We the People; Superintendent debate

The education of the state is suffering suffering. Parents don't feel they have any say no any influence at all in their school. That young man must go. Some of them with very little in the room were written down less willing to learn or it was a big one to. Go. But what do you do with green brings those knees right into your face in the morning. What you do is you. You make them you. You know. I personally having to see the seven eight grandchildren there and very concerned about their education. And I really don't care about the cost but God gave me something for my money.

Good evening I'm Dave Iverson the people you just heard from have concerns about children and about education in our state. Coming up next we'll hear how the candidates for state superintendent of schools respond to those concerns. Stay tuned for a live 90 minute debate. We the People. The people as a co-production of the Wisconsin State Journal. Wisconsin Public Television and wood Communications Group. Counselors in public relations with major funding provided by the Miller Brewing Company. The Wisconsin Education Association Council Wisconsin Manufacturers and commerce representing Wisconsin business Oscar Meyer foods corporation on behalf of its employees and their families live and. Working in Wisconsin and by Access Wisconsin a cooperative effort of Wisconsin's local telephone companies to provide distance learning solutions to our public schools with additional funding provided by the Wisconsin Association of

School Boards providing leadership and support to school boards by the Wisconsin Federation of Teachers and by the school administrators Alliance providing quality education for all students. We the People a live town hall debate featuring the candidates for State Superintendent of Public Instruction reporting live from the state capitol. Dave Iverson. Usually the political agenda set by two groups out sessions and the press. But for the last couple of months we've tried to change that by going back to an old fashioned process a town hall meeting. So ever since this race for state superintendent of schools began we've held town meetings in locations like Milwaukee Madison Appleton and Platteville to try and get a better sense of what people want in the

next superintendent of schools in Milwaukee we use computer technology to get a better sense if you push the button that you think is the most important issue on there 62 percent indicate that lobbying the legislature for funding in Appleton people pushed each others buttons on topics that included prayer in the schools. English is not. The end of the language program for community control over education versus state mandated discipline discipline and were ready to push the candidates on where they stood on home and thank you for that money. Thank. You. He wanted to know what. They. Think. In Platteville town hall participants were concerned about the differences between rich districts and poor. Not sayin that you take away from the which this place I want to see to who are just push move towards greater opportunity the same kind of opportunity does exist for digital schools and in medicine conversation focused on how to tune in turned off parents

why are you going to do it to bring in the parents who are already there the ones that are already on the PTA or their their needs are met. What about the ones who don't know how to get there. They were already good for the littlest one and at all our town hall meetings a lively debate about whether or not schools should try to provide everything from sex education to school lunch that we as citizens every one of us who goes to the polls is gonna tell our governing body what the responsibility of the parent when giving them an excuse letter by having them breakfast and lunch with giving them all the nursing assistance eldest son is not square having one under siege parents and Hamilton government this is why I was trying to be a poke at them there in the deep dark and Human Services have we got this agency to make it more right. Back in our schools you're getting your tires with their baby getting caught and I'm never getting back. That is your problem. It was to me just tell me what you want to hear.

Appleton Platteville Madison Milwaukee. Tonight citizens from these four town hall meetings have come to the state capitol and they're ready to question the candidates for state superintendent of schools. So that's how we all got here we are ready to go now and quiz the candidates the candidates for state superintendent of schools are of course Linda Krause and John Benson and they join us now live from the state capitol and we're ready with our first question comes from Elton Lee who will direct this question first to Mr. Benson. Go ahead. Yes you've just been elected superintendent. You've called in your division and bureau managers. And you say to them for the time being we're going to keep doing things the way we've been doing them except for three things one of those three things. Well the first thing we're going to do it differently out of the part of the public instruction is to reconstruct it and redesign it. That's been a promise that I have made to the citizens of this state as I've traveled around the state. I've said that we're going to have a task force that will be chaired by someone from the community could be business could be a farmer it could be a parent.

And we're going to have broad representation of the citizenry on that committee and we're going to work diligently at re structuring the department. And our goal is going to be that we have a Department of Public Instruction that will be a model for all of state government to reach out to school districts to help them in every way that it possibly can because I would want that agency to be a full service agency. Secondly I want us to work diligently as a as an agency reaching out to our school districts to see how we can create village partnerships. That's been my theme as a candidate for this office because I believe in it. Now you're going to hear that a lot tonight from me because I'm very committed to it. I know that it works. It works in our community. And thirdly I would like for us to see if we can do a better job of reconstructing and restructuring our high schools so that we can prepare our graduates for a place in tomorrow's world and that means a lot of change developing partnerships with business developing partnerships with vocational schools and with our university school to work transition with apprenticeship tech prep.

