It's time to look forward to 2007 and priorities for the new year. The editorial staff at the Wisconsin State Journal weighs in with one subject, in particular, that's close to home.
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An agenda for 2007
The Wisconsin State Journal's priorities
January 13, 2007
The Wisconsin State Journal editorial board considers the following issues to be among the most important facing south-central Wisconsin in 2007. Throughout this year, we'll be writing about them and evaluating how the region is doing in these areas. We will continue to seek your views and insights.

Fix school financing
A loud school bell has been ringing across Wisconsin for years now, and it's not the end of recess.
It's an alarm bell -- one that state leaders can no longer ignore.

Wisconsin's school financing system is an out-of-date and unfair mess. For many schools, the state essentially forces them to increase spending faster than they are allowed to raise revenue.
About the only way around the rigid formula is to ask voters for more money in referendums, which are difficult to pass, divide communities, hinder efficiencies and create financial instability. Districts also have dramatically different transportation, special education and security needs, which a new funding formula must better account for.

Caught in a vice grip are school districts with falling enrollment, rising property values, and in many cases those that were frugal to begin with.

Reasonable cost controls are fine, especially in payroll and benefits that consume most district budgets. Yet health costs make controlling spending difficult -- especially when teachers unions cling so tightly to existing and generous health plans.

The school financing system has been in need of an overhaul for years, but lawmakers keep shrinking from the task. The state cannot afford further stalling. This year the governor and legislators should commit to finding a solution that benefits children, parents and taxpayers.
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It isn't the state lawmakers that have shirked their responsibility to children, parents, and taxpayers. It's the local school boards that have the final say in approving or disapproving labor deals with the teachers unions and administrators. It's the local school boards that set budget priorities. If they choose to give away the farm to district employees for benefits, that's their choice.

Overhauling school financing on the state level won't fix the core problem with Wisconsin public schools. Communities need to dethrone existing school board members and bring something new to the table: a sense of reality and a backbone to stand up to the administrations and unions and tell them, "No more!" Shuttling funds from state to local government, or further burdening communities by hiking local school taxes will not solve the problem. It will only perpetuate an eroding educational system that values self-esteem over self-responsibility, and where accountability is a forbidden word.