School Funding a Touchy Subject - Reply

Open letter to John Forester of the School Administrator's Alliance, Miles Turner of WI Assoc. of School District Administrators; cc'd Tom Beebe, John Matthews of MTI,  State Rep Mark Pocan, MMSD Board.

Good afternoon. I hope all of you had a nice weekend.

I usually start my morning by reading the WI State Journal and today I caught a story about funding our state's schools and each candidates position (or non-position) on how to fund or not fund.

Mr. Forester and Mr. Turner made a comment about how the current funding formula for schools is not working any longer. We need to start looking at alternatives and they are available - we just have to make sure we act to make the changes needed to help save our schools. We also need to make sure that our legislators hear us about such options. I have written a select few about options researched and presented by MTI and myself but have received no reply.

It has been presented that a 1% increase in the state sales tax would help solve many of the problems that are facing our schools. Even a 1/2 % would help. Dane County may be asking for a 1/2% sales tax increase for commuter rail - why not for schools, too?

The State is not going to increase its funding to ours schools any time soon and will likely continue to cut. We can not continue to do the same thing and expect a different result. By this I mean we can not continue to go to the property tax owner and keep cutting programs and teachers if our student population rises. The property owner's well has about dried up and speaking as a Madison resident, we soon will not be able to afford to live in the city because of the heavy burden the levy has caused us. Schools will have to become leaner and more efficient but we can prevent the bankruptcy scenario Mr. Forester mentioned in today's paper (see link below).

It is unfortunate that Wisconsin did not qualify for the Race-To-The-Top federal funding program this year as this would have helped us in the short term.

Our communities are also facing losing the property tax credit. We also have our local technical colleges asking for added funding. We must get this under control and we need your help to work together and resolve these problems. There are also many other ways we need our local communities to work with us to address altering the tax code.

Mr. John Matthews was kind enough to forward me the Foundation Plan research by MTI and its potential related cost savings if implemented. It was presented to the assembly and nothing has been done as far as I know.

I have attached some related material for review.

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt_and_politics/elections/article_b0d53e22-4d53-5a77-ac71-19a160bdeaaf.html

I sincerely hope that we can work together to get this done and get our schools back on track.

Thank you,

C. Damian Michaelis
Madison WI

P.S.

Similar funding is being asked for with a program called "A Penny For Kids.

Wisconsin Schools Need our Help!

As a result of Wisconsin’s flawed school funding system, the amount of money going to our schools has not matched the rising cost of quality education.

Therefore, communities around the state have been forced to lay off staff, increase class sizes, cut programs and services, and increase their reliance on already overburdened property taxpayers. This crisis situation was made even worse when the state government decided to cut aid to public schools.



Now it is our turn to step forward. A “Penny for Kids” is all it will take to provide for our children and maintain the high quality of life that our communities deserve.

Sign the "Penny for Kids" petition to tell Wisconsin legislators that our schools need their attention now and a penny-for-kids sales tax increase is a good way to start

Go to: http://www.apennyforkids.org/   To sign the petition.
http://www.apennyforkids.org/the-need.html - The need.
http://www.apennyforkids.org/who-we-are.html - Who we are.