New Berlin School Budget: It is Not a "No Increase Budget," But...

Congratulations to the New Berlin School Board, which put forth a budget with less than 1% tax levy increase. Of course, the amount of the levy increase does not necessarily indicate frugality. For example, the MJS article fails to indicate how much spending increased, what assumptions the district used for revenue from the state, or whether the district employed gimmicks or depleted reserves. The article also does not tell us whether enrollment is declining or increasing or the amount of equalized value growth experienced by New Berlin. From a budgetary standpoint, all of these items are important. Still, less than 1%!

Only Some Kids Deserve a Great Education

From Patrick McIlheran's column:

Gov. Jim Doyle says he's mystified about why the Assembly is offering school choice in Racine.

I am mystified about why state government is not offering school choice to all children.

Apparently, kids in Wisconsin are not very important. Apparently, every kid does not deserve a great school.

"Forward" used to be our motto. Perhaps we should change it to "neutral."

Wheelchair Student Accessibility and Convenience are Different Things

No sane person can argue against school accessibility for students who use wheelchairs. Wheelchair use does not preclude brilliance or achievement (e.g., Steven Hawkins, Franklin Roosevelt, Teddy Pendergrass and, of course, Elliot Stearns of From Where I Sit). We live in a society that can afford to educate physically challenged students (or, better said, a society that cannot afford to fail to educate them).

That being said, there is a difference between accessibility and convenience.

MJS reports that Elmbrook School District is considering improving Brookfield Central High School to make it wheelchair accessible. Currently, district high school students using wheelchairs attend Brookfield East.

The cost of the renovations? $2.9 million.

I do not know how many students would take advantage of these renovations. I have reviewed dozens of on-line articles and reports that address improvements to Central, and none provides that information. For example, click here. The silence on this essential bit of information is deafening.

I will guess (and am more than willing to be proven wrong) that Central would have no more than seven, and probably substantially fewer, students using wheelchairs. Central currently has a total student population of 1,425. According to the University of California, San Francisco's Disability Statistics Center, very few children (88,000, or 0.1 percent of the population under 18 years of age) use wheelchairs. If, to ensure that we do not underestimate, we assume that the area of the Elmbrook District that uses Central has five times the national average, there would be a total of seven students in wheelchairs. Based on the national average the number would be one or two.

Assuming the useful life of the improvements are 30 years, and Central teaches seven children who use wheelchairs (five times the national average) each year for all 30 years, the per year, per student cost of these improvements is about $13,800. And that totally ignores the time value of money. Of course, that also assumes Elmbrook keeps Central for 30 years (a bad assumption considering that the district, just this past April, held a referendum to replace, among other schools, Central).

Wheelchair using high school students currently get a great education at East. It would be more convenient for some to attend Central, but they certainly have access to the Elmbrook schools.

In an era when schools cry that they do not have enough money, is it fair to devote this level of resources for the convenience of such a small number of kids?

No Issue Too Small for the State

Don't our legislators have anything better to do? Can't they trust local officials to make any decisions? Has this really been a problem?

Under a bill moving through the state Legislature, schools would have to conduct at least two tornado drills a year.Current Wisconsin law requires schools to conduct a fire drill once every month, but there's no provision requiring drills for a tornado or other hazardous incident.

The bipartisan bill also requires schools to keep a record of each tornado or hazard drill for at least seven years.The Assembly's Committee on Homeland Security and State Preparedness is set to vote on the bill a week from Tuesday.