Republicans using the budget to kill the Wisconsin Covenant - - a plan that rewards successful students with a guaranteed spot in a state university and the most modest of grants-in-aid.
Some honesty would be appreciated, as the program has a minuscule fiscal on the budget - - a budget in which Walker and his lieutenants have found fresh power and hundreds of millions for business - - even a new, quasi-public Commence Department - - in tax breaks, bonding gifts and other programs.
Wiping out the Wisconsin Covenant is to lessen the legacy of former Gov. Jim Doyle. To these spiteful Republicans, Doyle is to get nothing. That was a major reason that Walker killed the Amtrak extension; once he saw that Madisonians were proposing that the new station near the Capitol Square be named for Doyle, the train had to go.
Same with the conversion of the Charter St. electrical generating plant. Doyle wanted biomass, both for environmental and business development reasons, so Walker changed the conversion to natural gas.
If Doyle was for something, Walker and that crew must be against.
But to roll back a plan to encourage and help state students to succeed - - and to keep them in-state to stem the brain drain to Chicago, Atlanta and elsewhere proves that Walker and Joint Finance co-chair Alberta Darling and the rest of that gang are shallow beyond measurement.
James,
ReplyDeleteEver familiar of the "Scott's Tots" episode of the office? That's what Doyle did to Wisconsin Covenant kids.
It's not part of his legacy, it was a cruel joke he played on 8th graders and their parents.
It would be a good analogy if Walker were a friend to students.
ReplyDeleteDoyle's "legacy" might of had some meaning if he had funded it.
ReplyDeleteEasy to politically give something away in the future, after you are out of office and do not have any responsibility to pay for it.
This was clearly pointed out at the time and conveniently ignored by the likes of you Rowen.
AJ
Walker is in fact a friend to students.
ReplyDeleteJust not to overcompensated and ungrateful public sector teachers and thier Union.
Anon 4:34. Walker is no friend to MPS kids, as he shifts funding to the Choice schools - - which are performing no better - - and further concentrates learning disabled students in to larger MPS classes.
ReplyDeleteMr. Rowen:
ReplyDeleteAs a public school teacher I can assure you that few policies have been as deceptive as the so-called "covenant." It was pure illusion, making no statistical difference at all. All the students knew it was B.S. A "modest" grant does not make any difference to a poor kid. I know, they are 45% of my juniors.
A few "hundreds of millions" to aid business would do far more to stem the brain drain than some stupid and expensive biomass plant. Really.... Doyle has money for a biomass plant but only a deficit and useless paper for students. Doyle tarnishes his own legacy.
With the Walker administration's systemic attacks on education: universities, tech schools, high schools and elementary schools, and teachers, soon enough we won't have to worry about the 'brain drain'. There won't be any brains left to drain. Wisconsin will be as unexceptional as the rest of the country and then businesses will have no reason to re-locate here. (Not because of the state's tax-hell-hoax status.)
ReplyDeleteSadly Patrick, all James Rowen is interested in is using Doyle's cruel joke on students and beat up Walker with it.
ReplyDeleteIt is all political posturing with Rowen, he really could not care less about the students.
AJ
How anyone could believe Walker is "a friend to students" is beyond me. Unless that person is so blinded by hatred of unions that they have missed the laying off of teachers, nurses and other school staff in the districts that will be required to teach all the kids the voucher folks don't want. Spare me the rhetoric about bloated budgets and greedy teachers. I've been reading school budgets for decades and I know the drill, blah blah, greedy unions, administrative fat. When your kid is in a class of 36 in a school that just lost its nurse and art teacher, believe me, you know who your friends are, and who isn't one.
ReplyDeleteI never liked Doyle. Believe it or not, it is also possible to dislike Walker, for different reasons even. Walker is an ideologue who doesn't care if poor people live or die. Regardless of the worth of the Covenant program, his destruction of it is just another sign of where he wants to take us. And it is not a good place.
Leron:
ReplyDeletePlease explain how Walker's "destruction" of it could be an indication of where he wants to take us? If the program is an empty joke--and it was--how can getting rid of such foolishness not be a sign that Walker wants to take us to a better place?
And please note everyone that James Rowen does not want to address the substance of the replies here - that this was a sham to begin with perpetrated by Diamond Jim Doyle.
ReplyDeleteAJ