Loving (and hating) Standardized Tests

Wisconsin’s educational establishment loves standardized tests.

Just page through some of last year’s DPI (Department of Public Instruction) press releases:
· “Wisconsin students score No. 1 among ACT-taking states”
· “Wisconsin beats national average on NAEP math and reading tests. Fourth-grade math scores show significant increases…”
· “State’s 2003 graduates among the tops in the nation” on the SAT.

All three of these – the ACT, the SAT, the NAEP – are national standardized tests. Wisconsin, as you can see, ranks highly on all three. And our educational establishment is quick to let us know it. It’s good media. It’s good politics.

And still, Wisconsin’s educational establishment hates standardized tests.

Standardized tests don’t allow teachers to be creative, to try new things, to adapt to the needs of their classes and students, they say. Plus, they cost too much, and take too much time away from the regular curriculum. Teachers are forced to “teach the test.”

Amusing, this dichotomy.

The DPI recently reported on the results of Wisconsin’s own set of standardized tests: the WRCT reading test, given to 3rd graders, and the WKCE, given to 4th, 8th, and 10th graders.

Reaction was somewhat muted. Students did about the same as last year, overall, and the “education gap,” the difference between disadvantaged (including minority) students and all other students, shrank slightly, but not much.

We’re right to worry about that gap. While 76% of white 10th graders could read and do math at “proficient or advanced” levels last year, only 33% of black 10th graders ranked proficient or advanced in reading, and only 25% in math.

In an odd statistical coincidence, 76% of “economically non-disadvantaged” 10th graders also scored proficient or advanced in reading and math, while the percentages for “disadvantaged” students were 45% and 43%, respectively.

A 16 year old who can’t read? Who can’t do basic math? Whatever their color, a whole lot of our kids are about to find out what life is like when you have neither skills, nor means to acquire them.

Why do we know about the “gap?” Because we have standardized tests.

Sure, we could make some guesses about student achievement without the tests.. But grades can be inflated. Standards can be changed. Different districts can have different expectations. Without having one test, for every student, whether statewide or nationwide, we don’t really know how our students are doing.

Standardized tests are a tool. We can use them to identify “education gaps,” and then take steps to close them.

The schools in Portage seem to get that. According to the Daily Register news story on Thursday, 4th and 10th graders in Portage scored lower than the state average on their reading test for the second year in a row.

Dyann Miller, director of instruction, told the paper that the district is targeting those students who scored the lowest. They’re identifying the students who need more help, and they’re trying to find ways to get them that help.

Now, here’s the funny thing: I bet those students’ teachers knew which students needed extra help even before they took the tests.

So why bother?

Because there’s a lot more those tests can teach us.

Consider this: Portage students scored below average on 4th and 10th grade reading tests, but above average on 8th grade reading tests. Sauk Prairie students performed better than average in reading in the 4th and 8th grades, but below average in 10th grade. Baraboo, Reedsburg, and Lodi schools were above average in nearly every category. Pardeeville and Adams-Friendship schools were below average in nearly every category.

Why?

Standardized tests can help us answer that question.

Standardized tests are being used to identify students having trouble – they should also be used to identify classes (read: teachers), schools, and whole districts that are having trouble.

They can also be used to identify the classes, teachers, schools, and districts that are doing well.

Then, we can compare notes. Why is this district successful, but this one isn’t? Is one curriculum lacking something that another isn’t? Maybe if this school tried some of the techniques they’re using in that school, their students would learn better.

Can the bad teachers learn from the good teachers?

This is the value of standardized tests. Identify the good, identify the bad. Figure out what works. Figure out what doesn’t work. Do more of the first, less of the second. Unless we test it, we won’t know which is which.

This, far more than public relations and political grandstanding, is the value of standardized testing.

Campaign Finance Reform - It's Here.

Wisconsin’s Native American tribes may flex their financial muscles during the 2006 elections, according to a newspaper headline from earlier this week.

