What happens when a school district, under the guise of fiscal conservatism, delays maintenance and expansion until it’s too late?

The answer is that they find their failing infrastructure and lack of facilities an embarrassment and they finally look for ways to remediate the problem. This was the case in Brown Deer just a few years ago when a sweeping and expensive referendum was put before the voters only to be shot down. Last night history repeated itself in West Bend.

It’s not that the changes aren’t necessary, voters typically decry, it’s that they are too expensive to do all at one time.

But what are the alternatives?

In Brown Deer a smaller, more palatable referendum was put before the voters and was approved. Apparently voters didn’t like knowing they lived in a community whose pitiful 50’s era science labs rivaled run down communities like east St. Louis as author Jonathan Kozol wrote about in his book Savage Inequalities.

Still, the infrastructure problem has not been properly dealt with as the young children who used to attend Algonquin Elementary School with just some of it’s many problems included a leaky roof and rusty water in its bubblers (water fountains to those who are not Wisconsinites), are now learning in trailers which just adjacent to Dean School.

As a Brown Deer resident I’ll share that I’m embarrassed that our children have to get their education in trailers. It is not an acceptable alternative to a real bricks and mortar update but I’m hopeful that there is a real addition to Dean School is in the future and yes, I’m willing to chip in my tax dollars to make that happen.

But could West Bend have been spared this bruising defeat? Probably not. As conservative, and that’s code word for cheap even at the expense of our children, as West Bend is, any referendum would have probably failed. But todays tax climate is not one that favors education and in a place such as West Bend who ousted conservative State Senator Mary Panzer for neo-conservative Glen Grothman, the outcome was pre-determined.

It would be difficult to not notice the effect of talk radio on these school referendums. Conservative talk show hosts Charlie Sykes and Mark Belling have successfully used their microphones to advocate against schools and against educational spending — equating school building plans to the Taj Mahal, one of the seven wonders of the world. Their goal is to follow the Grover Norquist neo-con school of thought and that is that all government is bad so starve the beast and it will die. Clearly government has only one major revenue source and that source is tax dollars. If you destroy our public school system which entitles all children to attend school without tuition and regardless of means, then the only alternative is to turn to a private school system such as those run through the choice and charter school programs.

One thing that I’ve noticed about todays neo-conservatives is that they’re happy to line up to get any benefits they can get but when other seek benefits, be it for education or other reasons, they venomously say they’re lining up at the trough. This “what’s in it for me” attitude has caused an unfortunate decay in how people treat others.

A couple of years ago, when I was a public servant, one of the seniors I ran into at the Brown Deer Senior center was complaining about how he didn’t have any kids in the school system and that he shouldn’t have to pay. One part of the irony is that he had just enjoyed a meal from the publicly funded Senior meal program but he proceeded to tell me that I should find a way to tax all those rich college students that drive around in those fancy cars. At that moment it was clear that he was an idiot and worse yet he was a selfish idiot. Those years I spent eating inexpensive staples like potatoes and rice while struggling to pay my tuition and rent weren’t exactly lavish times for me and I know that it’s just as hard for most college students now. It turned out that he was a man of means and he took several lavish vacations each year yet somehow he felt entitled to a government funded meal each day.

It reminds me also of a former constituent, Mildred Mohan — a mean spirited elderly person (I won’t make the mistake of calling her a lady) who would call me screaming at the top of her lungs whenever Sykes would urge people to call their County Supervisors to tell them they’re idiots for whatever his hate filled flavor of the day was. One night at 11pm I was awoken by a call from Mildred because she screwed up her slip reservation at the Milwaukee County marina and wouldn’t have a place to park her yacht if I didn’t help out. Well I cut through the red tape for her so she could get her slip and she repaid me by circulating recall papers on me the next year. It was people like Mildred that made it so that I didn’t allow my son to answer the telephone.

So what kind of people oppose every single school referendum? What kind of people are they that would think that educating our children in trailers is acceptable?

Let’s just say they’re not my kind of people.