How can you not go? What the heck was that? It's busted pencils fully. Let it education
talk educated educators, talking education class is in session. Dr. Johnny Lupinacci, Jacob
chairman of the board, me, Dr. Tim Slecker. Whoa, there we go. And well, obviously, you
can hear we have a guest in the room. Way to come in and make an entrance. Heather from
the Wisconsin public education network. Yeah, you guys like that, Heather? Yes. That is
Heather Du Bois. We're name she is back to give us, you know, everything we could have
possibly imagined. Yeah, wait, she went out for a second and now she's back in again. Heather.
Heather, you got to go with the sound effects that you're providing us. That's what I'm sorry, sorry.
It's good stuff, but you know, Jacob chairman of the board, Dr. Tim Slecker, me and yeah, our guest
Heather is back with us. And she is finally close to the door and said, I am here.
Yeah, for good. I'm locked in. She's locked in and fully let it fully let it. Oh my god. And
here we go again. Heather, what's happening in Wisconsin? And you got a new shirt on, we can
yeah, I got a new fall. First of all, the good news. We fixed public schools funding forever.
Great news. You might not have heard. And we got sweet new shirts that say public schools are
superior. Oh, yeah, new new collab with our friends at Ray Gunn who opened up a shop on state street
that everybody's super excited about. And they have our public schools United shirts in stock and
one that says, oh gosh, sorry, I forget what it says like Wisconsin needs strong public schools,
I think it's super cool. You can get those in the store and then we've also got an online shop
where you can get this one in like a t-shirt or a sweatshirt and you can get some other sweet stuff
too. So check it out. Check it out. And definitely again, show notes, we will have the
list. Yeah, we'll definitely have definitely have the link in the notes Jacob chairman of the
board. Take notes, put that in there because we're all ordering those public schools are superior
shirts. Big fan. Heather, but hey, you can get hold on. You can get one for free. If you go to
Wisconsin network.org slash summit and register right now to come to our summer summit this summer
July 23 and 24 in superior Wisconsin. So that's why our shirts say public schools are superior
because we are hosting our our big annual event up there and we're really excited to take that
show on the road. So more about that later, but I'm absolutely I'm not gonna get one can can can
get one for free until the end of the month. Yeah, and twist my arm visit superior Wisconsin in
summer. Let's go. That's beautiful. It's so beautiful up there and we got a sweet hotel deal
and everything. It's going to be awesome. Oh, I think I think we'll be doing some travel intent.
But in the meantime, Heather, we need an update. I mean, all the great things that y'all are working
on. Give us the update. What's what's happening when the in the network?
We have been working over time since the new year and beyond. I can't remember the last time I was
on the show last fall. I think kind of giving some updates about some of the legislative stuff we
were trying to push forward and it should come as a surprise to no one that shock a row. None of the
great bills that have been drafted to support strong and thriving public schools have have passed
through our legislature. They've heard a bunch of nonsense. A bunch of bills directed at, you
know, disenfranchising LBGTQ kids such important matters as mandating weather and when the state
can serve margarine instead of butter to our school children and the like and we have watched good
bills languished without even being given a hearing, which is really frustrating. The most frustrating
of all as far as I'm concerned is one that would have called on state leaders to adjust the budget
to provide a some sufficient allocation for the 42% special ad reimbursement they promised in
this budget, which first of all, woefully inadequate to meet kids' needs. I think at 42%, we're still
the lowest rate in the nation for states that reimburse the way we do for special ad for prior year
costs, but it's better than the 36% we had last year, whatever it was. But the real tragedy is when
all in said is done, when all is done and how does that go? When all is when all is said and done. I
think I had a right thing for a second. When all was said and done, it turns out their initial
projections were way off and the actual amount that they allocated was actually only sufficient to
cover about 35% of the cost, which puts us right about where we were before, still worse than the
nation, still giving districts, you know, well over a billion dollar a year and on reimburse cost.
And you'll remember that that budget really only provided that as its singular contribution to
public school funding, it provided zero dollars for the first time in state history in new spendable
general aid in both years of the biennium. And so we've really been pushing for them to take up
the bill that would fix that and so far, no good. Meanwhile, we just found out that we're sitting on
an even bigger surplus than they projected, obviously, because that's what you get when you don't
fund your public schools. And we're looking at about 4.37 billion dollars just sitting in Madison,
unspent, unused, undesignated. And it's time to like just like, first of all, at the minimum,
keep your promise. But how about we get to the 60% we actually need to like move the dial for our
districts and put some of that money toward actual general aid? It's nuts. So that's not where we
are. But we're hearing that lawmakers are negotiating a deal where they may restore some of
that commitment to special ed, but then they're going to blow the rest of the money in a scam that
they call the school levy tax credit, which has school in the name. So it sounds like it's going to
schools, but it's actually just property tax relief has absolutely nothing to do with schools.
