US Sen. Baldwin visits Madison high school amid education funding uncertainty

MADISON — U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin is back home this month. She’s touring Wisconsin and highlighting issues like healthcare and housing, along with issues facing small businesses and farmers.

On Tuesday, she stopped in Madison for a tour of La Follette High School as teachers returned to prepare for the school year.

While stopping to chat inside the music room, shop class, gym and kitchen, she took the opportunity to take aim at the Trump Administration’s education policies.

“He is defunding programs left and right. So we’re fighting back,” she told reporters inside the school’s library.

She touted the advancement of a bill late last month by an appropriations subcommittee. She’s the ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies.

According to a summary, the bill includes $79 billion in discretionary funding for the Department of Education.

It also has new requirements: that the Department maintain staff levels to carry out its duties, and that it makes formula grants available to states and districts on time.

Both are a reaction to threats under the Trump Administration from a department led by Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, the former pro wrestling CEO who served as the Administrator of the Small Business Administration during Pres. Trump’s first term.

In March, the Department of Education announced a “reduction in force” to lay off about half of its staff. And last month, the White House released billions in public school funding that had previously been withheld, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

That freeze held up more than $72 million for Wisconsin schools, $3.4 million of which was directed to go to the Madison Metropolitan School District.

Dr. Joe Gothard, Superintendent of the Madison Metropolitan School District, says those millions are already banked for the upcoming school year to fund initiatives like reading intervention, family engagement, and nutrition services.

“As of today, we are still waiting for direct language to ensure that we are going to be reimbursed for the costs we plan to incur this school year,” says Sup. Gothard.

“While I’m optimistic, I’m hopeful, I’m grateful for the unfreezing of these funds, I think this is still just a bit of what’s to come in the future — uncertainty. That certainly undermines public education and who it’s for, and something I think about each and every day is ‘Are we going to sustain the great work we are doing in our communities?'” he told reporters.

With a vote to make it out of the appropriations subcommittee as 26 to 3, Sen. Baldwin characterized the appropriations bill as “wildly bipartisan.”

She adds that while it still needs to go through the rest of the process, it shows that “we have momentum in standing up against this President’s plans with education.”

Madison students return to school — and Congress returns to session from its recess — just after Labor Day.

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