All right well let's hear Linda crisis response to that question. What three things would you do differently if you. Thank you. The first thing I would do would be to tell the staff at the Department of Public Instruction that there will be changes coming about and these changes will actually empower them give them more opportunity to have a voice in what's going on to actually make more decisions. And that in the long run they will find that their careers are more rewarding than they have been in the past. Excuse me do this by. Enrolling the Department of Public Instruction in the Madison area quality improvement network. And I would establish a team to evaluate the Department of Public instructions role and its size in education. And I would include in this obviously members of the Department of Public Instruction members of the legislature parents teachers business people regular taxpayers

teachers administrators the customers of education to help make these decisions. And thirdly I would make part of my permanent schedule as Superintendent of Public Instruction. Visits around the state I would not sit in my office in Madison a lot to go out and visit the customers. The teachers the taxpayers to find out what they need from. Their I should mention by the way they were going to try to keep our candidate responses to a minute each so when you hear me interrupt that's why. Let's go over here now to a question from Ron Grier. Good evening. It's been my experience and experience of others that schools are sort of private domain of those that are employed there and therefore parents and business folks and community people feel frustrated at their inability to have a part of that. What specifically specifically will you do this as a superintendent so that business and community and students and parents have a larger role in the development of

curriculum and also school management. Let's start with Linda Cross first on this one please. Well one of the things that I've been a proponent of is school choice to involve the parents more in the school that they feel is good for their child. And so whether we're talking I move from one public school to another to a private school or to a Procul school we know that what makes students successful in school is having parents thoroughly involved in their education getting them into a school that they like and I believe a lot of them like the schools they're in right now. Site based management yes. Site based management then would mean that we would include members of not only the teaching staff with the administration but also parents taxpayers and business peepers people the potential employers and ask them to really be involved in helping make decisions in their schools. These things all will help. And to encourage superintendents and principals throughout the

state of Wisconsin to welcome and the teachers to welcome the parents into their school because I'm hearing that a lot of them right now feel that they are spies. You know the teachers think they're spies if they come in you know what do you want here instead of welcoming. Do I understand your question to be how will I specifically a state superintendent encourage citizens and communities to participate in schooling of children. Exactly yes. What I'd like to start with is by sharing with you that in the community where I work now we're doing that. And I don't know that we want to. Or could impose that on every school district but we're doing what I said earlier about this village partnership. And I believe that every school district can do that and I know that many districts are doing that now. I would use the bully pulpit of the office of state superintendent to work through School Boards Association through administrator groups through teacher groups through the PTA to encourage them. To encourage people at a local school district level to join

with each other around curriculum around policy around budget and working with the elected school boards so that they have a partnership arrangement with that local school board. It's being done. It works. Children benefit when all of us participate together. I believe a lot in the concept of site based management or as some people call it total quality quality management. Get to works. If if the teachers in the building the principal and the parents whose children attend that school participate together around those issues it does benefit our children. The two of you sound of the moment like two peas in a pot. How would you and I suspect that's not the case. No it's not. How would you how would you respond to Mr. Grierson question differently. How would you do a better job of involving parents than MS Krause and vice versa one way that I would respond differently I guess is to say to this to the voters of this state. If you would look at the records of these two candidates specifically with respect to

this question and if you listen to what John has done and advocated in the community where he is employed I think you'd find a much clearer record about putting teeth into the notions and the ideas. All right we have this well Linda Krause is a teacher. So Linda Cross's position is different than that of a bureaucrat but a teacher works daily with the students and works constantly with the parents of these students to try to provide the best education possible and to involve the parents and to let the parents know that I believe that they are the experts on their kids that anything they can tell me to help me work more effectively with their kids in the classroom. I welcome. I want to find out from them but enough to sugar. Are you getting what you want and I mean I know you're a parent who's been frustrated by this very issue to some extent good enough. Well I got to say that it's not going to I'm still not hearing specifics. Can I try. Can I try just a little bit more please. Sure. I would like it if in every school district in this state. We would

have a PTA for the parents who have children of preschool age like we have our parents who have children ages 0 to 4 come to school and connect with each other in the evenings sharing with each other about the joys and sometimes the frustrations of raising children. They connect with our staff our staff provides them with parenting classes and they are helped in understanding what the standards of readiness are for children when they start formal schooling. We have a significant parent mentoring program where parents and other citizens from our community. Business owners senior citizens agree to give at least 45 minutes per week to their body child. We're doing that. One more example. We have a contract in our school district between our classroom teachers and our parents. If you are the parent and you bring your child to our school for the first time. Our teacher signs a contract and gives it to you and tells you what he or she pledges to do in working with your child and you give us one. And as a parent you say to this your child's teacher I

promise to read to my child every day I promise to help my child with homework on a regular basis and I promise to mentor and to watch and to monitor my child's television viewing both in terms of quantity and quality. And the list would go on. All right thanks for the specificity Linda Krause go ahead one more kick at this one. Thank you. Well I think it's terribly important to note that I trust you as a parent. Oftentimes I find that administrators don't that administrators believe they know better than any of the rest of us what's good for the kids and they'll set down the little rules and regulations. But I trust you to do the best job for your kid. And so if I give you a choice in the school that you want your child to be in so that you won't feel you're stuck with a system that maybe you don't like and that you don't think is helping your child. I think that's real important. Also as Superintendent of Public Instruction as I said I wouldn't sit in the office. I'd go out and visit I'd set up what can we call it office hours would

