Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Income Inequality That Your Kids Suffer From


 

By Jeff Simpson

The average teacher salary in Wisconsin is $46,000/yr.  Governor Scott Walker's signature piece of legislation ACT10 cut public workers take home pay by up to 12%.    Which for the average public teacher salary in WI comes to approximately $5520. Act 10 has been in effect for four years now which would be $22,080 in lost income(or demand in Wisconsin).


What was the motivating factor behind that?

Scott Walker in that time has received over $2,400,000 in support of privatizing schools, increasing vouchers and ending teachers unions.  This is money given by the ruling class earmarked as just donations for the politicians they own(for those of you scoring at home, that is equivalent to over 52 teachers complete salaries).     

It doesn't stop there.  


The Democracy Campaign report showed that spending by voucher supporters skyrocketed in the last election cycle, with more than half of the $9.8 million spent over the past decade coming in 2011 and 2012.

Of the spending, $7 million was for activity like independent campaign ads or mailings. The remaining $2.8 million was given in individual campaign contributions to mostly Republican and conservative candidates for office. Nearly two-thirds of that $2.8 million came from donors outside of Wisconsin.

The most donations came from billionaire voucher advocates Richard and Betsy DeVos of Michigan, who gave $337,330 to Wisconsin candidates between 2003 and the first six months of 2012.
Walker received $2.35 million from voucher supporters since 2006, but most of that came during his recall campaign. He got $1.1 million from individual school choice supporters — including $252,600 from Richard and Betsy DeVos. He got another $1.1 million from the Washington-based American Federation for Children, the report showed.

That group is the main driver of outside spending from voucher supporters in Wisconsin, accounting for $4.4 million of the $7 million over the past decade. The group’s Wisconsin lobbyist is former Republican Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen.

Two other former Republican speakers, John Gard and Jeff Fitzgerald*, work for School Choice Wisconsin.

*  total spending does NOT include salaries to the many many lobbyists they employ.  All of which make more than the average teacher does in salary for a year.

So ask yourself why billionaires, who have spent their life increasing their salary and worrying about ROI would be investing millions in privatizing our schools. 

Do you think it is because they worry about YOUR child's education or is it because they see massive return on investments by privatizing our schools?



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