Did you ever prepare for an interview, do your research, organize
your thoughts, feel confident and then blow it?If not you’re lucky.But this is
exactly what happened to me when I went in to record a segment for Capital Morning
Sunday with host Greg Neumann.
We absolutely do not need another accountability bill in
Wisconsin if the accountability bill is supposedly going to be used to close
the achievement gap.You don’t close the
achievement gap with standards, curriculum, tests and punishments.We have 30 years of data that proves this
beyond a doubt.So if legislators are
really looking to close the achievement gap they need to stop listening to the
accountability hawks and testing companies that are financing them and start
looking at the real issues that cause students to perform poorly in
school.In other words they need to do
their job and be held accountable for either promoting the conditions in which
learning thrives (which are predominantly socio-economic) or they—the
legislators need to be held accountable and labeled legislatively failing and
then stripped of their legislative license. Oops.That’s right they don’t need a license toscrew up the lives of children and the communities they serve
Now if the “new” accountability being proposed is simply to
streamline and promote the use of more taxpayer subsidized financing for
private and religious schools then Wisconsin residents needs to listen very
closely.Using taxpayer money to
subsidize private and religious schools will not close the achievement gap.However, these subsidies will further
dismantle our public schools—schools that serve as the hearts of our local
communities. Why?Because this is what taxpayer
subsidies are designed to do. These subsidies are simply a way to defund our
community schools, schools that should be the heart of all of Wisconsin’s
communities.
Some argue that subsidizing private schools with public
money will help disadvantaged students.This is not true.There just is
not any accumulation of evidence to prove this (However,we are starting to understand this ideologically imposed disaster).Instead, private school subsidies are
strictly in the domain of ideology.Supporters
at the policy level simply have a disdain for public and community based
schools.All one needs to do is look at
the FriedmanFoundation website and see that this has always been an ideological
position and not one based on any evidence. It is based on the simple idea that by
creating losers you will create winners—competition.
Public schools are not in the business of creating a Hunger
Games type of competitive culture.Our
communities are not simply “government districts” that serve to supply a
compliant work force.Our public schools
exist because as Americans we made a promise to every child and every community
that a powerful education would be a right and that this public education would
serve to make sure that children and communities have an educated community
capable of participation in critical self-government.
Taxpayer subsidized financing for private and religious
schools is not a “choice.” It is simply a poison for the heart of Wisconsin’s
communities—our public schools.