Yeah, I was going to say, okay, so let's. Sorry. Okay. I get on my soap box now because that's
I'm a gaming man. We got to put out a shout out to representative Angelina Cruz because she
was on promoting that bill. Yes, she was talking about it. That was a while ago. It still hasn't
gotten it here. I mean, you got to build number. Still hasn't. And we've had over 2,000 people
sign our petition calling on lawmakers to move it forward. But which I'll I can share the link to
that too. But listeners are hearing the B word billion surplus. I think people know surplus.
That means way above and beyond all of the needed things that have to be funded. So holy crap,
I went out into my backyard and with a metal detector, I just found the coffee can full of
$100 bills. That's like a surplus to my neighbor, right? Like, wow, what am I going to do with
all these hundreds? Yeah. And so they they are faced with having a surplus, which I mean,
that's a good thing. If not funding the public schools, you were talking about, you know, they're
going to going to fund a tax cut. Is that all? I mean, like, what are people saying, you
know what Heather, here's the deal. Look, we understand that special needs kids aren't being served
by the fact that we continue to disregard their human rights and then the realities that they face
every day. We we get it where we know we continue to harm children. We continue to create situations
that don't put forward the needs that so many have. It's because we have to put the money
here. Is it like is clear as saying, we have to put the surplus money to tax cuts. I mean,
anything else because I you know, if you had a if I had a legislator on here right now who was
saying, you know, I would wonder what they were saying, you know what, Heather is all about
funding special needs. She's not thinking about whatever. Help Heather Heather's thinking about
what other whatever Heather's thinking about why your property taxes went up, right? People are
in Wisconsin because we got our tax bills and they are they have gone up, right? People people are
like, whoa, wait a minute. I thought we just put all this money into education. Why are my taxes
going up? Here's the rub. The reason Rep Cruz had to put her bill forward in the first place was
because the bill that are that our legislature signed into law last year was in fact not a budget
that was intended to help kids, but it was a spite budget. Republicans are still mad at
governor Evers for the so called 400 year veto, which you know, provided a minuscule increase
to public school spending allowance, right? Not an increase in aid, but an increase in how much
you're allowed to spend at the local level. That's called revenue limit authority. It's confusing,
but here's how it works. The state controls how much each district is allowed to spend. Those
amounts are frozen and they're different for every district and they aren't aligned with student
needs and they don't make any sense and they're very fair and they should be illegal because they
are disqualizing and bad. But we still have them and we've had them since the 1990s.
Revenue limit authority went up by $325 per kid, which by the way is about one-tenth of how much we
needed it to go up in order to get back to how much we were spending in 2009. That's how far our
gap actually is. This closed the gap just a little teeny tiny bit, but didn't allocate funds for
it. And so instead of allocating funds for that, which would have come in the form of general aid,
right? New and more general aid. The legislature flat-funded public schools at the same levels they
were the year before and said, you want that $325 a kid, you can pay for it with your local taxes.
So everybody's property taxes around the state had to get filled to make up for that amount,
right? Because that's less than inflation, right? Districts don't have a choice but to raise taxes
by that amount because their bills are going up way more than that. DPI told us last week,
special education costs have gone up as much as 20% over a prior year. I mean, these are significant
increases in these areas. And so because state funding didn't keep pace with inflation,
and because the one bucket of money they did put aid in at the state level into special ed comes
as a next year reimbursement, it's not money that gets into our classrooms this year. And so
one, surprise, your property taxes are way up. And surprise, you're going to referendum again.
We got 70 of our two of our 421 districts going to referendum this April.
It's nuts. And I predict that there'll be at least twice as many going to referendum in the fall
because we're in a year where we have a fall general election, which means you can go
in either the spring or the fall. And most districts choose to go in the fall because that's
when more people turn out to vote. So we're in a hot mess over here. We got costs on the rise,
we got aid on the decline. And we've got people paying more and more to pick up the tab where
they live and just belts can't get any tighter at the local level. Something's got to give.