be one way of saying it but set up meetings in locations where parents could talk to me and tell me you know how things are going in your district and what I as superintendent could help with from my level as a state administrator and maybe what I could put into the ear of your local administrator principal whatever parents or teachers or whatever to really help you get what you need for your kids OK. All right thank you. Thanks for the additional specificity. We have another question now about to parents I think I'm a Jackson. Go ahead. Hello. Here's my situation. I don't have a lot of times after the meetings are over at school. I'm left waiting on the bus about an hour after the meeting is over. So. Not all passer is able to be involved as they would like with their children's education. What changes do you think need to be made so that all

parents can be more involved. Mr Benson You started as a tough question important question. We need every parent involved with teachers and with the principal in the schooling of children. When parents have difficulty getting through the school because they don't have a car. Because they don't have the means to get there somehow I believe through the efforts of the school and that community we need to find ways of seeing to it that you're afforded transportation that you're assisted with the means that you need in order to connect with the school because everyone would agree that when parents are connected with classroom teachers children's chances of succeeding are much greater. All right Spencer. Well I suppose we have a couple of choices. One of them would be that I would I would venture to guess that in most communities when one parent struggles without the means to get to school that if someone would coordinate and facilitate some kind of a volunteer program that would help you to get there would come and pick you up would take you home. I think that's possible. And

secondly I guess if it isn't then because of the importance of parents and teachers working together we're going to have to add one more cost to schooling and to helping families by having the society assist in some way. Thank you. Well I too believe that we could help you to get to parent teacher conferences or other meetings that are important for your child in the school system. And it seems to me as though we can certainly do this by having you simply let us know what your needs are and then I'm sure that other parents would be willing to help or that support staff at school or whomever. Principals assistant principals I can see them certainly in our community of Fort and Bill being willing to go out and give someone a ride so that they can get to parent conferences. I would also ask employers to be flexible you know to allow parents the opportunity to go to their schools for parent teacher conferences and the like because

they too understand that it's really important in the kid's success. Does that answer your question Mr. Jeffs. Yes it does but. Sometimes a passible have taken me home. But you don't want to depend you had to keep X and you know so a lot of times I don't go and the kids really need me there because I can see the differences when I'm there and when I'm not because I used to be real and when I lived a block away from the school and I was always there. Please like passing because I'm sure they would much rather have you ask. And be able to get you there and I'm sure they don't feel that it's a terrible imposition that they feel that if they're facilitating getting you as a parent to the school to work with your kids that that's really valuable. All right I have and get to another question again. This one comes from I married for Myra Stevens Point. Thank you local school board members make an attempt to stay alert to changes in legislation and in laws but we need help.

With all the changes that are happening in legislation all the time both federal and state. I want to know what makes you a better qualified person than your opponent to lobby with the state legislature and the governor for educational issues. Let across first. Well I think one of the things is the fact that I am a teacher and there's a tremendous amount of credibility I believe in the teaching profession as far as the fact that teachers do know what's going on in the classroom and what's needed in the classroom. So I think taking the credibility of being a 23 year veteran teacher who is working with kids I'm still working with kids in my classroom I did not take a leave of absence. I think that's credibility. I do know a lot of legislators I have been a citizen involved in politics not a professional politician but the old American way the Founding Fathers way of being a citizen involved in politics I know the governor

I've worked with the governor. I know a lot of legislators. I know I can work with them. I was cross with all due respect Mr. Benson a moment on this question but as I recall both of you failed a rather simple question that was put to you by one of the local newspapers which is that you couldn't identify the chairs of the joint Finance Committee. In fact you even have a party which indicates you don't know who's in control of the legislature if you don't know that. How are you going to be an effective lobbyist. Well I think you know if I haven't known in the past I can find out fast. I've done well in school as a student myself and I'm a quick study. Mr. Benson You also have problems with I wish you wouldn't ask me such an embarrassing question. It's my job I know it is. I spent eight years in the Department of Public Construction as an assistant state superintendent and I spent a lot of time in this building doing that around lots of issues. I believe that experience is very important for me. If the voters choose me on April 6 to be the

next state superintendent I was here to testify before both Senate and Assembly education committees. I knew the governor Earl and his staff on a first name basis I do Governor Thompson and his staff. I believe I'm a pretty good consensus builder. I hope that there is some evidence of that even as the candidate and that I have managed with help from others to bring together the entire educational community around this candidate and lots of other organizations and groups within this state. I believe in consensus building. If I am elected state superintendent I'll work diligently with school boards with administrators with teachers and with the entire community to find consensus around issues and hopefully be the voice for those groups over here in this building with the governor and with the legislature to advance our ideas and our needs. All right let's move along now and get some more questions about the what you both see as the role of schools you heard in our opening tape some controversy about what the school's purpose is in our society and we're going to talk about that now some. Go ahead please and your question.

