Dave Blaska, Right wing Republican blogger, is running for the Madison School Board Seat 4. David is running against Ali Muldrow.
To many in Madison, Dave Blaska's name will sound familiar. He has been a stalwart on right wing hate radio Vicki Mckenna's show, and a local blogger.
Now that Dave, a former State Employee, is retired, he has all day to accost, anyone who supports public education.
Dave has a long history of being scared of, and wanting to punish anyone who does not look like him or can advance his bank account. Here is some classic Blaska on section 8 housing:
This landlord offered helpful advice:
Plenty of ways to keep the Section 8s out of units. .... Just keep using creative ways to dodge them and you'll get a good renter in there soon enough. It may hurt your pockets some initially, but it'll definitely payoff in the long run.
Potential School Board member Blaska is offering "helpful advice" on how to "legally" discriminate. Blaska also proudly concealed carries a weapon, which is dangerous in the hands of someone who is perpetually offended and scared. Blaska also believes in regulating everything a teacher does all day, especially the women. Blaska also looks up to Bill Cosby,which explains why Blaska's highlight of attending Scott Walkers Inauguration Gala, was creepily staring at cleavage!
The most egregious act of Blaska's though, was when he teamed up with Wisconsin Law & Liberty(a right wing, Bradley funded group who is known for filing frivolous lawsuits), and sued the Madison Metropolitan School District.
Right-wing blogger and professional cranky old man David Blaska has filed suit against the school board, the school district and the Madison teachers union for wasting his tax dollars by signing an employment contract.
Blaska's complaint, filed by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) -- a nonprofit law firm almost wholly funded by the right-wing Bradley Foundation -- accuses the board, the district and the teachers of "unlawful collective bargaining."
Under Gov. Scott Walker's Act 10, the court filing points out, teachers and other public employees are not allowed to bargain over terms of employment, working conditions, merit pay, benefits and any other items beyond cost-of-living increases on base pay.
Blaska, "whose taxes are used to fund the school district," the complaint observes, is also filing his suit on behalf of the teachers, whose rights are being violated by their union, he claims, since they are being unlawfully represented.
The lawsuit was completely without merit and thus was dismissed, but not until after too much time and money wasted on the frivolous challenge.
Now that Blaska is running for the MMSD School Board, he sees a problem when the district does not punish "those kids" to the fullest extent of the law - and beyond.
As he says, one of the problems he wants to solve is: If they can’t keep order at a school board meeting, imagine the chaos in the classroom! Yet Blaska fails to mention that there is chaos at School Board meetings because he creates the chaos.
Blaska is not in the race for betterment of the district, the kids, or the taxpayers. David Blaska is in the race to make his name as a charter school hero, so he will create a circus to make sure people are paying attention.
As he puts in his latest blog:
4. Name three things you believe the MMSD needs to improve.
Classroom Discipline. Return control of the classrooms to teachers. More charters (call it “one thousand points of light”) One size does not fit all. Lose the fixation on identity politics.
More charters, equals less money for MMSD and the kids who desperately need it.
PS: David after fully supporting ACT10, David likes to say things like:
Trust teachers to control their classrooms. They are the captains of their ship.
Because good teachers are quitting in frustration. Teachers with high expectations for their students, who do not make excuses, ought to be honored — not vilified.
PSS: In Dave's latest blog, where he supposedly answers questions from Madison's Teachers Union, he answers with an outright falsehood:
Because reformers like Mike McCabe — a former spokesman for MMSD! — are applying to Scott Walker’s Office of Educational Opportunity for charter schools instead of to MMSD.
After checking with Mr. McCabe, He says:
I haven't applied to any Office of Educational Opportunity or anything else related to charter schools.
Why Mr. Blaska would need to make up things like this is beyond me. I do know for certain that for the good of the children in Madison, please vote for anyone else!
Scott Walker is desperate and informed. The numbers are in and public education is going to be the determining factor in the gubernatorial race this year.
