The Republican War on Education.

• Author: Conniff, Ruth

The public outpouring was incredible. People flooded into the capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin, from the urban neighborhoods of Milwaukee and from tiny towns in the northern and western corners of the state. They came to oppose Republican plans that would wipe out rural school districts, drain resources from city schools, and dismantle an entire statewide system of public education.

They packed a hearing room and two overflow rooms, and waited all day to speak. Hour after hour, teachers, parents, and citizens gave impassioned, often tearful testimony. Jon Sheller, a former member of the Montello school board, and his daughter, social studies teacher Yedda Ligocki, talked about their little town, with 750 schoolchildren. "As in most small school districts," Sheller said, the school "is the heart of the community."

"The athletics, the musicals, other school activities are the life of Montello," added Ligocki.

Governor Scott Walker's unprecedented $900 million cut to school funding, coupled with a scheme to create a state-run system of charter schools, will kill off both the school and the town, they said. Under S.B. 22, the bill they came to oppose, students and funds that used to go to schools like Montello's will be siphoned off to virtual charter schools run by a state board of political appointees.

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"There will be no turning back," Sheller said. "Small schools and their communities will wither and die--and for what? A political maneuver to allow privatization of public education at the expense of Wisconsin's history as a leader in student achievement. This is giving away our future."

Wisconsin is on the leading edge of a national assault on public education. Walker made a big name for himself with his explosive move to

bust public employee unions and take away teachers' bargaining rights. Now comes the next phase.

"We've been hearing about this for years now," says Democratic state representative Sondy Pope-Roberts. "I see Wisconsin as the first domino in a line. As this falls, I see other states hoping to achieve our quote-unquote success ... by crushing unions and taking public schools private."

Wisconsin has long had a strong public school system. But the conservative Bradley Foundation in Milwaukee has also been a national incubator for vouchers and other school privatization efforts.

"We started by being the first state to have a voucher school, in Milwaukee," Pope-Roberts says. "Now we will be the first state to ... basically create charter school districts."

Instead of being approved by local school boards, under S.B. 22 these charters would be overseen by a nine-member board appointed by the governor and leaders of the legislature.

The bill would encourage the rapid expansion of virtual charters, which would receive the same perpupil tax dollars as bricks-and-mortar schools, and could enroll students all over the state.

Walker's other proposals include lifting the income cap for vouchers, so wealthy families could receive public funds to send their kids to private schools.

The war on public schools is part of the conservative dream to "get government down to the size where you can drown it in the bathtub," as conservative guru Grover Norquist so memorably put it.

K-12 education is the single largest budget item for each of the 50 states. So it stands to reason that privatizing education is the largest front in the conservative war...