Less pay and respect for teachers= shortages? YOU DON'T SAY??

The great folks at the Wisconsin Budget Project have a new report out that illustrates the continual damage that the Walker/WisGOP agenda has had on public education in the state. The Budget Project combines district surveys and statistics from the US Census Bureau to put the picture together, starting with the fact that Wisconsin public school districts pay teachers and staff less than the rest of the country.

Most of the money spent by public schools goes to pay the salaries of teachers and other people who help educate students and keep schools running, such as social workers, teacher aides, and janitors. Wisconsin schools spent $6,241 on salaries per student in 2014, down 5.5% from 2005. Nationally, spending on salaries per student fell 1.8% over this period.

Wisconsin schools spend less per student on salaries than the national average. In 2005, Wisconsin schools spent 0.5% less per student on salaries than the national average, ranking 19th among the states. In 2014, Wisconsin’s ranking had dropped to 23rd, and Wisconsin schools spent 4.3% less per student on salaries than the national average. Only ten states had larger percentage declines than Wisconsin in school spending on salaries per student over this period.

But last decade, Wisconsin teachers could at least compensate for their lower-than-average salaries with great benefits, but as the Budget Project mentions, those benefits have been whittled away in the post-Act 10 world.

Wisconsin schools spent $2,834 on employee benefits per student in 2014, down 11.3% from 2005. Wisconsin had the largest decline of any state in school spending on benefits over this period. Nationally, spending on benefits per student increased by 21.8% over this period.

This means that Wisconsin ranks a mediocre 23rd in the nation in “total package” compensation, and then add on the fact that teachers are the ones who ended up taking on much of the burden of paying for those benefits over the last decade, meaning they took home less of their already subpar salaries.

As anyone with a middle school knowledge in supply-and-demand can guess, when you are less competitive on compensating employees, you tend to have problems in finding qualified workers. And the Budget Project says a survey of districts from the State Department of Public Instruction bears that out, especially in fields like math and science where jobs in other fields that use those skills often pay well above what schools will give to teachers.



As you notice, the shortages are even more pronounced in the more rural northern half of the state, and the Budget Project says that districts have to turn to extraordinary measures to get someone in front of the classroom.

The teacher shortages were most severe in northern Wisconsin. School districts in Cooperative Educational Service Agencies (CESAs) 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 — an area that stretches across the top part of the state from just north of Green Bay to just south of Eau Claire — faced extreme shortages in 56% of instances analyzed, compared to 46% in the remainder of the state. This analysis includes 1,153 instances in which a school district had at least one vacancy for teachers with licensure for early childhood-middle childhood, math, science, English, social studies, technology/engineering, agriculture, foreign languages, business, music, art and physical education.

Most school districts were able to successfully hire for open positions, but many districts indicated they lowered standards to be able to hire an educator. School districts used a variety of ways to address the teacher shortages they faced, with the most-used strategies including:
•Lowering standards. In hiring for about one out of five vacancies, districts hired a teacher below the desired standard of experience or quality;
•Employing a teacher on an emergency permit or licensure, meaning that the teacher was teaching outside his or her area of expertise;
•Offering financial incentives, such as a signing bonus or a higher salary, to candidates;
•Filling a vacancy with a substitute teacher; and
•Giving another teacher an overload assignment.

Perversely, whenever you have such a shortage in available workers for public service, this requires MORE tax dollars to be shelled out to make competitive offers to the few teachers that do want the job, especially when it’s in a small Wisconsin town that may not have much to offer in terms of quality of life.

Which is why it is all the more important to fund public schools at the state level, especially in smaller and/or poorer communities which don’t have the tax base and amenities that richer, more connected, and safer communities do. Instead, this state has gone the exact opposite way, using the one-time Act 10 “savings” to cut taxes, and funnel money away from public schools, sending the taxpayer dollars to unaccountable voucher schools. Which causes the downward spiral to continue, and for property taxes to go up in these underserved communities to try to make up the difference.

But of course, this type of teacher shortage is all part of the ALEC/GOP plan, to make education such a thankless, lesser-paid job that fewer college-educated people want to do it. Then that can be excused into more DeVos/Bradley-style privatization because the quality of public education inevitably declines (or at least is perceived to be declining).

And that trend has to be stopped NOW, beginning with the upcoming election for State Superintendent of Schools. When you see sellout hack John Humphries having a fundraiser with Bradley Foundation paymaster Michael Grebe, WEDC appointees, right-wing stink tankers, and pro-voucher legislators, that’s more than you need to know to run the other way, and get behind Tony Evers in both February and April.