What a silly point to make, I thought at first glance. Of course they’re going to spend money on the election. They’ve got money, and lots of it. They’re in a highly-regulated industry. They were key players in the 2002 gubernatorial election. Why wouldn’t we expect them to do the same in 2006?

I quickly realized my mistake.

The tribes got everything they wanted in the 2003 compact amendments, negotiated and signed by Governor Doyle. They got all the new games. They got the authority to expand. They got a perpetual contract. And they got it at a comparatively low price.

What more was there to ask for? Why would they spend their money on a political campaign, when they’ve got nothing to gain?

Then the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that major parts of the Potawatomi compact – the important parts – were unconstitutional. Suddenly, the tribes may be looking at the 2006 elections in a whole different light.

According to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, Wisconsin’s tribes spent nearly a million dollars on the governor’s race in 2002. The Ho-Chunk gave $500,000, the Potawatomi spent $450,000, and the Oneida spent $25,000. This makes the tribes the second biggest contributor in 2002, not far behind WEAC, the teacher’s union.

Only a few months later, Governor Doyle announced the new compacts – extremely generous compacts.

To many of us, this looked like an obvious quid pro quo. The tribes supported their candidate, and the candidate, once elected, paid them back.

Now, we’ll have to see whether the river flows in the other direction. The tribes can’t wait until after the 2006 election to re-negotiate the compacts. They have to do it now. Will the new compacts be as generous as those the court overturned? And if so, will the tribes be as generous with their money as they were in 2002?

The tribes are back in play, and the campaign finance watchdogs are nervous.

Jay Heck, of Common Cause Wisconsin: “The decision by the state Supreme Court is going to mean just more dollars thrown at the elections.”

Mike McCabe, of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign: “They (the tribes) have to be emboldened by the fact that their candidate won, and he may not have won without that late infusion of tribal money. They have to be feeling they got their money’s worth there, especially considering the compacts they were able to negotiate.”

Both Heck and McCabe are ardent supporters of campaign finance reform, who lead organizations dedicated to that purpose. I find it hard to argue with either of their statements.

I wonder if they realize, though, that their own work renders campaign finance reform meaningless?

How is it we know how much the tribes spent on the campaign? Because it’s public information. Candidates are required by law to report how much they get, and from whom.

Granted, the money trail isn’t always easy to follow. The tribes gave most of their money it to the Democratic National Committee, which, up until the passage of McCain-Feingold, could take any amount from any group. They then gave the money to Doyle.

Tricky? Flouting the rules? Hard for the average citizen to keep track of? Maybe.

But we know about it, mostly thanks to these watchdog groups, who keep track of who pays whom. Wisconsin Democracy Campaign even puts the info on their website for the world to see. Take a look: wiscdc.org. You can look up candidates to see how much they received and spent. You can look up individual contributors.

McCabe, Heck, and the organizations they lead want new laws on campaign finance reform. They want to limit the money campaigns can spend, and the money people can give. They want taxpayers to subsidize campaigns. They want to restrict political speech leading up to elections.

In making their arguments, they’re helping us all know more about who’s giving how much to whom, and in doing so, they’re achieving their real goal: they’re helping keep the corruption of money out of our government.

We can all put two and two together. We can all look at the compacts and the money Doyle received. We can all decide for ourselves whether it was dirty.

Maybe you agree. Maybe you don’t. Maybe it doesn’t matter to you. It’s your vote, so it’s your decision, but at least you have the information.

In the end, that’s the best campaign finance reform of all – giving the people the information they need to make an educated choice.

A Higher Minimum Wage - Bad for Business?

I know where gas prices are still $2.03 a gallon. At least, they were, as of this writing. It’s a station on the east side of Madison, where State 51 meets I-90/94.

It seems strange to find a lower price right near the highway. It seems even stranger that I’m thankful to know where to get gas for “only” $2.03.

Gas prices are squeezing everybody – families and businesses alike. There’s concern that rising prices could put the brakes on our economic recovery.

