WILL Wilfully Misleads On ACT 10

By Jeff Simpson

Hallelujah!  The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) just completed a study about the incredible wonders of ACT10. 

 WILL’s latest study, Silent Successes, shows how, over seven years, the tone of the media coverage has been overwhelmingly negative. In fact, only two percent of stories about Act 10 have been positive.

For the worst bill in my lifetime, I think 2%(not sure how they came up with that number) is a bit high. 

 This "study" (term used loosely), tells us that:

 A review found that districts all over Wisconsin are using Act 10 reforms in important ways.  

This was their criteria:

  Due to collective bargaining agreements, schools could not pay their teachers or reduce their staff based on what their school needed, but were subject to ‘last hired, first fired.’ For teachers, compensation wasn’t determined by classroom performance.Since Act 10, schools have been given the tools, often found the private sector, to innovate. There are offering more competitive benefits, have instituted merit pay, and can retain teachers who are better suited for the school as well as curriculum and student needs.

While loyalty and retaining long term employees is pretty much in anyone's top 3 of best ways to run a successful business, the folks at WILL are stuck in the 1930s way to run a business. 

But wait there is more, there is always more!

Apparently they mistakenly think "merit pay" has merit: 

Merit pay at the discretion of the school board allows districts to pay a teacher more for exceptional work. Elmwood School District, Mondovi School District, Monona Grove School District, Southern Door County School District, Swallow Elementary, and Oconomowoc School District all included a clause in their teacher contracts that says their respective “Board” reserves the right to pay above the pay schedule for “meritorious” service. In the performance evaluation model, teachers who score higher in evaluations, whose students perform better on tests or get better grades, and teachers who put more time and effort into their school and duties earn more, like at Cedarburg or Brillion School District. Either way, teachers who do more earn more.

Yes they included the Monona Grove School District as one that has used the ACT10 "tools" to implement merit pay. 

As a member of the Monona Grove School Board going on my 7th year, it is flat out false.

We do not now, nor will we ever, institute a merit pay system while I am on the Monona Grove School Board.  We are actually all united against merit pay, because it fails in the private sector and is a flat out joke in the public sector. 

 Notice they threw out at the end:

teachers who do more earn more.

That has always been the case, with the step and ladder system and the new system, in pretty much any workforce in America.   

You get your masters, you move up.  You are head of a department, you make more money, you coach, you get compensated more. 

It really is a simple concept but one apparently WILL's Lauren Tunney was unable to grasp. 

So pay attention from now on, dear readers and know that any "report" coming from WILL, even if they label it "silent success" is really just total bullshit.   

At least now we know what The Donald means when he says #fakenews 

Edit note:  No where can I find the actual existence of Lauren Tunney on their website.  Maybe they made her up to take the brunt of the made up study if they got caught!