The event was not intended as a serious discussion, which was evident almost immediately. The format for the evening was that the assembled legislators would hear a pair of questions read to them by county supervisor and former principal Joe Vitale, and they each had two minutes to respond to the questions.It's hard to take Ruth Page Jones serious, at least as seriously as the Waukesha Freeman.
Then the legislators were subjected to a long stream of people clamoring for more money for their particular cause, 23 special interests in all. They would read their statements and the legislators were not allowed any time to ask any questions or to respond.
Project ABC also is asking lawmakers to sign on to Senate Resolution 27, a bill that asks lawmakers to fix the public school funding formula by July 1, 2009.So Jones and her pals are using the promised cancellation extracurriculars in the Waukesha School District to push an empty resolution that does nothing to address the problem. Again, the resolution is merely a promise to "fix" the school funding issue by July 1st, 2009. It doesn't say how, or what a proper funding formula should look like, it just says the legislators will fix something.
“What we want to do is exchange info and ideas with the legislators and get an idea of what proposals are out there,” Page Jones said. “We also want to remind them that they’re elected to solve these problems and we hope they will make it a priority again.”
Page Jones said she hopes to meet with state Rep. Scott Newcomer, R-Delafield, state Rep. Bill Kramer, R-Waukesha, and state Sen. Ted Kanavas, R-Brookfield, because their districts encompass most of the Waukesha School District.
The Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools also will be joining Longmeyer, Project ABC and other school funding reform advocates at the Capitol. WAES will hold a press conference to discuss the bill supporting a fix to the funding formula.
In the meantime, Longmeyer said she will continue to educate parents about the funding crisis and has even ramped up her school funding education letters by informing parents whose children are in extracurricular activities, which are slated for elimination next year.
Meanwhile, Ruth Page Jones was apparently not asked by reporter Joe Petrie about the bill actually working its way through the legislature sponsored by Republicans to allow the school district to save money on health insurance and shift those savings to the school district, a direct response to Waukesha's budget problems.
If Ruth Page Jones were really concerned about the children of Waukesha rather than using the children as political soccer balls to score points for her Democratic Party friends she would drop her support for the empty resolution and join with the Republicans to find real savings to fund the schools.
Find classic movies at Amazon.com