If you don’t, your local community school (and much of your community itself) will be DONE. Good luck seeing this state's property values, talent base and livability improve with that happening!

Pack, Steelers help drain Vegas

From the always-indispensable ESPN Chalk.

Forget Aaron Rodgers -- the most impressive performance of the NFL playoffs belongs to the betting public, which jumped from favorites to underdogs at precisely the right time this weekend and squashed multiple Las Vegas sportsbooks in the process....

William Hill, which operates sportsbooks at 108 locations throughout the state, reported suffering the worst day in the company's five-year history in Nevada. So much parlay liability had built up over the weekend, the book's "seven-figure" fate was sealed before the underdog Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Kansas City Chiefs 18-16 Sunday night.

After Saturday's action, favorites were 6-0 straight up and against the spread. But on Sunday, bettors backed the underdogs, taking the Green Bay Packers and Steelers plus the points and on the money line.

"Seemed like a blue-collar betting day with public parlaying, teasing and pounding money lines on Packers and Steelers," said Bill Sattler, the director of specialty games for Caesars Entertainment. "We salvaged the under in [the] late game, but another solid week for the public."...

The Steelers topped it off. MGM took twice as much money on Pittsburgh plus the points as it took on Kansas City, but the more severe damage was done by parlays.

And while I got drilled at the craps table in Vegas, Sunday's football was reasonably successful for me as well, as I took the Packers-Cowboys game to go over, the Steelers to cover, and Steelers-Chiefs to go under (due to the crappy weather in KC). Not that I put a lot of money on those games, as I'm emotional enough watching games without cash on them, but at least I cut a bit of my losses on Sunday.

The Chalk article goes on to note that big bets on Clemson to upset Alabama in the college title game means that the books lost their asses last week. Granted, they have another 11 months to catch up to it for the year, but I always have found the economics of sports betting a whole lotta intrigue, and it's nice to see the everyday bettors win one for a change.

Back to the Midwest

Finally back in Wisconsin from my long Vegas weekend.

Pocketbook is lighter, as craps kicked my ass more than I should have let it.

Packer win was great. I despise Jerry Jones and the Cowboys. Only negative will be in watching every Wisconsin politician co-opt the Green and Gold for this next week.

3 days going full out is a bit more than enough. Mind and body are decelerating and it's a bit of a struggle tonight.

Back to normal tomorrow....I hope

VEGAS BABY!

Yep, it's about that time, so all 5 of you readers may not hear much from me in the bext 3 days. Stay warm back there, I'll hope to still have some cash when I get back

Nope, still not buying Scotty's "tuition cut" gimmick

As people around the state continue to try to digest Governor Walker's announcement in this week's State of the State address on how he plans to give a tuition cut to in-state students attending classes at the University of Wisconsin System, the devil is clearly going to be in the details. Will any proposed tuition cut eat up the $42.5 million in added state funding the UW System requested for the 2017-19 budget, meaning the university will get $0 extra dollars from those 2 key funding sources? Or is there some other catch?

UW System officials are wisely waiting to see what is going to in Walker's budget proposal, which will be released next month.

"We are being cautious about commenting any further on the governor’s announcement to cut tuition until we know more details about his proposal and additional reaction by the Legislature,” System spokeswoman Stephanie Marquis said. “Until then, we will continue to aggressively pursue our common goals of college affordability and workforce development.”

The promise to backfill a tuition cut is the latest commitment to increase spending that has left some budget watchers wondering how Walker will balance the budget without resorting to the types of accounting gimmicks he criticized his predecessor for using.

He has also promised a “significant” though unspecified increase in general K-12 aid, more money for rural schools, nearly $70 million more for road maintenance and repairs, $65 million more for local road aid, $35.5 million more for broadband expansion and $10 million for a sales tax holiday.

“I find it difficult to understand how all these various promises can be fulfilled, unless you do them in very small, symbolic ways,” Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance president Todd Berry said.

Yeah, join the club Todd. Sure, some of these proposals can be explained by shuffling around existing funds (like the broadband expansion), but some of these other initiatives are relying on money falling from the sky and/or a helluva lot of borrowing, and I want to see how this all fits together.

The other reason many budget watchers are skeptical of Walker's ability to pay for these promises is because the revenue picture looks gloomy at best. State Rep. and Joint Finance Committee member Gordon Hintz reiterated that today with a press release explaining the bad revenue numbers, and how a shortfall would stymie Wisconsin in Fiscal Year 2017, as well as the next budget.

