Monday morning State Superintendent Tony Evers stood before the television cameras at Irving Elementary in West Allis to announce his proposed educational budget for the coming term. The bottom line is more money for education. He wants to increase state education funding by $615 million over the next two years bringing state funding closer to the former two-thirds state funding commitment once promised. As the economy improves, more money is projected to come to the state coffers. Why not spend more money on education?
In addition, Evers proposes:
· Taking into account the poverty level, not just the property wealth of districts when allocating money
· Increasing aid to sparsely population areas
· Ensuring that every district receives additional funding
· Fixing some of the funding problems in the voucher program
In short, Evers wants to target additional revenues rather than reallocating existing funds. If you got it, you keep it; the question is who gets more.
Do his proposals have any chance of passing the state legislature and being signed into law by the Governor?
The Republicans took back control of the state senate, but they are not crowing about their new found power. When Republican State Senator Alberta Darling was asked on Sunday’s “UpFront with Mike Gousha” if the legislature would seek to make Wisconsin a right-to-work state effectively undercutting collective bargaining for all workers in both the private and public sector, Darling gave an emphatic and unqualified “No.”
Republicans have learned lessons from the presidential elections. If Democrats can bring to state and local elections the same ground game that they brought to senatorial and presidential elections, Republicans are going to get their clocks cleaned. So Republicans aren’t likely to bring new bold educational proposals to the table while they are trying to figure out their next moves. Darling’s statement on collective bargaining reflects this more timid Republican approach.
Previously, Republicans pushed for the creation of a state-wide charter agency as well as a state-wide special education voucher program. Democrats in Milwaukee who supported vouchers got wiped out of the state legislature in the last election. With the exception of Democratic State Senator Lena Taylor, Republicans will now have to push these “reforms” only with Republican votes, and even here, some Republican legislators are not likely to stick their necks out for these innovations. So the chartering proposal isn’t given much of a chance; the special education voucher might get through.
But that doesn’t mean that Evers is likely to get much more money for education. Republicans are likely to push for additional tax cuts instead. They fear that any additional money going to school districts will go directly into the pockets of teachers which will means these educators will turn right around and contribute more money to Democratic causes to defeat Republicans in the next elections.
As the economy slowly improves, the legislature can pour money into education without raising taxes. But they are likely to place enough strings on the spending to keep teacher wages from increasing.
There aren’t too many freeways left to rebuild in this state but local infrastructure such as sewers, bridges, and city streets are in need of major repairs. The legislature may split the baby devoting some addition money to education and these other projects while reserving the bulk of increased revenues to tax cuts.
