Diane Ravitch, Education Historian, Responds to Critics 

""SarahInTexas" says: "Employers all across the U.S. are cutting salaries and wages .... Teachers or any other public workers should not be exempt from this reality." Teachers don't believe they are exempt. Sunday, Mary Bell, president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, said, "Money issues are off the table." Public employees "have agreed to Gov. Walker's pension and health care concessions." This is a controversy in which there are no more financial questions to be resolved.

The only remaining issue is whether the unions will be permitted to bargain on anything other than wages -- such as working conditions -- whether pay raises will be limited by a pre-set formula, and whether unions will be required to hold annual votes on whether they should exist.

In other words, Walker talks budget, but his real goal is to bust the union and eliminate it as a force in Wisconsin politics. What this means, if the governor's bill passes, is that the only organized force that protects and defends education spending in the state of Wisconsin will be neutralized."