175 join Burmaster at suburban forum

About 175 people were on hand, Dec. 13, for a school-funding reform community forum in West Allis. The event attracted an audience from many of the Milwaukee suburbs, including Menomonee Falls, Wauwatosa, Germantown, and Greendale.

About 175 people attended the third in a series of community forums, this one in West Allis, on school-funding reform to talk about problems in the Milwaukee suburbs with Department of Public Instruction Superintendent Elizabeth Burmaster.

The message from the forum—as it was in Milwaukee and Ashland—was that Governor Jim Doyle must put the needs of all of Wisconsin’s children back at the top of the state’s priority list. That message will be delivered in the form of a postcard—2,000 distributed at the forum Dec. 13—asking the Governor to include in his 2005-07 budget five recommendations from Burmaster and his own Task Force on Educational Excellence.

Co-hosting the forum at the Parkway Community Recreation Center in West Allis were WAES; the PTA/PTSA councils of Germantown, Wauwatosa, West Allis-West Milwaukee, and Menomonee Falls; the Greendale and West Allis-West Milwaukee Education Associations; the West Allis-West Milwaukee School District; Save Tosa Schools; the Quality Education Coalition; Project ABC in Waukesha; and the Wisconsin Advocacy Coalition.

The suburban forum was moderated by Fox TV 6 news personality Joanne Williams. She introduced a panel of educators, students, and parents who described the problems created throughout area districts by the state’s school-funding forum. According to a story in the Waukesha Freeman, the message was loud and clear: “If the current state funding formula doesn’t change, the quality of education in Wisconsin undoubtedly will.”

Panel members included Lynn Herbst, president of the West Allis-West Milwaukee Teachers Association; Bill Hughes, superintendent of the Greendale School District; Alycia Kender, a senior at Germantown High School; Ruth Page-Jones, parent member of Project ABC in Waukesha; Bill Hintz, principal of Menonomee Falls High School; Lori Zahorodny, parent member of Save Tosa Schools; Dave Schmidt, superintendent of the Waukesha School District; and Jeff Spitzer-Resnick, managing attorney of the Wisconsin Coalition for Advocacy.

Senior Alycia Kender, from Germantown High School, talked about the problems and challenges she and her fellow students face because of insufficient revenues.

In calling for a change in the funding formula, Schmidt summarized the feelings of his fellow panelists saying, “Our legislators need to have the courage and foresight to provide quality services for our kids.”

Jack Norman, research director for the Institute for Wisconsin’s Future (IWF) and WAES staffer, outlined the fiscal problems faced by suburban districts and then compared them to similar challenges confronting school districts all over the state. He talked about larger class sizes and reduced programming in some areas, teacher lay-offs and fewer student services in others, and, in some cases, entire school districts on the verge of consolidating, dissolving, or closing early due to the lack of adequate revenue.

Norman explained that there are solutions to the problem, both long-term and short-term. He explained how an adequacy model is the ultimate solution because it would change the system to one where funding actually links to resources to the needs of children and the academic goals of students.

In the short-run, Norman praised the State Superintendent’s budget and urged people to fill out postcards asking Gov. Doyle to not only praise her recommendations but include them in his own budget.

After Norman, Burmaster detailed her recommendations that include:

• Increased revenues for programs for children who have English language difficulties
• Additional aid for services and programs for children from poverty
• Transportation aid changes aimed at children in small, rural school districts
• A “cost-out” study to determine what a quality education costs in Wisconsin

The forum end with Kathy Zingsheim, a parent from West Allis and an event organizer, calling on people to take their new knowledge about school-funding problems back to their communities and organize for change. She also urged people to fill out the postcards and distribute them throughout their communities.

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