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Bipartisan Road Show

Rep. Mandy Wright

An eyebrow-raising press release arrived during the weekend announcing a forum on the future of public education. The forum itself is not surprising because public education in Wisconsin needs more public discussion.

The surprising part is that the Oct. 15 forum at Algoma High School was hosted by a Republican state senator and a Democratic state assemblywoman.

Senator Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center) and Representative Mandy Wright (D-Wausau) have already taken their education forum to Rhinelander, Rice Lake and Tomah, to name a few locations.

“Recent state policy and budget actions are creating significant challenges for public schools, especially in rural areas,” said Schultz in the press release. “The forum will shed light on the impacts state policies portend for our schools.”

Sen. Dale Schultz

“Wisconsin enjoys a history as a national and global leader in public education, and the desire to see that continue is not a partisan issue,” said Wright, also in the press release. “Public schools are the bedrock of small communities, and it is beyond time to have a discussion about a funding model that treats all Wisconsin children equitably, regardless of their zip code.”

Schultz’s telephone number was at the top of the press release, so a call was in order to find out more about this all-too unusual bipartisan initiative.

“We have gotten great reviews everywhere we have gone,” Schultz said in a telephone call. “I don’t think anybody who has come to any of these think they were particularly partisan. But most people think they’ve been very helpful and have been very appreciative for what we’ve done.”

And how could they be partisan when you have a Democrat and a Republican advocating the same thing, and the thing they are advocating is that the public start taking a closer look at the chipping away of public education dollars?

Or perhaps it becomes partisan when the Republican Assembly Speaker and the Republican governor facing a tough election intend to remove the cap on the voucher school program that pays for students to attend private schools?

“I’ve been in the legislature since we started fooling around with vouchers,” Schultz said. “If you look at the amount of money that we’re now spending compared to when we started, I mean we went from about $700,000 to $200 million. Given the big cuts that educational spending took in the last three years or so, it’s been very tough, to say the least. The net result is that it’s going to cost a lot of money. Given the fact that we have a $1.8 billion dollar deficit, where are you going to take the money from? Nobody wants property tax increases. About the only thing people can figure is they’ll be taking money from public education to do this.

“I think our goal here is, there’s elections, there’s a lot of stuff that’s out there of very little value. Mandy Wright and I’s agreement to do this is similar to the agreement I had with Tim Cullen (a Democratic senator from Janesville) to do this on redistricting [reform]. We put a bunch of information out there. We don’t care if you are Republican or Democrat. We generally try not to talk about that stuff. We talk about how does the system work? What are the challenges facing us? How are things working with various experiments? What works? What doesn’t work? And then we add information to back it up and a whole slide presentation, information that’s publicly available on the DPI’s [Department of Public Instruction] website. We just try to arrange it in a way that sort of gives citizens an opportunity to ask intelligent, direct questions of people vying for their votes.

“I think what is most gratifying, people figure it out,” Schultz continued. “It is complex. It’s hard for even people who know what they’re doing. There are some things we really oversimplify. We have to apologize. For the most part, we hit a responsive chord and get people thinking, and that’s what elections are all about.

“They ask really good questions. Some people do have very strong opinions, but that’s OK. Our whole goal is to get people to understand this so they can ask the tough questions. I guess we’re just really delighted how well this has gone.”

Schultz has served as senator of the 17th District in western Wisconsin since winning a special election in 1991. Before that he had served in the Assembly since 1982. In recent years he has found himself to be a lone dissenting voice, beginning with being the only Republican senator to vote against Gov. Walker’s Act 10 back in 2011.

Last January Schultz announced his intention to retire. Two months later, on a Madison radio talk show, he talked about disappointment in his own party’s priorities:  “It’s just sad when a political party has so lost faith in its ideas that it’s pouring all of its energy into election mechanics. We should be pitching as political parties our ideas for improving things in the future rather than mucking around in the mechanics and making it more confrontational at the voting sites and trying to suppress the vote.”

What’s next for him?

“Farming,” he said. “My whole reason for not running, I shouldn’t say my whole reason, my principal reason is to spend more time with my wife and family, after 32 years going hell-bent for leather seven days a week it seems. It’s time to spend some quality time with them. I started out life wanting to farm full time. This is giving me the opportunity to get me much more engaged in a grain farming operation. My wife and I have 210 acres and now we’re part of a much larger operation we’re working with. I have a real estate license and I have turned down a couple three jobs already. These are just the things I want to do. Fortunately my wife and I have been good savers and investors, so I’m in a little bit better position than some of my colleagues who need the job. I hope to stay involved. I love it. I think you can tell I still have passion for it. But you turn 61 and you say to yourself, there’s more to life than politics. As good as it’s been to me, I feel like I’ve been the luckiest guy in the world, and I appreciate my life more than ever.”