Memo to Scott Walker From Milwaukee: “We’re Not Going To Let Our Public Schools Die”
If Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker thought running for President of the United States was a big challenge, he may be facing an even more imposing contest back in his home state
Last week, all across the community of greater Milwaukee, thousands of parents and public school advocates showed up before the opening bells at neighborhood schools to protest education policies many Wisconsinites attribute to Walker and his administration. The protests were called “walk ins” – a tactic borrowed from school protests in St. Paul, Minnesota in 2014 – as opposed to walk outs which disrupt students’ learning time.
Parents, teachers, and students had a range of specific complaints that can all be attributed to Walker’s governance.
As the local Journal Sentinel newspaper reports, “at more than 100 public schools” protestors turned out to oppose a “program, devised by Republican state lawmakers from the suburbs,” that created a state-operated district to oversee a portion of the city’s public schools that are deemed under-performing.
The Milwaukee County Executive hand picked by Walker to oversee the district is about to name a commissioner to run the special district.
As the Journal Sentinel report notes, protestors wanted to voice their resentment at having local schools taken out from under the control of their democratically elected school board. They also wanted to send clear warning to the ruling Executive, Chris Abele, that he had better not select someone inclined to turn the yet-to-be-designated schools over to a charter school organization, which is what is generally feared.
Straight Out Of Scott Walker
The school takeover program “comes straight out of Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign rhetoric, ” says a Wisconsin progressive blog based in Green Bay. The post quotes Democratic Assembly Leader Peter Barca who notes the takeover program “[was] not requested by Milwaukee or any of the Memo to Scott Walker From Milwaukee: “We’re Not Going To Let Our Public Schools Die”:
