Libby Sobic and Will Flanders:

This change in accreditation also makes it more difficult for existing private schools to join the parental choice program because it is one more regulation that the school must comply with. The plan is even more ridiculous when one considers that Wisconsin’s public schools aren’t required to go through any accreditation process at all.

While some states such as Indiana and Michigan require schools to be accredited, Wisconsin has no such provision in law. If the governor believes that further onerous accreditation requirements are needed on some of Wisconsin’s best performing schools, surely one would expect that he wants the same regulations on the public schools that he oversaw for a decade.

But that is not the case because this is not about school quality. Rather, this is little more than yet another attempt to cut off the pipeline of high performing private voucher schools that provide too much competition to his teachers’ union donors.

Evers knows exactly what he is doing with his accreditation proposal. He is looking to create more red tape for private schools and add to the number of requirements that already make the Wisconsin choice program one of the most regulated in the country. This proposal is well designed attack on the school choice programs and it must not stand.

The Wisconsin DPI, long lead by new Governor Tony Evers, has waived thousands of elementary teacher reading content knowledge exam requirements. This, despite our long term, disastrous reading results.