The polling project between the UW-Madison Political Science department and the state’s shrillest right-wing, corporate-friendly think tank has turned out to be as suspicious as we first feared.

Documents obtained by One Wisconsin Now through the state’s open records law reveal that political considerations were front and center in the decision making surrounding the polling project and the publication of the poll’s results. The results of the poll showed statewide opposition to private school vouchers, but the press release from both UW and the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI) played up figures that showed support for school vouchers in Milwaukee.

According to the email we obtained, in the day before the release of materials on the poll, the head of WPRI pushed to have the statewide opposition to vouchers to be removed and to use the Milwaukee County numbers instead. When UW professor Ken Goldstein pushed back, saying the change would go against standard operating procedure, George Lightbourn of WPRI pushed back even harder, saying:

“I’m not concerned about journalists. I’m concerned about the Scott (sic) Ross types who would enjoy being able to portray WPRI’s own data as showing lack of support for choice. I know it’s a pain in the ass but I’ve been burned a couple of times and I don’t need to be the one holding the gas can.”

Fear-monger extraordinaire Todd Berry’s conservative talking points are once again proven wrong by, you know, reality. Berry claimed in September of this year the repeal of the Qualified Economic Offer (QEO) in the state budget could lead to disaster -- teacher’s salaries could explode out of control[!!!] bankrupting school districts and leading to MASSIVE CUTS and OHMYGOD HUGE TAX INCREASES!!!!

Of course, Berry and WISTAX’s opposition to lifting the arbitrary cap on teacher’s salary aligns perfectly with the conservative agenda in Wisconsin that wants to take money out of public schools and choke off public school teachers at any opportunity.

Then last week, in the first major post-QEO negotiation, the Madison teachers union, Madison Teachers Inc., voted in favor of a new contract that raised salaries by whopping 1 percent. What a rapid acceleration! The total compensation increase (including benefits) in the MTI contract is 4%. The average increase in total compensation under the QEO? 3.8%.

It appears that Howard Fuller’s transformation from wanting limited regulation of voucher schools to wanting, you know, voucher schools programs to be of high quality, is continuing, albeit at a slow march.

Here’s Fuller in 2004 about his support of Bush's No Child Left Behind bill’s testing provisions (even though he opposed similar provisions for private schools that accepted taxpayer dollars): “We do think that it is important that we finally have the light kind of shine on schools that are supposed to be great schools, but they’re not serving certain populations very well. So, from our standpoint… we think the fact that people are now being told what it is that’s happening to black and Latino and poor children in some of these schools is a very important thing.

Here’s Fuller in 2007 about whether vouchers were actually helping to improve the Milwaukee Public School system like he claimed it would: "I'm one of those people who believes that we may have oversold that point...I think that any honest assessment would have to say that there hasn't been the deep, wholesale improvement in MPS that we would have thought."

Howard Fuller in 2009: "No matter how difficult it is and no matter how much disagreement it brings, we must focus on quality," Fuller said.

Judge for yourself.

http://www.onewisconsinnow.org/GOPbudget

By all accounts it's still a big, fat nothing from the state Republicans on how to solve the massive budget deficit the eight years of failed George W. Bush policies have levied on Wisconsin and nearly every state in the nation.

One Wisconsin Now sent our OWNews reporter Cody Oliphant to the state Capitol in the hopes of finding answers from GOP leaders.

Career politicians really get my goat. Even worse is a career politician who makes his bones by selling out Wisconsin’s students to for-profit corporations in exchange for campaign contributions.

Exhibit A: Brett Davis (R-Oregon)

Brett used to be the chair of the Assembly Education Committee. And during his career in the legislature, Brett’s been leading the charge to take money from our public schools and funnel it to for-profit corporations and private schools.  Davis authored 2007 AB 870, which would have allowed charter schools funded by Wisconsin tax dollars to send money to for-profit out-of-state corporations.  He also led the charge to grow the voucher program in Milwaukee – because, you know, taking money out of public schools  will help them improve, duh. He even got an “award” from the now-defunct right-wing front group Wisconsin Institute for Leadership for his “work on virtual schools.”

Public school haters and ultra-conservatives profit chasers of all stripes have taken notice.

Virginia-based K12, Inc. is the for-profit company contracted to create curriculum for the Wisconsin Virtual Academy. In its prospectus filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, K12, Inc. anticipated $5 million in 2008 revenues from Wisconsin taxpayers. [K12, Inc. SEC Prospectus, 12/12/07, pg. 69]. Davis’ work to pump money into virtual schools has a direct impact on K-12, Inc. – more virtual schools means more money for K-12. And in a related story, Brett Davis got $500 in campaign cash from executives at K-12.  Shocker.

Citizens of the fightin’ 80th will remember the flood of smear literature, paid for by the law-breaking PAC All Children Matter, supporting Brett Davis that drowned Green County mail boxes last election.  All Children Matter are funded by a small group of ultra-wealty, uber-conservative profit hawks like the Walton family (of Wal Mart fame), Dick and Betsy DeVos (of Amway pyramid scheme fame) and Wisconsin’s very own crazy voucher couple George and Susan Mitchell. ACM has one mission: prop up elected officials with “issue ads” in return for toeing ACM’s line and pushing for more privatization of public schools. The financial backers of All Children Matter have given Brett Davis $13,000 in campaign contributions.
 

The fine individuals financing the racist, lawbreaking All Children Matter, who want to see our public education tax dollars go to private, for-profit companies, have dumped late cash into the Rose Fernandez race.

Reports filed with the state show Betsy DeVos, the Michigan wife of ACM founder Dick DeVos shipped a last-minute $1,000 check to Rose Fernandez's campaign late last week -- undoubtedly in the hopes that she is able to yank even more money from public schools and into K12, Inc., the for-profit company in which she and Dick are invested.

K12, Inc., reported in its SEC prospectus that it expects at least $5 million from Wisconsin taxpayers to operate virtual schools.

More information about interconnections between DeVos, K12, Inc., Rose Fernandez and legislators, lobbyists and the privatizing education movement are available at www.FernandezFiveMillion.com.