Amateurs. They should emulate Ferguson and Baltimore - their thugs get results quickly.
"We want the money"
Of course they do.
Posted on 05/04/2015 1:56:22 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
When Wauwatosa parent Darnelle Kaishian first heard about the K-12 budget cut in Gov. Scott Walker's biennial state budget proposal, she wondered: What would that actually mean for her schools?
When she and some other parents heard that the cut would amount to about $900,000 for Wauwatosa next year and that art, some orchestra, an Advanced Placement course or school maintenance work could be trimmed, they sprang into action.
Six weeks later, they've created websites and yard signs and T-shirts, knocked on doors, talked to neighbors and launched a letter-writing campaign that has blasted lawmakers with more than 2,000 pieces of mail, asking them not just to preserve education funding over the next two-year state budget but to increase it.
"We want the money restored," Kaishian said. "This is about my kids and your kids."
Wauwatosa parents protesting critical components of Walker's education budget is notable because this is Walker's home district. But it's also part of a more widespread blossoming of pro-public school parent and community activism that has taken root across Wisconsin over the past few years — and that has gained steam since Walker released his latest budget proposal in February.
As lawmakers on the Legislature's budget committee work on revising the governor's budget, the parents groups are calling on them to preserve the funding for programs and services they hold dear in their schools. They also want non-fiscal education items dropped from the state budget proposal, such as Walker's proposals to expand private voucher schools and non-district charter schools.
The defense of public education puts participants on the same page as most Democrats and teachers unions, but the parents say their efforts are officially nonpartisan and more aimed at educating neighbors who aren't well-informed......
(Excerpt) Read more at jsonline.com ...
Next common sense sprung into action and we (the parents) asked for a list of the supplies and we would purchase them privately ourselves to keep the art program operating. No list was provided. So thinking again, we did manage to get the total expenditures for art supplies from the prior year's accounting. So we purchased all of the same materials, same quantities, and same terms of delivery. Oddly enough, it only came to about $18,000. The schools claimed they had to cut art because they couldn't get their $162,000 for art supplies which we bought for $18,000.
It turns out the real motives were that two art teachers wanted to take a six month sabatical trip to Italy for purposes of professional education in their field. The money was really for that and substitute teachers to fill in while they were gone. They were pissed they could not go. They refused the $18,000 of art supplies, as they were already swimming in carry over inventories from prior years. We donated it to a neighboring school district who gladly accepted the stuff.
School districts do some pretty sneaky crappy stuff to the taxpayers. They are always going into "Closed Session" when it's anything important.
bttt!
Maybe if the schools were to cut all but the three ‘R’s’, reading, writing, and arithmetic....keeping history and geography...maybe by cutting out the fru-fru...if some parents want the added ‘social’ classes, let them band together and hire a teacher for those classes themselves and meet at various homes. Probably some law against that also.........
Amateurs. They should emulate Ferguson and Baltimore - their thugs get results quickly.
"We want the money"
Of course they do.
I'll bet there's $900K of fat in the district's budget. If not, campaign to raise the school district taxes. Parents should be holding themselves, the school district, and school board accountable.
They pulled this in the state of Nevada, as well. Tax hikes needed “for the children” promising to maintain or reduce class sizes. They forced a tax hike through the state Supreme Court. The teachers got raises and the class sizes got bigger.
We also need to remember where all this started in Wisconsin. The teacher’s unions had it written in their contracts that the union would a act as the broker for medical insurance. That meant that they would get a cut of every employees premiums going straight into their coffers. All their anger and vitriol wasn’t because they were losing their collective bargaining rights, it was because they think the taxpayer should foot the bill for their union activities.
Teachers and administrators are usually behind moves like that. Some parents do have ties to them.
Perhaps the parents should have been involved long before to make sure corrupt unions didn’t take advantage of the system forcing Walker to act....he’s not to blame for reacting to a situation he did not create...
THey probably will spend a million dollars fighting for someone else to give them 900,000 dollars for their school children.
Easier just to run a bake sale.
I was born & raised in Wisconsin.
I went to a ONE ROOM school.
14 Kids
8 Grades
1 teacher with a 2 year college education
2 2-hole outhouses out back of the school
NO running water
1 Merry-go-round.
All the kids I went to school with there have done VERY well. Throwing more & more $$$$$ at schools doesn’t get a kid an ‘education’.
The teacher’s unions had it written in their contracts that the union would a act as the broker for medical insurance. That meant that they would get a cut of every employees premiums going straight into their coffers. “”””
That is only PART of the story.
When all of the fighting over the Unions broke out, it was finally revealed that the medical insurance company that most school districts were badgered (pun intended :) :) )into using/purchasing was a health insurance company actually OWNED by the Wisconsin Teacher’s Union.
Hardly bargaining at an arm’s length transaction’.
It was fraud from the start, IMO. The Union owned health care company was considerably more expensive that even Blue Cross/Blue Shield.
I didn’t know that. Thanks
You and me too kid (even down to the outhouse and merry-go-round).
And the PARENTS were in charge.
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