I’m Senator John Lehman and I‘m honored to give this week’s Weekly Democratic Radio Address.  Many folks are on the campaign trail right now, but half the State Senate is not up for reelection and we have one major issue before us in Madison.

As the Chairman of the Education and Corrections Committee and an educator with over 20 years of experience, I’m deeply concerned about the choices Republicans made for our children’s education.

Last year Republicans cut funding for education by over 1.6 billion dollars.  We’re one year into those devastating cuts and it’s our job to do a checkup.

The committee will be meeting soon to examine how these 1.6 billion dollar cuts have hurt Wisconsin Schools – especially with a second year of deep state and federal cuts just around the corner.

There’s no doubt that Republicans put our hard working teachers over the barrel with the sweeping collective bargaining changes, but when you couple that with massive cuts to education, we can certainly agree a reality check is due.

What did our schools have to cut? Was it textbooks that we cut? Was it computers? Or did we squeeze more kids into each classroom? School board members and administrators have been creative in finding room in their budgets for years now, but this 1.6 billion dollar blow left our budget crunchers with no more room for creativity.

It’s time to get real about these harmful cuts. It’s time to see exactly how Republicans have hurt our children’s education.  It’s time to restore our education for future jobs and a better economy.