Why the business community should take notice of WEAC's school reform plan

You state: "Its leaders [WEAC] have been open to change for years, but have typically encountered stiff, behind-the-scenes opposition from old-school local bargaining units."
I read: WEAC encountered entrenched, powerful resistance from one of Wisconsin's largest teacher unions - Madison Teachers' Union (MTI) who continue to be obstructionist to real educational reform.

I agree that educational reform measures AND reformed union operations both need to be understood and addressed in order to attain a meaningful level of overall reform success. I appreciate your expanding the scope of the recent conflict to the larger issue of education reform. How to accomplish educational reform is really at the heart of this week's conflict at the Capitol.

Is Walker’s execution plan overly aggressive and abrupt in initiating needed reform measures? I think yes. He should have waited to add this into the regular budget planning cycle and not pushed this into the current special legislative session under way. Right plan, poor tactics as I see things.
But until we can remove the partisan political pettiness in the change process no matter the timing of reform introductions, NOTHING good can result. In recent years, we have seen no progress under the existing negotiation structure and and process. And yes, Walker was elected democratically and tasked by the majority voters to legislate change. So I can't fault the him for taking action. Taxpayers, public and private worker leadership, legislators, union reps, and school administrators all need to regain civility, common sense, and fair communications as he among others attempts to get this done.

In regards to fair communications, in my opinion, Governor Walker is NOT eliminating collective bargaining as the media and union member leadership keep iterating in recent sound bites. He IS proposing that the scope of its use in contract negotiations be reduced. Wages can still be negotiated with collective bargaining as I understand his proposal. That seems like a fair adjustment to me as a taxpayer.

As a parent, it worries me that teachers and their leadership can smear Walker's intent and mislead the public in their lack of knowing the difference between the meaning of "eliminate" and 'reduce" and get away with that publicly. To have the local and national media re-iterate union sentiments using those inaccurate terms without correction - shame on them.

The students we are all purporting to educate as well as we can as a community of adults can see this communication contortion. Is there any wonder that among the best and the brightest of our youth, so many feel so disenfranchised with our teachers, mass media, and civic leadership? One quick fix to addressing the issue of poor classroom decorum and student motivation to learn is to expect and demand out teachers demonstrate intelligence as professionals while working both in and out of the classrooms. At this point, I am not convinced they have been doing so - especially this week. As the saying goes, the children are always watching us. For those children who are thinking critically and at high level on educational issues, none of us adults are getting high marks from them.
So let's all get it together for our kids for real. And quit being petty, self-centered, and narrow minded and not dealing with the larger educational problems at hand.

I always teach my kids that the true benchmark of adult maturity is whether or not one is able to solve life's problems that impact him or her and those around oneself effectively. I'd say collectively as adults when dealing with educational reform, we are all acting more like children at the moment. So let's all grow up, behave more civilly, communicate the facts more clearly, and get this needed reform accomplished.

Either that, or let our current students solve this for themselves and we can fully get out of the way if we can't behave like true adults after all.

And PS to Madison teachers - I'd feel perhaps a bit differently if you didn't have my kids watch full feature Hollywodd movies almost every week that have nothing to do with your class curriculum and waste their time and my tax dollars. You only have a handful of months each year as it is with my kids (your agrarian-based calendar year has got to go!) So teach already, will you please? And then let's talk more about your contracts...