Milwaukeeans Organize to Fight Budget Cuts

Summer 2004

	Photo: Susan Ruggles Protesters outside a gathering of Wisconsin Republicans in late March.

By Barbara Miner

Amy Stearn has been on the school management council at Neeskara Elementary in Milwaukee for three years. And every spring, the council has been asked to cut more and more from the school's budget. Two years ago, for instance, the full-time art teacher was cut to half time. Last year, the same happened with the gym teacher. Next year, both the art and gym teachers will be one-tenth of a full-time job.

This year, however, Stearn did more than help the council decide on what cuts might cause the least damage at the school. Along with other parents, teachers and community activists, she helped form the Save Our Schools (SOS) Coalition.

"It's very frustrating as a parent to see something so important like education be so undervalued," Stearn says.

As in many urban areas, the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) are facing a declining budget at a time of increased mandates. A range of people, including editors from Rethinking Schools , formed the SOS Coalition, which has a decidedly activist orientation.

It is working with other groups such as the interfaith Milwaukee Inner-City Congregations Allied for Hope (MICAH) and the statewide Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools. It also has good relations with the teachers' union and a number of MPS administrators, school board members, state elected officials, and local politicians.

"SOS was formed to bring awareness to the fact that there is a CRISIS, in all capital letters, a CRISIS," says Tina Johnson, who has two children in MPS, is co-chair of the MICAH education task force, and works with Institute for Wisconsin's Future. "Something has got to happen, something has got to change. And we have to be a united voice-the MPS family, the city officials, the state elected officials-demanding change for the way our schools are funded."

Budget cuts have become a spring ritual in MPS. In the past five years, the district has trimmed about $100 million from staff, programs, and supplies, according to media reports. The budget shortfall this year is an additional $24 million.

Last year, some 580 jobs were eliminated; projections for next year call for an additional 448 jobs to be cut. Overall, in the last two years the total MPS staff has been cut by about 8 percent, according to figures in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The SOS Coalition is focusing on coming up with immediate solutions to resolve the budget crunch, and also on reforming the state funding of schools to ensure adequate monies, especially in rural and urban areas with declining or stagnant tax revenues.

One problem is that the state of Wisconsin has reneged on previous commitments to fund two-thirds of school costs. As a result, MPS will receive about $20 million less than it would have if the state had maintained its commitment. The district is also penalized by the amount of funding that is deducted from state aid to pay for voucher schools in Milwaukee-which is about $34 million this year, according to figures from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.

MPS is able to compensate for that loss by increasing property taxes, but there is a finite amount that taxpayers are willing to pay for schools. When tax dollars are used to fund private voucher schools, it makes it difficult to turn to the local levy to raise adequate funds for public schools.

While the Republican-dominated political climate in the state is hostile to spending on public programs, one promising difference this year is that Milwaukee elected Tom Barrett as mayor this April. Unlike former Mayor John Norquist, who unremittingly pushed vouchers, Barrett is a strong supporter of public schools.

In its inaugural action, the Save Our Schools Coalition organized about 150 people to picket the 4th Congressional District Republican Caucus, highlighting the anti-public education stance of the Republican-controlled legislature in Wisconsin. The SOS coalition's next major action will be a May 20 rally during a school board hearing on the 2004-05 budget.

Stearn, like others, doesn't have any magic answers to what she knows will be a long and difficult struggle to change the political climate and raise consciousness about the funding of public schools. But she's tired of watching budgets get cut every year.

"We have to take a stand and say enough is enough," she says. "If we don't come up with solutions, they'll just call for more cuts next year."

Summer 2004