What to make of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's "budget repair bill"

By now I'm sure you've heard about the proposed "budget repair bill" proposed by newly-elected Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. With Republicans holding large majorities in Wisconsin's state senate and assembly, the legislation will likely pass once the 14 runaway senate Democrats return from their holdout in Illinois.

Thousands of people across the state of Wisconsin have turned out in protest. So many teachers have left their classrooms over the last 2 days to protest that school districts across the state - not just in the Madison area - have had to close. There were reports yesterday of senate offices being put on lockdown by capitol police as angry protesters marched through the halls yelling and banging on office windows.

In case you're still confused and wondering what the big hairy deal is, here's a list of the most hotly debated provisions in the bill:

Pension Contributions
Current: State, school, and municipal employees in the Wisconsin Retirement System pay little or nothing towards their pensions.
Proposal: WRS employees would contribute 50% of their annual pension payments.

Health Insurance Contributions
Current: State employees pay 6% of their health insurance premiums.
Proposal: State employees pay 12.6% of their health insurance premiums.

Collective Bargaining
Proposal: Collective bargaining for most public employees would be limited to wages. This includes employees from local teachers to University of Wisconsin faculty and academic staff. Wage increases could not exceed a cap based on the consumer price index unless approved by a referendum. Contracts would have a one-year limit and until a new contract is settled, wages would remain frozen. Additionally, collective bargaining units would have to take annual votes to keep their certification as a union. Employers would not be permitted to collect union dues out of employees' paychecks and members of collective bargaining units would not be required to pay union dues. Employees working in law enforcement, fire departments, and inspectors would be exempt from these changes.

Again, this is just a summary of the most controversial portions of the new proposal. There are other changes, but they aren't nearly as earth-shaking. Most contentious is the section on collective bargaining. (For those not familiar with the term, "collective bargaining" is the process of negotiations between employers and trade unions in an attempt to reach agreement on wages, working conditions, etc.) Additionally, Walker has promised that in exchange for these concessions there will be no layoffs or even furloughs. He has said that 6,000 workers will need to be laid off if the legislation does not pass.

I considered not posting on this subject at all. There's so much emotion over it on both sides. But it is one of the nation's leading stories and it's so close to home. As I was deciding that I probably would write a post about it, I received this note from a friend:

With all of the hype going on tonight (esp. on FB) over the Walker bill, the first thing I did was go to your blog--was sure you'd have a post with educated food for thought...I've been thinking tonight "Where is Joey White when we need him?!"

I was flattered to say the least. There's nothing more validating for a blogger than to have a comment like that come through. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth my time to say anything on here. Stuff like that keeps me going.

I have friends from both sides of this debate, which is part of why I thought of staying out of it. I'm not interested in a comment war, though my readers usually do a great job of remaining civil. So at the risk of blowing oxygen on the fire, here are my thoughts on this whole mess.

First, nobody wins. Whether or not you agree with collective bargaining, these teachers and other public employees were hired with collective bargaining in place. I know that any time negative (or even seemingly neutral) changes come to my work situation, whether it's changes in pay or benefits or job description, it can be stressful and frustrating. Those supporting the legislation need to recognize that this bill will require some significant financial changes for a number of families. That's meaningful and needs to be acknowledged.

Second, Republicans campaigned on this kind of fiscal belt-tightening. Wisconsin was run over by the Tea Party Express in the last election. The governor in office didn't hold back on the campaign trail and he's only enacting what he's already talked about. I think it's just a shock to people in a state that's been historically liberal that he's actually carrying through with this proposal.

Third, Wisconsin is facing major budget deficits. They're looking at a $137 million budget shortfall through the current fiscal year, which ends June 30. They face a shortfall of over $3 billion for the subsequent budget. On top of this, tax revenues have been in decline. Cuts have to be made somewhere. The private sector has been severely affected by the economic downturn and it only makes sense that public employees would be too.

