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This is an education.
……2009 Tony Evers elected Supt of Public Inst 57.1% to 42.7%…2010 Scott Walker elected Governor 52.3% to 46.5%…2012 Scott Walker recall fails 53.1% to 46.1%…2013 Tony Evers reelected Supt of Public Inst 61.2% to 38.7%…2014 Scott Walker reelected Governor 52.3% to 46.6%…2017 Tony Evers reelected Supt of Public Inst 70% to 30%
……Tony Evershttps://www.tonyevers.com/ could beat Scott Walker in 2018. He wins state wide elections — by larger margins than Walker does.
……Not that you can precisely compare the Superintendent of Public Instruction and Governor elections. The Superintendent elections are non-partisan, even when they are not. Candidates may have a record with a party, but neither the top-two primary nor the election itself has party designation. And the elections are off-year.
……Tony Evers has had a string of victories. A former teacher, principal, and school superintedent, he has a more than respectable record. The Department of Education website outlines that record (My apologies to the readers and to Tony Evers. The website is in bureaucratic educationese. The following is a translation into English.)
- Tony Evers has worked to make sure graduates have the knowledge, skills, and habits that create success.
- Under Tony Evers, the Department set and tried to meet goals in four areas: 1) Keeping kids safe, healthy, and encouraged; 2) Inspiring and encouraging teachers; 3) Engaging and Motivating children to reach their potential; 4) Fixing education financing.
- Relying on national efforts, the Department selected high standards in math and English for itself, for Wisconsin teachers, and for children.
- Working with other states, the Department developed tests of children’s achievement which can then be compared with the achievement of children in those other states.
- The Department had a particular focus on improving the Milwaukee schools.
- The Department is developing a system for assessing the work of teachers based on observation of their performance and actual student achievement, achievement not based on children’s scores on a single test. Similarly, the Department is introducing measures of whole school success.
- Department innovations include
- college credits and trade certifications for high school students — either through school experiences or through outside entities
- greater flexibility in the ways that prospective teachers can get the credentials they need to teach.
- A proposed reform of public school financing.
Tony Evershas not been free of criticism. He was fined for violating campaign laws, for using staff in a political campaign.
The campaign is not about Tony Evers. In 2020, if Donald Trump were to run for reelection, the campaign would be about him. Similarly, in 2018 in Wisconsin, the campaign is about Scott Walker.
……Walker is an examplar of what Republican government is about. He has not been quite as destructive to Wisconsin’s financial well-being as governors in Kansas and Oklahoma have been to their states. But look at his record:……Walker’s first act after taking office in 2011 was to propose a budget that adversely affected public employees. Increased employee shares in the cost of pension plans and health care reduced their take home pay and reduced the costs to the state. Collective bargaining rights were limited and subject to local votes.
……Extended protests, lawsuits, close state Supreme Court votes, and end runs around procedural requirements led to a recall election that failed to remove Walker from office.
……Subsequent budgets cut local aid and shifted the burden of funding education to local communities. Limits on increases in property taxes prevented those communities from funding education at previous levels. Restrictions on eligibility for medicaid opened a new front for reductions in public spending. That front was further extended by reductions in public service spending included job training, mental health care, and support for victims of domestic violence. Ultimately, funding reductions targeted the state university system.
……Walker joined the culture wars. Drug testing was proposed for recipients of public aid. His administration attempted to withdraw from defending a first in the nation (or at least very early) law that allowed same sex domestic partners to have some of the rights that come with marriage. Planned Parenthood was defunded from the state budget. Efforts were made to reduce women’s access to abortion.
……Walker’s principal focus remained on weakening the public sector in Wisconsin and helping business. State agencies ability to create regulations were limited. Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act was rejected. Cooperation with the federal government regarding the ACA was minimized.
……Despite early insistence that public sector unions were his soletarget, he eventually signed a Right to Work law aimed at reducing membership in private sector unions as well. He insisted this was not his initiative. Later, he took credit for it.……Walker’s aim was to bring in more business to the state. A Korean tech company was offered three billion dollars in incentives to come to Wisconsin. One newspaper estimated the cost would be over $230,000 per job.
……Walker and the Republicans sought to protect their capacity to remake Wisconsin. Gerrymandering state legislative districts and a voter ID law have protected the Republican majority.
Just as Trump would try to make his reelection about his opponent, Walker is busy attempting to make his reelection about Tony Evers. In 2018, Walker and the Wisconsin Republicans attacked Tony Evers. They focus on Tony Evers‘ failure to take away the teaching license of a union vice president discovered, along with some colleagues, to have been viewing pornography in school. Soft porn, not that that the kind of porn has ever been part of the discussion. The union vice president was fired. The others were not. An arbitrator found that the punishments were inequitable and reduced the punishment to suspension. Courts upheld the arbitrator and Tony Evers declined to revoke the teacher’s license because the law only allowed revocation if children were involved in viewing the pornography. Tony Evers went on to work with the governor and the legislature to change the law. Walker, the governor who worked with Tony Evers, now argues that Tony Evers should have revoked the teacher’s license and forced him to sue to get his license back.
……Here is a difference between Tony Evers and Scott Walker. Tony Evers follows the law. Walker uses the law as a tool for punishment.
……A modest cottage industry of academics, journalists, and advocates compare Minnesota and Wisconsin. The liberal view is that Wisconsin’s economy has declined because of Walker’s bad policy. That’s possible.
……In 2015, Roger Feldman suggested in The Twin Cities StarTribunethat the trends are longer standing, that Minnesota’s per capita income passed Wisconsin’s in the sixties. He suggests the disparity was derived from Wisconsin’s over reliance on manufacturing. Minnesota’s economy was increasingly diverse. Walker’s draconian policies may be more a reaction to Wisconsin’s decline than a cause.
……Whatever the analysis, a Wisconsin that reflects Walker’s politics will continue to make the state resemble the terrible financial conditions of Kansas and Oklahoma. Governors in those two states are extremely unpopular. Another term for Walker might leave him in the same league. Electing Tony Evers https://www.tonyevers.com/ would give Wisconsin a chance to change direction. It would be a step toward stopping Wisconsin’s decline. Help Tony Evers achieve that goal. Give him some support.
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