Free Republic

"This is a disaster," Mark Miller, the Wisconsin Senate Democratic leader, said in February after Republican Gov. Scott Walker proposed a budget bill that would curtail the collective-bargaining powers of some public employees. Miller predicted catastrophe if the bill were to become law -- a charge repeated thousands of times by his fellow Democrats, union officials and protesters in the streets. Now the bill is law, and we have some early evidence of how it is working. And for one beleaguered Wisconsin school district, it's a godsend, not a disaster. The Kaukauna Area School District, in the Fox River Valley...

A health insurance company affiliated with the state's largest teachers union is refusing to release hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal money to school districts that recently dropped the company in favor of less expensive providers. The federal money, which the nonprofit WEA Trust applied for on behalf of individual school districts, is intended to offset high-cost medical claims for early retirees ages 55 and older who are not yet eligible for Medicare. WEA Trust is affiliated with the Wisconsin Education Association Council. School officials argue that WEA Trust applied for the federal money during the 2010-'11 fiscal year,...