Another week, another round of punishing blows for Milwaukee’s working class. And as is so often the case with Milwaukee’s media cycle, much of the most impactful activity goes underrported. But you can consider us at the Leader to be a radar for bullshit. A capitalist crap detector, if you will. Like a finely tuned instrument locating a 19th century shipwreck on the bottom of Lake Michigan, we’ve uncovered the most important stories that would otherwise be forgotten. This week’s roundup includes a little good and a lot of bad news in our schools, blatant corporate landlord retaliation against socialist business owners, Republicans’continued efforts to work us all to death, a housing bill nothingburger, and a silver lining on the reproductive rights horizon to kick off your weekend.
The Culture War Rages on in Wisconsin Schools
This week presented a mixed bag of social justice news in Wisconsin schools. We’ll start with the one positive story. In Mukwonago, a federal judge ruled in favor of at transgender student’s right to use the bathroom of her choice. The student, an 11-year-old who has identified as a girl since age three, has participated in girls’ school activities and used the girls’ bathroom without issue for years. That is, until about a month ago, when distinct staff told the student’s mother that her daughter would have to use a boy’s or gender neutral bathroom at school. According to the suit, this new policy, “has caused plaintiff to suffer severe emotional distress and mental health effects, including thoughts of self-harm, nightmares, embarrassment, social isolation and stigma, and lowered self-esteem.”
The court ruling grants a temporary restraining order to this student, identified as Jane Doe #1 in the suit, against superintendent Joe Koch as well as any agent of the school who may attempt to stop Jane Doe #1 from using the girls’ restroom.
In a time when Wisconsin GOP legislators are reintroducing bills to ban transgender girls and women from female athletics and area schools are banning “safe space” signs, removing books dealing with gender identity, the LGBTQ+ community, multiculturalism and racial inequality, and even firing a teacher for merely suggesting a Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton duet called “Rainbowland” be performed at an elementary school spring concert, we should appreciate the small wins like Jane Doe #1’s when we get them. But we clearly have to reinforce the fight for LGBTQ+ rights in our schools and throughout our state. (Wisconsin Examiner)
Public Schools Continue to Crumble
“Just this month alone, 90 people have either retired or left our district. If that pace keeps up, board members will be in classrooms.” So says Milwaukee Public School Board (MPS) member Henry Leaonard.
Keeping the Wisconsin school news train rolling, MPS finished the 2022-2023 school year with a whopping 300 teacher vacancies. Despite media outreach efforts to attract more teachers and an influx of international educators, MPS still projects a mere 5% of vacancies filled per year for our county’s neediest schools.
Unfortunately, and predictably, the shortage is felt most by schools in poorer neighborhoods, where schools face 30-40% vacancies; specialty schools and schools on the far south side face few vacancies. The National Education Association (NEA) has discussed strategies including signing bonuses to teach in positions which are the hardest to fill. Clearly the state has to step in to create more effective bonuses and salaries for educators. Considering that Wisconsin is sitting on a $4 billion surplus, it’d be a shameful waste of funds not to ensure that every school in the state’s most populous county is adequately staffed. (Urban Milwaukee)
To add insult to injury, new data from the Wisconsin Department of Information shows that Wisconsin schools have recorded nearly 6,000 instances of seclusion and nearly 7,000 instances of physical restraint against students during the 2021-2022 school year. These practices are used disproportionately on students with disabilities, Black students and boys. Dare we ask our elected leaders to toss a fraction of that budget surplus to train school staff to not treat students like violent threats? (WPR)
Socialist-Owned Business Forced to Close due to 50% Rent Hike
After nine years in business, family-friendly entertainment venue Bounce Milwaukee will close its doors permanently on August 31. Owners Becky-Cooper Clancy and Ryan Clancy cited an astronomical 50% rise in rent and increase of the building’s deposit from $2,600 to $200,000 as the reason for the closure. Neither the company that owns the building, Central Asset Management, LLC, nor Central Asset Management’s principal, Michael Goetz, could be reached for comment.
One can’t help but infer that this price gouging is due to the Clancys’ political activity; they unionized Bounce Milwaukee over the pandemic, and Ryan Clancy serves as a Democratic Socialists of America-endorsed State Representative and County Supervisor. Since landlords wield far too much power over the lives of rent-paying Milwaukeeans, they easily got their way in shuttering Bounce Milwaukee. Now, the question is – what, if anything, will our elected leaders do to protect tenants rights in response to this egregious rent hike? (Urban Milwaukee)
Work or Die, Says the GOP: Legislature Advances Bills to Decimate Unemployment Benefits
The devil works hard, but the Wisconsin State Legislature works harder. While the Republican-led legislature has been grabbing headlines through their dogged efforts to push Milwaukee to the brink of financial ruin with the latest shared revenue bill, it has also been working quietly to further fray Wisconsin’s threadbare social safety net.
Wisconsin’s unemployment insurance benefits are amongst the lowest third in the nation, and unemployment remained at a record low of 2.4% in May. Despite this preexisting funding void and rock-bottom unemployment rate, the Assembly Committee on Workforce Development and Economic Opportunities voted 10-5 to advance four bills that would add barriers to unemployed workers receiving cash payments from the state after holding only one public hearing.
Worryingly, these efforts are being funded by the Federation for Government Accountability (FGA), a shadowy nonprofit based in Florida with no membership and tens of millions of dollars in donations (much of which comes from well-known Wisconsin ghouls such as the Uihlein family and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation). One recent FGA push is to relax child labor laws in multiple GOP-controlled states. That’s the level of soullessness our legislators are buddying up to.
The good news is these vultures are likely wasting their time. Having vetoed similar bills in the past, Governor Evers is likely to veto these as well. (Wisconsin Watch)
Will Milwaukee Leaders Ever Try to Help Low Income Renters?
Probably not. Not with neoliberals at the helm, anyway. On Wednesday, a resolution that would have provided incentives to landlords not to discriminate against renters using Section 8 housing vouchers received pushback Wednesday before being voted down. To be clear, our elected officials can’t even agree to pay landlords to accept applicants using Section 8 housing vouchers. Are our electeds actively ignoring all the ways they can directly help their rent-paying constituents as opposed to half-assedly proposing handouts to shitty landlords, or have they forgotten Milwaukee’s working class entirely? (Urban Milwaukee)
Wisconsin Inches Closer to Reaching Basic Reproductive Rights
We’ll leave you with a tiny taste of good news. Last week, a Madison judge refused to toss out a lawsuit challenging Wisconsin’s 174-year-old abortion ban, keeping the case moving toward the state Supreme Court at a snail’s pace. Now that Janet Protasiewicz has been elected to our high court, the bench has tilted to a liberal majority. The future may be promising for reproductive rights in Wisconsin. (CBS 58)