And it's time for the state to do something about it. So if you don't like this and you don't
understand it and you don't and you don't know who to be mad at, might I suggest the people at
the state house. They're waiting for your calls right now. And they need to know how you feel
about what they should do with this surplus and the rainy day fund that it can't ever rain enough
for them to spend a penny of. Johnny. Well, I mean, I know, right? I mean, I get,
Heather, why you say that you're you're infuriated by this thing, you know, you're mad. But I would
also say more than mad, it's like a righteous anger that you're putting to action together with,
you know, with all the folks that are part of the network. It's like, how loud can we be? How many
signatures do we need? And we'll keep increasing that number because this is a common concern
out there. We care about public schools. We know that. If you're listening out there in your
community, this is, you know, this isn't a partisan issue. This is about what we do to, you know,
underwrite our future as a state, as a country. We're hearing like we have the month.
What in the world are we doing to not support and fund education the way it needs to be funded?
So Heather, what where we go from here? Like, what do we do? I mean, we get more people involved,
but what needs to happen? You know, I will say this, all of this is happening despite resistance,
right? There are people have people have been pushing back, standing up, fighting back, speaking
out as long as I can remember, right? And so it's not because of lack of concern or lack of
public input. People turned out in huge numbers to testify at the budget hearings, you know,
got to take the whole day off work, stand in line, wait for your two minutes or submit a written
testimony. People did that, right? They've been showing up at the hearings packing the rooms,
sending letters to lawmakers, like I said, signing our petition, doing other communications.
It's not because they aren't hearing from people. It's because we still have legislators who
think they don't have to listen to the public. Our maps are more fair, but we are just coming out
of a period of being deeply gerrymandered. And people are used to not having to listen to their
constituents. And that's what's really got to change. So we've got an opportunity this fall to
make sure that we are electing public school champions. And I don't care what letter they have behind
their name. We got to make sure that we elect people on both sides who are committed to fully
and fairly funding our public schools. And if they don't agree, they shouldn't get elected.
Right? So that's that. And if they are going to do their job, you know, I mean, I always say
the status quo is not going to change itself, right? We need to force the state to do it. And if
it's time to like bring other kinds of accountability measures into play, maybe it's time. We've been
saying for a long time that there's got to be another mechanism for holding the state accountable,
whether it's through the ballot box or the courts. Well, when you know, and that yeah, that's the part
too, is like, how do you get these legislators to, you know, move in a direction that really makes
them, you know, either point out specifically how they value their public schools or how they don't.
I mean, we definitely have, you know, the vote and we encourage voters always to get out there
and make sure that you are, you know, practicing democracy, making sure that your vote counts,
but, you know, Heather, again, the Wisconsin Public Education Network too, to realize that there
are advocates out there fighting, tirelessly putting together campaigns to inform the your
neighborhood about what's going on. And this issue too about, you know, not funding our public
schools, whether it's special education, you know, the essential curriculum, like the arts,
like music, all of those things, when it simply comes down to, you know, the fact that we talk
to representative crews about this one is always initially framed somehow by a group that's like,
well, you know, those public schools, that's why your taxes are going up. I mean, I think what we
continue to keep doing here, and you're trying to do here too, is to get people to understand that
their taxes keep going up intentionally from the quote legislators who typically like to say
there are low tax legislator, and that the reality is is that they're the ones that are creating
the, particularly the real estate tax, because yeah, when a school, and we've set this over and
over again, and neighbors, we hope you're, you're grabbing onto this and listening and understanding
how to talk about this. If you want lower property taxes or property taxes that make sense,
when you hear about a four plus a billion dollar surplus, realize that actually school districts
could be fully funded, still have a surplus, and create a tax cut. This is the part where like,
like how do we help explain that more and more and more, Heather, you know, and I know that,
you know, the Wisconsin WPN does this, but sometimes it's just the simplicity of going,
actually your public schools aren't creating higher taxes, your legislators who will not fully
fund public schools are creating tax increases, is it that simple that that won't hold?
It's clear as day, right? The math is actually super simple, and like I, like honestly, Tim,
you didn't hook set me up for this, but like we have this little explainer right here. It's like,
wait, why are my taxes going up? Because the state isn't putting money into schools, right? And when
the state doesn't put money into schools, the only other option is for you to fill in the gap with
property taxes. And so that's what we have to do, right? Districts have a certain amount of
revenue limit authority where they can, you know, increase it, you know, by that small amount that
governor Evers allowed in his, in his veto, thank goodness, because otherwise we wouldn't have
any would be in an even worse situation, but it's still not enough. We still have to choose to vote,
to raise taxes on ourselves at the local level to pay for what we actually need. And so people
are doing this, right? We're not against taxes. Taxes are bad. I'd gladly contribute my share as
much as I can afford to make sure that we have as good of schools as anyone else in the state,
but that is a very disqualizing way to do it. Because in communities where they can't afford to
take on a greater tax burden or where they're already paying more proportionately to their neighbors
who can spend more, right? But get more state aid because of the way state funding works.
