Scott Walker vs "The State of Education": An open letter to Brian Williams

To:
Brian Williams
NBC News
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, N.Y. 10112

cc: Scott Walker

22 Sept 2011

Dear Mr. Williams,

I was absolutely shocked to learn today that you are featuring Scott "Teachers are Thugs" Walker on your Sept. 26 "The State of Education" program.  While I'm something of an independent news junkie and not a regular viewer of NBC Nightly News, I am familiar with some of your work on the Late Show with Jimmy Fallon, and happen to know for a fact that you not only know that Scott Walker is an enemy of teachers, but have in fact slow-jammed that news yourself on at least one occasion:

 

Given your apparent familiarity with Walker's attacks on educators and other public servants, it seems unlikely that you aren't also aware of his equally devastating attacks on public education itself in Wisconsin. But the fact that he has been invited to participate in this summit, and the eagerness with which he has already begun to reveal the lies he plans to further espouse on your show compel me to provide you with a list of the many ways in which Scott Walker has waged war on public education in Wisconsin, in the hopes that you will use this information to expose Walker as the overtly anti-education policy-pusher that he is, and use this opportunity to reveal the truth about his sinister plans to privatize public education rather than provide him with a platform to spout his usual lies about "reform" (which is his codeword for defunding public education).

1. Scott Kevin Walker cut 1.6 BILLION dollars from the public education budget over the next two years, even as he passes out tax breaks like candy and increases public funding to private and charter schools. Most districts in the state were forced to deal with these cuts this year by forcing our top commodity, experienced teachers, into early retirement to get some short-term balance in hiring new, "less expensive" teachers. Programming cuts are rampant all over the state. Districts are forced to raise taxes up to the existing levies, if they haven't already.  Cuts, everywhere, across the board. Walker calls cuts "tools." Get ready to hear him say that word a lot on your show. He may also mention jobs, since he has a hard time not using "job" and "tool" in the same sentence, but don't fall for it. He's a total tooljob. And, as the people of Wisconsin have been telling him since February, myself included, he needs to keep his brown bag full of "tools" away from our schools.

2. Walker is heavily funded by, and answers to, anti-public education privatization policy-pushers like the Koch brothers, the Walton family and Betsy DeVos's ironically named American Federation for Children, at whose annual event Walker was a keynote speaker last spring. These groups have a proven and admitted goal of privatizing public education and are using Wisconsin as a staging ground for advancing their political aims for our schools, using the ready puppet, Scott Walker, who is more than willing to sell out our kids to such high-rolling bidders. They have trained him to use words like "choice" and "merit" as codes for long-term agendas toward privatization and segregation of schools. His efforts to "reform" education in Wisconsin are little more than a financial venture.

3. Scott Walker is a proven and habitual liar. His biggest, and most common lie, is that Wisconsin is "broke" and that we need his "reforms" to "balance the budget."   The financial "crisis," which Walker manufactured in order to attempt to illegally push through his draconian budget which revoked the rights of public employees in Wisconsin, was the direct result of the tax cuts he distributed (again, to his cronies) in the weeks before declaring this phony state of fiscal emergency.  Further, he pushes a myth that the Wisconsin education system is in need of major reform, often blaming our excellent teachers for problems that do not exist. Wisconsin public schools are a national model in many areas and we are #1 in the nation in graduation rates, even as we spend less per pupil than most other states. With many of our schools already running on bare-bones budgets, Walker's cuts are devastating and our kids are paying the price as Walker's funders cash in their checks.

4. The people of Wisconsin do not support Scott Walker. As soon as legally possible, recall efforts will begin full force and are in the planning stage as we speak.  Educators and educated people throughout the state are near-universally opposed to his policies and further disgusted by his arrogant contempt for the welfare of our children and our education system. He has an approval rating around 40% and sinking.  He is at the heart of an FBI "John Doe" investigation relating to illegal campaigning. He was asked to leave Marquette University for similar campaign ethics violations and he has made clear time and again throughout his many campaigns that he does not (and did not) value his own education; hardly the man we should trust to preserve and protect the education of our children. He does not speak for the people of Wisconsin, who see his power-grab for exactly what it was: a purely partisan bait-and-switch which led us down a whirlwind path of abuses of power and has produced painfully divisive policies that pit the erstwhile friendly and accommodating people of Wisconsin against each other.

When bragging about being part of your summit, Walker said "I believe we have a great story to tell about our reforms and our bipartisan collaborations to further improve our schools." This from the man who famously said "There's nothing to negotiate" when revoking teachers' rights and lying about how doing so would help "balance the budget." There has not been one single instance of bipartisan collaboration related to Scott Walker's education agenda since he took office. And I've been paying attention. I watched live as citizen after citizen, teacher after teacher, expert after expert, testified in opposition to his budget, his education-gutting, his plans to expand charter schools at the expense of traditional public schools across the state. Scott Walker shows open contempt for anyone who opposes him and refuses to even acknowledge citizens with whom he disagrees (I myself have been writing to him regularly since February and have never received more than an automated email response).  He continues to this day to suggest that the educators who gathered by the thousands to protest his cuts to education and his abuse of power in taking away their rights were "a handful of out-of-state protesters." He is perhaps the most deceitful and divisive governor in America, and a staggering example of how to destroy public education. I trust you will expose him as such.

