I would also like to thank the League of Women Voters and the University and Comcast for the opportunity for a public discussion on this historic topic.
Let me start with a few comments about another initiative that is greatly impacting our schools, No Child Left Behind. NCLB was passed in the mistaken belief that there was an education 'crisis' in our nation. As a result of this federal legislation, schools across the nation, including Manitowoc schools, are forced to divert resources and teaching opportunities away from successful programs, in order to meet the mandates of NCLB. Everyone would agree that there is room for improvement any school system, but how did it happen that we shifted accountability for the quality of the education of our children from our own community to Washington DC? Regardless of the priorities and needs as decided by our community, I cannot even consider any changes to our school system that could draw resources away from meeting NCLB mandates because they are federal law and are enforced with funding penalties.
Now our public schools are further threatened with revenue limits that are to be set in our state's most unyielding document, our constitution. Wisconsin has a long, successful history of local school systems. With the passage of TABOR in addition to NCLB, the era of local schools will come to an end. The locally elected representatives to your school board will have simply become administrators for a centralized school system that is controlled and funded from Madison and Washington DC.
How could we let this happen? It isn't helping Manitowoc to have lawmakers in Washington DC running our schools, and Manitowoc residents don't need a constitutional amendment to control our desire to tax ourselves. If Manitowoc residents believe it is best for our community to elect representatives that will cut taxes, we will elect them, and taxes will be low. And in fact, this is what is already happening. Out of the 37 school districts in our region, MPSD is 37th in revenue per student. Dead last. That is directly because of the school board representatives our community chose to elect. Representative government works.
The City and County of Manitowoc have similarly low taxes, but what is the effect of these low taxes? There is the belief that low taxes produce economic prosperity, even though the facts show exactly the opposite. Manitowoc has the lowest taxes in our region, but far from bringing us promised economic prosperity, Manitowoc has the weakest economy. Our neighboring communities are in the same state, in the same nation, in the same I-43 corridor, so they face the same global and regional pressures as Manitowoc, but they are all doing better economically, and they are all taxing more. Let's not make the same mistake we made with NCLB and pass intrusive legislation attempting to a fix to a problem we don't really understand.
Finally, I must issue a warning to the Manitowoc community. All school systems in Wisconsin will suffer severe consequences under TABOR funding restrictions, but the consequences will be much worse, much sooner for MPSD. Because we already have a very low funding level, we cannot be squeezed without suffering immediate adverse consequences. Compounding this problem is stagnation in our local economy. Revenue restrictions, especially those tied to local economic conditions, will impact Manitowoc harder and sooner than other communities.
The real issue is that voters won't elect representatives that will reduce taxes enough to satisfy TABOR advocates. We should cherish our representative democracy and not undermine it by soiling our constitution with a political gimmick.
11/18/2004