Buying gas is a business expense. When the price of gas goes up, the profit margin gets smaller. Not every business can simply endure that until prices improve – many, especially small businesses, have to cut their expenses elsewhere, or raise their prices.

Everyone agrees on this, which is why the price of gas is such a big deal. Plus, it’s cutting into my coffee-and-donut money.

Much the same is happening with health insurance costs. When premiums grow by double-digit percentages every year, it cuts into profit margins. More and more, businesses are finding they can’t afford to provide comprehensive health insurance for their employees.

Rising costs to business are a problem. We agree on that, even if we can’t agree on the solution.

Funny, then, that we don’t say the same about raising the minimum wage.

It hasn’t been widely publicized, but the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development held a series of hearings this week, leading up to an increase in the state’s minimum wage, from the current $5.15, to $6.50 by October of next year.

When I was a teenager, this would have been great news.

It’s probably a done deal already. The minimum wage isn’t set in state law: it’s an administrative rule. A pair of legislative committees will have a say, but as long as Governor Doyle continues to support a higher minimum wage, the best those committees can do is delay it.

Is it a good idea? The war of the statistics if fierce: for every study saying the minimum wage doesn’t hurt employers and job growth, there’s one that says it does.

Apply the same logic to the minimum wage, though, that we’re applying to the cost of gas and health insurance. If higher costs for those necessities cut into profit margins, endanger job security, and hurt the economic recovery, shouldn’t higher payroll costs do the same?

For those who support a higher minimum wage, why doesn’t that logic apply?

Increase costs, cut profit margins. Some will be able to absorb it. Others won’t.

Which businesses will be least able to absorb the extra cost? Those with small profit margins, meaning those with a lot of competition. Retail stores and restaurants – places like that, which, by the way, are also more likely to employ people at low wages.

If not absorb the new costs, then they have two choices: decrease expenses elsewhere, which may mean fewer employees and less service, or cheaper materials – the restaurant owner buying a cheaper grade of beef, for example. Either way, the product is degraded, meaning fewer happy customers.

Or they can raise prices. Of course, it’s called the law of supply and demand – not the theory of supply and demand. There’s a reason for that. A higher price means fewer people will pay.

Proponents of the wage hike will say that a higher minimum wage helps the economy, by giving low-wage earners more disposable income. This would seem to fly in the face of their descriptions of families “barely getting by.” And even if they’re right, wouldn’t overall higher prices negate that effect?

We’ll find out. Last month, the Madison City Council voted to raise their minimum wage, within city limits only, to $7.50 by 2008.

Once that happens, we’re going to have a nice little controlled experiment here in the Badger State. Will employment in Madison be hurt by having a higher minimum wage than the surrounding area? Or won’t it?

There are some variables that have to be taken into account: the university and state government being located there, Madison will always have demand for coffee shops, delis, video rentals, and 3 am pizza delivery.

And the economy is on the rebound: that could blunt any effects a gradual increase in the minimum wage might have.

Still, it’s going to be interesting to see how things pan out. Do the good wishes of people-loving liberals really hold sway? Or do the laws of supply and demand actually work?

Gas prices do it. Insurance costs do it. Mandated higher wages don’t do it?

That doesn’t make sense.

The Bets are On...At Least, For Now

All bets are off.

That little bit of rhetoric was found, of all places, in the dissenting opinion to last week’s Supreme Court ruling, striking down the gambling compact between the state and the Potawatomi.

In one of several linguistic flourishes (odd for a legal document), Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson wrote: “The sum total of the majority opinion is to deliver the following bad news to the people of the State: all bets are off.”

Besides doing nothing to promote the dissenting opinion, it isn’t true. All bets are not off.

Here are some facts about gambling in Wisconsin, last week’s ruling, and what it means.

The original compacts were negotiated and signed in 1992. They allowed the Potawatomi, and later other tribes, to have slots and blackjack, in exchange for payments to the state.

