Two Questions For Rick Esenberg

By Jeff Simpson 

The Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) recently became the last district in Wisconsin to switch from a union contract to an employee handbook.

The Madison School Board approved an employee handbook Monday that will replace the current union contract when it expires next summer.
The handbook became necessary due to Act 10, the 2011 state law that eliminated most collective bargaining for most public employees.
Madison took a while to get to this point. The Wisconsin Association of School Boards said it knows of no district other than Madison where workers still are covered by a pre-Act 10 union contract.
When the contract expires June 30, 2016, the handbook’s policies and procedures will guide interactions between the district and its roughly 6,000 employees.
While some school boards used Act 10 to dictate major changes in working conditions, cutting costs in the process, Madison took a different approach. The board instructed administrators to work collaboratively with employee representatives on the handbook’s language.

One of the biggest problems in Wisconsin today, is we weigh experts opinions/ observations equally with non experts opinions. We brought you this recently on the anti cure debilitating disease bills, when reporters would weight a doctorate degreed Professors opinion with Julainne Applings.  

We see that again here, when the reporter went to non education expert Rick Esenberg from Milwaukee to get his opinion on the Madison School Districts workings:

While the board was free to take this approach, it didn’t necessarily serve taxpayers well, said conservative lawyer Rick Esenberg.
“Basically, you can have a more effective school district if you don’t have rigid work rules,” said Esenberg, president of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty.

I have two questions for Mr. Esenberg that I doubt were ever asked or that he would be able to answer:

1.  What items specifically in the MMSD new handbook does not serve the taxpayers of Madison?  

2. Can you give us some examples of "rigid work rules" that stand in the way of a school district being effective?  

It is hard to have a public debate when there are so many column inches being devoted to pure unadulterated ignorance.  

The only way that I see hand books hurting taxpayers, is the fact that you have to have School District Professionals put hundreds of hours into drawing them up, that time could have been used much more effectively elsewhere had ACT 10 not taken away so much local control.

 

"When evil men plot, good men must plan." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 
 

“In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as “right-to-work”. It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights. …Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone. Wherever these laws have passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are few and there are no civil rights” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Lets Begin By Understanding Who They Are

By Jeff Simpson - Cross Posted at Purple Wisconsin

  The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty(WILL), run by fellow Purple WIsconsin blogger Rick Esenberg, recently released a report which unsurprisingly tells us that charter/voucher schools in WI have it rough and are over regulated.  

That the law branch of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation would come up with such findings surprises no one.  WILL is an extremely well funded "non profit" and they have the Bradly Foundation to thank.  It is always good to keep your donors happy, so advancing the agenda of the public school profiteers, is to be expected.   

Let's take a look at who WILL is.   This "study" was put together by three people, Rick Esenberg, CJ Szafir and Martin Lueken. A quick check of credentials and we see that neither Mr. Esenberg, Mr. Szafir nor Mr. Lueken have spent a day working in a public school, nor are they certified or eligible to teach in a public school.   Martin Lueken was a recent hire to the team, courtesy of the private school pushing Walton family.  

In New Wisconsin, working on a Republican campaign is all of the credentials you need to be an expert on any topic.  Not a single education credential went into this report, and future reports to come from WILL,  on voucher/private schools.  

Now that we see who they are, let's take a look at the four main findings they came up with. 

1.  State accountability laws on the school choice programs are at least as rigorous – and probably enforced more aggressively – than anything imposed on public schools. However, unlike public schools, schools in the choice programs must meet their mark or be immediately dropped from the programs, which will cause many schools to close.

We can look in WILL's backyard, to see this is blatantly not true.  As we pointed out recently:

Witness the example of Milwaukee voucher schools Ceria M. Travis Academy(437 students, K-12) and Travis Technology High School(179 students). These two schools receive over $4.6 Million Wisconsin taxpayer public education dollars and are being told to shape up or get kicked out of the voucher program.

After three years of not serving their kids, are being told to shape up or you might eventually get kicked off the program of taking taxpayer money(currently approx.  $5 million a year!)  So much for "immediately" when this school has received close to $35 million of our public education tax dollars and counting.    

2. The Department of Public Instruction interprets the accountability laws in ways that deviates from the statutory language, making it more demanding than originally intended.

There should be an asterisk here.  The DPI interprets the laws in ways that deviate from statutory language according to WILL.   WILL has a history of filing frivolous lawsuits to serve partisan purposes, so keep that in mind when reading these reports.  

3. Policymakers should consider the current accountability scheme on schools in choice programs before implementing any new regulations.

Here we actually agree, lawmakers should take into account current accountability of voucher schools. As we found out at the Travis Academy and Travis Technology High Schools(emphasis mine): 

But new documents and former employees have raised concerns about the internal workings at Ceria M. Travis Academy, a private school that's received more than $35 million in state voucher payments through the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program since 1996.

Complaints filed with the state in 2014 and obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel through an open records request allege that the school has violated state law by employing people without bachelor's degrees to teach students.

And former and current staff members say the close-knit family business has crossed a number of other lines that, while not illegal under state statutes governing private voucher schools, may be holding children back from getting the kind of education they deserve.

They say Dorothy Travis Moore, the founder and CEO of Ceria M. Travis Academy Inc., employs an unusually high number of family members and that it's hard to tell where the money for education goes, as classrooms lack adequate resources.

School officials counter that a recent review of the schools by an independent accrediting organization found the programs to be operating in accordance with state law.

That review was requested by the Department of Public Instruction as it sought to follow-up on the claims made via email about unqualified teachers at the school.

