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!

Hold On To Your Wallets!!

Many people have been worried that Scott Walker and the rest of his republican "yes" men in the Senate and Assembly have had the long term goal of dipping into your pension. Tommy Thompson tried and was rebuked. Thanks to keeping the incredibly incompetent Tommy Thompson out of it, Wisconsin's pension system is one of the strongest there is in the country.

 Now Governor Walker's state budget has authorized a study of the Wisconsin Retirement System, and many believe this is the first step toward efforts to undermine the system. One would think this would just be a typical republican waste of taxpayer money, but in reality its the first step in Governor Walker being able to dip into your pension.

 As I have often said the best way to figure out what the republicans are up to is to actually listen and watch them. In a recent "Joy Cardin Show" discussion, a nameless shrill from the extremist right wing group Heritage Foundation, was on arguing that we need to move the Wisconsin Retirement System to a 401(k) system. Luckily, WEAC vice president Betsy Kippers was there to set the record straight(teachers are always teaching).

The Wisconsin Retirement System is financially strong, working well and does not need to be "fixed," WEAC Vice President Betsy Kippers said Thursday on a Wisconsin Public Radio program. “The Wisconsin Retirement System is very strong and healthy because it’s very flexible, it’s complex and it has many checks and balances,” Kippers said.

Kippers was one of two guests on the Joy Cardin morning program, countering arguments made by Jason Richwine of the conservative Heritage Foundation, who argued in favor of coverting the WRS from a pension system to a 401(k) system. Defined benefit pension plans provide delayed compensation with benefits paid out in the form of monthly retirement benefits, or annuities, for life. A defined contribution plan such as a 401(k) shifts the responsibility for investment decisions to the individual, essentially privatizing the system and eliminating guaranteed benefits.

Kippers noted that few people are qualified to successfully manage those 401(k) investments. She said the state retirement system is successful because it is professionally managed and has built-in protections for both annuitants and taxpayers. If the fund does not meet its investment targets, the loss is shared among the 570,000 annuitants, not taxpayers, she said.

Also, she said, state and local employees have sacrificed salary increases for many years in exchange for contributions to the WRS. Kippers said efforts to change the system are part of a national conservative agenda. However, she said, the Wisconsin Retirement System is very strong unlike systems in some other states.

“It’s not broken. It doesn’t need fixing,” she said.

Full show here:

Finally there are other clues that it it does not take Velma Dinkley to pick up on. The first, and most convincing clue, is Scott Walker says he does not want to touch the pensions.

 The second is, almost on cue, the right wing propagandists(and poorly named) Wisconsin Reporter is out with a news hit/propaganda piece pointing out that despite everything you hear, the pension system is not that strong.

The only surprise here is that fantasy writer Christian Schneider has not written a fiction/propaganda piece yet about the imminent collapse of the pension fund. For those of you who think that Scott Walker has no intentions of dipping into your pensions let this serve as a warning.

We have watched Scott Walker way to long, so we understand that only does he want to, he has a plan to do so. He has already fired the first couple shots, sit back and watch and you will see. The biggest weapon he will have though, in accessing your pensiosn,  is a republican assembly and senate in November.

If we give him that, count on a fast track plan to not only drum up a "pensions are in fiscal crisis" crisis, followed shortly after by a plan to reform(and profit immensely from) the plan to save the pensions.

Only YOU can prevent that!