Milwaukee Educators, Parents, Citizens Protest Budget Cuts

Members of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association joined parents and other citizens this week to protest the impact of proposed budget cuts in Milwaukee Public Schools.

Freda Thomas, a teacher's aide at Milwaukee’s MacDowell Montessori Elementary School, and her 10-month-old son, Deonta, carry the WEAC Great Schools message – “Every Kid Deserves One” – to a rally and public hearing at the Milwaukee school administration building May 23.

MTEA members and WEAC representatives were among hundreds of people who turned out for a tense school board hearing May 23, 2000, and also joined more than 200 people who rallied at the State Capitol May 24.

MPS must cut $32 million from existing programs as the combined result of rising costs and revenue controls placed on the district by the state. The cuts have created a storm of protest.

Speakers at both the Milwaukee hearing and the Madison rally repeated the themes that revenue controls are threatening to undermine the quality of education and shortchange children. WEAC banners and stickers were prominent, repeatedly displaying the message “Great Schools ... Every Kid Deserves One.”

Most speakers addressed the inequity of school finance, the harm caused to MPS by the private school voucher program, and the devastating impact of budget cuts on programs such as arts and music, libraries, special education, special services such as the teenage mother program, and the overall impact on school staffing and class sizes.

This year’s MPS budget debate is particularly emotional because of the accumulating impact of revenue controls and the fact that a new system of budgeting requires every school to identify its own areas to cut.

Resource page on school district revenue controls

Posted May 26, 2000