What do you say to prisoners graduating? 

You know that I am an advocate for second chances for those in our corrections facilities. Part of that is my faith: I believe that I get new chances to get it right every day (even after making mistakes the day before; and not a day goes by when I don't make them). Part of that is dollars and cents: it will cost us less if there are fewer people recommitting crimes and re-entering the prison system. But perhaps the most pressing reason I support second chances is our needy economy. We need our offenders to come out of our corrections institutions ready to take jobs and become taxpayers because, at 4.4% unemployment, Wisconsin doesn't have a ton of qualified potential workers left ready to take on the 90,000+ open jobs on www.jobcenterofwisconsin.com. That's why I support training our offenders...they need a second chance and something to keep them busy when they re-enter society, and we need more taxpayers to share the burden so it's less burdensome, and more workers so our employers can keep growing here in Wisconsin as opposed to somewhere else.   That's what I said to the families and friends of more than 60 inmates who graduated with high school equivalency degrees and GEDs, CNC machining, culinary and custodial educations. I honestly told them that our Wisconsin economy needed them to be successful. Because we do.

Mind the Gap

Earlier this year US News and World Report exposed something a lot of us already suspected. After 50 years, the achievement gap between black and white students has hardly changed. Even if race is not the factor, we know ZIP Code is. Fortunately, educators around Wisconsin are dialed in to making a big change in the numbers. I have encouraged every one of the classes of Woodrow Wilson fellowship scholars who have been admitted to the Milwaukee School of Engineering  MBA program designed to close educational achievement gaps. These men and women must be nominated by their school districts. The school district must pledge to have the scholar in the school district administration upon their graduation. It's a big commitment for the district. It's perhaps even a bigger commitment for the individual fellows. They will learn to close not only the achievement gap between high-performing and low-performing schools in Wisconsin, but also high-performing and high-performing schools in the USA and internationally.

Fiesta Time! 

Sometimes, I confess, my job gets me front row seats to arts and entertainment that I might not ever have the opportunity to experience on my own, like the incredible Mexican heritage performers at the La Casa De Esperanza luncheon celebrating the opening of the Waukesha Charter School. Unbelievably though, the amazing performance I will experience tonight is available to everyone who attends Fiesta Waukesha! I'll be at Frame Park in Waukesha to kick things off tonight so join me in seeing the beautiful dancers, colorful Guatemala art exchange and spending way more money than planned on kids' carnival rides. 

Forward,

Rebecca Kleefisch
Lt. Governor