Walker School Cuts Keep Coming

Budget means districts drop agriculture programs …. really

Governor Walker keeps telling us that the 2011-13 budget is working for school districts, but the evidence keeps mounting that it’s not OK for kids, their schools, or their communities.

For example, a recent column that ran in several state newspapers admits there will be changes to many of our school districts, including “31 ag programs that laid off teachers, reduced teaching hours, or were simply eliminated”─and that’s just this year. And remember, folks, this is in The Dairy State of all places.

To read the full article go to: (http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/article_d52eb1ec-a96d-5061-908b-ed31c5319397.html).

Tony Evers Blasts Voucher Expansion

State school official blasts voucher program expansion to Green Bay

By Karen Herzog of the Journal Sentinel

June 6, 2011 | State Superintendent Tony Evers on Monday blasted the Legislature’s budget committee for its late-night vote Friday to expand to Green Bay a program that allows students to attend private and religious schools at taxpayer expense.

The voucher expansion should be removed from the state budget and “a true local public debate needs to occur,” Evers said in a statement. He also referred to the budget committee’s vote to include Racine in the voucher program Thursday night.

“Raising taxes on the citizens of Green Bay and Racine in the dead of night, without public hearings or the support of their locally elected school officials echoes the type of non-representative, undemocratic actions taken by the English parliament against the American colonists through their stamp and tea taxes,” Evers said.

He raised several questions about the action Friday night by the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee to include in the state budget an expansion of the school voucher program for Green Bay.

Green Bay property taxpayers are now on track to pay millions for private and religious schools, Evers said. “At the same time, their public school system is being cut $40 million, which will certainly raise class sizes and reduce educational opportunities for public school students.” »Read Full Blog Post(52)

 

Republicans Want Weaker Child Labor Laws

Republicans are proposing, in the budget bill, revising child labor laws to end a prohibition on minors under age 18 working more than 40 hours or six days a week. The bill would also repeal the prohibition against minors under 16 working more than 24 hours a week, replacing that with a limit of 18 hours of work in a school week or 40 hours during a week with no school in session.

Wisconsin Budget Bill Calls for Drug Testing to Refuse Unemployment Pay

Republicans want drug testing for all Wisconsin workers. In Florida, residents are sending urine samples to Governor Rich Scott.

Key West Residents to Send Rick Scott a Giant Jar of Their Urine

By Kyle Munzenrieder, Mon., Apr. 4 2011 Politicks

Rick Scott really is a big fan of having people pee in cups. He plans to start mandatory drug testing for both welfare recipients and state employees, but not everyone is on board with the plan. A group of Key West citizen calling themselves Committee for the Positive Insistence on a Sane Society (Yes, Committee for P.I.S.S.) wants to give Scott a piece of their mind and a sample from their bladder.

This weekend members gathered to take a collective urine sample and plan to send it to the governor.

“In one breath our CEO professes to be focusing on cutting wasteful government spending and laying off tens of thousands of state employees, while at the same time he announces a program to drug test state employees without any legitimate basis for such an invasion of privacy,” attorney Robert Cinton wrote in the press release, according to Naked Politics.

The sample of collective urine will be sent to Scott in Tallahassee. God bless the mail room clerk who has to deal with that.

Maybe it’s too much to ask the committee for P.I.S.S. to label its gift as “Special Key West-style Lemonade.”

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To see article on the Wisconsin budget item that calls for drug testing for all Wisconsin employees,  “A proposal endorsed by the Joint Finance Committee that would suspend jobless pay for a year to individuals who either fail a drug test or refuse to take one as a condition of employment…” go to:

http://www.jsonline.com/business/123288983.html