Yours sincerely,

Heather DuBois Bourenane
Wisconsin parent, educator, PTO member, state employee and public education advocate

Update:  Citizen action works.  Mr. Williams actually opened his event by reading aloud from this letter to Scott Walker, asking him if it wasn't true that his divisive policies will ultimately cause irreparable harm. More here.

Thanks to The Ed Schultz Show and MSNBC for the 

continued coverage of Walker's abuses of power in Wisconsin.

Walker's Ready to Compromise (His Integrity)

18 August 2011

Dear Scott Walker,

It is with the usual disgust that I read your latest interviews, and after listening to the full audio clip of your conversation with WisPolitics on Monday (8/15), I feel compelled to write you once again, to remind you to stop lying about "what you've heard people say."

What has Walker given up so far, besides his integrity? Photo

Ever since the Republicans lost two seats in the Senate, and even moreso now that the Democrats have retained their own, you've been trying to build a case for yourself as the Moderate Middleman, the Great, Misunderstood Conciliator. Using vocabulary a child perhaps scripted for you, you repeat the same lame lines about bipartisanship and how you're suddenly so ready and willing to work together and compromise and move past the recalls and jobs jobs jobs jobs...

As charming an attempt this may be to quick trick people into forgetting about what a bullying brute you are, I'm afraid it comes too late. And we're not fooled in the least.

Because we aren't about to forget how many times you told us "there's nothing to negotiate." We aren't going to forget how you and your lackeys shut down debate, ignored public and professional testimony, and continue to pretend that you simply don't hear the voices of dissent exploding all around you.

Your arrogance in thinking you can earn back the trust and the support of the people of Wisconsin (much less the legislators of this state who now know you'll throw anyone under the bus!) is staggering. And it's rivaled only by your disrespect for the intelligence of your consituents in thinking (wrongly, of course) that we're just going to "move on" and forget the fireworks that were your detonating the bomb that split this state apart.  

Your sudden willingness to "work together" and "compromise" only proves what we already knew: that the only thing you'll ever compromise are the principles that you campaigned on, your allegiance to the people, and your respect for this state. All of those have been compromised quite enough already. Your integrity, assuming it ever existed, was apparently compromised long before I heard your name. Please spare us the humiliation of seeing you "compromise" anything else.

Representative Peter Barca has already called you out on this nonsense, reminding us that 

When he went to Washington, D.C. to testify before Congress under oath, Gov. Walker said, "bipartisanship is not so good."

And the very day that voters were going to the polls last week to remove two Republican senators in a historic rebuke of the governor’s extreme, divisive agenda, Gov. Walker hid his signing of the most partisan redistricting laws in Wisconsin history.
On the floor of the legislature, Gov. Walker's Republican rubber-stamps have rejected 375 Democratic amendments out of hand, even though many were common sense measures that emphasized accountability or saved money.  And exactly zero Assembly Democratic bills have passed this session.

It is  Gov. Walker's unwillingness to give up his extreme agenda and double-talk that have Wisconsinites feeling so betrayed that half of the state feels that he needs to be removed from office immediately.

If Gov. Walker sincerely wants to work with Democrats he needs to first stop using bipartisanship as a cover for his own partisan actions. If he doesn't, then he ignores the will of the middle-class and the recall election results at his own peril.

Your schoolyard psychology doesn't work on us, Scott Walker. To put it in the terms that bullies like you understand most clearly, you can't take away all the marbles and then say "I'm ready to play nice." There are consequences for bad behaviors and in this case, you're going to get a time out. A nice, long, permanent political time out.  We call it a RECALL. You can think of it as a recess.

Or, you could just drop out again, like you did in college. Maybe you can even get one of your sponsors to buy you a VP bid and you can run away to bigger and better things like your idol Palin did, too. Whatever you choose, I wish you the worst, in all of your endeavors.

In the meantime, stop lying. Stop ignoring us. Like we always say: We won't forget. We will recall.

And I would really appreciate it if you would just resign, since you apparently suddenly care so much about how much elections cost. This will save us a lot of trouble.  

Yours in dissent, and also fury,

Heather DuBois Bourenane
Wisconsin voter, taxpayer, parent and person whose specific comments you refuse to keep in mind



P.S. What are your supporters going to do with all those "He's got nads" shirts now that you're a moderate centrist?  Your base must be so disappointed in you! Little girls whose parents let them wear profane shirts to school and companies that are being capitalistic must feel very threatened by this terrible news.

New word: tooljob

Tooljob (n): (1) one who talks incessantly of providing jobs and tools without delivering either. (2) a complete and hypocritical failure, undeserving of respect or affection.

cf: Governor Scott Walker

Example of usage: Scott Walker is a total tooljob. I can't wait to recall that guy.

"Tools! Jobs!" said Walker, demonstrating the incompetence that led to his inevitable demise as Wisconsin's most infamous tooljob. Photo

Editor's note: This is my humble contribution to the political lexicon. Because the words people are currently using to describe this phenomenon (douchebag, asshole, liar, traitor, bastard, etc) really aren't entirely accurate, appropriate or sufficient. We needed a new word for this particular condition.

Update:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tooljob