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The School Finance Network announced their support for the Walk on the Child’s Side 10th Anniversary events. The full press release is linked here. Here is a short excerpt:
A decade after the first Walk on the Child’s Side and 15 years after the state’s school-funding system was passed into law, the problems continue. Today, the funding crisis Wisconsin’s children and public schools face is worse than ever. It is time to make a change. Join us on June 16th and help support a better education for Wisconsin’s children.
“SFN members understand the state of the economy,” said Bob Borch, assistant superintendent of finance with the Elmbrook School District and spokesperson for the nine-member network. “We also know that for the last 15 years school districts throughout Wisconsin have been forced to lay off staff, increase class sizes, and make cuts to programs and services because of the state’s school-funding system.”
“Good times or bad, nothing has been done to change the system and head off the crisis,” Borch said. “Now the education and the futures of children all over the state are in jeopardy.”
Borch said the SFN not only endorses the Walk on the Child’s Side but encourages its partners and their members to be in Madison, June 16.
WHO: Wisconsin education advocates
WHAT: Walk on the Child’s Side’s 10th Anniversary Reunion Tour
WHEN: June 16, 2009, 11:00 a.m.
WHERE: The walk will begin at 11:00 a.m. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Library Mall, on the 700 block of State Street. The walk will continue up State Street to the Capitol. A rally will be held on the steps of the Capitol at 12:00 noon.
The Madison Metropolitan School District also passed a resolution in support earlier this week.
If you don’t think this message needs to get through, check this statement by Governor Jim Doyle yesterday: “”They’re probably going to be pretty small,” Doyle said of the budget’s final cuts to schools.”
Thomas J. Mertz
AMPS 