"........On one side are UW System chancellors, faculty and staff worried about the narrative getting away from them. They're eager to tell the story of what they believe unprecedented budget cuts would do to a public higher education system considered among the state's crown jewels.
On the other side are Walker and his supporters, who say the cuts combined with new flexibilities for the UW System would help it become more effective and efficient.
Walker started the day Wednesday doing interviews with Milwaukee conservative talk radio hosts. He later repeated the same themes to reporters after addressing the Chippewa Valley Rally at a Madison hotel.
"In the future, by not having the limitation of things like shared governance, they might be able to make savings just by asking faculty and staff to consider teaching one more class a semester," Walker told reporters at the Madison hotel. "Things like that could have tremendous impact on making sure we have an affordable education for all of our UW campuses at the same time we maintain a high-quality education."
Chancellors have been reassuring their campuses that shared governance is a core value they will fight to keep......
.......Walker said making the UW System a public authority, rather than a department of the state, would free it up "to have total control of their budget. It's for purchasing, procurement, construction, compensation, governance — in many ways (it) will be like Act 10 for the UW."
"It will make them do things that they traditionally have not done," he said. "Like I said, things like maybe looking at the use of faculty and staff a bit more efficiently like others have done in government in the last four years at both the state and local level."
Walker several times in recent days has dubbed his proposed budget cuts combined with new flexibilities for the UW System as "the Act 10 of higher education." He credited Act 10 with everything from saving billions of dollars to raising test scores and improving graduation rates in K-12 school districts.
"At the time four years ago, there were people claiming layoffs, there were some people claiming harm," Walker said Wednesday in Madison. "The reality is the districts — school districts and local governments — that fully used our reforms, just the opposite happened. Most were the same, many were better.
"And four years later we see, for example, schools that scores are up, ACT scores are second best in the country, graduation rates are up, third-grade reading scores are up. The districts that used our reforms and the local governments that used our reforms saved literally billions of dollars across our state over the last several years."
Walker said he believes if the UW System becomes a public authority, "this just puts the responsibility firmly in the hands of the management, the regents and the leadership of the University of Wisconsin System."............
The Wisconsin Idea is the policy developed in the American state of Wisconsin that fosters public universities' contributions to the state: "to the government in the forms of serving in office, offering advice about public policy, providing information and exercising technical skill, and to the citizens in the forms of doing research directed at solving problems that are important to the state and conducting outreach activities". A second facet of the philosophy is the effort "to ensure well-constructed legislation aimed at benefiting the greatest number of people". During the Progressive Era, proponents of the Wisconsin Idea saw the state as "the laboratory for democracy", resulting in legislation that served as a model for other states and the federal government...............
The Wisconsin Idea, in United States History, also refers to a series of political reforms of the late 19th century and early 20th century whose strongest advocate was Robert M. La Follette, Sr., Wisconsin's governor (1901–1906) and senator (1906–1925). The Wisconsin Idea was created by the state's progressives to do away with monopolies, trusts, high cost of living, and predatory wealth, which they saw as the problem that must be solved or else "no advancement of human welfare or progress can take place". Reforms in labor rights were one of the major aspects of the Wisconsin Idea. The progressive worker's compensation program was first introduced by German immigrants, who were abundant in Wisconsin. The system was adopted from the existing system in Germany, which was based on the idea that the employer was obligated to take care of his employees and keep paying them as they grew old. Many of the reforms were based on traditions and customs brought to the state by German immigrants. The emphasis on higher learning and well-funded universities stressed by the Wisconsin Idea was derived from the education system of Germany. Progressives also proposed the first state income taxes, as well as submitting the idea of a progressive tax. They also passed legislation prohibiting pollution and police brutality.
The Wisconsin Idea would go on to set an example for other states in the United States. The progressive politicians of the time sought to emulate and ultimately transcend the states of the east coast in regards to labor laws. Wisconsin progressives wished to make Wisconsin into a benchmark for other Midwestern states to strive towards. Although many of the reforms went through in 1911, conservative opponents of the progressive party took control of Wisconsin in 1914, thus minimizing the magnitude and effects of the reforms. The Wisconsin Idea would continue to be a revolutionary precedent for other universities, and its educational aspects are still relevant today. Robert La Follette, Sr. was the man who implemented much of this legislature, and he was among the earliest supporters of direct election of senators, which is now a national practice. These progressive politics also helped pass the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments to the American Constitution.
These proposed reforms, all of which were eventually adopted, included:
Primary elections, allowing the rank-and-file members of a political party to choose its nominees rather than caucuses usually dominated by political bosses.
Workers' compensation, allowing workers injured whilst working to receive a fixed payment in compensation for their injuries and related expenses rather than forcing them to go to court against their employers, which at the time was extremely difficult and had little realistic chance of success.
State regulation of railroads in addition to the federal regulation imposed by the Interstate Commerce Commission.
Direct election of United States Senators as opposed to the original method of their selection by the state legislatures, eventually ratified as the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Progressive taxation, where the wealthier pay a higher rate of tax than the less-affluent, made possible on the federal level in part by the adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Adoption of these reforms marked the high point of the Progressive Era........."
Professors going back to teaching? What is the world coming to?
Before it passes, include in the legislation a return of mandatory teaching of cursive writing and penmanship skills.