Rep. Joel Kitchens has authored a bill supporting the elimination of cell phones in classrooms, and I want to express my support for that position. But most of what Mr. Kitchen’s is up to in education policy in the state legislature is unfortunate. Republicans keep blaming the schools, teachers, and DEI for their own disasters. Before Act 10, Wisconsin was always ranked as one of the country’s best school systems. Wisconsin fourth and eighth graders in 2009, for instance, ranked seventh for reading and math scores. Often, the state was a little above or below that ranking. I can remember a time when Wisconsin was in the top five school rankings on a regular basis.
Now Mr. Kitchens and his Republican colleagues are complaining about the performance of fourth and eighth graders in reading and math based upon recent test data. They claim Governor Ever’s budget, designed to again make Wisconsin one of the top 10 states in education, is “dead on arrival” because the state’s school system is broken. The current Superintendent of Public Instruction, they say, is unsupportable because she “weakened” tests given to Wisconsin students just to make the state look better. Why give a school system, failing so dramatically, more money, they ask.
As Provost, I helped develop one of the nation’s most prestigious minority universities, Navajo Technical University, by encouraging teachers to build their teaching dreams. Today, people trash teachers and Wisconsin public schools are facing a disastrous teacher shortage as teacher morale has plummeted.
I am not only blaming Republicans. Democrats forced the Common Core, which is almost as much a disaster, where reading is often limited to information reading rather than reading interesting to students.
I understand Democrats are not supporting Mr. Kitchen’s effort to ban cell phones in classrooms despite the distraction and depression they are causing. Yet, Mr. Kitchens and Republicans champion curriculum solutions that are politically motivated rather than on what will work in classrooms. Teachers have solutions, not politicians, not Mr. Kitchens. Teachers are in the classroom every day.
I support Governor Ever’s budget increases for education.
Tom Davis
Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin
