The Jensen Deception

BY Jeff Simpson

 In Monona Grove, like many other public school districts in Wisconsin, we have a code of conduct that students have to sign and we expect them to live up to.   In this code of conduct this line is prominent:

Honesty (Students will be trustworthy and truthful, no matter what the consequence.)

 

The Elmbrook School District hasa special policy on Academic Honesty:  

Policy 5131.2 - Academic Honesty
The District regards academic honesty as vital to the academic, social and emotional development of all students. Honest and ethical behavior is an essential component in the learning process. Academic honesty requires that all academic work is the legitimate, truthful effort and product of the student. In contrast, academic dishonesty is an attempt by students to claim and show possession of effort, knowledge and/or skills that are not their own. Academic dishonesty in any form shall not be permitted.
Which brings us to the issue of the day, public education, and the recent November elections.  
We will see an expansion of "school choice" and the head of the "school choice" movement in Wisconsin is formerly convicted felon, Scott Jensen.  Jensen was basically given a "get out of jail free' card from his good friend and fellow Republican, Attorney General elect Brad Schimel.    
After Jensen left in disgrace, he went right to be head lobbyist for American Federation for Children(AFC). AFC is funded by the Walton and DeVos family and their main goal is to privatize our public education.   

AFC's visions is defined as(emphasis mine):

 

The American Federation for Children envisions an education system where parents are empowered to choose the best educational environment for their child, where innovation and entrepreneurism revolutionizes our education system, ensuring all children, especially low-income children, are provided with the opportunity to receive the finest education possible, whether it be in a traditional public school, public charter school, virtual learning, private school, home school or blended learning.

Doesn't there seem to be a disconnect that the organization that just wants parents to be "empowered to choose the best educational environment for their child" hired as its point person someone who has a proven history of not being able to be trusted to help serve the public?  

To make matters worse, they give the ethically challenged Jensen lots of money to buy elections.  As Bill Lueders recently pointed out:

 

School choice proponents, many from out of state, funneled $64,000 directly into candidates’ coffers in 2014, through AFC and another group. (The AFC-affiliated funder, Wisconsin Federation for Children Political Fund, filed its last report Nov. 26, a month late, risking a penalty of up to $500. Its Washington, D.C.-based administrator did not respond to an emailed question about the late filing.)In addition, AFC made independent expenditures of $866,000 to boost or oppose candidates. This adds to the nearly $10 million in state electoral spending by school choice proponents between 2003 and 2012, as tallied by the nonpartisan Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
AFC’s spending in the Nov. 4 elections included $148,000 to help narrowly defeat Democrat Rep. Mandy Wright, a former teacher and school choice critic. It spent $123,000 to help Republican Todd Novak score a razor-thin win over Democrat Dick Cates. And it poured $240,000 into GOP choice proponent Howard Marklein’s successful bid for an open Senate seat.**
** To put things in perspective, while they are spending tens of millions of dollars on elections, our annual budget(approximately 3200 kids, 250 staff, six buildings is $32 Million).   Also average teacher pay in WI is approaximately $47,000/yr, while Scott Jensen makes a over $200,000/yr.   

 When you give Scott Jensen that kind of money to play with, he uses it just as you would expect!    

 

Yet, in its electioneering, AFC commonly doesn’t even mention school choice. It attacked Wright for allegedly using sick leave to attend a protest, which she insists is not true. It went after Cates for his vote on the local school board concerning the Pledge of Allegiance. And it ripped Democratic Rep. Gordon Hintz for threatening a female colleague and being cited in a massage parlor sting operation, both in 2011.

 

Now let's sum it all up, we have a disgraced former elected rep, who is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in small time races, to attack certain candidates disgracefully and dishonestly, late in the game, about every issue BUT school choice, and then AFC wins by razor thin margins.   Then Mr. Jensen declares:

 

Jensen is proud of these victories, which he says give it “a school choice majority in both houses.” He attributes this success to public support for school choice.

 

How Jensen sleeps at night is something he will have to answer, but why we continually reward this behavior in our political system is something that we have to take a long look at.  

 

Mr. Jensens behaviors, if he were a student in our district, would result in probably suspension and possible explusion(depending on the behavior plan we would work out between the principal, his teachers and parents).   

 

Is the person who would not be able to be hired into our schools, the person we want entrusted with millions of public education dollars?   

 

Do you feel safe knowing that YOUR children's future is in Scott Jensen's hands?    

 

Images from public profiles!  

Cross posted at Purple Wisconsin

In Education, Think of the Visible Reality

 By Jeff Simpson cross posted at Purple Wisconsin.