Fourth, unions are antiquated. This is certainly a matter of opinion. Again, I want to be respectful of people who were hired into a situation in which they had unions and are now facing the prospect of drastic adjustments. But I see no reason unions should persist. I had a summer job where I was part of the SEIU and the pay left much to be desired for most of the employees. I dropped my education major in college as I realized that I didn't want someone else determining my salary and other working conditions for me, especially with a salary that, while comfortable, certainly wasn't anywhere near luxurious by any stretch of the imagination. I find it highly ironic that teachers are protesting about how low their pay is already. If that's the case, doesn't that just prove how ineffective the collective bargaining has been? So I'm not a personal fan of unions, which certainly clouds my perspective. But I've heard people argue that teachers and other employees need a chance to weigh in on this since it impacts them so much. I agree with them, but to be honest, they'd have a much more direct say in matters if they had more personal control over their own situation. I'm going to react much differently to a pay cut if my boss meets with me one-on-one and explains the company's situation rather than finding out through a company memo from a CEO I've never met. I could go on, but I don't want to turn this into an argument of "are unions good or bad?" My take is they're a thing of the past, so that impacts the way I view the situation.

Fifth, this whole mess is indicative of the problem with state and federal funding of education. Two of the biggest education debates I've heard over the last decade have been No Child Left Behind - a federal mandate - and education funding from the state level. When local school districts go through budget crises like what Lakeville, MN, is going through, people tend to address the issues with both sides at the table and much less loaded rhetoric. Oh, things can get testy for sure, but when you're at a table with your friends and neighbors, it's easier to either fork over more money for the need in your backyard or cut back because you know your neighbor just can't afford it (and neither can you). You can do a better job of making those determinations at the local level. When these discussions are happening in a capitol building hours away the nature of the discussion changes. Our education system - funding, structure, organization, etc. - is a mess and needs to be fixed. This whole debacle in Wisconsin is just more evidence of that.

Sixth, I find it to be a bit dishonest that law enforcement and fire departments were exempted from this legislation. If collective bargaining is a bad deal for Wisconsin with those who teach us, why not remove it with those who protect us too? I'm not sure why that's such an untouchable group. I have a hunch that politics are involved and if that's the case, it's really sad. I think it sends a mixed message, and one that educators and other state employees have a right to be upset with.

Of course, there's more at stake than education. As noted, this impacts most public employees in Wisconsin. But the focus has been on teachers because they've been walking off the job, which is leaving school districts with no other choice than to cancel classes. This has been forcing parents to take time off from their jobs to watch their kids. I think it's wrong for the teachers to be walking off their jobs, but I'm also sensitive to the passion they have on this issue. I know what it's like to be so passionate about something that you feel you have to do whatever it takes to try to make an impact. Add to that the pressure these people have from their coworkers and the energy that is present as everyone rallies around their cause and I can understand why they're making the decision to walk off the job. I don't like it and I don't agree with it, but I'm sympathetic to it.

So that's my take. Frankly, I think this will make reelection difficult for a number of these Republican politicians. The fact that it's being done so early in the legislative session bodes well for them, but I think there could be repercussions if the changes bear widespread angst in a historically liberal state. That remains to be seen.

Regardless, I'm a fan of Governor Scott Walker for governing the way he said he would. Like it or not, you can't say this comes as a surprise.

Home school or public school?

My kids are 10 months old so this isn't really a pressing question. However, it's something we'll have to figure out at some point. (I'm intentionally leaving out private school for a number of reasons, costs included.)

I was home schooled while my wife is a product of Minnesota and Wisconsin public schools. (In a bit of a twist, I went to a public university while she went to a private Christian university.) We're both positive about our experiences and aren't resolved on what we'll do with our kids. We take sort of a "live life as it comes" approach. We try not to plan too far into the future knowing that circumstances often change.

Still, we've started giving it some thought. I recently read 2 posts from Tim Challies that has brought a new perspective to my thoughts on the subject. His posts were titled "Why I Do Not Homeschool (Part 1 & Part 2). I'm not always on board with Challies and don't agree with everything he says in these two articles. However, he does a good job of stating his case.

Challies prefaces his thoughts with this great piece:

There is one more thing I would like to say before I get too much further into this article. Homeschooling parents are easily offended (See? I offended you just by saying that!). Some may consider this a rash generalization, but in my experience it is true. Homeschoolers are often on the defensive, though certainly this is changing as homeschooling becomes a more widely accepted option in the church and in the wider culture. For many years homeschoolers have had to defend their choice in education and they have grown weary of defending against misunderstandings and strawman arguments. I am not going to argue that, if we homeschool, our children will end up having no social skills, we will have to move to the country to raise our own beef, I’ll have to throw away my deodorant and my wife will have to grow her hair past her waist and begin making all of our clothes. I hope not to fall into caricatures of homeschooling. Feel free to correct me if I do. There is much I admire about those who choose to homeschool. Honest. At the same time, please do not use caricatures to describe public schools as being always boring, filled with disinterested Wiccan teachers or serving as training grounds for automatons who are being trained only to work in factories.