That compact had a five-year time limit. It was renegotiated, and finally renewed in 1998.

In 1993, the State of Wisconsin amended its constitution in regard to gambling. One new clause, in Article IV, Section 24, declared several types of gambling – including blackjack, poker, roulette, craps, keno, and slot machines – illegal in Wisconsin.

That didn’t stop the tribes from offering blackjack and slots, because the contract which allowed them was already in force. Federal law doesn’t allow after-the-fact changes in law to nullify already-signed legal agreements.

It did, though, make the tribes more reliant on their agreements with the state. If the tribes ever found themselves without a legal compact – if the original 1992 agreement ever came to an end – then even blackjack and slots would have been be off-limits.

Enter Governor Doyle. The 2003 amendment did two basic things: it removed any ending date – the tribes no longer had to fear an end to the original agreement; and it allowed all sorts of new games, including many of those outlawed in the Constitution.

The court struck all that down, essentially saying that Doyle didn’t have the authority to do what he did.

So, what happens next? Everything isn’t clear just yet, but one thing we do know: the casinos aren’t closing down.

The Supreme Court only shot down the 2003 compacts – not the whole deal. Essentially, that puts us back to the 1998 compacts. Blackjack and slots are still legal at the existing casinos. The newer games, already underway at some of them, aren’t.

Governor Doyle and the tribes may appeal, which will put everything on hold. And the tribes and the state may already have begun new negotiations, just in case.

If it comes down to negotiating new compacts, then it gets a little more tricky. On the one hand, the state’s position would seem to be stronger. The Ho-Chunk recently offered to pay 25% of their profits – nearly $90 million a year - to Illinois, for a casino in a Chicago suburb. That offer makes Wisconsin’s compacts, which pay between 6% and 8% a year, look like a bad joke.

And, unless the Court’s ruling is overturned, the tribes may be running out of time. According to the Potawatomi compact, a court ruling which invalidates the compact sets a renegotiation process in motion. There’s a definite timeline in play now, and it won’t last more than 9 months.

After 9 months? Could be that the compacts will have reached a legal ending point, and no matter what, the Constitution’s ban on slots and blackjack will preclude any going back to those original agreements.

Unless the Feds step in, that is.

The tribes don’t want that. The state doesn’t want it, either, but not as much as the tribes. Hello, bargaining chip.

Of course, we have to take something else into consideration: when the Potawatomi sit down at the negotiating table, they’ll have a good friend sitting across from them.

During the 2002 election, the Potawatomi and other tribes spent more than $700,000, supporting Jim Doyle for governor. It’s impossible not to link that fact with the extremely generous compacts Doyle negotiated with the tribes shortly after his election.

We can put two and two together. The Doyle administration will deny any quid pro quo, but this looks like payback.

It was politically dangerous for Doyle to give that deal to the tribes. Now, he may have to do the same thing again, but with the Ho-Chunk’s offer to Illinois hanging over the equation.

It will be interesting to see what the new compacts look like. It will be more interesting to see how much money the tribes spend in the 2006 election, and on whom they spend it.

That’s why Doyle and the tribes must really be hoping for help, either from some federal agency or regulation, or from the US Supreme Court.

War Protesters - or Bush Protesters?

"War is not the answer.” “U.S. Out of Iraq.” “Invade Iraq – NO!”

These are the slogans – we’re all familiar with them by now. The traditional, predictable anti-war groups brought them all back out, dusted them off, and waved them around during the buildup to our invasion of Iraq over a year ago. So far, there’s no sign they’re heading back into storage anytime soon.

I remember when they began to appear in Baraboo. I remember being surprised when I learned that a local business was advertising and selling yard signs and other anti-war material, even before the war actually began.

Now, I support President Bush and the war effort. I understand that we’ve made mistakes, but I believe that establishing a stable, democratic, humanitarian government (as far as possible) in Iraq will make the world a safer place. I believe it will make America, Wisconsin, and even Baraboo safer, now and into the future. Even without that personal interest, I believe it was the right thing to do.

