“One thing that we’ve done,” Dennis McBride of Support our Schools-Wauwatosa told a crowd at a free event hosted by the non-profit Wisconsin Public Education Network, “is we’ve made sure every time one of our legislators pops up his or her head above the foxhole, we’re there to shoot at them.”
The crowd laughed, reports the watchdog John K. MacIver Institute, which ran the story under the headline, “Panelist Jokes About Shooting Legislators at Public Education Summit.”
No worries, though: it was just a metaphor.
The genuinely kooky thoughts were less figurative.
One speaker encouraged the audience never to say the two words, “Scott Walker,” for fear of giving “the Wisconsin governor” higher name-recognition.
“Some of the first voucher supporters,” asserted Jonas Persson of the Center for Media and Democracy, “outside of this kind of new right core group of ideologues and wealthy entrepreneurs, were white supremacists. . . .”
Incredibly, he insisted that this movement “drew most of its support from, quote, ‘white flight areas*.’”
Somehow, no one mentioned voucher program successes, or the grassroots support for vouchers in African-American communities.
“The ultimate goal is about breaking down public schools and to be honest with you,” said Jennifer Epps-Addison of Wisconsin Jobs Now/Schools and Communities United, “it’s about profiting off of the education of our kids.”
Heavens! Making a profit by serving parents and children “consuming” education? Unthinkable.
Meanwhile, Epps-Addison pushed the “Wisconsin Freedom Compact,” which calls for doubling the tax dollars going to public education.
Will she guarantee that no one will profit from that?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
*Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article contained the term “white flight Aryans” in Jonas Persson’s quote. After review of notes and audio recordings, the phrase has been corrected to read “white flight areas.” The context and overall significance of Persson’s statements are not changed, but the quote is updated for accuracy.
