Blaska For Imperiled Schools

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.

Yet everything ACT10 was designed to do, and all of the many hours Dave has spent on hate talk radio decrying the teachers unions as the downfall of society and now he wants to recognize teachers as leaders?

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! 




Cross Posted! 

Mr. Esenberg, I Have My Facts Straight!

By Jeff Simpson

Recently, on Purple WI, I called out Mr. Esenberg and his right wing organization, Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty(WILL), for filing a  frivolous lawsuit against the Madison Metropolitan School District and the good people of Dane County.  

After a personal insult, Mr. Esenberg took exception to shining the light on his organization and motivations.   Mr. Esenberg called me out on what he felt were some inaccuracies in my story.   I am not one that likes inaccuracies, so I appreciate the attempt to clear up anything that might not be correct.  Unfortunately Mr. Esenberg failed a few times.

Let's shine a light a little bit brighter:

1.     Getting attacked by lefties is not bad for business when you run a conservative/libertarian non-profit and, in any event, everyone should be willing to face criticism. 

First off Mr. E, maybe we should start off with the definition of libertarian.  

Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and freedom of choice, emphasizing political freedom, voluntary association and the primacy of individual judgment.

I am not sure where suing a duly elected school board that you have absolutely no connection to, fits into your libertarianism but politics in Wisconsin have been bizarro world lately anyway.

I also did not know that you were a "non-profit", so I did some checking.  Bradley Foundation has given you at least $1,750,000, and by your admission of 35% that puts your operating budget north of $3,000,000.   Which puts you approximately 3 times more of an operating budget than our local Domestic Abuse Intervention Services(DAIS) in Dane County.  

An even closer look shows me that you made approximately $210,000from WILL alone.  To stay with our theme, the Executive Director of DAIS makes less than $64,000/yr.  Also as an aside, average teacher salary in Wisconsin is approximately $52,000/yr. 

As the great Maya Angelou used to say - "When people show you who they are, believe them!"   Its interesting with so many charities and non-profits struggling in WI, the Bradley Foundation makes sure this one does not. 

As for Michael Grebe telling you what to do, doesn't he do that when he donates such massive amounts of money?  While $1,750,000 might not be a vast amount of money to you, it is to much of the rest of Wisconsin.   As Upton Sinclair so keenly observed "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.".






2.   A quick look at the facts,  you were not going to settle until the board changed.  Americans for Prosperity, came in and helped two new right wing board members get elected to the board.    Once they were in they quickly settled with you in a 4-3 vote.   One of those votes, arguably the deciding vote, was cast by the plaintiffs step father.   Those are facts, NOT opinions.  

3.  You need to take up your wording issues with the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Patrick Marley and the Journal Sentinel:

 The state Court of Appeals on Tuesday kept in place - at least for now - a lower court's ruling striking down parts of Gov. Scott Walker's union law as unconstitutional. 

I did not go to law school, but I think I know what striking down parts as unconstitutional means.  

4.    Now you are really out of your league, when touting the "wonders" of ACT 10.  

           *   one of the things that we like about Act 10 is that it permits school districts to treat teachers like professionals
 
         -  You are treating them like professionals by NOT allowing them a seat at the table?

           *   It allows them to use bonuses and merit pay to reward good teachers.

         -    Merit pay has proven to be a massive failure in many aspects of business and it absolutely does not and can not work in a school setting.   Would love to hear how you think it would.    How exactly will we decide who gets the merit pay?    Details please! 

           *  It is the provisions for health insurance and pension contributions - both of which cost taxpayers quite a bit of money. It is the negotiation of work rules that protect non-performers and impede flexibility. It is the coerced "agency fee" payments - exacted from teachers who do not wish to financially support the union.  

           -   UGGG!!!  Where to even begin here.   Madison Teachers already contribute 7% of their wages to their pension.   Which to many teachers meant a solid $5-600 month pay cut.    Madison Schools have the ability, via Collective Bargaining to charge employees yup to 10% of the premium of their health insurance but to date have chosen not to. 

               MTI and MMSD collectively bargained during the last four years a total of 1.75%.   The last four years have brought us a Cost of Living increase of 8.33%.  For those scoring at home, that means the members of MTI, under the Walker administration, have taken a 6.58% base salary pay cut(not including health care/pensions).     Thank you for all you do. 

              As for your other baseless claims, schools have always had the ability to get rid of non-performers, you just needed to document it and have just cause.  Now Schools can get rid of anyone for anything.   The only people who we have a hard time getting rid of for non-performance is politicians!  

            The "agency fee" claim is also ridiculous.  If you are having a hard time with the union, you have two options, run for union representative, or get 50%+1 signatures on a card to end the union and its ended immediately.   Unions are democracy in the workplace and you can get active or end it if you get enough people to join you.  If not then you have to pay for the benefits they give you.  

But Wait there's more:

                *   If I want my school district to cut taxes, fire incompetent teachers or teach the classics and improve STEM education,   

                -     Ummm, Mr.  E.  We live in a Constitutionally Limited Democratic Republic, we elect representatives to "represent us"  in their local areas.    If you want your school district to cut taxes, fire incompetent teachers, teach the classics and improve STEM education, you have two options.   Run for your local school board OR get someone elected who believes in the same thing.   Just a quick aside, you can not do all four of those things at once.     

