Headlines and Fine Print

The news out of Wisconsin made national headlines. Our governor managed to creatively edit the state budget to lock in school funding increases for the next four centuries. His fellow Democrats lavished praise. Republicans threatened to sue. Journalists across the country marveled.

This isn’t fake news. There’s just a whole lot more to the story. Left untold is that Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers’ action does not oblige the state to include increasingly large amounts of aid to local schools in state budgets for the next four centuries. It only means the state-imposed cap on local school spending will be allowed to rise by $325 per student each year through the year 2425.

Looked at another way, the recently enacted state budget extends state control over local school spending for the next 402 years. Perpetuating the dubious state policy of tying the hands of locally elected school board members, denying them autonomy in making financial decisions in the best interests of the communities t…