Then it becomes unfair and that's where we see the gaps between have and have nots get wider and
wider. And so while, you know, there are people who say, you know, at the, in the state house,
you want to raise taxes on yourselves, go ahead and do it. You can tax yourselves by referendum
until the end of time. That violates a state's constitutional obligation to provide schools
that are, quote, as uniform as practical. This is a really important clause in our state
constitution. The more we force these costs onto the local level, leave it up to faith
and the whims of voters and the, and the capacity of voters to take on additional tax,
the more we commit ourselves as a state to disqualizing the funding formula. And that's where
they're really running a foul of their constitutional obligation. And so we keep trying to sound
the alarm on this because that can't stand, right? We have to meet our obligation to our kids and
we have to make sure that if we are going to make sure that every single kid in every single
public school has equal access to similar resources, we need to, you know, the fixing that problem
starts at the state house. And there's a lot they can do there. And, and the thing that's most
mind boggling at a ball is, you know, this is not beyond our means. We can afford to do this.
There is enough money in this state. And there are enough sources of revenue out there right now
that we could easily fund our public schools at adequate levels. And we're just choosing not to.
That's the part that really blows people's minds. So I do hope people get mad about this. And I
hope they join us. Visit Wisconsin Network dot org. Check out our map of local advocacy teams
around the state. See if there's one near you. And if there is, check them out. If there's not,
get send us an email. We'll hook you up with the people we know in your region who are as mad as
you are about all this and plug you into some actions. We've got some cool stuff coming up too,
which hopefully we can talk about in a minute. Well, why wait a minute? Heather, let's go right into
that fun stuff. So that, I mean, I was like, tell me about it. I didn't know he had a question.
No, no, no, get same thing because I was just like, okay, like, okay, do it. I mean, the conference
particularly because, you know, people are like, oh, you guys do his wine. It's like, okay,
no, but good people come together. Talk about that. What's happening in superior? I tell you
one thing, if you're going swimming in like superior in the summer, be ready because it's still cold,
man. Okay. Yeah. So here's what's here's what's coming up are our 12th annual summer summit is
going to be at superior high school. This summer is July 23 and 24. It's going to be two full days
of learning, networking, connecting with other people around the state who care about public
schools, who want to know more about how to get organized, who want to know how to talk about
these things in a responsible way so that we have full receipt of the facts and we understand
what the impacts are in the kids in our communities when we undersell and underfund our public schools,
but also to just connect with each other, learn from our organizing partners, find out more about
what's happening in other districts and be an ambassador for the sort of change that benefits,
not just the kids in our own communities, but all around the state. Being a stronger collective
voice is really what we're all about it. Wisconsin Public Education Network and our whole motto is
like, let's come together and get trained up and know what we have to do where we live to influence
our elected officials, but then stick together as a statewide thing so that we can have a stronger
collective voice and really move the dial together. So if you go to Wisconsinnetwork.org slash
summit, you can sign up today to attend that summer event. It's going to be super fun. There's
also a great hotel package so you can make a long weekend of it, bring up the fam. There comes
lunch and dinner are included. It's going to be great and you can get one of these shirts for
free. If you get the blue ribbon partner pass, it's going to be amazing. So that's going to be
super fun. So that's July 23 and 24 this summer. Save the day and get yourself registered.
But also, it's February, y'all. And that means it's public schools week, right? And to this month
is I love my public schools week, February 23 to 27. And we have a full week of actions, events
and celebrations planned. And that is an awesome opportunity for you to try to just kind of plug
into what's going on in your district, amplify and celebrate the cool things that educators and
students are doing all week long, support local actions like they're doing through partners
in our network all over the state. And then on Friday, we're having a day of action at the capital,
which is going to be amazing. Noon in the rotunda, we're going to have a big event and then we're
going to have a little party afterwards. So visit, Wisconsinnetwork.org to find out more about
all that. And the other thing I want to flag is on Thursday, February 26, our new and emerging
group of some prairie student action is holding their first event. They are high school students
who are going to be in conversation with student organizers from Kentucky youth voice,
who you might be familiar with their work. That's a group of students who are suing the state
for fair funding. And some students from seat students students engaged to advance Texas,
I think is their acronym seat, who are doing amazing work, finding back against privatization
that is under selling kids in public schools in Texas. So that's Thursday night. It's a free
webinar and you can learn more about all this on our website. And I hope you do. Wow, wow.
