With classes beginning Sept. 5 for the South Milwaukee School District, it’s a great time to celebrate the value of public education in our community and all communities — amplifying the message of the Wisconsin Public Education Network, which had its annual conference last week in our fair city.
It was an honor to attend for even half a day and see firsthand the pride and passion shared by educators from the around state to help our kids, and to hear what they are doing to overcome the continued challenges they face each day in doing their jobs.
From fighting for funding in Madison to battling for respect and support and respect in and out of the classroom, this is not easy work. But I am heartened and hope-filled by what educators are doing on behalf of our kids, led by organizations like WPEN and brought to life each day in school hallways.
I saw it in the faces of those at the South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center, including my own daughter, who served as a panelist and singer at the conference. And I see it in the thousands of South Milwaukee families who are made stronger by the quality education their children receives at our local schools.
Strong public schools = strong communities. Public schools unite us, indeed.
Here is a recap from WPEN …
The Summer Summit brought together public education advocates from every part of Wisconsin and every angle or role that reaches our public schools—from administrators and board members to educators and staff to parents and community advocates to students themselves—on the tails of one of the most gutting, shocking, and disappointing state budget cycles we could’ve imagined.
The eagerness to put accountability into action was palpable, and every session was directly tied to this urgent theme. Participants asked tough questions, held themselves accountable for understanding how school funding works, dove into the trickiest topics threatening students’ freedom to learn in urban, suburban, and rural districts alike, and collaborated to build a shared toolkit for better, louder, more effective advocacy in the coming year.
“We want to make sure we’re building and maintaining our collaborative relationships based not only on hard work but also on accountability,” State Superintendent Dr. Jill Underly said in her remarks at our Morning Meeting. “And to be clear, accountability is not about expressing disappointment—or at least not exclusively. It can be, and should be, also about expressing appreciation, or communicating importance, or proposing alternatives, all in the furtherance of our goal of stronger public schools.”
That statement captures the work of the Summer Summit perfectly, as we dissected where Wisconsin has gone wrong in delivering yet another less-than-inflationary budget and massive giveaways to private schools, but also where we have gone right, and how we can amplify those successes in order to generate more of them.
To be clear, there’s a lot of work to do, and there’s no time to lose in doing it. Wisconsin continues to sit on a massive budget surplus that could still be put to good use. New legislation is coming down the pike as the school year begins. Many districts face a budget with less state aid in the new year than last year, and all of them face a budget that puts us on a path for 16 consecutive years of falling behind inflation.
“We’re not here to cheer for crumbs,” our executive director Heather DuBois Bourenane declared at the Summer Summit.
That’s why it’s on us—all of us—to hold ourselves accountable for telling our local-level public school stories, demanding strong, equitable public school resources, and staying involved at every level, every day. Please join us in putting Accountability In Action all year.
Summer Summit Archive! Almost all sessions and some breakout sessions are already archived on our website. Follow this page to access video recordings and other resources from the Summer Summit to refer back to sessions you loved, check out the ones you missed, and ensure that what was learned last Thursday stays with us moving forward. (We are continuing to update this page.)
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