Who says things really got going and not responsive either. They responded that they didn't see that then I saw his queer last sequel. My interest me nor did they me nor did I eat them in their ploy Mosse program US almost at once. Do you feel a little confused. It's been a while since I've had Spanish. Are you actually lost more years of college so let's see we are talking. What 26 and 27 years ago I guess. One I can pick out some words. So are you are you lost to pick out some words but haven't gotten the full draft some of our schoolchildren feel this way. Certainly do you think that providing and extending English as a second language programs is important and also very importantly do you

think that the public school system has a responsibility to respond to the cultural diversity by employing more minority teachers. Mr. Benton first. Yesterday I was at the frat in the street. I believe that's the correct name elementary school in Milwaukee. What a wonderful school. It's I think it's the only school in the state that has two way bilingual bicultural program which means that all children learn both languages and it's beautiful. Well at the Department of Public Instruction the bilingual bicultural program was within the division that I was responsible for. I understand that program very well on the job I have now in a small school district in eastern Dane County 10 11 percent of our people population are Hispanic. We have an excellent bilingual bicultural program. I understand that I understand the needs of Hispanic children. I believe in that program. The problem with the program right now is that it's grossly underfunded and it's one more example

of adding burden to already overburdened to property tax owners. We need to have the state pick up a larger share of the cost of that categorical program bilingual bicultural and finally with respect to providing more teachers for role models and other employees in school districts because of our cultural diversity I believe in it with all my heart. We've done it in our community. We've hired two parents from our Hispanic community who are full time aides in our program. It's wonderful. We need more of that kind of role model in every school and across. Yes I certainly think that we need to address the needs of those children as well as the other children in our schools. We want to make sure that the schools in the various communities are doing the best job of educating the kids in their communities according to their needs. And so what I've been saying all along is the superintendent of public instruction should not be mandating everything across the board as has been done because there are different needs in different school systems different communities.

And so I want to see the school boards and their parents provide you know come together and decide what's needed for the various schools and for the kids in those schools. The governor's education commission two years ago the commission the committee for teacher administrators supply and quality First of all one of our members was fair I mean there goes. And he was involved in heading the Spanish immersion program at Wilbur Wright schools. And he certainly talked about the needs of the students there. We also in our commission our subcommittee talked about the roles of various minority teachers blacks as well as Hispanic and ways that we could encourage more of them to become teachers to serve as good role models for your kids. Just one quick follow up for me Congressman Roth in the congressional district near

you. This process for years sponsored an effort to make English the sole official language of the United States and to put less money into bilingual programs. DR You support restaurants fill out so when do we support this program you support Mr. Watts Bill to make English the official language of the United States. I really haven't seen his bill so I don't know you know what all it contains. I think most likely for the good of the kids their best bet is certainly to learn the English language as well as know their own native language. I respect both your parents I'm going to speak about Hispanic children because it is as Hispanic children who come to us in our school district but it would apply to other minority groups. But when the little second grade child comes to our school from Mexico and cannot speak or read a word of English I want that child in a bilingual program so that that child can learn to read to write and

compute in his or her language at the same time learning English. All right we have another question now I'm back from my job endurance go ahead. Thank you. Now I know that you do both plan to abide by the current Wisconsin law regarding human growth and development instruction but I also know that every year there are new bills introduced that attempt to change this law. What many of us would like to know and please bear with me because this is rather lengthy three part question. But we would like to know is would you oppose or support changes in the current law regarding human growth and development instruction which would number one mandate that students be taught about how to use contraceptives and or number two would require use of state endorsed human growth and development curricula. That is ones that the DPR I deem

to be politically correct. Banning any other curricula that a district might prefer to use and or number three legislation providing for state funded contraceptive distribution through school based clinics. And please explain why. All right let's take our time and work our way through this one because it's an important question to many people. And and so let's start I believe this time will start first with you Linda cross on the question of human growth curricula. And I think the first part of the question had to do with what again please with whether or not you should mandate. How do you think contraceptives and the school district are. Let's start with that part first. Well I must admit that I am not sure at this point of exactly what the law reads on that particular you know fully on that particular issue. But what I've been saying is that I believe that the parents and the school districts the school boards with their parents together

should make decisions on what is needed in their schools for their kids. And I would feel sure that in many districts in Wisconsin people would be offended by having their children taught how to use contraceptives they would not at all be pleased with that. And I would want to respect the parents and their beliefs. All right so if parents were opposed to the notion of teaching contraception and and about contraceptive devices you would be supportive then of not doing that in that school districts or their child in that district that does not mean that all the other children in that district. Sorry Mr. Benson go ahead well. I think it's chapter 56 of Wisconsin law that deals with human growth and development and also part of the law that deals with curriculum every district in this state must have a comprehensive health curriculum. I support that very strongly. That law further specifies that part of that health curriculum needs to

