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Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin and a very sleepy- looking man, is running for a third term in November after spending his first eight years in office fucking over public workers by eliminating their collective bargaining rights, gutting education spending, and signing fat giveaways to corporations.




Surprisingly, people in Wisconsin aren’t super stoked about this record of achievement. A poll released Monday shows Walker trailing the Democratic frontrunner, state schools superintendent Tony Evers, by seven points. The poll also showed Walker with an approval rating among independents of just 34 percent. So out of sheer desperation, Walker is trying to rebrand himself....as the “education governor.” Seriously.

“I am proud to be the pro-education governor because our reforms are working,” Walker said in a statement to Politico on Tuesday. “Thanks to our reforms, local school leaders can staff based on merit and pay based on performance. That means they can put the best and the brightest in the classroom and keep them there.”


“It borders on a joke,” Evers told the site in response . “The proof is in the pudding. ... I don’t think many people believe him.”

So, who’s right? Let’s take a look at Walker’s record.

In the five years since Act 10 was passed, median salaries for teachers in the state have fallen by 2.6% and median benefits declined 18.6%, according to an analysis of state administrative databy the left-leaning Center for American Progress Action Fund. In addition, 10.5% of public school teachers in Wisconsin left the profession after the 2010-2011 school year, up from 6.4% the year before. The exit rate remains elevated, at 8.8%. As a consequence, the report found, Wisconsin’s educational workforce is less experienced: Teachers had an average of 13.9 years experience under their belt in the 2015-2016 academic year, down from 14.6 years in 2010-2011.

Ah.

The first study to assess how Wisconsin’s high-profile weakening of unions, particularly teachers unions, affected students finds that it led to a substantial decline in test scores. [...] The paper’s author, Jason Baron, took advantage of what was essentially a natural experiment set up by the law. Act 10 did not affect all school districts at once — a handful of school districts were allowed to maintain union rules until their existing contract expired up to two years later. That helped isolate the immediate impact of the law. Baron found that weakening unions led to declines in test scores, particularly in math and science. The effects were fairly large, comparable to sharply increasing class sizes. And the harm was not evenly distributed: Schools that started out furthest behind were hurt the most, while higher achieving schools saw no impact.


Oof.

Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-controlled legislature have cut over $1 billion from K-12 public schools since taking office and, by the end of the current budget cycle, will have doled out in excess of $1 billion in taxpayer dollars through the private school voucher program to unaccountable private and religious schools.﻿




Welp.


Keep running on that education record, Scott. You’re doing great.