So my immediate reaction to this local shop’s new wares was negative. I didn’t like it that the owners of this business were using their business to promote their political agenda – an agenda I disagreed with. I considered an individual boycott of the store.

I changed my mind rather quickly. Yes, it’s a privately owned business, and its owners have every right to express their views, but that’s not why.

I changed my mind because the owners – no dummies – must have known some people would have the same reaction I did. They must have known that their anti-war stance could hurt their business.

And they went ahead and did it anyway. Expressing that opinion, and helping others do the same, was more important to them than any financial harm they might suffer because of it.

I respect that. We all should.

So why am I still uneasy?

By the same token, I respect the people who are protesting the war each week around Baraboo’s Courthouse Square. Myra Furse has written about it recently – the protests, never well-attended, stopped entirely for a while, because, according to her, they didn’t want to make things worse for the troops. But now they’ve started up again.

Some of the reasons they’re protesting:

There, I think, lies the root of my uneasiness. We’re doing this for the wrong reasons.

What, I would like to ask, are the right reasons? Under what circumstances would these protesters support military action?

The attack on America, more than two and a half years ago now, wasn’t enough. Clear connections between Saddam’s regime and terrorism – the payments to suicide bombers’ families, the airplane fuselage found outside Baghdad, the complete lack of cooperation with U.N. inspectors – weren’t enough. Worldwide acknowledgement that Iraq under Saddam had used poison gas several times in the past and was conducting a nuclear program wasn’t enough.

I don’t believe there are any circumstances under which they would support this war. I think they would oppose the war – and any war – regardless of the circumstances. Specific complaints about President Bush and our actions in Iraq are simply masking their real opinion.

That’s the better of two possibilities. The other is, they’re opposed to the war because of the man serving as President. Their contempt for Bush leads them to oppose whatever he does, and never mind any good that he may be doing.

There was no imminent threat in Bosnia, or Haiti, or Somalia. In all three cases, we sent troops into a sovereign nation, fought local militia. In at least one of those cases (Bosnia), we had no mandate from the U.N.

Did today’s protesters protest then?

What if President Bush had sent the Special Forces into Afghanistan in June or July, 2001, when there was an actual imminent threat to the U.S.? What if we had used military force to smash a terrorist cell, because of intelligence reports pointing to a possible terrorist attack on U.S. soil? Would today’s protesters have given him the benefit of the doubt that he had, in fact, stopped an attack on American soil?

They might surprise me with their answers. I’ll concede that possibility. Perhaps today’s protesters did protest the military actions during the Clinton administration. Perhaps they would have given Bush some consideration that he’d done the right thing.

But I don’t think so. I think, no matter what the Bush administration does, these people will oppose it.

Of course, they could say the same of me – that I would support whatever the administration does because of the person, or the party, holding the office right now.

They would be wrong, just as they’ll say I am wrong about them.

Thank goodness for that. Now, if only I could believe it.

A Big-Spending Board? Too Early To Tell

Sauk County’s new board chairman, Bill Wentzel, has made his appointments to the county board’s committees.

It was to be expected that he would make some changes, and he did. What those changes will mean, we won’t know for a while. But we can make some guesses.

The Finance Committee is, arguably, the county’s most important committee. Finance is responsible for setting the county’s fiscal policy, including details of the annual budget. They don’t tell every department exactly how to spend each dollar, but they do tell each department how many dollars they’re going to get.

At first glance, this new committee looks a lot more spending-hungry than the last one.

The old Finance committee could be broken down thus: two conservatives, one moderate-conservative, one moderate-liberal, and one liberal. Now, the two conservatives are gone. One of their replacements is certain to be more liberal (measured by willingness to raise taxes, rather than reduce spending). The other is a freshman member, and is thus a bit of a wild card.

One might look at those changes, do the math, and say we’ve got a liberal Finance committee.

