Freezing aid to the WTCS and diminishing the authority of local WTCS boards.
Misusing federal E-rate funds in the TEACH program and charging schools a fee for BadgerLink.
Folding the Education Communications Board into a nonprofit corporation.

GREAT SCHOOLS DEPEND
ON A GREAT STAFF

Governor McCallum's budget puts great schools at risk by:

Expanding alternative certification so that you don't even need a bachelor's degree to teach.
Giving school boards power to close schools that they determine to be low performing and to reassign staff without regard to seniority or bargaining rights.
Allowing subcontracting of educational programs statewide.
Creating a new "pay-for-performance awards" program for schools that is not collectively bargained.
Eliminating the right to bargain the choice of health care provider.
Making establishment of the school calendar a prohibited subject of bargaining.
Redefining the QEO to require that only "substantially similar" benefits be offered.
Modifying the NBPTS incentive grant program but provide no additional funding.
Diminishing DPI's ability to distribute federal funds and place federally funded departmental positions at risk.

GREAT SCHOOLS BENEFIT EVERYONE

Governor McCallum's budget puts great schools at risk by:

Dramatically expanding the charter school law to include the CESAs, UW and WTCS.
Creating a new Board of Education Evaluation and Accountability outside of DPI.
Creating a new Rule Review Commission and a new Bureau of School Improvement.
Creating a new grant program to encourage consolidation of services and districts.

For More Information:
Please feel free to contact Bob Burke, WEAC Legislative Program Coordinator, with any questions about the budget or items contained in this brief. Bob can be reached via e-mail at burkeb@weac.org or by phone at 800-362-8034 ext. 254.

Resource page on 2001-2003 state budget

Posted April 18, 2001