Rochelle Hartman (Flickr)
Drivers crossing the border into Wisconsin from neighboring states are reminded, thanks to Governor Scott Walker, that the state is “open for business.” But as is the case in much of America, only a relatively few are reaping financial rewards.
Over the last decade in Wisconsin, state agencies, libraries, the public university system, and especially public schools have all taken breathtaking budget hits. A frenzy of Republican-led legislative and fiscal measures to cut government spending includes the highly controversial Act 10 of 2011, which effectively ended collective bargaining for teachers, and made the Badger State the national leader in public sector job loss.
By 2013, Wisconsin had lost nearly three thousand teachers over a nine-year period.
By 2013, Wisconsin had lost nearly three thousand teachers over a nine-year period.
Promises that rural job growth would come from a resurgence in manufacturing and other private sectors has never materialized. Across the state, family poverty has nearly doubled, from twenty-one percent in 2001 to over 38 percent in 2016. Rural communities, already facing dying main streets, now contend with reduced services and eliminated public sector jobs that once anchored their towns.
Students from rural school districts are especially struggling. Families who have roots in small communities have been leaving for urban areas where they can find jobs. A sizeable demographic shift in the past decade has resulted in 75 percent of Wisconsin’s students enrolled in just thirty percent of the state’s 424 districts. Most Wisconsin school districts have been shrinking, a phenomenon somewhat hidden by slightly rising statewide enrollment figures—the growth is all due to just a handful of metropolitan areas. Left behind are shrinking rural school districts, struggling to serve some of the state’s poorest children while relying on funding policies that place them further and further behind the state’s larger and wealthier districts.
The challenges rural schools face can look similar to those experienced by urban schools, but the general policy responses of “choice” and “flexibility,” hurt rural America in uniquely damaging ways. Take the voucher program, for example. Home to the nation’s first school voucher program, which started in 1990 in Milwaukee and now includes almost 29,000 students, Wisconsin has gradually expanded vouchers to other cities, and, beginning in 2013, statewide.
The Wisconsin Parental Choice Program comes with a $34 million dollar price tag that allows just 4,540 students to use vouchers to enroll in private schools rather than their local public schools.
But most of the private schools that will receive this money are in metropolitan areas. Worse, the funding is a direct transfer from public school district budgets, creating a zero-sum benefit for these communities and straining public schools’ ability to cover costly infrastructure.
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In addition, for those rural students with special education needs—a student population that is growing in these districts—there are no legal assurances of comparable services at a private school. On top of this, the independent charter school program requires local communities to pay 1.4 percent of their state aid to support, regardless of participation.
Since the 1990s, rural schools have resorted to public referenda to meet state budget shortfalls, but just over half of these pass, leading schools to cut essential educational services as well as the enrichment opportunities and facilities that define larger, urban districts.
Act 10 hit rural schools especially hard. Promoted by Walker as a way to allow “the best and the brightest in our classrooms, and we can pay them to be there,” Wisconsin teacher pay has actually declined, not increased. And rural teachers on average earn about $6,000 less than their urban and suburban counterparts, reflecting the smaller budgets of sparsely populated areas. More teachers are leaving rural school districts, either abandoning the profession altogether or relocating to another district.
Longtime teachers in rural Wisconsin tend to be locals willing to stay put, despite the challenges, because they love the area. Increasingly, however, they can’t ignore the squeeze placed on them by Act 10. Making matters worse, the legislation has fostered an unanticipated problem: teacher poaching.
Making matters worse, the legislation has fostered an unanticipated problem: teacher poaching.
Without union-negotiated pay increases, teachers have quickly realized that their best, and perhaps only, path for salary increases is moving to another district willing to pay more. Five-figure signing bonuses are not unheard of, particularly in high-need areas such as math or special education. When midyear student flux creates different teaching loads, teachers now consider whether another school offers a more desirable position. In this free agent landscape, rural districts can hardly compete. Rural teachers who remain are left with part-time positions or are expected to cover unfamiliar subjects. And once rural teachers leave, districts struggle to recruit outside replacements.
The Wisconsin legislature has responded to these growing teacher shortages by throwing open the gates for teacher certification. Now, the state offers fast tracks to certification through short online programs without any required classroom training whatsoever. Soon, certification will span elementary through high school.
As rural schools in Wisconsin—and across America—reel in the wake of continued cuts to education and public sector budgets cuts—our political leaders seem intent on imposing more “quick and easy” solutions. But the answer is not school choice or teacher union busting, it’s increased investment in these communities.
Carole Trone is a Wisconsin-based writer and advocate for education access and success. Using experiences as parent, education nonprofit leader, and college instructor, she works to connect families and students to education insights that matter.