But group dynamics can do funny things. Last year’s conservatives weren’t shy with their opinions. It’s possible that other members moved left, to balance them out. With a generally more leftist committee, some members might begin to assert themselves more solidly on the right.

I’m just guessing, of course. You never can tell.

There’s one other unpredictable that will affect the Finance committee again this year: the state budget.

The state has been through the wringer the last few years, first dealing with a $1.17 billion budget deficit (fixed largely with the tobacco settlement money), then having to deal with a $3.2 billion deficit to start out the current two-year budget.

To balance their books, the state government did a number of things that affected counties: Sauk county lost about a quarter million in shared revenue, about $600,000 in aid for the Health Care Center, and costs for taking care of juveniles in the court system were increased, to name a few big ones.

As of now, the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimates a revenue shortfall of just over $30 million for the remainder of this budget cycle, ending June 30, 2005. The state is in much better shape now than it was two years ago, and with the economy improving, there’s no reason to believe the state’s situation won’t remain stable.

So, at least, we can hope that the state budget won’t have the same negative effects that it did last year.

That doesn’t get the Finance committee out of the woods.

For at least the last two years, County departments have been held to small increases in spending, if any. Some haven’t had any increase at all.

It being the nature of bureaucracy to grow, there’s a lot of pressure building on that. Even if the state increases aid to Sauk County next year (don’t hold your breath), there will be a lot of pressure on the Finance Committee to increase spending.

That could turn out to be an exaggeration. Or the economy may recover to the point that we can handle the increases painlessly. The upcoming budget may prove to be no test for the new Finance committee at all.

Or maybe not. Regardless, we’ll see.

Was Blind, But Now Can See...The Mice

Actual humans may be worried about health care, but if you’re a blind owl, you’re covered. In Wisconsin, at least.

You may have heard the story. In December of last year (2003), someone found an owl, perched on a fence post, starving, because cataracts had blinded it, making it impossible for the owl to hunt for food.

An organization called Wildlife of Wisconsin brought the owl to Madison, where the UW Veterinary clinic performed surgery to remove the cataracts. They also placed specially-made lenses into the owl’s eyes, enabling it to see.

The owl, named Minerva, was released back into its old hunting ground near Manitowoc recently, after about half a year away. Some effort is being made to track it, and I’m sure we’ll have updates in the future.

It’s an all-around feel-good story. Who doesn’t like owls? And who would want to see an owl starve to death?

The procedure didn’t cost all that much, in the grand scheme of things. Only $1800, $300 of which was donated by the group which found her. The lenses were also donated – years ago, it turns out, by a company that normally makes them for humans. The lenses were meant for another owl way back then, but it didn’t work out. So the lenses were still in storage, still good, and still available.

It pays to be a pack rat, I guess.

Still, it makes me wonder – was that $1500 taxpayer money? Was there no other, better use for it, that would have produced something more than a feel-good story?

What was the true cost? It was more than just the cost of the procedure: keeping a wild animal for the better part of 6 months costs something, too. Work time was spent on this. Food. Cleaning. Etcetera.

And let’s not forget the cost to the environment. Surely, Minerva wasn’t the only creature in that area, relying on a limited food supply. Other animals now have more competition for that food – competition which, had nature simply taken its course, wouldn’t be there.

And that’s what I find funniest about this story: this was a creature targeted by nature to die. Minerva wasn’t hit by a truck, didn’t get caught in an oil spill. Her eyes went bad, naturally.

Now, she’s been given a second chance. A second chance, thanks to modern medical technology – a technological advantage has been given to Minerva, which isn’t available to the rest of her environment, with which she must compete for food and living space.

If this were a human, I’d expect protests about the “uneven playing field.”

More, this technological advantage has been provided by the very sort of people who normally abhor the human habit of encroaching onto nature through technology. Yet that’s exactly what they did – they ignored nature’s will, and used man’s ingenuity to circumvent it.

In doing so, they may have ignored a greater question: why did Minerva get these cataracts? Is it possible that some flaw in her genes makes her more liable to this sort of defect? By saving her, have we unintentionally passed that genetic flaw on?