From there, Challies launches into his 2-part explanation of where he stands.

Here are some excerpts that stood out to me.

Douglas Wilson differentiates between homeschoolers and what he called “Homers” in an article he wrote for Credenda Agenda. Homeschoolers, he says, are “people who have carefully considered all the options available to them in the education of their children, have prayerfully weighed them, and have decided to provide their children with an education at home.” Homers are extremists who “have a completely different attitude toward the process of homeschooling. No longer an instrument or means of educating their children, homeschooling has become, in their hands, a very modern manifestation of home as ideology. In this thinking, home is a defining principle to which everything else must conform. Even the church is brought into the service of the home. Father is no longer a father; he is a prophet, priest and king. Any home is capable of doing anything that is worth doing. A radical home-centeredness takes over, insisting that the home can not only replace the school, but also the church and the civil magistrate, not to mention Safeway and General Motors.”

I am not sure the distinction between these two groups is always perfectly clear, but do think Wilson makes a distinction worth noting. What makes both groups similar, though, is that the decision to homeschool cannot be removed from other beliefs and ideologies. At the risk of belaboring the point, let me state this once more: homeschooling is rarely a decision that is completely independent of other beliefs. The beliefs that impact educational choice are, in my experience, related to the understanding of how we, as Christians, are to relate to the people and to the culture around us. It is related to how we are to be in the world but not of the world.
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Trusting that my children will grow up to be believers, I am convicted that it is my duty as a parent, and as a Christian parent, to prepare my children to fulfill that calling in their lives. I believe they can best heed this call by being in the culture in which God has seen fit to place them. I want them to be with kids who are not Christians, to be friends with them and to love them, to learn what separates them from their friends, and to begin to understand how their convictions make them different from others.
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I find it difficult and painful to imagine a public school system devoid of Christians. Imagine, if you will, that every Christian pulls their children from the public schools. There will be no more Christian clubs in junior high schools; there will be no more prayer meetings or Bible studies at high schools; there will be no witnessing, no conversions. Christians will have removed the best indigenous missionaries from their natural mission field.
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We genuinely love the people around us and want to know them, both so we can relate to them as friends and so we can, with God’s help, witness to them of His love and grace. Our children build bridges to the neighborhood. In sending our children to public school, we are building these bridges with our neighbors as our children are building friendships with their children. We are building friendships on the basis of our kids’ friendships. This is not to say, of course, that we only relate to our neighbors because we hope to convert them. We relate to them because we genuinely love them, care for them, and seek to know them both for what they can offer us and what we can offer them. We seek to love our neighbors as ourselves. We have credibility as neighbors and as members of this community by having our children attend the same schools as the other children. This weekend we are having a neighborhood-wide event in our home and every family who has accepted our invitation is a family whose children go to school with our children.
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My wife and I feel called to reach out to the people in our neighborhood and our community. We simply do not feel we could honor God in this way and be as effective in doing it if we kept our children home. We would lose credibility, we would lose friendships, and we would lose access to the hearts of both children and their parents.
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[W]e do not avoid worldliness by secluding ourselves from the world. The key to escaping worldliness is not to avoid the world, but to avoid acting like the world and thinking like the world. To do this we do not escape the world, but allow ourselves to apprehend the allure of the world so it might lose its glow.
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To think that we can keep our children from being worldly by sheltering them from the world is false. Sooner or later children will want to see what the world has to offer.
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I believe it is easier for children to avoid worldliness when they are exposed to the world. This may sound strange, so allow me to explain. I want my children to see what the world has to offer before they are old enough to explore it on their own, without parental guidance. I want my children to see and experience families where God is not at the center.
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I am not afraid of the world and what it may do to my children. There is nothing the world can offer that is greater or stronger than God’s grace. I am sure that my children, at one time or another, will encounter teachings that run contrary to our convictions. They will learn about evolution and will hear that all religions are the same. I know that this is coming and am already working with them to know how to think about these things and to know how to respond.

I can't say this has made me automatically decide to send my kids to public school, partly because I'm not sure that all of my reasons for making that decision are the same as Challies'. Still, I think Challies provides some great insight that the Christian community is missing when we talk about this subject.

America's inability to spell

Google searches offer a revealing look at how America spells. It's not pretty.

Someone stumbled across my blog early this morning with the following Google search:

minisotta vikings attendence

At face value, I didn't think much of it. Then I saw the location of the IP address: Colgate University.

