Coming Budget Wars

Your professor lives in Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin, which is an "exurb" of Madison, Wisconsin, our state capitol. It is also the scene of a showdown over the future of teacher union rights, pay, benefits, etc. It is a precursor of what is to come across this country. The fact of the matter is state governments overall are out of money. Wisconsin, population 5.5 million, faces a $3.5 billion budget hole right now. Somebody must pay. One way to reduce this horrific state debt is to cut spending. This is why it is crucial for school leaders more than ever to have the skills and street smarts to know how to measure and communicate value from funding for schools. Moreover, there is going to be less, not more; we must learn how to conduct "lean" operations. We will also need to set priorities. For example, which is more important, teacher wages or new palatial school buildings? Your professor has been to the capitol square twice now in the middle of the protestors. On Monday February 28, 2011, in fact, he has an appointment with a policy planner of the Governor of Wisconsin in the Governor's Office - if he can navigate the protestors. His plan is to "dress down" to look like the protestors, not some slick corporate lobbyist. Hopefully the state capitol will be open for business on Monday coming. It was not Monday last because of thousands of protestors there. What is happening here is on the frontline of coming budget wars in this country, and education like it or not is going to be part of it. My message to the protestors was: "We ought not to be fighting each other. We did not cause this. The Wall Street banksters did. We ought to unite to go after them, not each other." Yes, nobody here did anything wrong. The damage was done on Wall Street and in Washington, and it is painful for me, a native Wisconsinite, to see my people at each other as if we are enemies. We are not. There are enemies, but they are not our people.