Laws Will Dismantle Our Education System, Committee Told
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:
- Wisconsin Dells cut $334,400 from this year's budget, eliminating
a school psychologist and special education teacher.
- "Every year my science budget becomes less, but teaching materials,
textbooks, and lab equipment continue to increase in cost. However,
with less each year, our teachers are told we must raise the standards
both from the federal and state level," he said.
- For next year, he said, "we are looking at cutting two more
teaching positions and reducing our budget by another $250,000 in
Wisconsin Dells."
"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