be in the area of human growth and development and including the HIV virus. That law also has a very specific provision that says that every board must have a parent advisory committee that works with and meets with teachers and other school staff around the areas of human growth and development and bring their ideas and their proposals to the locally elected board of education. I support that during my short the required teaching of contraceptive devices. I don't think that the state superintendent is going to mandate the teaching of contraceptives the use of condoms or anything else in schools. I think that's intrusted to locally elected school boards to parents and teachers. And that's where I if chosen to be a state superintendent would like to leave the responsibility. All right let me ask about this just for a moment then I'll get back to you Joe and you can you can follow up. I read an interesting statistic today and that's this that 70 percent of all high school seniors have sex OK 70 percent.

This is a Department of Public Instruction. Statistic half of those don't use contraceptives. All right so that means one third of all high school seniors in this state are having unprotected sex. Might be a problem don't you think. I think it's a problem and I think someone ought to help those young people. And my first recommendation would be the family and if that isn't doing it which perhaps it isn't then I think the school should play its role and help those young people with throat religion good information right so perhaps an appropriate role for schools to cross. Well I too hope that the Superintendent of Public Instruction would stay out of this matter and as I've said Leave that to the local school boards and their parents to decide you know what they want. Obviously it's a problem. It is indeed a problem. But I don't think we solve problems by. Believing that the kids belong to us in the schools rather than their parents I think the parents absolutely have the right to deal with these things and in

most school systems the parents do receive the curriculums they're sent home to them. Often times the parents are supposed to sign that they have read through the curriculum and that they understand that what's going to be taught in the curriculum and that it's OK to teach that to their kids. Or if there are segments of the health curriculum that they don't want taught to their kids that they notify the school the teacher you know what they want their kids opted out of. Or don't you have anything further that you want to get them specifically to respond to. Well I do but I think we probably need to move on to the second part of that question I think I did get a sense for where they're at that you would both oppose mandating that across the board you would support each school district determining that for themselves is that what I'm hearing. That's what I'm saying. The second part of that question is that there is a movement underfoot to ban or censor certain sex education curricula from being used in certain school districts because some people believe that it is not politically correct. Would you support then the

use of only state or DPMI endorsed. Human Growth Development curricula. Making it so that other curriculum couldn't be used if the district chose to use that. OK the question then is whether there would be only one health curriculum and that would be the one endorsed by deep in the schools would not have the choice of using another one is that which or there may be more than one. But there will definitely be some excluded some that are not endorsed not endorsed by the DP I think the question is To what extent are schools free to have their own curricula in the area of human growth and development. Even if it's not an official BPI one. OK again I would like to see the individual school boards and their parents making the decision on what kind of curriculum they want in their schools for their kids health and human development. I'm not aware of any mandated curriculum from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction

in any area of the curriculum I could be wrong but I'm not aware of any. I think that it's a local school district issue. All right let's move ahead and go on to our next question. Go ahead please over here. Can the public school system guarantee the success of each student or is that too much to ask in today's society. As for Mr. Benson go ahead. I wish I could say that we can but I don't think that it would be fair to say that. And yes I think it's too much to expect though that ought to be our goal. We ought to strive for that. We had it OK and then if you were elected superintendent what things would you put in place that you saw the success of Mark's students for the state of Wisconsin would come through. That's a difficult question and it requires a rather lengthy answer. I like to start with little children I call it bright beginnings because I believe that when you intervene early and that when you give little children an opportunity to succeed in those lowest grades and

build upon those successes that it's very very likely that they will continue to succeed as they proceed through the schooling years. So I have a lot of interest in early education. I commented earlier about the need we have to reform our high schools and begin to address the issue of the 60 65 percent or so of our graduates who do not want to post-secondary schooling and help them to be prepared for jobs when they leave high school that's why we need school to work transitional programs I want to provide the leadership to help every district do that. I want to create youth apprenticeship programs in this state so that when some high school students graduate from high school they have two credentials a high school diploma and an apprenticeship certificate. Thanks a lot to be done but it can be done. OK when I cross again on the responsibility to try to educate all students to guarantee to all students. Well we certainly want to do the best we can with our kids we really can't afford to have any of them fall through the cracks just because they don't conform to one of the rules or one of the categories that's been set up in some of our school systems are set

up by DP. What I want to see us do is I believe that giving choice to parents is an opportunity for giving kids a better chance at getting a good education and being more successful and more motivated in their education of the parents behind the kids rather than feeling the system's bad and conveying that idea that the system is bad to the kids that kind of a negative attitude is very detrimental to the kids and their education so like you say I think school choice is of way of. Helping more kids become more successful I believe that we have been doing a good job for our college prep kids at the high school level where I am. I don't believe we've been doing a good job for the kids who are not going on to college so apprenticeship programs partnerships with business I think would help to get more kids who are right now unmotivated and without direction and you know disruptive because they have no direction I think this would help give them direction. And as far as other recommendations for success for kids

