Scott Walker was elected Wisconsin Governor in November 2010, a nationwide Republican landslide election. Immediately, Walker chose a governing style different than every Wisconsin Governor since 1848. Rather than work to unite Wisconsin, Walker chose to Divide and Conquer Wisconsin by ginning up anger and hostility towards public employees, especially public school teachers for political gain.
Despite vowing to work with all Wisconsin citizens during his campaign for Governor in 2010, his election motto was “Stand With Walker”. That became a rallying cry uniting his followers in support of Walker throughout his tenure as Wisconsin Governor until he was defeated by Tony Evers in 2018. Immediately after taking office in January 2011, Walker “dropped the bomb” on public employees by enacting Act 10 which removed nearly all collective bargaining rights for public employees, except police and fire which are male dominated unions that also supported and donated large amounts of money to Walker & fellow Republicans.
For public school teachers across Wisconsin, Act 10 ended 50 years of improvements to salaries and benefits that were negotiated in good faith with school boards across Wisconsin.
Walker’s governorship marked the Largest Cuts to Public School funding in America, cumulatively adding up to over 4 BILLION dollars by the 2023-24 school year.
Besides decimating public school quality and driving student performance test scores down, those massive funding cuts have resulted in plummeting teacher salaries and benefits, ballooning class sizes, and school districts having to literally “beg” communities for operating referendums each spring to keep the doors open.
In the 2011 redistricting, Walker & the Republican Legislature hired scheming Republican lawyers to re-draw Wisconsin voting maps to make it impossible for Democrats to ever control the Wisconsin Legislature again. Since 2011, Republicans have ruled Wisconsin as a Right Wing Dictatorship-with super majorities of 70/30 or greater in every Wisconsin Senate or Assembly district.
In addition to ruining Wisconsin’s once #1 public schools, the Republican Dictatorship that rules Wisconsin established a state funded voucher schools program that runs as a “shadow” public school system, unencumbered by many financial accountability and academic performance rules that public schools must follow. In the 2023-24 school year, the Republican Dictatorship gave the largest increase in state funding in Wisconsin history to voucher schools, while providing a ZERO dollar increase to public schools.
Thanks to the Republican Dictatorship that rules Wisconsin, the Voucher school (Choice school program) enjoys the largest per pupil funding of any voucher program in America, with the most minimal accountability operational standards. Though Wisconsin’s public school students STILL perform better on school accountability tests than Voucher students, the gap is shrinking due to the War on Public Schools by the Republican Dictatorship that rules Wisconsin. This despite the well-documented admission screening processes of the majority of Voucher (Choice) schools where “undesirable” (costly to educate) students with handicaps such as learning disabilities are screened out during the admission process or kicked out in late September after the state aid check arrives.
Besides the War on Wisconsin’s once #1 in America public schools since 2011, Wisconsin teachers have been in the cross hairs of extreme hatred by the Stand With Walker partisans who supported Walker & the Republican Dictatorship that still rules Wisconsin.