[Cincinatus' Wife]

Scott Walker's 2015-17 Budget Proposal: What You Need to Know

[blackdog]

They tried that crap at a school our kids attended in South Carolina. They announced that the art program would be cut in total due to a tax increase which was not approved by the voters. They could not afford the supplies.

Next common sense sprung into action and we (the parents) asked for a list of the supplies and we would purchase them privately ourselves to keep the art program operating. No list was provided. So thinking again, we did manage to get the total expenditures for art supplies from the prior year's accounting. So we purchased all of the same materials, same quantities, and same terms of delivery. Oddly enough, it only came to about $18,000. The schools claimed they had to cut art because they couldn't get their $162,000 for art supplies which we bought for $18,000.

It turns out the real motives were that two art teachers wanted to take a six month sabatical trip to Italy for purposes of professional education in their field. The money was really for that and substitute teachers to fill in while they were gone. They were pissed they could not go. They refused the $18,000 of art supplies, as they were already swimming in carry over inventories from prior years. We donated it to a neighboring school district who gladly accepted the stuff.

School districts do some pretty sneaky crappy stuff to the taxpayers. They are always going into "Closed Session" when it's anything important.

[yoe]

Maybe if the schools were to cut all but the three ‘R’s’, reading, writing, and arithmetic....keeping history and geography...maybe by cutting out the fru-fru...if some parents want the added ‘social’ classes, let them band together and hire a teacher for those classes themselves and meet at various homes. Probably some law against that also.........

[SkyPilot]

Six weeks later, they've created websites and yard signs and T-shirts, knocked on doors, talked to neighbors and launched a letter-writing campaign that has blasted lawmakers with more than 2,000 pieces of mail...

Amateurs. They should emulate Ferguson and Baltimore - their thugs get results quickly.

"We want the money"

Of course they do.

[DakotaGator]

Hmmmm...didn't see that sports, an extra-curricular activity, was going to be cut.

I'll bet there's $900K of fat in the district's budget. If not, campaign to raise the school district taxes. Parents should be holding themselves, the school district, and school board accountable.

[familyop]

"Six weeks later, they've created websites and yard signs and T-shirts, knocked on doors, talked to neighbors and launched a letter-writing campaign that has blasted lawmakers with more than 2,000 pieces of mail, asking them not just to preserve education funding over the next two-year state budget but to increase it."

They could use the time, energy and expense to educate their own kids and learn more while doing so.

[familyop]

Teachers and administrators are usually behind moves like that. Some parents do have ties to them.

[BCW]

Perhaps the parents should have been involved long before to make sure corrupt unions didn’t take advantage of the system forcing Walker to act....he’s not to blame for reacting to a situation he did not create...

[CharlesWayneCT]

THey probably will spend a million dollars fighting for someone else to give them 900,000 dollars for their school children.

Easier just to run a bake sale.