What about Wisconsin’s children?

According to The News, there are just two types of people in Wisconsin: budget-cutting assholes and public school paladins.

Wisconsin policy makers have a tough choice to make.

One leads to a breakdown in communication between the government and its educators, and the other leads to unsustainable budget shortfalls.

Neither of these choices will do.

Here are the problems that need to be addressed:
1. Bleeding budgets
2. Scott Walker’s face
3. Unions drunk off power
4. The children

People seem to forget about the fourth dynamic to this issue: In both options the children are going to get stupider. 

The Republican side is not only limiting the pool of teachers by removing long-term incentives, but it also wants to put a cap on property taxes, the major source of revenue for education.

The Democratic side is protecting unsustainable expenses and putting a wedge between the education administrators and their duties by limiting the power of principals.

I want to propose a mixture of the two policies that might be more effective for saving the children.

First off, the teachers’ unions need to take a serious look at the fiscal strain they put on the budget. They should retain their collective bargaining rights and go back to the drawing board.

They should restructure how teachers get paid.

What about instead of paying teachers far into the future with thick pension plans, we just pay them more now? Let’s give them a pay raise to counterbalance the state’s future obligation.

In the short run, teachers have it rough. In Wisconsin, the average beginning salary of a teacher is $25,000 a year. That’s not even enough money to pay off their student loans.

But in the long run, teachers receive discounted health insurance and cushy pension plans.

Another problem that needs to be addressed is the power of the principal. The leading administrators of the school should be able to hire and fire their own workers as they see fit and set classroom sizes.

Most cannot right now, and that is reflected by test scores. Wisconsin eighth-graders are about as smart as the kids in former Soviet states.

Seniority rights don’t seem fair for education. Shouldn’t teachers always be innovating new ways to educate their students?

Teachers should be retained based on their performance and not on how long they’ve been there. How many of you had old dinosaur teachers who couldn’t teach worth a shit? I realize that at one time they might have been good teachers, but what if their current students are distracted by playing Angry Birds in the corner, just waiting for the teachers to give out their last F?


E-mail: nicjacob@indiana.edu