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! 

Rick Esenberg - Man of the People

By Jeff Simpson

Rick Esenberg, using the Purple Wisconsin forum, recently wrote about the "lack of candor" of certain people who were fighting the recent wage theft bill that the Republicans in Wisconsin quickly rammed through the legislature.

However, Mr. Esenberg had the unmitigated gall to write the following:

But no one paid me to be there either and I am a public interest lawyer and legal scholar who goes where the evidence leads me. I truly believe that and try to conduct myself accordingly.

Seriously Mr. Esenberg wrote that.  Apparently legal ethics does not transfer over to statewide blogs.

Lets break this down.

*  But no one paid me to be there either

That is actually flat our lie.  As "executive director" of W.I.L.L., which is amazingly classified as a "non-profit", Mr. Esenberg makes a minimum of $210,000/yr.  For those scoring at home, that is more than four average teachers salaries combined.  

Let's also not forget who is paying this exorbitant - Michael Grebe.  Scott Walker's campaign manager is also the man funder of W.I.L.L. (Mr. Esenberg refuses to reveal other funders).  Does anyone really think that Mr. Walker's campaign manager did not want his well funded political gopher groups there at the forefront of the battle to pass the Diane Hendricks bill?  

 *  I am a public interest lawyer and legal scholar who goes where the evidence leads me.

Mr. Esenberg recently sued the Kenosha School district using new union boss Kristy laCroix as a prop.   Thanks to Ms. LaCroix's step father, he was voted a huge settlement of public education tax dollars to be split between himself and Ms. LaCroix.  

Feeling empowered, and well funded by Mr. Grebe, he also grabbed a new tool - David Blaska, and sued the Madison Metropolitan School District because they actually sat down at the table and negotiated with the Madison Teachers to agree on a new contract(while ACT10 was stayed).   

They were incensed that MTI was able to negotiate a .025% raise for its members.  Yes you read that right .025%.  After two years of wage freeze, now teachers in madison will be getting about a $60 salary increase for the year.   

Apparently, the "evidence led" to Mr. $210,000 yearly non profit director. who lives in Milwaukee to find that unacceptable in Madison.    

Mr. Public Interest lawyer, felt it was in the public's interest to force MMSD into court where they will spend a needless few thousand dollars, and win in the end.   

*  I truly believe that and try to conduct myself accordingly.

If that what it takes you to tell yourself to sleep at night, so be it.  However we have show that you have a high propensity to mislead if not flat out lie.


It amazes me that David Haynes would allow such misleading and dishonest tripe in his newspaper.



 

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.  
 

Look to Missouri Media for Sanity?

By Jeff Simpson

EVERYONE knows what has happened in Wisconsin, under ACT 10  Public employee unions lost their ability to bargain and were forced to take a pretty significant pay cut(among other things). This was all done in the name of "balancing the budget".   Our local media jumped right on the bandwagon, with the Wisconsin State Journal writing this on February 18, 2011(upset at the teachers for taking part in democracy):

So many Madison teachers called in “sick” for work that school officials canceled classes for a third straight day Friday. That irresponsible action has forced thousands of parents to scramble to find child care or miss work themselves.
The sick-outs this week spread to a slew of additional school districts across Dane County and other parts of the state, with some teachers joining union-backed demonstrations at the state Capitol in Madison.
We don’t begrudge the teachers for speaking up and getting involved in government decisions that affect them. We understand their opposition to Gov. Scott Walker’s plans to scale back their collective bargaining rights and benefits.
But the school day ends around 3:30 p.m. That leaves teachers in Madison and surrounding communities plenty of time after work to drive Downtown if they wish to have their say at the Capitol.
Senate Democrats skipped town Thursday to avoid and delay a vote on Walker’s budget plan. That was irresponsible, too.
But schoolteachers are closer to our kids, making the impact of their bad behavior on families and education immediate. They shouldn’t walk out on their students and community. Their absence is hurting their cause.

Apparently the public employees should have taken what was given them by the Government since they were the cause of our states deficit.  Just ask Scott Walker:

  Collective Bargaining: Given the above changes, the bill also makes various changes to limit collective bargaining to the base pay rate. Total increases cannot exceed the Consumer Price Index (CPI) unless approved by a referendum. Contracts will be limited to one year and wages will be frozen until the new contract is settled. Collective bargaining units will have to take annual votes to maintain certification as a union. Employers will be prohibited from collecting union dues and members of collective bargaining units will not be required to pay dues. These changes take effect upon the expiration of existing contracts.  Local police and fire employees and State Patrol Troopers and Inspectors are exempted from these changes.

Most logical thinking Wisconsinites know that the public employees, who perform such a valuable service, were not the cause of any structural deficit.   Unfortunately we did not have anyone else to make that case with our local corporate media very much in favor of breaking the unions!  

Who knew however that you could look to Missouri for sanity?  The St. Louis Post Dispatch is on the the ALEC agenda and calls out the politicians for it! 

For those of you wondering who could possibly be blamed for the moribund economy all of us in Missouri and the nation suffered through in recent years, worry not.
The Missouri Senate has found the culprit. It’s public employees.
It’s those absurdly high-paid teachers, nurses, janitors, secretaries, pothole fixers and home health care workers.
Early Tuesday morning, while some of those workers were helping roll over your grandma or grandpa at the nursing home so they didn’t get bed sores, the Republicans who lead the state Senate set things right. They gave initial approval to a bill that will make it a little harder for the unions that represent those public employees to collect fees that might be used to elect thoughtful people to elected office.
Take that.
It’s not like those unions have been very successful. Missouri state workers are the lowest paid in the nation. Union membership has been declining. The candidates the unions generally oppose, Republicans, hold overwhelming majorities in both the House and the Senate.
But because union-bashing has become a big-money deal on the national scene (thanks to Wisconsin and Michigan), the lemmings in the Missouri Senate don’t want to be left behind. They’re doing the bidding of their corporate overlords in the American Legislative Exchange Council, which promotes cookie-cutter legislation written by corporate lawyers to enhance their bottom lines.
So, for those of you keeping score at home, this is what the Senate did (so far) in one of the key legislative weeks, the last before spring break, sending a signal to all where its priorities lie:

• It raised taxes on poor people.
• It cut taxes for rich people.
• It hurt teachers, nurses and other public employees.

And the week is not yet over.
What makes the debate over Senate Bill 29 such a farce is that its sponsor, Sen. Dan Brown, R-Rolla, couldn’t even properly explain the bill or its rationale when challenged on the Senate floor by Sen. Scott Sifton, D-Affton, during several hours of debate Monday and Tuesday.
Known colloquially as “Doc” Brown, the Republican senator and veterinarian was merely the stooge chosen by deep-pocketed donors to advance their agenda at the expense of the little people. We’re sure he’s kinder to animals.
Mr. Brown, along with other supporters of the union-bashing bill, including Speaker of the House Tim Jones, R-Eureka, have the gall to suggest all they are doing is protecting the freedom of workers.

THEN they pointed out the elephant in the room that I have never seen in print in WI!

Mr. Brown and his so-called small government allies actually want to make government bigger, by prescribing in explicit detail, down to the font size, new paperwork that must be enacted by governments to suppress union political power.

Yes ACT 10 is BIGGER government on a grand scale brought to you by the "small governemnt" loving republican party.   Finally, Missouri did the exact same thing as WI and the Post Dispatch also did something that has never been in print in WI, before.  Explained EXACTLY why first responders were excluded from the republicans union busting(emphasis mine)!

The proof to the deception of SB 29 comes in its last section, which exempts police and firefighter unions from its provisions. During the debate Monday night, Mr. Sifton pressed Mr. Brown on why, if the bill was really about helping workers, didn’t the same “freedoms” need to be applied to police officers and firefighters?
Mr. Brown had no answer to that question. Mr. Sifton’s thoughtful questions eventually became too much for Mr. Brown, who sat down and refused to engage in a discussion that involved anything other than the talking points he had been provided by his funders.
The reason “first responder” unions are exempted, of course, is because they have effective lobbies and their membership is more likely to vote Republican. That very exemption proves that SB29 is nothing but another partisan wedge, introduced to seek maximum political damage on a group of people who, at an average salary of $36,985, are the lowest paid state workers in the country.

Then they wrapped it up very nicely, in a breath of logical fresh air that is missing in Wisconsin and America, and a huge part of the reason why we are in this mess in the first place(a corporate kowtow media)! 

Senate Republicans should have more pride than this. If they want to blame working people for the state’s economic problems, while banks and corporations sit on record profits, good luck with that argument. But have the courage to tell the truth.

AMEN!   

SKW IS AWOL

Everyone in Wisconsin remembers the protests of 2011. Scott Walker introduced his bill ending collective bargaining rights for public employees, which led to massive protests for weeks in Madison and throughout the state.

The Protests in Madison, at the Capitol were really sparked by MTI mobilizing quickly and other teachers throughout the state then joining in.   In order to be at the Capitol to protest though, that meant that the teachers had to call in sick.  