                 *  Finally, Mr. Simpson says we are "attacking public schools." That would be true only if "public schools" were synonymous with unions and the adults who run the schools. 

                  -   Who do you think comprises the membership of the teacher's union?  Hint - it starts with a "T" and ends with "eachers".   So yes they are synonymous.  

Finally  ----   

                *  Public schools in Wisconsin - and in the US generally - have enjoyed substantial real increases over the past 30-50 years. We spend a lot more on K-12 education than we used to spend and more than just about any other nation on earth. Yet we have not seen corresponding increases in educational attainment or outcomes and we do not compare well with other countries - all of whom seem to do more with less. We don't necessarily want to reduce spending.

                 - I can speak to my district specifically, we have CUT over $5,000,000 from our budget in the last five years.   That means we have not had a "real increase" in as far back as I can remember.  

                -   We do spend more on K-12 Education than just about any nation on earth BUT that is because we are the only industrialized country in the world that does not have a form of universal healthcare.  If you take healthcare out of the equation, and we drop to the mid twenties in terms of spending on our K-12 education.    

                -   We do not want to reduce spending?  Tell that to our Governor who cut spending on education more than anyone else in our history!    I would hate to see what would happen to our public schools if he wanted to reduce spending.  

I could go on but that is enough for now.  

PS:  Mr. Eseneberg, since you asked, what I think about ACT10.  I know it sucked almost $3 BILLION dollars from our economy which has seriously hampered our recovery from the great recession.   Politifact agreed with me.  
 

Stop the Franklin Boondoggle!

No, I'm not talking about Kevin Fischer (this time).

I'm talking about MMSD's and Franklin's plans to grab up more land for a project that only the land developers want.  Full information at Milwaukee County First.

MMSD Is Not Responsible For Raw Spewage Problem

Last week, Milwaukee had a torrential downpour, where over four inches of rain fell in a very short time in many areas in and around the Milwaukee area. The result of this was that the sewage system was overwhelmed and MMSD ended up dumping over 500 million gallons of waste water into Lake Michigan.

Obviously, this is not an ideal situation. No one in their right mind wants to have raw sewage mingling with their drinking water. It also presents a potential problem for people wanting to use the beaches to go swimming, due to the risk of e. coli.

But never one to let pass a chance to make a mountain out of a molehill, Scott Walker's campaign, echoed by all the usual suspects, including the squawking heads of talk radio, jumped on the chance to use this to attack Tom Barrett and/or Democrats in general.

However, their raw spewage is heavy on rhetoric and light on facts or solutions. The fact is that, as bad as this last dump was, it is actually much better than it ever was before.

In a column by Bruce Murphy, of Milwaukee Magazine, written three years ago, he wrote:

The truth is that the Deep Tunnel works as planned and Milwaukee has one of the best sewage treatment systems in the country. Prior to the Deep Tunnel’s construction, Milwaukee spilled 19 times more sewage into the lake than is does now, some 8.5 billion gallons of sewage per year, compared to less than 450 million gallons per year today. Milwaukee went from averaging 60 or more overflows per year to less than two, just as planners had expected. (To reduce the overflow as close as possible to zero would cost another $7 billion, and would still provide no guarantee of total success, which is why community leaders rejected this approach.)

Now, as I mentioned above, 500 gallons of sewage water in the lake is not appealing, but it is a great deal better than 17 times that number, without a torrential rain like the one we just had. It is also better to have that 500 gallons in the lake than in everyone's basement.

Even if one took the complaints of Team Walker and friends at face value, they don't offer any solutions. Probably because there are no real viable ones out there.

As noted by Murphy, to eliminate all overflow, it would cost $7 billion (in 2007 dollars) and even then it might not work.

Another frequent "solution" which I've heard put out there would be to separate the rain and the sewage pipes. Again, this would be a prohibitive cost and is also not guaranteed to help.

Without offering any viable solutions, all the complaints about MMSD dumping into the lake makes them appear to be just whiny, desperate people. Of course, in reality, if Walker was in charge, the odds are that the end result would be higher taxes AND sewage in our basements. What a campaign slogan that would make!

Vote for Walker: I'll raise your taxes and leave crap in your basement!

Sorry, I digressed there for a moment.

Anyway, as I was saying, for Walker to complain about this and not offer any solutions makes him seem even more of an empty suit.

There are two more reasons why it would be smarter for Walker to leave this subject alone.

One, related to this massive rainstorm, the rivers were running so hard and fast that the Menomonee River ripped a gate off. Said gate was meant to keep the river from flowing into the Deep Tunnel. Imagine how much worse it would be if we added all of Waukesha's waste water to our rivers, as Walker would have it, if more responsible leaders hadn't intervened.

Secondly, does Walker want sewage in the lake to be compared to collapsing buildings or the problems at the mental health complex?

Team Walker would be best served to remember that, like monkeys in the zoo, you can't go flinging poo without some of it sticking to you.