I recently read Michelle Alexander's book, "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness." It takes head-on the "elephant in the room" concerning race in America. I feel it is a must read for anyone interested in equality and social justice.

According to Alexander, more black men are behind bars or under the watch of the criminal justice system in the U.S. than there were enslaved in 1850 ... and more African-American men are disenfranchised now because of felon disenfranchisement laws than in 1870. She constructs a formidable argument that the "war on drugs," declared in 1982, had every intention of creating a new form of discrimination largely against black men.

Alexander's book establishes that the war on drugs is truly meant to reinstate legalized discrimination that marked this country's history during slavery and Jim Crow. The outcome and intention of the war on drugs has been and continues to be the increased policing of black communities which leads to significantly more arrests of African-Americans than any other group in society. And if an African-American is branded a felon, their rights return to the Jim Crow South.

Do more African-Americans go to jail more often because they commit more crimes? People of all races, use and sell drugs at remarkably similar rates. Yet the arrest and conviction of African-Americans is far greater than that of whites. An example of discriminatory policy can be seen with the conviction rate and sentence length that is far greater for crack (a form of cocaine), used largely in black communities, than for pure cocaine, that is used largely in white communities.

Do we not believe in a second chance for someone who has been imprisoned? Are we forcing ex-offenders to return to crime or to live their life as a second-class citizen? Is the goal not for someone to become a productive citizen? Alexander establishes that ex-felons, who have done time and are off parole, are discriminated against in employment,…

Removing the Walker regime is within the grasp of Wisconsin voters. Walker's policies, if allowed to continue, will make pain and suffering the order of the day for many people, while corporations and the wealthy will flourish.

As an advocate of public education, working for over 80,000 Milwaukee students, my goal is to steer education policy and funding away from privatization, and toward teaching all students with equity in funding and resources.

The past two years have seen education used as a political football to advance schemes that have nothing to do with improving the lives of all Wisconsin's children. In Milwaukee there was an attempt to take over Milwaukee Public Schools.

With the new legislature coming to office in 2011, private school vouchers have been expanded, along with a move toward universal vouchers. The charter movement is working to flood the Milwaukee education market with so-called "miracle" schools.

Democrats should support public education at all levels because:

1. An educated population is the cornerstone of democracy. This nation's well-being depends on the decisions of its educated, informed citizens.
2. Education reduces costs to taxpayers. For every dollar spent to keep a child in school, the future costs of welfare, prison, and intervention services are reduced. It can cost less to educate a child now than to support a teenage parent or a repeat offender in the future. Education monies help to secure the future of all citizens.
3. Public schools are the only schools that must meet the needs of all students. They do not turn children or families away. Public schools serve children with physical, emotional, and mental disabilities, those who are extremely gifted and those who are learning challenged, right along with children without special needs.
4. Public schools foster interactions and understanding among people of different ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds.
5. "Education is the best provision for old age"-- Aristotle. Th…

Scott Walker is like the feudal magistrate who destroys the dam, floods the valley and then criticizes the villagers for not stockpiling enough sandbags.

Dealing with the aftermath of Walker's horrific cuts has been devastating to our public schools and to the community. And teachers have been at the forefront of the struggle to stand up and reclaim our state.

But right now we have to do something to stop the flooding. Cuts in staffing have meant growing classroom sizes in MPS – and that's putting our students' success in jeopardy.

Leaders of the Milwaukee teachers union are campaigning for members to contribute to help reduce class sizes next year in Milwaukee Public Schools.

They are calling it the MPS Children's Campaign.

The campaign is also poised to ask higher-paid MPS employees as well as community members and businesses in Milwaukee to contribute some of their wages or profits to a nonprofit district fund.

The MPS Children's Campaign, as proposed by the MTEA leadership, offers support to our classrooms and calls upon the community to do its part to save our children's future and counter the havoc of Walker's racist policies.

After teaching in MPS for nearly two decades, I ran for the school board with the desire to serve Milwaukee's children and communities. An ingredient of this task is supporting classroom teachers and the profession they represent. Like the teachers union, I want to avert a crisis and change education politics in this city.

I, as a School Board member, will donate at least one week of my pay and ask others to do the same and will work to ensure that every penny of the money raised will go directly to the classrooms.

The Maasai people of East Africa use a greeting when meeting people. They say "And how are the children? " The expected response is "All the children are well." But all is not well with our children in 2012.

On Feb. 28, over 400 people assembled in the Milwaukee Public Schools central office auditorium in response to a call to action following the recent shooting deaths of four young men, along with other acts of violence witnessed in Milwaukee.

City and county officials were present. The mayor sent a representative. The school board was on hand. But the speakers represented the front lines in the battle for the hearts and minds of our children.

Students, community, parents, teachers and administrators came forward with an array of ideas to begin to solve this overwhelming problem.

Students from Pulaski, Bradley Tech, Vincent, Groppi and other schools spoke of the need for adults to listen and to connect with young people and their problems.

They spoke of the value of the Violence Free Zone (VFZ) initiative employed in many of the high schools. The VFZ program brings groups like Running Rebels into schools during the school day to assist with addressing behavioral and other needs of students. Students asked for the expansion of the VFZ program including middle schools.

Students also called for expansion of the restorative justice work that is being done in schools and supported by the office of the District Attorney. A key practice in the restorative justice work is to hold "peace circles" where students talk through their problems, with adult supervision.

A long list of suggestions was made including holding peace rallies, increasing parent involvement in schools, a north and south side suspension center for chronic disruptors, Saturday suspension requirements, mentoring programs, volunteer programs, the return of music, art and gym, training for staff in cultural diversity and classroom management.

One speaker talked about special education students with s…