BOY did that piss off the righties.   All over the state they made sure that teachers were punished for calling in sick to protest.  From right wing leaning school boards, to the crazy righty "press", their main mission was punishing anyone who dared to speak up.   Apparently, no one on the right has ever called in to work sick, when they actually were not sick, to do something other than work.  As this video of a gathering of 100% democrats clearly shows! 

Not to be out crazied by Maciver or out rightied by anyone in the state, the Wisconsin State Journal spent almost a year trying to get personal health care records of the Madison Teachers.   Unfortunately, after a ruling by Judge Colas(remember him), they had to turn over personal medical records and pay $25,000 of taxpayer money so the WSJ to see that the teachers called in sick to protest(which you would have known by spending a day inside the Capitol).  State Journal Editor John Smalley pretended that he was doing the public a service here:

The State Journal filed the lawsuit in June after the district refused a request for the notes, and a revised request for the notes with teachers' names removed.

Smalley said that until the notes are evaluated it remains unknown what story, if any, will be written, but it's part of the newspaper's responsibility as a watchdog to examine government actions and hold officials accountable.

"When school gets shut down for four days, that's a big story," Smalley said.

Yet while the WSJ was wasting their resources attacking the teachers, they were getting scooped on big stories, ignoring people who they agreed with, when they called in sick, and completely ignored the biggest story of them all.   

MADISON – Gov. Scott Walker took 54 personal days, not including weekends, through the first 10 months of 2012, a Wisconsin Reporter analysis shows.

Walker, who earns $144,423 a year plus benefits as governor, has raised record amounts of campaign money in his first two years in office.

And the Wisconsin Reporter review indicates that much of his “personal” time was spent out of state on fundraising or campaign-style trips.

“Governor Walker’s not the first governor to keep up a very ambitious political travel schedule, but I have to say he’s taken it to a level we haven’t seen before,” said Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which tracks election-related spending.

But Wait ....There's more.  It turns out Wisconsin reporter is actually being generous!

In determining that Walker had taken 54 personal days through the end of October, Wisconsin Reporter included any day in which the governor worked less than 90 minutes on official state business but marked the rest of the day as “personal.”

For example, several days were marked “personal” except for an early morning staff call.

But not included as a personal day was any day in which the governor worked more than 90 minutes.
That excludes, therefore, multiple days when Walker may have worked as little as two hours on official business, or days when he worked only a half-day.

 So he took off even more time than that!  Well since Scott Walker promised to be the most transparent administration ever,  the explanation for his lack of work ethic should be an easy one right?  

The governor’s calendar gives no details on what Walker does during his “personal” time, and his staff has been mum on the issue.

But comparing his schedule to other information sources, it’s clear that much of Walker’s personal time is spent on more than hanging out at his Wauwatosa home with his wife and sons.

The Sunlight Foundation, for instance, compiles information on political events and invitations on its politicalpartytime.org website.

According to the website, Walker hosted a “Romney Victory Inc.” event on July 11 in Washington, DC.
Walker’s calendar shows he had off July 9-12, except for a few phone calls before the National Governors Association meeting July 13-15 in Williamsburg, Va.

Walker also had “personal” time scheduled at the same time as a June 30 event, called a “reception with Paul Ryan and Scott Walker” at the Lake Geneva home of Vincent and Patricia Kolber.

He attended an event sponsored by the conservative Faith & Freedom Coalition during the Republican National Convention in August in Tampa, Fla., a YouTube interview shows.

And Walker took a personal day also on April 17, the same day he was in St. Louis at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting, accepting the Harlon B. Carter Award.

Walker also has been criticized for detailing his policy plans outside of Wisconsin, before sharing his goals before people back home, including remarks he made following a speech Nov. 16 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library in California.

OOPS.  The difference between Scott Walker taking a personal day and our teachers taking a personal day?  Scott Walker still gets paid!  Now we hold our teachers to  higher standard than our Governor?  I guess lead by example is a thing of the past.  Now we have even redefined "conservatism" to mean get paid lots of taxpayer dollars to campaign!  

 

Quote of the Week

From Lester Pines, attorney for MTI regarding the recent ruling:

"I can’t predict what any court is going to do with any of the things that may theoretically be done by the state," Pines said. "All I can predict is that anytime Governor Walker gets a negative ruling from any of the courts he’s going to cry like a baby and whine and say they’re politically biased."

Pines was referring to Walker’s statement on Friday calling Colas a "liberal activist judge" who wants to take the state backwards.

On Saturday, Pines said Walker "seems to have forgotten that there really are three branches of government" and challenged him to stop attacking the judiciary when he gets a decision he doesn’t like.

'Nuff Said!