THREAD: 1) Student loans are a problem. Mine are still a problem for me, and I graduated from law school in 1994! The current crop of high school graduates are about to take on a crushing load of debt that they may never be able to pay back, through no fault of their own.

2) School tuition has increased substantially since 1958, when student loans became a standard part of college financial aid, and 1965, when the government got in the business of subsidizing student loans, and 1976, when they made them non-dischargeable in bankruptcy.

3) In January of 1976, the average mortgage interest rate in the US was 9.02% and student loan interest, at 3.27%, was a deal. I bought a house in 2018, and my interest rate is 4.75%. But my student loan interest rate is 8.5%.

4) I can’t refinance my student debt, I can’t get rid of student debt in bankruptcy, and neither can anyone else. Other Democrats are working to resolve these issues, and I want to help them, so our kids – and our current population of people already working on trying to pay ...

5) back student loans – can have a sensible solution to a problem that cannot be solved on the individual level. Frankly, the government caused the problem and should fix it. Now.

6) My mother was a public school teacher for 37 years. She passed away in 2012, from complications of lupus and diabetes, but she could have written her own speech about teacher salaries being too low. Despite having the Michigan state “model classroom” ...

7) for transitional first grade for, I believe, at least 20 of those 37 years, she never made more than $37,000 per year from teaching. She always had a second part-time job in the evening, and a third job over the summer.
But that’s Michigan. That’s where I grew up.

8) But it’s not where I am now. So, let’s talk about Wisconsin.
When Governor Walker was first elected here in 2010, there was a lot of talk about teacher salaries in Wisconsin being “too high.” At that time, the average Wisconsin teacher made around $80,000 per year,...

9) including benefits. You may think that's a lot - even, too much. Okay. You're entitled to your opinion. Follow along here.
So, let's not pay teachers a high annual salary. Let's make them hourly employees! And, they don't really do all that much, right?

10) They're really just overpriced babysitters, or so I've heard some conservatives grumble. Okay, so, let's pay them an hourly rate for babysitting of $3.00 per hour per child.

11) And we're only going to pay them for the time they actually teach, not planning, lunch, breaks, etc. They have to be actively babysitting to get paid! And, we're not going to pay them for any vacations - they only babysit 180 days per year, ...

12) we're only going to pay them for those days!
Okay, let's do the math. Got your calculators at the ready? Here goes:
$3 x 30 kids x 6.5 hours/day x 180 days = $105,300.
Great - we just gave teachers a raise in pay of $25,300 per year! And that's WITHOUT benefits!

13) Point being: teachers don't even get paid the going rate for babysitting, despite having high levels of education, training, and experience, and despite the fact that they actually do a lot more than just babysit our children.

14) And by the way, you should realize that that $80K figure is NOT their gross pay. That includes benefits, some of which they won't see for decades after they start teaching, because it includes their pension.

15) So, Michigan, Wisconsin, nationwide, really - we don’t pay teachers enough. Why not? Well, teacher pay traditionally has been a local issue, usually paid for by local property tax millages. ...

16) And people don’t like paying taxes, and in many areas, private school vouchers pull money out of the public school system. So, teachers get shortchanged. Most Wisconsin teachers have a gross annual pay of about $45K per year, and after taxes, ...

17) their actual take home pay is even less. And that’s the 2010 number, before Governor Walker lowered property taxes and education funding, and, by extension, teacher pay.
Membership in the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state’s main teachers union, fell under...

18) Walker, from 98,000 to 40,000. We lost teachers. Good teachers. Teachers our students needed. The fed government should set minimum standard requirements for teacher compensation, & provide subsidies in areas where the property taxes cannot reach the federal standard...

19) , so that teachers get a guaranteed minimum salary that allows them to live without a second and third job. And that will increase the number of people who are interested in actually becoming teachers, instead of going into other professions where they know they can make ...

20) more money.
Now, it just happens that the relevant committee in the House covers both Education and Labor. And Wisconsin does have a House member on that Committee – the Sixth District’s own Glenn Grothman. ...

21) But Representative Grothman has sponsored no legislation that is pending in, or that was passed through, that committee. And that’s according to his own website.

22) If education, student loans, teacher quality and teacher compensation are issues of importance to Wisconsin voters, they should be issues of importance to Wisconsin’s representatives. If you send me to Congress, they will be.

23) My name is Amy Washburn. I'm a Democrat, running for Congress from Wisconsin's Sixth District, and I hope to have your support. Thank you.