For school districts across Wisconsin, life goes on -- with or without budget ruling

Tom Still:

The topic of my speech was the continued value of local education in building Wisconsin's "knowledge economy," and the 50 or so school administrators in the room listened carefully to my message about preparing K-12 students for the rigors of a globally competitive 21st century.

It was hard, however, to ignore the elephant in the corner of my PowerPoint slides.

For most of the school superintendents, human resource directors and fiscal officers in the Green Bay audience, the most important thing on their minds was not to rush out and launch a program to improve science and engineering education.

Rather, the most pressing problem of the day for most school officials in Wisconsin is surviving an unsettled, contentious era in the relationship between local teachers, administrators and school boards.

While the legislative and legal battle lines have been drawn in Madison, the real struggles are being fought across the state, district by district, as the reality of budget cuts and the potential end of collective bargaining for unionized teachers sinks in.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at May 6, 2011 1:44 AM
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