Without Governor Evers, gerrymandered Republican Legislature will Control School Curriculum, Penalize and Defund more Democratic Liberal School Districts under CRT Ban.

The Republican attack on schools is nothing but a massive right wing wish list of censorship and politically motivated curriculum changes that dwarf anything Build Back Better was criticized for doing (also described as a Democratic wish list). 

1. GOP want to Trap People in Poverty and Raise Taxes: Seems like an odd place to start, but this relates to a healthy start to education. See video here. Republicans are actually trying to maintain the status quo:

Just a small amount of money can lift poor folks and their children out of poverty, results that could shape government policy on how to help the nation’s neediest. One study found that a cash infusion of $333 a month to poor mothers helped their children’s brain development, which could set them up for better educational and professional futures. The poverty trap — where people have no choice but to work in low-wage jobs, could get out of poverty if society gave them more financial opportunities.

Raise Taxes: But Republican Sen. Rick Scott would keep poverty where it is or worse by doing just the opposite:

Scott said, “All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount. Currently over half of Americans pay no income tax.” … the plan itself effectively acknowledges it’s advocating for an income tax increase on “over half of Americans” — a group of people that is overwhelmingly lower-income. And in fact, the number of Americans to whom this would apply has climbed during the pandemic.

2. Block Socially Challenged Students from College: Playing off CRT, where we no longer see race or color, WI Republican don’t want us to see differing social economic status or life experiences. It’s a one-size-fits-all human commodity. Funny though, life is way more complicated:

The bill, which would require universities to “establish and use only objective admissions criteria,” to UW schools. Across the country (colleges) pride themselves on holistic admissions processes, in which they try to take into account the whole person and their life experiences. Limiting access to enrollment to our schools will lead to declines in workforce needs of Wisconsin and allow out-of-state universities to enroll our students, at a time when we need to bolster both.

“As an example, a student whose parent was very sick, hospitalized or even in extreme cases, dies during their time in high school, may explain those hardships through qualitative admission criteria and references,” Keri Duce, UW-Milwaukee’s director of external and government relations, explained, “This is important context for a student whose academics (quantitative review) might have suffered during a difficult personal time.” 

What if a student graduated high school with lower grades because they spent time living out of a car, asked Rep. Jodi Emerson, D-Eau Claire. Could a college accept that student? UW-Madison’s admissions staff has worked to establish relationships with K-12 districts across the state to determine what the most rigorous classes are at each high school. That way, students are not punished if, for example, they did not load up on Advanced Placement classes because their high school didn’t offer many.

3. Legislators Decide Curriculum base on nothing but Anecdotal Hearsay: Manufactured problems to simply serve an agenda should frighten any parent:

1. Leave it to the Courts? The bill does not define “objective,” leaving very little guidance as to what would be considered subjective if it passed. A legislative lawyer present at the hearing confirmed it could be interpreted as anything a person could “give a yes (or) no” answer to. She said the courts would need to further work out the definition if the bill became law as written. The legislative counsel also said she could not find anything that indicated other states had similar laws.

2. “Some People say…” Anecdotal, Fact less, and Political: The bill’s authors — Rep. Robert Wittke and Sen. Dan Feyen, said in the public hearing that they heard complaints from their colleagues’ constituents. “Do I have a specific name of someone in my district? No, But I will go back to the colleagues that brought it forward to me and find out exactly, is it a student that has a name or is that just someone that just brought it up.”

Rep. Dave Murphy said he often hears complaints from parents and students about UW schools’ admissions process. Those who spoke in support of the bill provided no data as to how widespread the issue was or how many prospective students were affected.

1. Bill would require the state Department of Public Instruction to set standard lessons for kids in grades five through 12 on police interactions with “mutual cooperation and respect.”

2. The other bill would direct state education officials to develop a model curriculum that teaches all high school students about guns and gun safety.

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A former liberal radio talk host who likes to ask the “follow-up question” at Democurmudgeon.blogspot.com