Last January’s LFB revenue estimate predicted state revenue growth for fiscal year (FY) 2017 at 3.7%. The Governor’s Department of Administration abruptly lowered that expectation for the year ending June 30, 2016 to 2.3% in November. However, the most recent report from the DOR shows that collections for FY 2017 have been an anemic 1.2% so far. To put this number in perspective, a 1% drop in revenue will equal a $157 million hit to the Governor’s budget. If the current 1.2% tax revenue growth rate doesn’t change, the small $104 million projected budget balance carried over will be wiped out and a budget repair bill could be required to balance revenues and expenditures for the current budget year.

It is important to note that the recently reduced $104 million fund balance projection was only made possible by the Governor’s decision last May to defer payment of $101 million in debt into future budgets, instead of making the debt payment when it came due. After passing expensive, regressive tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the rich, the Governor has had to skip debt payments for the last two years just to keep his budget in the black. In other words, Governor Walker and Republicans have had to borrow money to pay for tax cuts each of the past two years to keep the budget in the black.

“Our state’s current budget problems are self-inflicted by a Governor who has prioritized untargeted and regressive tax cuts for the rich, at the expense of programs that increase opportunity for all Wisconsinites,” said Rep. Hintz, “His latest promises to provide increased funding for our public schools and universities suggest a delusional attempt to begin fixing the problems he created over the past six years. Short-sighted budget priorities and sluggish state economic growth have resulted in lower revenue to fund the program investments crucial to our state’s future. When he can’t cut programs anymore, he borrows taxpayer money to make up the difference. The Governor’s failure of leadership and poor decisions over the past six years have resulted in an economy where, once again, the revenues he needs to balance his budget may not be there.”

Yeah, pretty much. In fact, I am counting on those revenues not being there, but Walker coming up with some rosy scenarios, borrowing and magic asterisks to claim the money is there, and then leaving it to the State Legislature to make the real choices and try to have the numbers add up. It's pathetic and the mark of someone in over his head, but it's also par for the course for Gov Dropout.

Walker's pathetic propaganda on broadband expansion recalls earlier screwup

Nearly 6 years ago, Scott Walker turned down $23 million from the Obama Administration that would have paid for rural and underserved areas of the state to expand broadband capacity A broadband expansion program that HAD NO COST TO THE STATE REQUIRED, may I remind you.

Well, now that Wisconsin has badly lagged the rest of the country in job growth and economic competitiveness due to this type of foolishness, Scotty is trying to make people forget about that blunder and is posing as someone who is “adding new investments for the work force" as part of his campaign events travels around the state the day after the State of the State address.

Investing in Wisconsin’s broadband infrastructure by providing an additional $35.5 million for the Broadband Expansion Grant Program. These funds will bring Governor Walker’s total investment in broadband to $52 million.

As someone who actually pays attention and can remember things for more than a few days, it’s pathetic to see Walker trying to sell this as some kind of new idea. He’s merely reiterating his support for a bill that was proposed last month which redirects already-existing funds under the state’s Universal Service Fund (which you pay on your cable and cell phone bills).

The bill makes changes to funding for grants made by the PSC for constructing broadband infrastructure in underserved areas. Under current law, $6,000,000 was transferred from the universal service fund (USF) for making the grants, but current law also limits the total grants made in a fiscal year to $1,500,000. The bill eliminates that limit. The bill also provides additional funding for the grants by doing the following: 1) transferring an additional $6,000,000 from the USF; 2) transferring $5,000,000 from moneys received under a federal program for assisting schools and libraries in obtaining telecommunications services and Internet access, which is commonly known as the federal e-rate program; and 3) at the end of each fiscal year, transferring the unencumbered balances from other USF-funded appropriations. Also, beginning in fiscal year 2017-18, the bill allows the PSC to fund its administration of the broadband grant program from contributions made by telecommunications providers to the USF.

During fiscal year 2016-17, the bill allows the PSC to allocate a portion of the funding provided under the bill to make the grants described above to telecommunications utilities that are receiving support for broadband deployment under certain federal programs administered by the Federal Communication Commission. During that fiscal year, the bill allows the PSC to evaluate applications and award the grants to those telecommunications utilities on an expedited basis…

TEACH program

Under current law, the TEACH program offers telecommunications access to school districts, private schools, cooperative educational service agencies, technical college districts, independent charter school authorizers, juvenile correctional facilities, private and tribal colleges, and public library boards at discounted rates and by subsidizing the cost of installing data lines and video links. As part of the TEACH program, DOA awards information technology block grants to school districts to improve information technology infrastructure. Under current law, the Information technology block grant program ends on July 1, 2017. This bill delays the sunset of the information technology block grant program until July 1, 2019. In addition, the bill authorizes DOA to award an additional round of information technology block grants before July 1, 2017. The eligibility for these grants is expanded to include school districts that have up to 26 pupils per square mile.

These grants are in addition to any grants a school district may have already received under the program during the 2015-17 biennium and therefore do not count towards the maximum amount a school district may receive in a biennium. The bill also consolidates the appropriations for TEACH contracts into a single 2017 - 2018 Legislature appropriation. Finally, in fiscal year 2016-17, the bill transfers $7,500,000 of moneys received under the federal e-rate program to the consolidated appropriation for TEACH contracts.

I’m not denying this is better than nothing (especially since nothing is mostly what we got from Walker and WisGOP on rural broadband until last year). But this is merely a one-time money-grab that takes advantage of the fact that the Universal Service Fund’s balance has grown from $5.55 million at the end of Fiscal Year 2014 to nearly $14.6 million at the end of Fiscal Year 2016 (figures courtesy of the state’s Annual Fiscal Report).

Also, is anyone else bothered that Walker was flying around the state at taxpayer expense and taking along Public Service Commissioner/GOP hack Ellen Nowak with him to try to sell this broadband plan? Especially when the PSC’s own Twitter site was using Walker talking points on this issue today, while still claiming on that same site that it is an “independent, regulatory agency dedicated to serving the public interest”? The PSC is openly supporting GOP proposals that aren’t law, and they have no business making taxpayer-funded campaign stops/photo ops with the Guv. It is garbage and beneath the "Public Service" Commission.

And lastly, given that there won’t be $14.6 million left over in the USF for 2018 or 2019 due to this “newfound” initiative, and the Feds have to sign off on using these TEACH program dollars, are these investments even going to happen after the promises are made? And with the TEACH program gone in two years, tell me where is the money going to come from to take care of future online infrastructure needs? Guess that’s something Scotty doesn’t want you or the media to think about, he just thinks he can cynically grab a one-day poser headline to make people forget about his years of neglect and failure.

2 Midwest Senators- 1 patriot, 1 traitor

Here's Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn) putting Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions up against the wall for his two-faced act on Russia and WikiLeaks. It also includes Franken revealing to Sessions the new reports on how President-Elect Trump was "cultivated" by the Russians for over 5 years. And all over some golden showers in a Moscow hotel room!



Now contrast this with today's story in Urban Milwaukee by Bruce Murphy, where he shows how US Senator Ron Johnson was told of the Russian propaganda efforts and hacking in a meeting in September. Not a big deal in itself, but Murphy connects the dots and notes that instead of being forthcoming on what the Russians were trying to do and do the right thing by fighting against it to guarantee fair and free elections, Johnson reportedly worked with GOP Leader Mitch McConnell to cover it up, and he and Trump benefitted from the Russian misinformation campaign in the November elections.

As chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Johnson was one the so-called “Gang of 12,” the top 12 congressional leaders, who were invited to the meeting. (House Speaker Paul Ryan also attended the meeting.) Johnson later confirmed to Politico that he participated in the briefing.

“In a secure room in the Capitol used for briefings involving classified information, administration officials broadly laid out the evidence U.S. spy agencies had collected, showing Russia’s role in cyber-intrusions in at least two states and in hacking the emails of the Democratic organizations and individuals,” the [Washington] Post reported....

Johnson, in short, had an opportunity to be a patriot and condemn the fact that Russia was now engaged in such activities in the United States. But he issued no resolutions — in fact, not one word — on Russian’s cyber attacks on America.

Worse, he has engaged in his own pattern of misinformation on the subject. After the CIA publicly released a report in January concluding that Russia meddled in the presidential election to help Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election, Johnson issued a statement to the Wisconsin State Journal saying he would “would need more definitive information before drawing further conclusions.” Johnson did not reveal that he had been informed back in September this was happening.

Johnson went on to complain to CNBC that the CIA refused to brief him on Russian hacking, saying “I have not seen the evidence that it actually was Russia,” while failing to note the CIA report’s echoed the briefing he’d received from other intelligence leaders in September.

This is damning stuff, and shows that Ron Johnson has no moral center other than greed and power. Given that a sizable number of Americans were tricked into voting for Trump and likely Johnson due to this Russian propaganda, it makes both of their close elections illegitimate, and they should treated that way.


That flag pin doesn't let you get away with this, Ronnie.

But I suppose (mo)Ron Johnson doesn't care. He thinks he has a 6-figure taxpayer-funded salary + benefits for the next 6 years regardless of the slimy circumstances he was elected under. It would be nice to find ways for that NOT to be the case, but I fear that since (mo)Ron won't have the class to admit to his role in dragging this country down, and I also fear that things may unravel to the point that many others won't accept having this treasonous dimwit continue to "represent" this state in DC.