Double-checking the review's conclusion is difficult.

Travis Moore and Wilnekia Brinson, her daughter and vice president of the organization, declined to provide the Journal Sentinel with staff rosters from 2014-'15 and 2013-'14, as well as a current list of individual staff titles and salaries.

Because voucher schools are private, they do not have to make such information public.

We agree that voucher schools, taking public money should be held to the same standards as public schools.  Want to know how much money your favorite public school teacher makes?  They are all published in this paper.  

4. New accountability measures should be tailored with an appreciation for the value of diverse approaches and parental choice. There are a number of ways to measure school performance, and different families will place different weight on these measures and the outcomes that they reflect.

This is WILL's way of saying do not judge voucher schools based on test scores the same way that you judge public schools.  Which is smart because voucher schools seem to always come up short.   

As we pointed out, with the complete debacle of the Travis voucher schools, in the backyard of WILL and others, there has been complete silence.  

The silence was reinforced yesterday, after putting out their 16 page report, Mr. Esenberg added this disclaimer.   

The recent story regarding the Ceria M. Travis Academy illustrates this. I - and WILL - are not familiar with the school and, for that reason, take no position on its recent difficulties.

They know Nothing, they know nothing! 

Finally, why is this so important to know?  The Republicans who control the gerrymandered State legislature have made expanding vouchers and a school accountability bill top priorities.   During this debate amongst themselves, you will hear them reference this report and subsequent reports that WILL puts out on this issue.   

It is important to know it is not worth the paper it is printed on and if legislation is passed based on this report, we have all been shortchanged!   

God's Li"l Voucher School

A Conflict of Wills

Years ago, the Bradley Foundation, the ultra-conservative dark money pool, gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to a Wisconsin-based legal hack named Rick Esenberg to start up a lawyerly front group for them. The group was ironically and inaccurately called Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL).

WILL's main purpose is to harass law makers and school boards and unions in order to advance their agenda of plantation economics. Their other purpose is to regurgitate the Bradley Foundation's talking points in order to give it the illusion of credibility.

Calumnist* George Will had recently wrote glowingly about this front group as they try to push the agenda to privatize the state's education system.

However, as Erik Wemple of the Washington Post points out, Will forgot to mention that he has a vested interest in WILL:

In George Will tradition, the column is tight and eloquently argued, but it features one omission: Will’s connection to WILL. Since 2008, Will has been a member of the board of directors at the Milwaukee-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, which dedicates itself to “preserving and defending the tradition of free representative government and private enterprise” in the United States. That mission entails issuing grants to organizations across the country that support the foundation’s objectives.

The foundation’s 2011 annual report includes a record of a $500,000 grant to WILL, to “support general operations.” WILL’s Form 990 for 2011, which appears to be its first year in operation, shows a contribution total of $505,000, meaning that the Bradley Foundation gave critical seed money to the outfit. Its 2012 and 2013 reports also detail grants of $500,000 to WILL.

As a member of the Bradley Foundation board of directors, how much influence does Will have over the foundation’s funding decisions? Plenty, at least according to the group’s annual report: “The programs and funding decisions of the Bradley Foundation are the responsibility of the Board of Directors,” according to a section on grantmaking policies.

This case highlights Will’s intersecting lines of influence. He’s a director of the Bradley Foundation, an entity with more than $800 million in assets and 2013 grants totaling nearly $34 million to organizations in Wisconsin and across the country, including big-time Beltway entities like the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Federalist Society. His column is syndicated to about 450 newspapers. Keeping those two worlds separate is quite a job, as the Nov. 19 column demonstrates: Here, Will touted an outlet funded generously by a group he helps to lead. And thanks to the columnist’s kind words, WILL may have an easier time finding funders outside of the Bradley Foundation. All very cozy, synergistic and, as media critics might say, an out-and-out conflict of interest — an offense of which Will has been accused before.

It should be noted, as the gentle reader could have guessed, that WILL has also had their own ethics issues, including illegally giving free legal advice to Republican "rising star" Deanna Alexander, who has gotten in trouble for using taxpayer money for voter suppression and illegally using her office to raise money.

*No, calumnist is not a misspelling.

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.  
 

OWN Fires At WILL

Our friends at One Wisconsin Now (OWN) has taken on one of the front groups funded by the dark money of the Bradley Foundation, the utterly misnamed "Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty" for their false pretenses of being for the public interest.

There has been a battle of the press releases, with OWN giving a proverbial whooping to WILL and its sock puppet in chief, Rick Esenberg.

The gentle reader should read the entire thing, but this is too good to pass up:

Established in 2011, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit advertising itself as seeking to “advance the public interest in the rule of law … in partnership with like-minded individuals and organizations.”

In reality, the right-wing Bradley Foundation has been the almost exclusive underwriter of WILL’s activities. For the years in which Federal IRS records are available for both the Bradley Foundation and WILL, 2011 and 2012, Bradley funds accounted for over 90 percent of the total money WILL reported raising. (NOTE – WILL has released their 2013 990, however at this time the 2013 990 for the Bradley Foundation has not been released.)

Why is this significant? The President and CEO of the Bradley Foundation, Michael Grebe, has also served as a chair of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s campaign since 2010.

A review of their case filings and other documents reveals that their activities show a remarkably close relationship to the policy and political ambitions of Gov. Scott Walker. In fact, WILL has gone so far as to threaten legal action against the school board on which Gov. Walker’s November election opponent sits.

In sum, Gov. Walker has the benefit of a well-funded “public interest” law firm at the ready to defend and promote his interests in court and in the media.