Walker also knows that if that is the case he is sunk, which is why he is desperately trying to rewrite history and change the narrative! He has even taken to trying to give himself a nickname - The Education Governor.
Setting aside the fact that only porn stars and four year olds give themselves their own nicknames, Walker (the fiscal conservative with money to burn) has just produced his third ad "proving" he is the education Governor.
The first Walker education ad features Anita D'Abbraccio, a special education teacher in the Racine Unified School District. D'Abbraccio praises Walker for giving schools "flexibility to put money where it matters most, in our classroom." The flexibility D'Abbraccio references is Walker's signature Act 10 legislation, which eliminated most public employees' collective bargaining rights and required them to pay more into their pensions and health insurance premiums.
Act 10 was not an education bill it was a political retribution bill. It was designed with one purpose in mind - to cut off the legs of one of the strongest groups who oppose Scott Walker - the public employee unions. By virtually eliminating teachers unions, it kept an organizing and money backer of his opponent toothless.
Conversely, by undermining teachers unions, it made schools less safe, the teaching profession less professional and greatly affected our children's ability to learn.
A second education-focused ad focuses on a bill Walker signed into law in March increasing sparsity aid for small, rural schools. That legislation also allows districts that spend less than most others to raise their revenue limits without a vote from local property taxpayers. Similar provisions were added to the 2017-19 budget by lawmakers but vetoed by Walker. He then offered his support for the measures as separate legislation.
The budget Walker signed into law in September 2017 included a $639 million funding boost to K-12 schools.
The ad features Jeanie Hatfield, a recently retired elementary school teacher also from Racine, praising Walker for putting "more resources in the classroom this year."
Hatfield, who spent about 30 years working in public schools before retiring and starting a business, said in an interview that she was pleased with Walker's $200-per-student funding boost in this year's budget, followed by a $204-per-student increase next year.
Have to love this one. Scott Walker is campaigning on allowing smaller school districts, the ability to raise taxes without taxpayer approval because, because he has so dramatically cut their aid that they are seriously struggling.
Yes, in his last budget, Scott walker allocated $639 million extra dollars towards education(but gave voucher schools more than their fair share) and likes to tout that as an accomplishment. Prior to this budget. he has cut public education over a Billion and a half dollars, more then any Governor in our history. His new "investment" is an attempt that has fallen short of righting a wrong.
I would also like to point out, that when trying to find someone to advocate for his "sparsity aid" to rural schools, found someone from Racine (the fifth largest city in WI) who is no longer a teacher.
Latest ad:
From @scottwalker tweet:
Scott Walker
Verified account
@ScottWalker
Check out our new ad! It talks about how we’re supporting Fab Labs in public schools so our smaller communities, like Three Lakes, can keep more of their graduates close to home
THREE LAKES (WAOW) -
The Three Lakes School district will stay open, after voters passed a nearly $15 million referendum Tuesday night.
750 people voted in favor of the referendum, while 294 votes opposed it.
The money will be divided over the next five years and will be used for operating costs to keep the school running.
Nothing like begging for money to keep the doors open of your local public school. Scott Walker forgot to brag about that part in his campaign ad.
The logical next step for the folks in Fitswalkerstan is to assign their sycophants and Walker Go-fers to give him coordinated back up.
Christian Schneider is of course the first one to answer the call(forgive me Father, for clicking on Schneiders garble):
Walker, on the other hand, has challenged the narrow meaning of the word “education.” During the Act 10 debate, he argued mere spending increases didn’t do kids any good if they were primarily used to prop up lavish health and pension benefits for public school teachers. His reforms both poured more money into classrooms and allowed school districts more flexibility in hiring younger, more dynamic teachers. No longer are districts hamstrung by turgid union rules meant to benefit the teaching establishment over kids.
Christian is of course, all foam and no beer.
We have covered the ridiculousness of anyone thinking ACT10 was about education reform. It did not "pour more money" into classrooms, nor did it give districts more flexibility in "hiring younger, more dynamic teachers".
