Public education advocates reacted with shock to the cuts to school districts across the state in the governor’s new budget that they claim are the largest cuts since the Great Depression. 

Released Tuesday, Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget contains some $834 million worth of aid cuts to Wisconsin public schools. Cuts include $749 million in general equalization funding, $60 million in categorical aid for items like advanced placement courses and $5.6 million for employee benefits.

Walker’s proposed budget would also increase funding, enrollment and eligibility to charter and virtual schools and provide $600,000 to start an initiative to have all students reading by third grade.

The proposed cuts to public education come after 18 years worth of millions of dollars in cuts, Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools Executive Director Tom Beebe said.

“This is just one more dagger into the throat of public education. These are the biggest cuts since the Great Depression,” Beebe said. “There’s no fat in these districts, they’re lean.”

Walker purported that the benefit concessions from public employees inside the budget repair bill would provide school districts with the flexibility required to deal with cuts in next biennium’s budget.

The Senate Democrats need to come back, Walker said, because the budget repair bill would provide savings greater than any reductions contained in the proposed biennium budget.

Beebe disagreed.

He said he has yet to see the math prove the flexibilities Walker offered districts would make up for the hundreds of millions of losses.

Walker also proposed limiting the amount of money districts can raise from property taxes, which is a tool districts use to make up for funding issues, Beebe said.

Maureen Look-Ainsworth, Wisconsin’s 2010 Middle School Teacher of the Year, said Walker’s cuts would destroy the tradition of education in Wisconsin.

“I really believe this is going to have a ripple effect across the Midwest and this will change Wisconsin forever,” Look-Ainsworth said. “He’s pulling the leg out from under all of us.”

Look-Ainsworth said Wisconsin has an education system that produces great results. The state has the highest advanced placement scores and graduation rate – 89.5 percent – in the Midwest.

However, the cuts proposed in Walker’s budget would change the makeup of the classroom for the worse, Look-Ainsworth said. There could be as much as 50 children per classroom, she said, and teachers who teach multiple classes could see 250 children a day.

“I cannot believe they’d put 50 kids in a science classroom,” Look-Ainsworth said. “Imagine having even 32 kids working 32 Bunsen burners. And teachers would be held liable.”

She added she would not be able to be an investigative, creative teacher with that many children per classroom.

Walker’s proposed budget would also repeal the 22,500 enrollment cap for charter schools in the state, expand the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program eligibility to schools outside the city of Milwaukee but inside the county and extend the open enrollment period.

Walker recommended the changes to provide great flexibility and maintain the cost effectiveness of charter schools, but Look-Ainsworth said she believes Walker is beginning to privatize education.

“Charter schools make up less than 2 percent of all the schools in Wisconsin, so why would you bring them up”? Look-Ainsworth said. “It’s a shadow of things to come – the privatization of education.”