DPI Senior Policy Advisor Jeff Pertl to keynote

Dem Lt. Gov. candidate John Lehman to join panel

Grassroots Tosa will kick off the new school year with a public forum on “The Future of Public Education.”

The forum will be held 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 10, in Helfaer Hall at Mount Mary University, 2900 N. Menomonee River Parkway, Wauwatosa (just south of Burleigh Avenue and 92^nd Street). You are encouraged to RSVP for this event, using the form at the bottom of this page.

As state support shifts from public education to private voucher and charter schools, our public schools face shrinking resources and unprecedented challenges to their mission to provide educational and economic opportunities for all, as well as to educate young people in democratic citizenship.

Jeff Pertl, an alumnus of Wauwatosa schools and senior policy advisor at the Wisconsin Superintendent of Public Instruction, will lead off by outlining a path forward through these challenges.  A panel of experts — State Senator and Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor John Lehman (a former high school history and economics teacher), Wauwatosa West High School math teacher Cathy Razner, Milwaukee School Board member and “Rethinking Schools” contributing editor Larry Miller, former Institute for Wisconsin's Future Research Director Jack Norman and Forward Institute Chairman Scott Wittkopf — will then weigh in with their own unique perspectives.

Grassroots Tosa invites the public, especially parents and teachers, to join the program with questions for our panelists and comments of their own following the panel’s presentation.

The forum is cosponsored by the Wisconsin Education Association Council Region 7, the Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers Local 212 and Local 212 Retirees Chapter, Wisconsin Jobs Now and the Wisconsin State Council of the Service Employees International Union.

For more information, contact Peter Abbott, [email protected], (414) 467-8757.