So lots of lots of opportunities to plug in. And if you've been on the sidelines about this and
you think, you know, I just don't want to be a noisemaker. I want to do something that's really
going to matter. We've got a place for you in our network. There's so much work to be done. And
there are so many people who are doing it. We also need all hands on deck both spring and fall
elections this year. So if you want to get off the sidelines, make sure public school champions
get elected. But you want to stay outside of the partisan fray because that's not your thing.
We're the place for you. We don't endorse candidates. We're not here to, you know, pick one party
or another. We're here to hold all of our friends accountable for being the grown ups our kids
need right now and to do the right thing by our public schools. And I'll just put this plug
there. Are there all those things listeners? And is the like the best place to go to learn?
Did you go to the website or you go to the social medias or attend any of these events? There's
I mean, go figure that group of educators and concern people about education would be good at
teaching things. But you don't have to be an expert or overly passionate about the subject.
But a great place to become informed. And that's part of being a democratic citizen. And it's
your organization, Heather, and, you know, what you share, but what the whole org does is help
teach us all why public schools better. Why these issues are so important and how to navigate them
in a way that we feel part of a way that we see the reason, you know, on the logic for
how we ought to fund our public schools. Why public schools are important? What we can do about it.
So great place to go be a learner as well. Heather, thanks so much for everything you share.
And, you know, I know it's a lot. Yeah, thanks for busting pencils, Heather. That's the reality
right there. And man, for bringing up Margarine and Butter, maybe think of Park K. But hey,
all this talk about property taxes, it's like, like Heather, there's got to be some other things
going on too, right? Yeah, one of the things that people in Wisconsin are getting really worked
up about right now is finding out that your tax bill is not what it seems. When we get our
tax bills in the mail, there's a line on there that says, you know, how much how much is being
levied for our local district. What you don't know is that your district is required by law to
pay out a certain amount of that total, have been advocating for a long time for something we call
voucher taxpayer transparency, which is, and there's been bills that have come up again and again
in the state house that would require those voucher costs to be disclosed on our tax bills.
Well, none of those bills have ever gotten to hearing. And so some districts are taking it into
their own hands and they're just putting it on their tax bills anyway. And this year, Green Bay was
the first district in the state to get that information right on their actual tax bill. And so you
can see, if you live in the in the Green Bay Area school district, a line on your tax bill that
shows how much of that total is going to pay for the publicly funded but not publicly operated and
unaccountable voucher and independent charter schools in your districts. And so we've launched a
voucher transparency program, which calls on people to just ask for those bills, those figures
to be added on to your tax bill too. And until the state wants to correct its ways, we can just do
this ourselves at the local level. It's actually pretty easy. And with nearly $2 billion going
into the voucher program in this biennium, it's really important that we have a mechanism for
tracking that and letting the public know how much we're really spending on these unaccountable
schemes. So another reason why our taxes are going up and up while, you know, our investment in
schools is continues to go further and further down. So if people want to learn more about that,
then go to Wisconsin Network dot org slash privatization or just click on the click action,
but take action button at the top of the page. And you can learn more about how we can help you do
that in your community. And chances are there's somebody already working on it because this project
is taking off like wildfire all over the state. It's been pretty exciting, but Kudos to Green Bay.
And also like let's shout out to the folks in Racine, Milwaukee, Madison, and a couple of other
districts that have already been putting inserts in their tax bills that show these costs as well.
There's districts that have been put down their website and stuff too, but this is the best way
to make sure that everybody sees it, which is how it should be, right? Isn't that how transparency
supposed to work? You know how you know what you're paying for and where your money is going?
That's what we wanted more of. We love transparency and accountability are two
favorite things in the public schools world. Now it's time for your moment of zin.
If patriotism were defined, not as blind obedience to government, not as submissive
worship to flags and anthems, but rather as love of one's country, one's fellow citizens all
over the world as loyalty to principles of justice and democracy, then patriotism would require
us to disobey our government when it violated those principles.
Thanks for listening to busted pencils class in session and you can always grab great podcasts
like this one. Just search busted pencils on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and of course you can
always find us on the civic media website or at busted pencils dot com. Hey, and don't forget
to find us throughout the week every Monday, Wednesday, Friday with home rooms, class in sessions,
and always loads of fun with Jacobs producers choice and listen up pencil busters. You know,
you can always catch the busted pencils broadcast at three p.m. central time across all the civic
media network stations for one hour of your favorite blue collar scholars, Tim and Johnny and keep
busted pencils.
you