September 29, 2011
Education Reform - The Great Uniter?
By Katy Venskus, DFER Wisconsin State Director
The Brewers are division champs for the first time since I was in elementary school, the Packers are World Champions, and Bucky Badger is likely to do a lot of push ups at Camp Randall this fall...
Wisconsin's home teams have done an awful lot to heal some of our political wounds. All we need now is a high profile opportunity to bring our leaders together on the steps of the State Capitol, and it looks like education, specifically reform, might be that issue. (As it turns out, that seems easier than turning the economy around or fixing health care.)
That's right, here in Wisconsin it seems like education reform might be used to mend some of the fences that were trampled in the last seven months. As the legislature moves toward the fall floor period it is clear that leaders on both sides are looking for ways to demonstrate their civility and bipartisanship - sort of.
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Not all bipartisan ideas are good ideas. Leadership on education reform requires building diverse coalitions, NOT consensus...
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Governor Walker has already signaled that he wants to work with some Democratic leaders on many issues, but education reform measures keep coming up again and again. He has already partnered with State School Superintendent Tony Evers on a failing schools initiative that will strengthen Wisconsin's ESEA waiver application. He has signaled an interest in working with Democrats on charter school reform. Moderate Senators in the very narrowly GOP controlled State Senate have indicated they are not interested in moving bills that don't have some Dem support. The rousing chorus of Kumbayah is almost deafening.
Here is my caution: not all bipartisan ideas are good ideas. Leadership requires building diverse coalitions, NOT consensus - these are tough issues and getting to the best answer is unlikely to happen if the goal is to please as many legislators as possible. There are Democrats who have led on these issues and there are Democrats who have not...the best policy (and politics) will be developed by working with these leaders and then trying to bring additional colleagues along. Conversely, Democrats who have traditionally led the fight to improve the education ecosystem in Wisconsin must not use this issue to extract a pound of flesh from the Governor and the Legislative majorities.
Finally the process should be governed by the policy, NOT the other way around. There are a lot of stakeholders at the table trying to make changes to charters, public schools and private school choice that serve the interests of Wisconsin students and their families. Some policy answers ARE better than others. Step one MUST be to get to the right policy. Step two is to find the legislators in both parties willing to lead the effort to get that policy across the legislative finish line. It can NOT be the other way around - sitting a group of legislators from both parties in a conference room somewhere and asking them what they feel comfortable passing is very likely to move Wisconsin backwards instead of forward.
There is a real chance to make some changes and salvage something out of the spectacle Wisconsin made of itself this last year.
Katy is a Wisconsin native who came to DFER in January 2009, bringing with her 10 years of public policy and political experience. Katy has managed several issue and political campaigns in the City of Milwaukee and statewide. She became interested in the education reform movement after leading the Democratic effort to lift the enrollment cap on Milwaukee's groundbreaking Milwaukee Parental Choice program. Read more about Katy here.