Time out.
What the hell does that even mean? I know Schneider is an untouchable at the "dead tree", because of the Bradley Foundation money they so desperately need, but could someone at least fact check him once in a while? Does he think that School districts were unable to hire younger teachers before? Or maybe he thinks because of the union that districts could only hire younger teachers who were not dynamic? Possibly he believes that at a certain point the elder teachers are no longer capable of teaching(however ACT10 did not eliminate complete age discrimination, maybe they can go after that next). Now you see why Schneider is 24 cents short of a quarter.
I digress....back to the story -
The common misperception amongst the group thinker, coffee getters of the right, is that unions only benefit the teaching establishment over the kids. Schneider has probably not stepped foot in a public school in this century, and likes to make sure that facts and research are taboo in his writing should know that google is his friend.
In Seattle earlier in the year, the teachers went on strike and eventually settled on the following:
• Recess: Guaranteed 30 minutes of recess for all elementary students.
• Reasonable testing: New policies to reduce the over-testing of our students.
• Professional pay: Base salary increases of 3 percent, 2 percent and 4.5 percent, plus the state COLA of 4.8 percent
• Fair teacher and staff evaluations: Test scores will no longer be tied to teacher evaluations, plus there is new contract language that supports teachers' professional growth.
• Educator workload relief: Additional staff to reduce workloads and provide student services.
• Student equity around discipline and the opportunity gap: Creating race and equity teams at 30 of the district’s schools.
• The administration’s proposal to lengthen the school day: Teachers will be compensated for additional work.
Teachers striking for more less testing, more recess and equity. Last I saw it was the kids who benefited greatly from those concessions.
Now on to my good friends at MacIver. The ability to make Scott Walker an education Governor was a bridge to far for the regulars so the intern got handed that job.
Facing falling revenues,Onthe heels of the Bush Great Recession, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle’s 2009 budget hiked state taxes by $2 billion, property taxes by $1.5 billion, and cut state aids to K-12 education by $284 million. It’s interesting how often those on the left turn straight to Walker’s very first budget(Which cut education close to $1.6 Billion(PS: FYI Ola - 1.6 billion is much more than 284 million), ignoring what had happened just two years prior. Facing a manufactured crisis, Walker cuttook a machete to state funding to schools – while also giving them the tools forcing districts to dramatically cut teachers already low salaries,to make up the lost aid, including opening up healthcare plans to new bidding. Selective memory is a funny thing. Bullshit Propaganda is not that funny.
But wait there is more!
To mainstream Democrats, Act 10 has been a political pariah that very inconveniently helped out school budgets.
Yes it has helped out school budgets so greatly that almost every district in Wisconsin, has had to go to an operating referendum in the last few years to keep the lights on and the doors open.
I would suggest that Ola follow her owna advice and check out a school budget. If she had an editor maybe he/she could have pointed out the blatant hypocrisy of her final points.
The first was that thanks to Scott Walker, graduation rates are up in Wisconsin(all hail Hydra I mean Scott Walker) but in Milwaukee they are falling tremendously(not his fault).
The next is, thanks to Scott Walker, everyone is taking the same test (ACT). Now if we could only get the voucher schools to bring their test scores up to where the public schools are, then maybe Ola will actually luck into a point.
A failed referendum at Delavan-Darien schools has the district cutting 20 percent of its teaching staff.On Wednesday, the district told TODAY’S TMJ4 it is cutting several other positions district-wide to balance the budget...The district plans to cut 39 teachers, an undetermined number of non-teaching staff and close Darien Elementary at the end of the school year.
The tools that Scott Walker gave his home town schools, was a wrecking ball!
The reality is, according to the facts on the ground, state school funding has steadily declined under Scott Walker, and not just for teacher salaries but safety, security and special needs.
How can a rural school meet critical needs when money for schools is less than adequate?
