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Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Milwaukee Teachers Union, via Debbie Kuether:

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

“Selective admissions”

Will Flanders:

Of note is that the only Milwaukee school on here—Reagan—has selective admissions. Meaning, unlike voucher and charter schools, they get to “pick and choose” the best students. Yet I don’t hear anyoutcry from public school advocates about this 🤔

Mayor Pledges To Get Involved in Schools (!)

Jeramey Jannene

“I intend to break from decades of disconnection between City Hall and our schools,” said Johnson.

Short of sharing a city attorney with Milwaukee Public Schools and the city authorizing a handful of charter schools, city government and Milwaukee’s public, charter and voucher schools are merely passing ships in the night.

But that’s not how residents see things.

“Too often I hear people are leaving Milwaukee because of our schools,” said the mayor. “I want people to come to Milwaukee because of our schools.”

“I intend to engage with the Milwaukee Public Schools’ leadership and with private and parochial schools,” said Johnson.

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Madison’s Mayor….

“even more strongly correlated with (not) having kids”

Fascinating maps of referendum results! Support for the referendum was moderately correlated with race (won in most majorty white wards) but even more strongly correlated with (not) having kids. In wards where 20% or less of residents have children, the referendum overwhelmingly passed with ~2/3 of the vote. Wards where more than 40% have kids? Lost by nearly 5 points.

In other words, the referendum was most popular in the parts of the city with the fewest children, and in the parts of the city with the most white, affluent residents.

I know most here are happy about the referendum-I myself voted “yes.” Regardless, these figures do say a lot – and if you’re not thinking long and hard about the implications and the work/listening we have to do going forward to best serve our Milwaukee community…l’d ask yourself why that is.

Referendum vote by the share of households wit lose size corresponds to the number of votes cast.

Quinton Klabon:

It’s official! Milwaukee Public Schools has become 1 of the highest-funded big districts in America!

This is a chance to make MPS as good as our kids deserve.

John Johnson:

On balance, the MPS referendum won wards with few children and lost wards with lots of children. Yes, you read that right.

Will Flanders

Sen. Larson leaves out a key out key point that makes his message misleading: school districts also get local funding. This takes the per pupil amount above the average voucher ($10,573) in every district. Below is the pupil spending in all districts. All are above voucher.

Has the right’s vision of “education freedom” really triumphed? And at what cost to students?

Jennifer Berkshire:

We owe the concept of school vouchers to libertarian economist Milton Friedman. In a 1955 essay and manifesto, Friedman argued that it was time for the “denationalization” of schools. The government should get out of the business of running schools, he wrote, and instead give parents vouchers that they could use at the public or private school of their choosing. But Southern conservatives had already seized upon a similar idea as a way of resisting court-ordered integration. In the lead-up to the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, voucher-like programs that paid for white students to attend private schools not subject to the same federal oversight as public schools exploded in popularity. As historian Steve Suitts has documented, by 1965, legislators across the South had passed as many as 450 laws and regulations aimed at blocking, discrediting, or evading school desegregation, many through school vouchers or tax credits. As for Friedman, he addressed the issue of segregation directly in a lengthy footnote to his essay, in which he stated his opposition to both “forced segregation” and “forced nonsegregation.” The solution, he argued, was a private system in which “exclusively white schools, exclusively colored schools, and mixed schools” could develop according to the preferences of parents.

The cause of school choice has long been a right-wing priority, attracting the support and the funds of a familiar cast of deep-pocketed conservatives—the Bradleys, the DeVoses, the Kochs. But the idea of giving money directly to families to pay for schooling also appealed to a surprisingly diverse political coalition. As Fitzgerald traces the history of school vouchers from the libertarian and far-right fringe to the mainstream, she brings to life a lesser-known cast of characters who rallied around versions of school choice. In Wisconsin, for instance, a Jesuit priest named Virgil Blum was urging the government to subsidize the cost of religious education. Blum was ahead of his time. His argument for religious school vouchers, based on the First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom, was the same one the Supreme Court would embrace three decades later. But he died in 1990, just months before the Milwaukee voucher program was enacted, lamenting that his crusade for state-funded religious schools had gone nowhere.

Notes on the Milwaukee K-12 Tax and $pending increase referendum

Rory Linnane:

At the same time, the biggest reason funding for MPS has dropped, the report says, is that MPS doesn’t have as many students as it used to. That’s partly because there are fewer children in the city, and partly because of the growth of non-MPS schools, like independent charter schools and private schools that get tax-funded vouchers. When students leave MPS, the funding goes with them.

Mark Lisheron:

Add to that the district’s almost total lack of accounting for the $87 million referendum voters approved in 2020, with the final $3 million payout this year. Or the $772 million the district received from three COVID “emergency” bills, $506 million of that from the American Rescue Plan Act, which will allow the district to spend federal dollars through 2026.

“It’s like they looked at it and said ‘Let’s just shoot for the moon’ with this referendum, Andrekopoulos told the Badger Institute. “At some point, don’t you have to say ’No’?”

An update on Wisconsin’s attempts to improve our long term, disastrous reading results

The approach is best known for emphasizing phonics-based instruction, which teaches children the sounds of letters and how to put the sounds together into words. But when done right, it involves more than that — incorporating things such as developing vocabulary, comprehension skills and general knowledge.

More:What is phonics? Here’s a guide to reading terms parents should know

The approach differs from the “balanced literacy” approach widely used in recent decades, which generally downplayed sounding out letters. One well-known balanced literacy approach, called “three-cueing,” will be illegal in Wisconsin in all public schools, charter schools and private schools taking part in the state’s voucher program as of this fall.

What curriculums will be recommended?