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t mean much. Just a few dollars, a negligible amount of work time, an effect on the environment that we’ll never see, much less measure.

It does make me wonder, though: when certain people argue that our high taxes pay for services, which produce a higher quality of life, is this what they mean?

The Taxpayer Bill of Rights

(Published in the Baraboo News Republic on May 11, 2004)

Is the government spending too much money? Do we need some way to control government excess?

If you answer yes to those questions, then you are in agreement with a group of legislators, who have written a constitutional amendment to do just that.

Known as the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR), this constitutional amendment will limit the annual growth of government spending, unless the voters give the government permission to spend more.

Rich Eggleston, of the Alliance of Cities, was extremely selective in the information he chose to include in his recent editorial on the subject. According to him, Colorado, the first state to enact TABOR-like legislation, has gone completely into the dumpster.

Eggleston proves only that you can make statistics say whatever you want them to say. The following is also true about Colorado:

· Colorado’s dropout rate has declined steadily since TABOR went into effect. In 2002 and 2003 (after 10 years under TABOR), Colorado had its lowest dropout rates in 20 years;
· School spending has grown 57% since TABOR was enacted in 1993 – 17th best in the nation;
· Per-student spending has grown at only a slightly slower rate than Wisconsin’s, despite a far faster-growing student body (Colorado was one of only 5 states to break 10% student body growth in the latter half of the 1990s);
· Colorado ranked as high as or higher than Wisconsin on 4th and 8th grade NAEP standardized tests in 1998 and 2003;
· Between 1995 and 2000 Colorado ranked 3rd nationally in population growth, 3rd in new business startups, 2nd in personal income growth, and was first nationally in gross state product growth.

Eggleston does not want this side of the story told. More, he doesn’t want you to know that, in 2003, during the depth of the recent recession, 60% of Colorado residents still supported their Taxpayer Bill of Rights. A further 16% supported it, but wanted changes, and only 15% opposed it.

If things are bad in Colorado, how could that be true?

The Taxpayer Bill of Rights, authored by Rep. Frank Lasee (R-Bellevue), Rep. Jeff Wood (R-Chippewa Falls), and Sen. Bob Welch (R-Redgranite) will limit annual growth in government spending.

If a government wishes to exceed those spending limits, or raise the rates of any tax, it must first hold a referendum. The voters get to decide how much they’re willing to pay.

It’s worthwhile to note that, since 1993, Wisconsin schools have been under similar restraints. Today, per-student spending in Wisconsin exceeds $10,000 per student. Wisconsin is a national leader in academic success.

It’s also important to note how much the authors have learned from Colorado’s experiences. Because of this, Wisconsin’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights includes a budget stabilization fund, mandate relief for local governments, provisions for emergency spending, exemptions for self-funding accounts like unemployment insurance and pensions, and more generous spending limits for schools and the UW.

Most importantly, it will give the voters – the people who have to pay the bill – greater say in how much government can spend.

True, we already do this, in a way. We elect representatives to make these decisions for us.

If that’s enough, why do so many people feel as though the have no control over taxes and spending? Why do we believe that government will keep growing, no matter whom we elect?

Part of the problem is the tunnel in which elected officials live: they hear more from government staff, interest groups, and lobbyists than they do from ordinary taxpayers.

Another part is the diversification of government: taxes go up a little bit here, and a little bit there. A small fee increase here, a new tax over there. It all looks so small to the individual official voting for it. But for the taxpayer, it all adds up.

Fifty-seven percent of school referendums in Wisconsin pass. Since 1993, 53% of Colorado’s referendums have passed. When the voters say yes, they live with the consequences: more taxes. When they say no, they live with those consequences, too.

The Taxpayer Bill of Rights is not an absolute solution to all of Wisconsin’s problems. It is another limit to the power of government.

I urge everyone to learn more about this. On the web, www.witabor.org.