“A school board member went door-to-door asking for support,” Birchwood Superintendent Diane Johnson said to members of the Blue Ribbon Commission on School Funding. “He raised $3,000 to get the front doors locked.” The money raised was for purchase of a long-needed intercom system at the front door. “The doors were not locked during the day until this month,” Dr. Johnson told Commission members in May.
Dr. Johnson went on to say next would come an effort to buy key fobs for the staff and re-key the doors. The school didn’t lock the doors or change the locks for over 50 years. With a population of less than 500 in Birchwood, “everyone has a key to the school.”
School funding is not adequate for students in many communities across our state. Mounting mental health and school safety issues are just some of the problems facing superintendents, school boards and bookkeepers like Birchwood’s Bonita Basty.
Ten percent of Birchwood’s tight school budget must be transferred to cover required costs for students with special needs, Ms. Basty explained. In addition, the small district is depleting its reserve funds to cover increasing costs for students with special needs.
For the sake of our children, and the future of our State...In November show up to vote and make sure that we show that we are educated enough to know that Scott Walker is as far from the "Education Governor"as Donald Trump is to a model husband!
By Jeff Simpson We recently went through a time where The Donald ever so slightly, walked up to the edge of calling for the assassination of Hillary Clinton but once he showed his cards, he stopped because he got his message across.
Poaching teachers? After the way they disgraced themselves protesting I suppose it was inevitable but honestly I didn't even know there was a season on 'em. Is there a bag limit? Is it gun only or bow too? Can we still bait 'em with Walker signs? It worked in Jefferson.
As far as I know crossbows are legal for deer and the teachers aren't near as dear as deer. I'm not sure about the black powder though. Not that there would be an issue with muzzle loaders or in-lines but I'm not sure we can refer to it as "black" powder any more.
Giving this season more thought it occurs to me that bore spears would be appropriate.
This was such a good discussion on the article of shooting teachers in WI that it is still up on the Watchdog.org website. I guess that Watchdog.org, considers the duties of their "education reporter" to include calling for the assassination of elected officials who they disagree with.
Watchdog.org’s mission is to restore oversight of our state governments, to hold politicians and bureaucrats at all levels accountable for their handling of taxpayers’ dollars and to promote innovative solutions to public policy challenges.
I am guessing there will be no retraction, apology or firing of Mr. Wigderson, throwing the accountability part of their mission right out the door. Secondly its not an innovative solution to how to get rid of a Democratic elected official they can not beat at the ballot box, because we saw The Donald beat him to that idea!
While those are just a few of the examples of Wiggy sitting on his holier than thou wacko throne, while collecting wing nut welfare* and acting superior to everyone in the liberal bastion of Dane County.
The Madison Metropolitan School District moved closer this week to making its employees, including teachers, contribute to the cost of their health insurance plans for the first time. At the same time, officials are contemplating ways to pay staff more so they won’t feel the change.
Until now, Madison school officials have resisted using the authority granted to them under Act 10 to change public employee benefits without going through collective bargaining.
In typical fashion, it only takes Wiggy one sentence to get his facts wrong(and it goes downhill from there). Currently the members of MTI pay $20 per medical visit and considerably more for an emergency room trip. I know this because my family is insured through MMSD and we have racked up well over $500 so far this year in $20 visits. So to say that we do not "contribute to the cost of health insurance" is blatantly not true. Those pesky facts keep being Jimmy's biggest obstacle.
Anyway let's look a little deeper into his blog. Wiggles points out that:
Nationally, employees who receive health care coverage through their employer pay an average 18 percent of the health insurance premium cost for single coverage and 29 percent for family coverage, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey. In Wisconsin, the average employee contributionfor single coverage is 21 percent and 22 percent for family coverage.
However the UW-Milwaukee grad in International relations, has obviously never taken an economics class in his career, because he fails to point out that the pay gap between private and public sector workers is anywhere from 12-35%. A quick check using math, says that if you are making 35% less to begin with and then have to pay the exact same for needlessly rising costs of health care, that is a considerably higher percentage for the public worker.