at the early grades I would strongly recommend a superintendent phonics in reading so that the kids can do better in school because if they can't read they're not going to be very successful all the way through school. We need to move ahead to the area of school choice which is one you just brought up before we leave this area. I just want a little bit of clarification if I might about this role of of parents the one Joe Vander Miles brought up and others about what the responsibility of parents is lived across in this campaign on a couple of occasions you've indicated that if the majority of parents objected to a particular part of curricula then it shouldn't be taught. Recently you seem to have backed away from that Simon and made exceptions to that. Can you be specific with us tonight please about where you draw the line on that in terms of when parents can say no to what's taught in a school. Possibly the press wasn't listening very carefully as sometimes students don't listen too carefully and possibly they get the wrong impression of what I said.

What I've been saying all along is that I want to see the parents helping to guide their children's education and what they believe for their children. And so in all due respect I saw the videotape where you said that if the majority of parents don't want to have this taught in their school or there they shouldn't vent for their children in that class that doesn't mean that I would not teach that work to the other children whose parents still would allow them to have that curriculum I would you know as. As its classroom teacher is an individual classroom teacher what I and my colleagues at Horton the high school do is try to be very sensitive to our parents and if there's something that they object to then we try very hard and do come up with a different work or a different piece of curriculum to accomplish the same thing. So we respect them. But as Superintendent of Public Instruction like I say I don't want the superintendent to be butting in and making these decisions I want the school boards and their parents to make those decisions.

The parents to talk to individual teachers if they've got a question or a problem with some piece of literature or a curriculum or whatever and make those decisions at the local level. All right. Thanks for the clarification John just quickly I trust locally elected school boards and I trust teachers to select materials that will benefit all of the children I expect and I think every school board in this state has a policy in place that's very clear to the parents that this is the procedure you'll follow if you have any objections to materials being used in school. That's the way it ought to be in fact I think it was in today's one of today's papers or yesterday's about a situation in river lake where that's in fact what happened. And other material was polled the parent complained. A committee of parents board members students teachers met and they said hey that parents right. Let's pull that piece of material. We won't have that in our school the system works. That's the way it ought to be. All right we're going to move ahead now to the question of school choice which has been a popular one in this campaign and its carcass.

Yes I've heard the school choice mentioned here tonight and I've heard it mentioned throughout the campaign. I'm warning a school choice really the answer to the problem and the second and third parts of my question. What kinds of school choice specific school choice programs would you support and how do you think that would affect the quality of education on the cross. OK I believe in school choice and I believe that school choice will be good for all of the schools in the state of Wisconsin. I don't think that there's any one panacea for the problems of education. But I think that school choice is one way. You know one piece of the puzzle. One way of improving education for kids as I said before what I want to do is trust the parents to make the best decision for their kids because they know them better than we do. And so if they want to move them to another public school to a private school or to a parochial school I trust their judgment that they're making the right judgment for their kids.

I would pilot. Parental school choice and I would do this for the lower and middle class families. I would talk to the communities and ask you know who would be interested in piloting these programs some may not be interested. But the lower in the middle class people often cannot at the present time afford to either move their kids into a district that they like or pay the tuition for a school that they choose the rich people on the other hand can and there have been a lot of people who have called me and objected to Mr Benson's ads which suggest that rich folks are the only ones who had profit by choice. People are absolutely enraged by that. Rich folks can already like the president make that choice. It's other people lower and middle class that can't. Just a bunch of like her. I support public school choice. I'd like parents in this state to have the opportunity to choose from within the district that is an end district public school choice plan and also enter similar to what we have in Minnesota it's a

good plan and I think that our parents ought to have that opportunity. I do know though with interest tonight that the plan that my opponent has been calling for for 10 months now. Wide open public a private school choice equally funded is now all of a sudden changed the way I think you set up a pilot program for low income middle income parents. Frankly here's what I believe. I believe that my opponent's proposal with respect to choice is an experiment with the Wisconsin children for the benefit of a national political agenda and that's it. When respondents cross. Well I think that's absolutely ridiculous. Again I think Mr. Benson is as usual proving himself to be the bureaucrat saying again we know better than the parents do we will give you this amount of choice but not any more choice. We will not allow you to have full choice with

your kids to choose the school that you truly believe fits your kid's best needs including the possibility of home schooling. MR. Mr Benson tell me what's wrong with with my wanting to let's say send my child to a parochial school if I think that's the best option. No I mean that having the state pick up part of the tab for that given how much I have to spend for education in this state. What's wrong with that. Well you have a right to send your child to a private school and lots of parents have done that historically and often times they've sacrificed our taxpayers cannot afford to systems. If we were to fund the 150000 children currently enrolled in private schools in this state at one half the average cost of public education it would cost the taxpayers an additional 450 million dollars. We can't afford two systems. I want to be the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. I want to have public schools that are improved and made better. I want to

