Wisconsin to Teachers: We'll Verify All 'Doctor's Notes'

Teachers won’t get away with playing hooky to protest Wisconsin’s anti-union bill, school officials in Madison and Milwaukee said today, explaining that all "doctor's notes" must hold up to scrutiny. A conservative think tank caught doctors on tape passing out excuse notes to protesters this weekend, sparking an outcry. Now, the districts say they’ll be looking into each and every note teachers handed in. “There’s no rubber stamp,” a Milwaukee district spokesman tells the Journal Sentinel.

The doctors might be in even bigger trouble; the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and the Wisconsin Medical Society have both promised to investigate any doctors affiliated with them who is accused of issuing bogus notes. But one of the doctors says the notes are legitimate, because protesters were suffering from stress over potential benefit losses. “People think it’s a nod-and-wink thing, but it’s not,” he said. “People have actually been getting ill from this, or they can't sleep.” (More Wisconsin stories.)