But wait there is more, there is always more.
Meanwhile the democratically elected Madison School Board is debating how they can possibly cover the massive cuts to education that Scott Walker and GOP legislators have slashed well over 1 billion dollars from public education AND then expanded the voucher school system (sucking more dollars from Public education). As part of that solution, they are being forced to make the employees pay for their ever increasing health care benefits. Many on the board understand that the teachers have been the punching bag in WI politics lately and trying to also figure out a way to make them whole.
Brett Healy, president of the John K. MacIver Institute for Public Policy, a Madison-based free-market think tank, called nonsense on Loumos and the entire debate.
“I hope state legislators recognize what a fraud this is,” he said in an interview with Wisconsin Watchdog. “And when the Madison school district goes to the Capitol next year, hopefully the legislators will remember the budget shenanigans that are going on right now and stand up for local taxpayers. The Madison school district does not have a revenue problem. The Madison school district has a spending problem.”
Exhibit A? Even as the board finally gets around to making district employees contribute toward their health care premiums, Healy said, they simultaneously try to figure out how to “give the employees big enough raises to fully cover their benefit contributions.”
“Madison taxpayers should be outraged that the Madison school board is playing these sort of reckless fiscal games,” Healy said.
Mr. Healy, who makes well over $130,000/ yr with Cadillac benefits, in his fake think tank job, while the average teachers pay in Wisconsin is a little over a third of his salary, is outraged that the democratically elected school board does not want to force a pay cut on its valued staff.
If there is a better example of the blind leading the blind than a conversation between Wigderson and Healy, I have yet to see it. It gets worse. Healy, never learned the old axiom of it is better to be quiet and thought a fool then to speak and leave no doubt.
“Act 10 has been an unmitigated success throughout the state of Wisconsin, everywhere except the Madison school board,” Healy said. “Statewide taxpayers have seen over $5 billion in savings thanks to Act 10 and it’s time the Madison school board join everyone else in utilizing these tools in realizing some taxpayer relief.”
While I do not expect these two to understand the realities of the Wisconsin economy, as they sit on their ivory throne in Waukesha. As Upton Sinclair pointed out, they are just being good employees.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
Here are the things your friends can do at work:
1. Pee
2. Get coffee
3. Spend fifteen minutes chatting leisurely with a colleague
4. Go out to lunch
5. Complete paperwork and other job-related tasks during the actual work day
6. Sit down occasionally
Besides the work place demands that most others do not have, teachers have incredibly low pay for the hours they work and the responsibility they have. Some stats:
I know Governor Divide and Conquer likes to complain about teachers work habits, It works great when speaking to the less intelligent Sykes crowd, but the reality is it is forcing not only people out of the profession but also is keeping our best and brightest students running away from the profession.
For college graduates who have other options, this kind of pressure, for such low pay, doesn’t make much sense. So every year 20 percent of teachers in urban districts quit. Nationwide, 46 percent of teachers quit before their fifth year. The turnover costs the United States $7.34 billion yearly. The effect within schools — especially those in urban communities where turnover is highest — is devastating.
With teachers leaving the profession in droves, colleges turning out less teachers every year, even the Wiggy Wizards from Waukesha should be able to see that we are heading for trouble.
It is sad when someone is given a forum and abuses it so badly just for political purposes. It is even worse that anyone would consider these two reliable and credible sources.
The reality is they should worry about their own backyard before they continue trying to legislate for everyone else. It is hard to take someone serious about how Government should run, when they can barely drink their own water.
* Wing nut welfare: Is when people that would be otherwise unemployable, keeps getting moved from one right wing loony "think tank" to another and get paid to push propaganda bu their bosses. They switch them back and forth amongst these dark money Grebe/Bradley organizations to make it seem like they have relevant and knowledgeable experience(Pssst - they do not).
Exclusive picture of Jimmy Wigderson, from Facebook public profile, at a fact finding briefing.
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