OpEd: The Sharper Message

Walker did not need to destroy education to save Wisconsin....or destroy unions...he just needed to keep his promises about creating jobs. It is possible to REFORM education, and REFORM educational funding, and WEAC is not going to lead the way on that. So there is a middle way that has not been created yet, yet I see it as possible. Tom Barrett said in the televised debate that he did support a revised educational funding formula that added a sales tax to support education. This is reasonable since the property tax has been exhausted as a source, and voters if given the opportunity to raise their taxes on their homes, will reject it, and reject the candidate that opens that door---make a note of it. Standards for promotion in education must mean more than just interviewing all the teachers in a school for their present job. There must be a measurable way of evaluating teacher performance...I have not seen it yet. So--the bottom line. The message that "everything will be restored as it was before Walker" is a non starter. And the message that the property tax will be the source of restored funding is a non-starter. The message must be delivered by Barrett as to what his solution is. Voters need to hear it.