Hardly a week goes by when the Madison school district doesn’t demonstrate its contempt for its own taxpayers.
Shortly after those taxpayers voted to pony up a record $607 million in school spending increases, the district blew $100,000 on a new marketing campaign including a new MMSD logo — to add insult to injury that money was paid to an outstate consulting firm. Then the school board voted themselves a massive 88% pay increase, going from $8,000 to $15,000 a year plus bonuses for being the board president or sitting on committees. They also proposed that the district pick up their health insurance. That one didn’t pass, but wait until next year.
Now the district is giving their teachers an extra paid day off. That’s right, the schools will be closed this Friday, May 1st, so that teachers can march to the Capitol to demand more school funding and to also (and I’m not sure how these two things go together) demand that we all but stop enforcing immigration laws.
Essentially, the local teachers union, MTI, told the district their members weren’t going to show up on Friday to do their jobs, so they might as well give everybody the day off. The district was happy to comply because it supports these causes, especially more unrestricted funding for itself.
But this isn’t Arbor Day, folks. There’s nothing politically neutral about it. This is an amped up May Day rally and a call for a general strike. Implicit in giving students the day off is that they will be welcome and probably encouraged to show up at a May Day event that is built around the international workers movement. Nothing wrong with that, but students aren’t likely to absorb much Milton Friedman as they take in the day’s activities. This is essentially a school day given over to hard-left propaganda that students will not be invited to challenge once they return to class.
So, now parents will have to scramble to find alternative arrangements for their kids, those kids (who are already falling behind) will miss a day of instruction, and teachers who are required by contract to work a certain number of hours just got another day’s paid vacation simply by demanding it in the name of the right causes. It’s not so much that I blame MTI. Unions are in the business of demanding stuff for their members. But the district got nothing in return. It didn’t even require that the day be made up later on. Brilliant bargaining. I can’t wait to see what happens when Act 10 is overturned.
And here’s the kicker to it all. The protest is planned for Friday. The next day is Saturday. Why on earth couldn’t they simply have scheduled their protest for 24 hours later? The answer, I suppose, is that this is part of a national day of protest which is designed to disrupt everything. A person could ask if a day when everything gets disrupted is actually persuasive for average Americans just trying to go about their day, but that’s another issue.
But what about those of us who do, in fact, oppose the bullying tactics of Trump’s ICE and who do think school funding should be moved from the regressive property tax to more progressive state sources, but think those protests could just as well take place on a weekend? Those of us who do not support International Workers Day because we saw how socialism and communism turned out and we didn’t like it. Those of us who are paying, on average, about $800 more for schools that will be closed when they should be open.
And here’s my final question. Is there any point at which Madison taxpayers have just had enough and they launch their own protest by turning out some of these school board members — none of whom has raised an objection to this madness — at the polls?
Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos 
On International workers day these knuckleheads are advocating policies that do nothing but hurt worker’s bargaining power. Every corporation loves them.
Is there a single teacher in MMSD that is brave enough to educate students on the economic laws of supply and demand? And also explain how teachers have a moat that prevents immigrants (legal or not) from replacing them? Or articulate a position that is against ICE bullying and at the same time supports enforcing our immigration laws?
I doubt it.
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MMSD should really make up the day, I would think they couldn’t meet the minimum required hours if they don’t. But, if they already built in extra hours in the calendar to accommodate snow days, etc., perhaps it’s not needed.
“we saw how socialism and communism turned out and we didn’t like it”
This is a tired claim. Every time a country has even hinted at actual socialism or communism it has been met with outrageous violence by capitalists. So, I don’t think we’ve really seen how it turned out if a people were just allowed to live how they want to live. Heaven forbid a group of people decide to cooperate with each other and prohibit their own exploitation!
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Really? Russia, China? Those weren’t communist states? Was it the U.S. and the West that forced Stalin and Mao to slaughter their own people?
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China and the USSR used communism as a sales pitch for dictatorship. Not very different than how the US used democracy as a sales pitch when the founders were not creating a democracy. Your claim about the US not forcing the atrocities in China and the USSR is irrelevant to my point regarding the widespread atrocities the US engaged in across the world in the name of “fighting communism.” My view doesn’t forgive the atrocities of dictators, nor those of capitalists.
There were plenty of countries that were reasonably peacefully moving towards socialism and communism during the Cold War that the US interfered with violently. That’s what I’m criticizing. This so-called beacon of democracy was always ready to violently install a dictator whenever a foreign people hinted at socialism. The US government refused to allow the emergence of any peaceful or successful socialist country.
And now we say “Socialism never worked!” It sure didn’t – US bullets and sanctions made sure of it. We have yet to know if it could work absent violent capitalist interference.
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My significant other is one of the teachers protesting tomorrow, and an immigrant who, coincidentally, grew up in one of those Eastern European communist countries. He’s glad to not have an instruction day, primarily because of the ineptitude of the MMSD administrative officials who let a middle school run pretty violently rampant and whose adults can’t seem to figure out how to be adults. But he’s also supportive of immigrants and, bless his bleeding heart, genuinely thinks that Americans will take notice if immigrants don’t show up to work tomorrow. [Sidenote: I’m learning so much about the Madison schools (I don’t have kids) and how much Madison its getting in its own way. These schools are a mess. How are any of these kids learning anything? Unless they’re rich, I guess they’re not.] As much as I support immigrants and abhor ICE, and support the working class, and call myself a democratic socialist, calls for strikes and not supporting our economy tomorrow hurts local businesses. The anger and the solidarity is displaced. As a friend said recently, these are 1960s style protests that never envisioned a billionaire class ruling a global economy and global politics. I’m all for solidarity, but I can’t support MTI on this, either. When 8th grade students are reading at a 4th grade level (or worse), is this the best use of anyone’s time or resources?
I haven’t agreed with you for a long while, Mayor Dave, but I do agree with you on this one. I’d rather see all of those teachers donate $$ to Francesca Hong or to the Immigration Law Center or to the ACLU or Open Doors for Refugees, or to deactivate their Facebook and Instagram accounts, or cancel their Amazon and Spotify accounts, or set up phone banks to call Ron Johnson’s office. While I’m waiting tables tomorrow night trying to figure out how to pay for my health insurance, I sure as hell hope people still go out to support local businesses run by queer women who are hiring immigrants, paying them a living wage, and going above and beyond for their employees.
Showing solidarity for immigrants who might get fired for not going to work or who work low wage jobs and can’t afford to miss a day because they don’t have paid time off needs to happen differently. The MTI folks are getting paid whether or not they show up, to school or to the protest. This isn’t solidarity. It’s privilege.
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Thanks so much for this thoughtful comment. Attracting readers like you is why I write this thing. I don’t want people to agree with me all the time and I don’t want them to take issue with everything. But your comment reflects nuance and complexity. Everything’s not just one way or the other. Thanks so much for reading even if I drive you cray most of the time.
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