This summer school districts across the state have warned their communities that continuing revenue controls will mean programming cuts that will seriously disadvantage our students. Under the constraints of revenue control, since 1993 school districts have been struggling to maintain programming. Communities realize now we have come to a crisis point. Continuing as we are means severely adversely affecting the quality of education for our children.

Voters have education at the top of their issue priority list. Both major party candidates for governor have declared their commitment to education. Both candidates make education a top priority issue. Ordinarily, the consensus building around the need to protect our schools would mean the will to action. But our state faces a 1.34 billion-dollar deficit in each of the next two years. The general budget deficit will have to be resolved in the next biennium and both major party candidates have pledged not to raise taxes. These circumstances signal that the candidates may not have the courage to make the difficult choices. They should be pledging solutions to the problems at hand. Sometimes the greatest fear a politician has is the fear of having to tell the truth. Even so, the candidates must speak to the issue of how to resolve the budget crisis facing our schools. Wisconsin needs a statesman now who can stand up to this challenge.

Schools are the center of a community. Its hope, its generosity, its future are all expressed there. Schools are a community's most important possession. The pride a community feels, its well-being, and its appeal in the marketplace are all directly connected. A community with children not proud of its schools is not a proud community. Much is at stake. Voters in our community and every other community in Wisconsin must insist that their candidate for governor detail a plan to save our schools from decline.

We should vote for the candidate who convinces us he has a viable plan to protect and defend our schools and does not allow the quality of education we proudly provide for our children to diminish. The candidate who will assume leadership to solve this problem, I am confident can solve any other problem we may have to face in Wisconsin. The crisis is about inadequate funding at a time of deficits. Bringing about a solution will require real statesmanship. How to adequately fund our schools is admittedly a difficult question. Although it is, the candidate who is silent on the issue is not big enough to be governor at this time.

The crisis in funding Wisconsin schools comes at the same time when public education in America faces a crisis of confidence. Independent charter schools, for-profit schools, vouchers for private schools, and virtual schools are all out there advocating for public tax dollars. In the coming years this will further confound maintaining quality locally controlled public schools.

Our strong local schools have made the Tenney-Lapham neighborhood a strong vibrant neighborhood and community. We must not allow state politics to ruin the most valuable thing we have as a community. The next governor must support public education in word and deed.

-Joe Brogan

Return to Fall 2002 Table of Contents