Education is very important in our community, but when the government must make cuts, it too must follow. Our state has just begun to recover from a heavy spending period due to former Gov. Jim Doyle’s wasteful projects. As such, education is faced with the sins of the father and must shoulder the cuts with the rest of the sectors. As Harry Truman once said, “Nobody can ever convince me that government can spend a dollar that it’s not got.”

Thankfully, Gov. Scott Walker’s reforms have saved school districts as well as saving the state from financial collapse. One fact that stands out to me is Walker is allowing more open enrollment to occur to better accomodate students. Walker has also helped education by implementing reforms that will allow us to avoid an economic meltdown that Doyle had us surely heading for. In just one short year, Walker turned our $10 billion of debt into a surplus. 

In tough economic times like this, Wisconsin must also fight against the poor national economy and the expensive measures Obama has put into place. Despite a floundering national economy, Walker and Wisconsin can help schools whenever possible. While we as a state cannot afford to spend a huge amount of money on everything we want, education has still been allowed to thrive despite a hard past, debt and a terrible national economy. While a lot of cuts require us to tighten our belts and move on, we can still benefit as we correct Doyle’s mistakes.