have the common school for the common good for the common people. There's across four hundred fifty million dollars John Benson says a lot of money. We're going to come up with. Well first of all I would like to say that I'm a public school teacher and that as a public school teacher have a tremendous amount of faith in the public school system. I know that my kids at Horton Hill High School can compete with the best my students have gone to not only UW Madison and the other schools within the UW system but also have gone to the University of Chicago and to Harvard and have done very well have competed very well in those situations so I have no problem in the other argument. No I'm just I'm saying that I believe in the system. But I think that parents should make the choice that they think is best for their kids if they think that a different school is best for their kids rather than our public schools. Then I think that they should have those choice what about this 450 million dollar price tag. What about this cost. A number of interesting things for one thing

if the parents who have their kids in the private schools right now were to come back into the public school system first of all they haven't been using their tax dollars that are in the public school system. So it's been used for other kids and extra facilities and so on that they're not using. If they came back again and they've been been costing us less because it's only about half the cost generally over there in the private schools as compared to public schools if they come back in with their kids it's going to cost us a lot more and building more schools and having more teachers and more facilities in Appleton near Horton ville this year at primary election time there was a referendum on having a third building a third high school. It squeaked by by. But someone suggested to me a couple days before the referendum that if school choice had been. On the books at that time that there were enough seats in the high schools that are private or parochial within the area that they could have accommodated the students the parents would not be paying millions

of dollars to finance the new school. All right we have more questions on school choice. Go ahead please. If the purpose of if the purpose of school choice is to expand the options of parents and teachers or parents and students is it the responsibility of the Department of Public Instruction to provide alternatives for every student particularly those in rural communities who have or may not have as many choices. And while what alternatives do you have for the rural students. Mr. Benson my first I'm not sure that I understand your question but if you're looking for a what can the department do to help you expand opportunities for children and small rural schools. Correct. The first thing that comes to my mind is something called the Irving project if any of you here are in our viewing audience have heard of it. It's a two way telecommunications project that's located in Clintonville in Boulder and

other communities in that region where fiber optics have been laid in the ground and those districts have been connected. And now they share programs. So teacher am district A has the cameras and some children in his or her room and does the instructing and children in other school districts see and hear and talk with that teacher and those students. It's a wonderful idea. I believe we ought to have a highway of fiberoptics connecting all of our schools in clusters and connecting our local schools with the BTA system and with other post-secondary school districts for three purposes curriculum expansion staff development in a very cost effective way and also to make the school a community center in a bigger way because then citizens can come and be connected with citizens from other communities businesses employees can come and be trained in a cost effective manner and it's a great idea as one idea went across on more choices for rural schools. Well I've been talking for a long time about fiberoptics and one of the reasons is because I live in WA Pakka. And Clintonville is in well-packaged

County and I know one of the gentleman who's been involved in setting up the fiberoptics network a businessman. I know him very well and have been in touch met with the superintendent of schools there in the Clintonville area who's been working you know on this project and now has the fiber optics. So I've been thinking for a long time that fiberoptics is certainly one of the possibilities that can help the rural schools. I believe also in partnership with business and I don't think that these partnerships have to mean that there needs to be that business within that community because in a lot of small communities there is not a lot of industry and not a lot of big businesses that really can afford to help the schools. But I do believe that the businesses understand that they can help kids and be better members of their state community by. Helping schools and I believe that they would be willing to do that even if the schools are not right in their own

neighborhood. All right quick follow up Mr. Benson on and I just wanted to add something to what I said I'd been there been the Clintonville I've talked with teachers I've talked to board members I've talked to students I've seen that work. It's wonderful. It's not the only place in the state where it's being done. And lots of other communities are studying it and soon we're going to see it in lots of districts in the state. All right let's go ahead now to Carol Smith who has another question about school choice. I have this question is for Mrs. Miss Krause. We have to educate our special needs students if choice occurs how will you make sure that they don't slip through the cracks. Do you need special needs kids who go to private schools. Linda Krause you said to me you said special needs kids if they go to the private school correct. OK. So OK my opponent and a number of well let's see I suppose about six weeks ago at the Juans meeting the Wisconsin

Association of non public schools had suggested that the private schools now only take the cream of the crop. And do not take any special needs students whatsoever. And at that point a number of the people out there in the audience you know raise their hands and start motioning frantically and wanted to talk. And of course they said that that was not the case that they're not just taking the cream of the crop already that they are taking kids with special needs and they are working lovingly with those kids and for those kids. So those kids you know are being served in these other schools. I also see the past that they do that when you have state regulations for those schools if they take I'm not sure that I would require it again like you say I want the schools to be able to have you know choices the parents to have choices not to mandate nearly as much as it's been mandating But what I say is this

seems to me as though there's a tremendous possibility that if there is. A fairly wide amount of school choice that there will be people who will establish schools specifically with special kinds of kids in mind whether it is a student who has physical handicaps whether it's students who are unruly and disruptive but I can see that there would be people in education who would say I know how to handle these kids and I really want to make that my specialty of handling this kind of kids in the school and doing a really terrific terrific job and giving them an excellent education. All right John Benson on how private schools respond. I have 27 years of experience as a school district administrator and board member dealing with private schools and I have a lot of respect for them. I have frequently stood up for them I've worked with them very closely I've been in lots of private schools. I don't know when the last time I appoint was in one but I can honestly tell you I remember I said I respect private schools. I have never been in a private school I know there are some that do.