Colgate University is located in central New York. U.S. News and World Report ranked it as the 19th best liberal arts college in the entire country in 2009. 93% of their student body was in the top 20% of their high school class and 79% were in the top 10%. The average high school GPA of students at this school is 3.73 with an average SAT score of 1397.

This place is cranking out smart people, right?

Maybe, but it looks like they've got some smart people who don't know how to spell.

Twitter is perhaps the best examples of America's spelling problem, and I'm not talking about "LOL" or "LMAO." Anytime Brett Favre makes the news, "Farve" becomes a trending topic. When Vikings interim coach Leslie Frazier coached his first game the other day, local TV station Fox 9 Sports repeatedly referenced "Frasier" in their tweets. And this is for a guy who's been the Vikings' assistant head coach for 2 years prior to being named the interim head coach! You'd think someone whose full-time job is to follow people like that would know how to spell the guy's last name.

I know, there are bigger problems in the world than how "Minnesota" is spelled or whether someone knows "R before V except for in Favre." But I can still lament the fact that people don't know how to spell and in many cases don't care to change it.

Why GPS is available to civilians today

I knew global positioning system (GPS) navigation was created by the Department of Defense for military use. Yesterday I learned why.

My wife and friends know that I'm an information geek. As such, here's the path that led me to my GPS find.

1. A blog post on abuse in a "home school cult" referenced the John Birch Society, which sounded vaguely familiar for reasons I couldn't (and still can't) pinpoint.
2. Curious, I Googled the John Birch Society. The Wikipedia entry mentioned the organization's second leader, Georgia Congressman Larry McDonald, "who was killed on September 1, 1983, when the Soviets shot down KAL 007."
3. I hadn't heard of the KAL 007 incident and followed the link to that Wikipedia entry. The plane was shot down after the pilots mistakenly flew over prohibited Soviet airspace. As a result, "President Ronald Reagan ordered the U.S. military to make the developing Global Positioning System (GPS) available for civilian use so that navigational errors like that of KAL 007 could be averted in the future."

And this is why I know random facts that will probably never serve much purpose other than to satisfy someone's - or at least my - curiosity. Hopefully I'm able to teach my kids a meaningful thing or two that sticks in my brain.

Where is Waldo Louisiana?

The state of the geographic knowledge of our nation's citizens is worse than bad. It's awful.

I know, not everyone is geographically inclined. I was a geography nerd in junior high. To prove it, I made state in National Geographic's annual geography bee three straight years, placing 4th in 7th grade and runner-up in 8th grade. In other words, just as a math major may think it's crazy that I don't understand calculus, I'm often a bit biased in thinking that people should know certain geographic facts.

Still, shouldn't everyone at least be able to point out our country's states on a map?

Poll: 1/3 of Youths Can't Find La. on Map

WASHINGTON - Despite the wall-to-wall coverage of the damage from Hurricane Katrina, nearly one-third of young Americans recently polled couldn't locate Louisiana on a map and nearly half were unable to identify Mississippi.

Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 fared even worse with foreign locations: six in 10 couldn't find Iraq according to a Roper poll conducted for National Geographic.

"Geographic illiteracy impacts our economic well-being, our relationships with other nations and the environment, and isolates us from the world," National Geographic president John Fahey said in announcing a program to help remedy the problem. It's hoping to enlist businesses, nonprofit groups and educators in a bid to improve geographic literacy.

Planned is a five-year, multimedia campaign called My Wonderful World that will target children 8 to 17. The goal is to motivate parents and educators to expand geographic offerings in school, at home and in their communities.

They will have their task cut out for them, judging by the results of the survey of 510 people interviewed in December and January.

Among the findings:

• While the outsourcing of jobs to India has been a major U.S. business story, 47 percent could not find the Indian subcontinent on a map of Asia.

• While Israeli-Palestinian strife has been in the news for the entire lives of the respondents, 75 percent were unable to locate Israel on a map of the Middle East.
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Joining in the effort to improve geographic knowledge will be the 4-H, American Federation of Teachers, Asia Society, Association of American Geographers, National Basketball Association, National Council of La Raza, National PTA, Smithsonian Institution and others.

"Geography exposes children and adults to diverse cultures, different ideas and the exchange of knowledge from around the world," said Anna Marie Weselak, president of the National PTA. "This campaign will help make sure our children get their geography — so they can become familiar with other cultures during their school years and move comfortably and confidently in a global economy as adults."

