"Middle Class" District Employee Assails Walker, Quotes Thomas Jefferson

"Recall Mr. Walker."

~Darlene Berry is a
Marshfield resident  (and School District of Marshfield Employee).

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First name Darlene Last name Berry Year and session 2009/10 Highest degree Master's degree Salary $72,137 Fringe $33,411 Position title Teacher assign descript English Low grade served 08 High grade served 08 Bilingual code No Full time equivalency 100% Work site Marshfield Sch Dist / Marshfield Middle School County name Wood County     Created with Caspio

"People are free to choose, but we are not free from the consequence of our choice. This universal paradox plagues the state of Wisconsin as we face the consequences of last fall's election. While hammers and saws are good tools for building, they can just as easily be used to rip apart and destroy. Scott Walker used the tools of tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy while continuing attacks on public education. We now see those 'tools' are having detrimental effects on the very structures he claims they were designed to strengthen. For example, Walker increased taxpayer funding for students to attend private voucher schools by more than $40 million and delivered millions more in tax breaks to out-of-state corporations. On Dec. 23, 2011, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel announced, 'Walker's administration laid out ... where it would find more money to balance the state budget, including an additional $46.1 million cut in funds for the University of Wisconsin System.' Despite a cry for 'jobs, jobs, jobs,' his tools have failed to deliver. In fact, Wisconsin is losing jobs; the Wausau Daily Herald reported Dec. 7, 2011, that the Brokaw Mill closure will cause the loss of 450 jobs, the first of several announcements of a similar sort. Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard professor of economics, makes the following case: 'There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there -- good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for ...You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea -- God Bless! Keep a Big Hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.' Warren's case is strengthened when we consider Thomas Jefferson's profound wisdom, 'Public schools have been our nation's great social equalizer.' Public schools give a fighting chance to those who are not wealthy. While taxpayers pay for the education of our workforce, we all bear the responsibility to provide all the children of the next generations their chance at a quality education. Additionally, Warren states, 'I grew up on the ragged edge of the middle class ... in an America that invested in kids like me,' a claim many voters in Wisconsin share.

Finally then, what other tools do we have at our disposal, and how should we use them?

Section 12 of ARTICLE XIII of the Wisconsin Constitution provides voters with this useful tool: '[Recall of elective officers.]'

Additionally, number (7) of Section 12 includes an important caveat: 'This section shall be ... mandatory ... [and] no law shall be enacted to hamper, restrict or impair the right of recall.'

Walker's tools never will work for Wisconsin's middle-class families.

We must maintain the integrity of our constitution and our state and use the tools at our disposal in order to rebuild what the current administration is so callously tearing down. Recall Mr. Walker."

Darlene Berry is a
Marshfield resident.


Source: Marshfield News-Herald