WI State superintendent calls out Republicans' war on schools
Wisconsin State superintendent calls out Republicans’ war on schools in fiery speech
Ruth Conniff, Wisconsin Examiner
September 26, 2021
In her first annual State of Education address, Wisconsin's new state schools superintendent Jill Underly did not hold back. “We're now failing a generation of kids," Underly declared. “And we're failing our state by putting Wisconsin's economic future at risk."
Standing in front of the bust of Fighting Bob La Follette in the Capitol rotunda, after a student sang the national anthem and the requisite acknowledgements of various educators and public officials were dispensed with, Underly launched into a speech that sounded more like a call to arms than the usual anodyne annual report from the state department of ed.
Drawing on Wisconsin's progressive history and praising the state for being a leader in education, Underly acknowledged standing on “the shoulders of those who came before us," then slammed Republican legislative leaders for their “shortsightedness" in passing a budget that declined to spend part of a historic surplus on schools.
“Not long ago, Wisconsin's budget invested in our public schools," Underly noted. “We saw the impact of this on the kids who graduated from our schools before 2010." But over the last decade, the state has failed to make up for budget cuts made during the Great Recession. As a result, “in 2020, we graduated and an entire generation of kids who have known nothing but austerity in our school funding — who have known years of divestment in their future."
More at:
https://www.rawstory.com/wisconsin-state-superintendent-calls-out-republicans-war-on-schools-in-fiery-speech/