I couldn't agree more with this campaign. I learned more in geography than I did in any other subject, because geography transcends so many other subjects.

It's crazy...47% can't even find a subcontinent? What about finding North America? Or their own state?

Another blow to United Council

United Council - an organization that's supposed to represent University of Wisconsin System students - just lost another battle, and may lose funding from another school.

In a 14-5-2 vote, Senate passed a bill that established a special May 10 election, a date that some said was too close to finals week and didn't provide enough time for students to be educated on the issues.

Despite the cost of the election and the short notice, the senators overwhelmingly felt that they needed to give students an opportunity to get out of UC now rather than wait till next semester and give UC a chance to convince senators otherwise.

Good for them.

This last part was very telling.

Newly elected United Council President Guillermo Cuautle, who attended the meeting along with Vice President Kiley Williams, said that while he had hoped Senate would have taken students' busy schedules into consideration, he wasn't surprised at the outcome of the vote.

"A lot of feedback that I've been getting from students from Eau Claire has been about how our staff is not responding to students needs," he said. "We were expecting the outcome.

Considering that UW-Oshkosh and UW-Stout left in the last few years and this year UW-Platteville and UW-River Falls have left, yeah, I'd agree with that.

Now let's hope the students at UW-Eau Claire have the smarts to get out of UC while they can.

UC is out the door at RF

For those who haven't heard of United Council, they're an organization funded by UW-System students' tuition dollars to lobby for student causes at the capital.

What they really do is set up left-wing rallies and fight against lower taxes (such as TABOR and TPA) because, of course, this will result in higher tuition. (Never mind the fact that they've been useless as tuition has gone up 50% under Jim Doyle, and they haven't screamed bloody murder about him.) They also pass numerous meaningless resolutions.

They are currently opposing legislation to end same-day registration, something most states don't have anyway.

My alma mater, UW-River Falls, just voted them out, 662-294. My only regret is that it didn't happen while I was a student there.

Other schools that have left UC over the last few years: UW-Stout, UW-Platteville (just a few weeks ago), and UW-Oshkosh.

There are sure to be more to come, as many of the students opposing UC at UW-RF - including those who led and organized the opposition - are moderates and liberals.

They recognize that UC is simply ineffective, and it's about time the state legislature (or whoever has the power - I'm assuming it's them) recognize that and remove the requirement for every school to hold a vote every two years.

Too much technology?

You mean law students are whiny?

Law Professor Bans Laptops in Class

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - A University of Memphis law professor has banned laptop computers from her classroom and her students are passing a petition against it.
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Student Cory Winsett says if he must continue without his laptop, he'll transfer to another school. Winsett says he won't be able to keep up if he has to rely on hand-written notes, which he says are incomplete and less organized.

Just how did they do it ten years ago?

Taking tips from home schoolers

One of my favorite things about being home schooled was the fact that I wasn't bound to a schedule. I could do a week's worth of school in two days and have the rest of the week open. I could do schoolwork in my bed if I wanted to (and I often did). If it was a sunny day outside, we went outside and put off our schoolwork for another day to catch up on it.

Public schools are starting to figure out that perhaps the "traditional" classroom with desks and chairs may not be the greatest idea. And while the purpose of this experiment is to attempt to combat obesity, it looks like there's an added perk.

ROCHESTER, Minn. - The fidgety boys and girls in Phil Rynearson's classroom get up and move around whenever they want, and that's just fine with him.

In fact, stretching, swaying and even balancing on big wobbly exercise balls are the point of this experimental classroom. The goal is to see if getting children to move even a little can help combat childhood obesity.
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The data aren't in yet. But anecdotally, Rynearson and Superintendent Jerry Williams say the fourth- and fifth-graders are more focused on the curriculum than their peers in a comparison group in an ordinary classroom. And there are fewer distractions than in the traditional setup — where a lot of time is spent trying to get children to sit still.

"Sitting isn't bad," Rynearson said. "But I think kids need to move."

The classroom is the idea of Mayo Clinic researcher Dr. James Levine, also the mastermind of an office of the future that encourages more movement from deskbound white-collar workers.

For schoolchildren, Levine says, "My dream was kids shooting hoops and spelling," much like the American basketball game of "H-O-R-S-E."
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Williams, the superintendent, has already been converted to the new concept and thinks it could be expanded, with or without the computers and iPods. "I would love to have this move from a single classroom to the whole school," he said.