Left & Right Agree: Act 10 Fostered Better Teachers for Wisconsin Schools
8 in 10 superintendents say Act 10 led to better-performing teachers, says the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
Act 10 empowered local schools to hire high-skill teachers and drop "underachievers" while raising teacher pay, says Wisconsin's top liberal newspaper.
While teachers' unions have long opposed the Scott Walker-era reforms for reining in their power, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported in 2016 that Act 10 "empowered administrators [to] root out more underachievers" by "linking pay to performance and prizing skill over seniority"—that is, putting merit above union tenure.
"Before Act 10, it was basically coin-flip odds as to whether districts would let go of experienced teachers they viewed as having 'ongoing unsatisfactory performance,'" the newspaper noted. "Now more than eight in 10 superintendents surveyed say they do."
Act 10 allowed schools to reward high-performing teachers with higher pay and offer better salaries to recruit "top talent." "Performance is the key consideration now," not union seniority.
Oconomowoc High School in Waukesha County replaced 15 underperforming teachers with better educators—offering them $24,000 pay hikes and solving its budget deficit in a single stroke. "It's kind of like the real world now," said one administrator in Greenfield, who pointed out that Act 10 brought school employees more in line with private sector expectations by loosening the influence of the top teachers' union in classrooms.
Experts also say Act 10 has saved Wisconsin taxpayers as much as $31 billion since 2012 and lowered costs to local governments.
Promising to Overturn Act 10
Both the Wisconsin Supreme Court and a federal appeals court upheld Act 10's constitutionality in 2014. Yet radical Democrats, backed by the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), have gone on the warpath to overturn it.
Among them is Susan Crawford, the Democrat-endorsed candidate for the April 1 state Supreme Court election. If elected, she would prove decisive in abolishing the reform and returning Wisconsin schools to the control of the WEAC, an avowed Act 10 opponent.
"I fought against Act 10," Crawford boasted in her 2018 race for Dane County Circuit Court judge. In 2012, she helped convince a judge to strike down "significant portions" of Act 10 while working as a private lawyer in Madison.
Crawford now publicly plays down her opposition to Act 10, not mentioning it on her campaign site. Yet as recently as October she bragged before Democrat insiders that “I represented Madison teachers in the legal fight against Act 10." The WEAC endorsed Crawford a month later.
WEAC itself sued to overturn parts of Act 10 in 2023, and calls abolishing it "our shared goal." That same year WEAC endorsed liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz—who vowed to overturn Act 10 as "unconstitutional" on the campaign trail—giving "progressives" a Supreme Court majority to enact a far-left agenda.
Restoration News has reported on the millions of out-of-state dollars flowing to Crawford's campaign from far-left donors in California, Illinois, and New York with ties to extremist groups—one of which is under federal investigation for alleged money-laundering violations.
Crawford's opponent is former Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel, who will face off on April 1. Early voting in the February 18 spring primary begins February 4.
Who is the real Susan Crawford? Learn the truth about Wisconsin's dangerously liberal candidate for Supreme Court here.
(READ MORE: Who’s Bankrolling Susan Crawford’s Supreme Court Campaign?)