But the private schools I've worked with I have never seen an LDA room and a room. I've never seen a school psychologist I've never seen 3 year old children who have an even condition who are required of the law to be served in public schools ages 3 to 21. I'm not putting down private schools they're wonderful it's a great choice for parents. But public schools take all the children when they come to the schoolhouse door. Ages 3 to 21. And we educate them. All right one more quick school choice question because we're starting to run behind here that we have to move on to our economics question so one more quick one please. Interaction. I'd like to address this to Mr. Benson. I understand and support your concern for the development of parent teacher community partnership in the school system in the public school system. However many parents and students alike feel as though they have very little input in the public school system as it pertains to curriculum hiring of teachers and allocation of funds. If you do not support choice between public

and private schools what will you do to make your student and parent customers in the public school system less captive. Again I hope that this is at least the attempt at a decent answer I give to you models of village partnership of school board teachers and parents connecting and working together wonderfully. It's being done in school districts where one of them as a matter of fact in Marshall Wisconsin 20 miles to the east of here. We are one of the three best little towns in Wisconsin. I just learned that the other day one of 100 best little towns in the country and one of the most significant reasons that we are is because of our school district and what we have done together in a village partnership where parents are in our school with teachers every day. Not all parents I wish they were where we have these wonderful PTA is where we have this excellent mentoring program where we can create a community council. With significant membership of

parents and out of that grew a brand new school for our littlest children. And out of that grew up a wonderful grant from a major foundation in this country. Six hundred fifty four thousand dollars one of 14 schools in America funded because we know how to do build a partnership involving parents. All right Miss Cross you just heard John Benson give a long laundry list of things that he's accomplished and marshal to make parents feel like they're satisfied customers. What have you done in Horton. Well like you say I've been dealing with parents for one thousand years in Horton ville at the high school level. I've got a lot of parents who are involved in my campaign right now. I've got a lot of their kids who graduated years ago who were involved in my campaign and they keep coming out of the woodwork in places where I wouldn't be able to find them if I tried. We've got a lot of parents who are happy with what I've done and what our other teachers have done. Monday I talked with a parent who had called in and wanted me to respond

and talk to that parent about her concern about the make up work for her child. And then she said Oh by the way I'm really supporting you you know good luck and all that so I can point to a lot of happy parents. All right. Let's move on now to one of the tougher parts of all of this which is how we pay for education in this state. It has a lot of people unhappy in terms of property taxes. And it's an issue that will not only be before you but the legislature of course as well so. Go ahead please with your question on economics. In my view one of the unfortunate things that have happened in the past year and maybe even longer than that is this pitting of the property tax payer against what is the needs of the children. On average the property tax on are currently pays slightly more than half of the public school funding. The state pays for most of the rest. Do you support increasing the

state's share of funding for public schools. And if not of course why not. And if so would you get the money from income tax sales tax user fees or some other brilliant idea. All right let across you begin this round. OK thank you for asking that question because as a teacher I've been very concerned about this and I think that Superintendent of Public Instruction obviously needs to be in involved in this area. What I've been seeing is it seems to me as though the taxpayers are about to revolt and. I don't want to see that happen. We don't want to push them to a situation like Michigan where a school system has closed 10 weeks early because people have simply said we can't pay any more and we're not going to and that's it. So I am supporting the governor's tax rate freeze and the caps on teacher salaries. And I have added to that a cap. On administrative salaries as a way of getting a handle at least temporarily on the cost because what's been happening is the state has been

increasing its amount and the taxpayers have been generous with us in the last six years. They have given us an extra 690 million dollars to use for education. But we've been spending more and education than has been given and thus we've had to raise taxes. The property tax to the people so the problem is we've got runaway spending and the people in the state according to surveys believe that they've already paid enough in property taxes they just don't believe that we have used their money effectively So we've got to prove that to them before we ask them for more money. Mr. JOHNSON. I brought with me the fish report commissioned by the governor and the state superintendent. My opponent served on the commission and fact has touted that service as part of the preparation for this office and it suggests that on the state level of funding is not adequate and it suggests that by this school year in

1993 the State level of support ought to at least go to 50 percent and that by next year it ought to go to 55 percent. And my opponent didn't file any minority reports. In fact she didn't file a remark. A minority report on any of the recommendations in that book. Property taxes are too high. The state must increase its level of funding we currently ranked 36 among the states of the nation. And that's not good enough for Wisconsin. I'm proud that in this state we.