Journal Sentinel Opinion writer, Christian Schneider recently wrote a column expressing concern about the  fact, that there is a concerted effort to bring out the youth vote!   Now Schneider tells us that while society should not be so quick to allow the youth to vote, taxpayers should pay for them to attend any school of their choice.  Schneider even amazingly attempts to make the case for the massive cost savings of children attending voucher schools(whom he calls invisible children).
When one thinks of a public school student, a specific image typically comes to mind. It may be a boy showing up for elementary school wearing his favorite Minecraft T-shirt or a girl proudly adorned in her rainbow loom bracelets(Edit Note - no one thinks either of these things).
But when discussing public school finance, we often don't think about the "invisible kid," the one who isn't sitting in the public school classroom. The "invisible kid" is instead sitting in a classroom at a private school of his or her parent's choosing, with the education paid for with a state-funded voucher.
When teachers unions criticize the choice program, they always forget to mention these invisible students who aren't taking up valuable space and resources in their classrooms. They frequently complain that the school choice program diverts scarce resources away from public schools, but they neglect to mention that if those invisible students became public students, it would cost school districts millions of dollars and substantially drive up property taxes.
I will overlook the eerily similarities of bad math and economic gobbeldygook that the spokesperson for the Walmart funded, poorly named American Federation for Children also published at nearly the same time. 
The debate between plagiarism and subservience can wait for another day.   There are too many factual errors to correct to figure out who actually came up with them.
If these dopelganger articles are anything, they are timely!  As has been reported throughout the state, the voucher schools have taken us for a very big and costly ride. 
MADISON — Wisconsin taxpayers have paid about $139 million to private schools that ended up being barred from the state's voucher system for failing to meet requirements since 2004, according to a newspaper report.
State Department of Public Instruction data shows more than two-thirds of the 50 schools terminated from the state's voucher system in the last 10 years had stayed open for five years or less, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. They were all in Milwaukee.
Eleven schools, paid a total of $4.1 million, were terminated from the voucher program after just one year.
For those of you scoring at home, that is $139,000,000 of Wisconsin taxpayer dollars.
Nothing tells this story better than Lifeskills Academy from Milwaukee!
A husband and wife running a private Milwaukee voucher school that abruptly closed last month — after accepting a total of more than $2.3 million in taxpayer money — now live in a gated community in Florida by the beach, records show.
Records show Taron and Rodney Monroe started a new private Christian school this year in Daytona Beach. While the school in Milwaukee was running on fumes, they were telling Florida friends they had experience getting government grants for religious schools......
The K-8 voucher school in Milwaukee, LifeSkills Academy, 3434 N. 38th St., served only about 400 low-income students since joining the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program in 2008-'09. Its closing around Dec. 13 forced 66 students to find other schools with little notice.
The school's rise and fall illustrate how unstable operations are still a feature of Milwaukee's landmark voucher program as it heads into its 24th year.
While running LifeSkills Academy in Milwaukee, records show, the Monroes were living in a five-bedroom, 3.5-bath house in West Bend.
I challenge you to go ask your local school district's superintendent what they would do if they had an extra $2.3 Million(I promise the answer will not be a gated community in Florida). 
Let's take a look at the numbers Mr. Schneider did not share:
Last school year, there were 108 schools and about 25,000 students participating in the Milwaukee voucher program, and 146 voucher schools total. The state has budgeted about $210 million for all voucher schools for the current school year, compared to around $4.4 billion in general aid for public schools. 

Scott Walker and the republicans raised the amount of people who were eligible for vouchers last year and will be raising that number again.    The problem is, it has proven to be a subsidy for the wealthy and not easily attainable for those living in poverty.  
The statewide voucher program, in its first year, is at capacity, with about 500 students receiving vouchers statewide, according to the department. Of those, 79 percent did not attend a Wisconsin public school last year.
The program’s enrollment limit will rise to 1,000 next year. The statewide program exists in districts outside of Milwaukee and Racine, which have had programs for years.
Seventy-three percent of students now attending private schools using a voucher were already enrolled in a private school last year, according to the department. Twenty-one percent of students were from public schools. About 3 percent did not attend any school and 2 percent were home schooled.
"invisible children" make up 2/10 of the voucher school students added under Scott Walker's voucher school expansion plan.   To save our friends on the right the math, thats 100 students out of the voucher expansion, added to the 426 school districts in Wisconsin.  Which would actually "drive up costs" at a considerably smaller pace than the many unfunded mandates the republican legislature sends us. 
All of this for schools that routinely underperform public schools!
BUT wait!  There's more!
 In order to understand why there is a such a push to "reform" education, we need to dig deep at some more numbers. 
The main group pushing "for profit" education(ie Voucher schools**), is American Federation of Children(AFC) whose leader is disgraced former assembyman Scott Jensen,  and whose name has become so toxic that they had to change it! 
AFC is a combination of money from the DeVos family(Amway) and the Walton family(Walmart) all blended together under the ALEC umbrella.   AFC has spent MILLIONS(plural) of dollars on Wisconsin elections alone and Jensen alone makes $102,734/yr (the cost of two teachers) to just be their "senior advisor"(with a Governor & legisature so woeful at creating jobs, you cant blame him for taking what he can get).
The question many would ask is why would DeVos and Walton families(who do not even live here) spend millions to increase voucher schools in WI?
Do they truly care about the children of the inner cities and poor?
The answer is simply no!  They do not!
The real answer is it is all part of the "Shock Doctrine".  The money is flowing in, to try and make a massive push to privatize all education!
Or to steal a phrase from our past -
"There's Gold In Them Thar Classrooms!" 
Luckily for us, the people trying to steal it are very very visible!