Sunday, November 18, 2012

Walker's "Red State" push opposite Presidential Election Results. Education Big Target Again.

With a super majority in the state legislature, any talk of bipartisanship or compromise is ridiculous and frustrating for me to watch.

Democratic talk has centered on cooperation and "reaching across the aisle." This is what I've seen in every media interview so far, and I’m hoping that at some time we stop giving Republicans the benefit of the doubt. It makes them look good and Democrats look even weaker.

What we have in "common" is a sidebar to their real ideological agenda, and Democratic legislators are embarrassing themselves with happy talk of cooperation. Stop it,  please.

The most recent signal we’re going of the ideological cliff comes from comments made by Gov. Walker in California, who listed actions he wants to take, actions no liberal in their right mind would support. His announcement came even before he’s talked to his own party’s leaders.
State Rep. Robin Vos, the next Assembly speaker, said … he has yet to talk to Walker personally about his legislative proposals … “hopefully, we can also work to bring Democrats who are open-minded…”
Now that’s a good manager. You’ll notice Walker’s focus is on “public schools:
jsonline’s Dan Bice: Gov. Scott Walker unveiled major components of his upcoming legislative agenda, including "massive tax reform" consisting of cuts in state income and property taxes … Walker also said he wants to require the state's public schools, including the technical colleges and the University of Wisconsin System, to meet performance-based targets to receive increased state funding - similar to programs in Florida and Pennsylvania … push to expand the state's voucher program for private schools and further streamline the state's rules and regulations.
The performance-based targets for public schools fly in the face of Walker’s recent removal of the standards and testing for voucher school students. According to two recent articles: 
“voucher schools are so far not included in the new report card system,” and “Walker wants to phase out income requirements and drop the requirement that voucher schools take the annual state achievement test.  
And there's nothing that can stop this from happening.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for pointing this out so clearly! This destructive practice of loudly calling for punitive "accountability" when the tax dollars are going to public enterprises, but decrying oppressive regulation when you direct the tax dollars to profit-makers. I'd call it hypocrisy but the deliberate nature of it needs a stronger word -- alas, I also don't like to use profanity in my comments...

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