Our challenges in a knowledge-based economy are coming from all over the world. So, many of our most important leaders are pushing for a more vigorous national approach to education, especially in the technology arena. Many of those important voices are in Wisconsin, and they are not being taken seriously enough. John Wiley, a physicist and chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said, “We are witnessing a systematic dismantling of public higher education in Wisconsin.”
Leaders of both parties blame the other for the UW budget cuts and profess to understand the vital linkage between the university and our economic prosperity. The truth remains that support has dropped sharply over the last two state budgets.
Shouldn’t Wiley’s views be given at least equal weight to those of the politicos?