And this man wants to be President? Seriously? Now he’s deliberately using a false claim about a young teacher who was laid off after he became governor in order to bash Wisconsin’s teachers and its public education system. Here are the details:
Scott Walker blatantly lied when he claimed a young teacher he descibed as Wisconsin’s 2010 Teacher of the year (she did did not win the award Walker attributed to her) was laid off because of Wisconsin’s rules regarding seniority. Walker used this young teacher’s layoff as an excuse to bash Wisconsin’s public education system.
Claudia Klein Felske, one of the Wisconsin teachers of the Year for 2010-2011, wrote an open letter calling Scott Walker out for his blatant lies.
Ms. Felske’s response lays bare the mendacity of Scott Walker, and the real culprit behind the deterioration of Wisconsin’s public education system -Scott Walker, in case you had any doubt:
I was both surprised and bewildered last week when I saw a news clip of you stumping in Iowa about Megan Sampson, whom you called “The [2010] Outstanding Teacher of the Year in my State.” This was baffling to me since in 2010, I was named Wisconsin High School Teacher of the Year (Maureen Look-Ainsworth, Middle School Teacher of the Year; Peggy Wuenstel, Special Services Teacher of the Year; and Michael Brinnen, Elementary Teacher of the Year). In a most humbling ceremony, we were each surprised at our respective schools by State Superintendent Tony Evers and later honored at the State Capital as the Wisconsin Teachers of the Year. […]
Verified by multiple news sources, it turns out that Megan Sampson did win an award in 2010, but it was the Nancy Hoefs Memorial Award given by a relatively small organization of Wisconsin English teachers (WCTE) for “an outstanding first year teacher of language arts.” She was one of less than a dozen teachers across the state who self-nominated for this award.
You failed to mention these details as you used Sampson’s lay-off from her first year teaching position as an opportunity to bash Wisconsin schools on the national stage. You blamed the seniority system for Sampson’s lay-off when, in good conscience, you should have done some serious soul searching and placed the blame squarely on your systematic defunding of public education to the tune of $2.6 billion that you cut from school districts, state aid to localities, the UW-System and technical colleges.
Ms. Felske then lays out, point by horrific point, a few of the steps Walker and his Republican controlled legislature took to dismantle “the excellent public education Wisconsin has always been known for” and to vilify public school teachers, blaming them for all the ills that his own actions created. It is worth reading the entire letter, so please do.
Here’s is how Wisconsin’s Middle School Teacher of the Year for 2010-2011, Claudia Klein Felske ends her letter to Walker, the current flavor of the day in the GOP field running for President:
Your tenure as Governor has demonstrated nothing less than a systematic attempt to dismantle public education, the cornerstone of democracy and the ladder of social mobility for any society.
How our paths have diverged from that August afternoon in 1986. True story: it was freshman orientation just outside Memorial Union. We were two of a couple thousand new Marquette University freshman wistful about what our futures held. Four years later, I graduated from Marquette and later became Wisconsin High School Teacher of the Year. You never graduated, and you became the Governor of the State of Wisconsin bent on dismantling public education. Ironic, isn’t it? Situational irony at its best. I’d laugh if its ramifications weren’t so utterly destructive for the state of Wisconsin.
Sincerely,
Claudia Klein Felske
2010-2011 Wisconsin High School Teacher of the Year
Marquette University Class of 1990
The young teacher Walker lied about, Megan Sampson has also spoken out against Walker using her story to advance his agenda:
Megan Sampson wasn’t looking for attention.
But the English teacher at Wauwatosa East High School sure got some Thursday when she was singled out in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece by Gov. Scott Walker, who used Sampson’s story to champion ending collective bargaining in Wisconsin. […]
Sampson said Thursday she felt uncomfortable with the governor using her experience to push an agenda.
“My opinions about the union have changed over the past eight months, and I am hurt that this story is being used to make me the poster child for this political agenda,” Sampson said. “Bottom line: I am trying to do my job and all this attention is interference and stress for me.”
Good for her.