Good question. The law created an Early Literacy Curriculum Council with nine members, generally educators from around the state, to make recommendations. The council had a big job and got behind schedule. But it recently recommended four curriculums, generally ones regarded favorably by prominent “science of reading” advocates.

The state Department of Public Instruction has been critical of aspects of the council’s work, including saying that council members didn’t stick strictly to the requirements of the new law. DPI took the council’s recommendations, deleted one, and added eight to come up with 11 curriculum choices that it said meet the law’s requirements.

Some literacy council members and other advocates have criticized the DPI list for including programs that are not as good as the ones the council recommended.

Can you give examples?

Sure. “Into Reading,” by HMH (also known as Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), is a popular program. It is one of three programs now being used by schools in New York City, the largest district in the country. And Milwaukee Public Schools has been using “Into Reading” for a couple years. It is considered to meet “science of reading” standards, but some experts regard other curriculums as better.

The literacy council did not include “Into Reading” on its list. The DPI included it. For one thing, including it could lead to saving districts, including MPS, large sums of money by not putting them under pressure to get new textbooks and other materials.

And then there is “Bookworms.” This curriculum has some distinctive aspects, and some advocates, such as well-known curriculum analyst Karen Vaites of New York, regard it highly and say schools using it have had good results. The literacy council included “Bookworms” on its list. DPI did not and said the program did not meet all the standards of the new law.

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Politics and the taxpayer funded DPI.

Wisconsin DPI Reading Curriculum Evaluation list

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Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

7 tips for improving news coverage of private school choice

Denise-Marie Ordway

About half of U.S. states offer private school choice programs, which help families pay for private school. It’s a highly politicized, complicated issue involving multiple types of tuition assistance, hundreds of thousands of children and billions of taxpayer dollars.

It’s also an issue journalists need to examine closely. News coverage grounded in academic research is particularly important as more states consider starting these programs and lawmakers in states that have them push to expand.

How can journalists strengthen their coverage? We put this question to seven university professors who study private school vouchers and other private school choice programs. Here’s their advice:

1. Explain how the various private school choice programs differ.

In the U.S., the three most common private school choice programs are tuition vouchers, tax-credit scholarships and education savings accounts, or ESAs. Journalists often refer to them all as “voucher” programs, but there are key differences.

“ESAs are radically different from school vouchers,” Patrick J. Wolf, a professor of education policy and the 21st Century Endowed Chair in School Choice at the University of Arkansas, wrote to The Journalist’s Resource.

In our roundup of research on private school choice, we briefly explain these three programs:

Notes on changes in Wisconsin taxpayer K-12 funding policies

WILL:

The Assembly is currently considering AB900—a bill that would “decouple” public school spending from spending on the voucher and independent charter school programs. While the concept likely sounds quite confusing, it’s actually relatively straightforward, and will benefit public schools, taxpayers, and choice schools as well. We’ll explain how below.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Currently, when a student leaves for the state’s school choice programs and some independent charters, state aid to school districts is reduced to make up for the cost to the state of that student. This loss of state aid is allowed to be made up for with a revenue limit adjustment that raises property taxes in the district. AB900 would change this. School districts would no longer see their aid reduced for the cost of the voucher or charter students, leading to a property tax cut and access to more state aid. Instead, choice and charter schools would be funded by the state. In addition, the bill includes a provision for school districts to recoup 25% of the revenue limit authority they used to receive for voucher students—leading to additional revenue per pupil for the vast majority of districts in the state.

We have included an attachment that shows what the bill would result in for every district. This comes from a memo produced by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. To help with understanding, consider the example from Green Bay reproduced below:

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Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

“we see school districts casting the blame for budget shortfalls on what is often a small number of choice students”

WILL:

Decoupling public school funding from choice funding is a win-win from the perspective of both public-school districts and choice/charter schools. School districts will no longer face the uncertainty of voucher enrollment numbers when crafting their budgets for the upcoming school year. In an era of declining enrollment across Wisconsin, this additional stability is important. In most cases, school districts will have access to more state aid than they did before—essentially offering a modest budget boost at a time when many districts are worried about their fiscal reality. And a recent memo from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau confirms that no school district will be left with less funding under this legislation.

Because school districts have the ability to raise property taxes to make up for lost revenue from school choice, this legislation will also result in property tax cuts for most Wisconsin families.

Charter schools do things that all Democrats say they support

The Economist:

A year ago New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, proposed to adjust a state cap on charter schools, the publicly funded but privately run schools that have become a locus of innovation and controversy in American education. Ms Hochul’s plan was not ambitious, but it would have allowed dozens of new charter schools to open in New York City, where they already attract about 15% of public-school students and where thousands of families languish on waiting lists. But the governor’s plan drew fervent protests from fellow Democrats, including state legislators aligned with teachers’ unions. After a bruising fight, the governor had to settle last autumn for a small increase.

The row reflected a discouraging change in the politics of charter schools. Once a topic of unusual bipartisan enthusiasm, the schools have become divisive, particularly among Democrats. Barack Obama campaigned on charter-school expansion in 2008, but Joe Biden declared in 2020 that he was not enamoured of them. (His administration has nonetheless maintained federal funding for charters.) Republicans are more favourably inclined overall, and Donald Trump increased support during his presidency. But Republican priorities have shifted since George W. Bush, as president, and his brother Jeb, as governor of Florida, championed charters as beacons of racial equity. These days Republicans prioritise vouchers that allow parents to use taxpayer funds to enroll children in religious schools.

Notes on Ohio school choice (no mention of total k-12 $pending or outcomes)

Alex MacGillis

The program was the first in the nation to provide public money for tuition at religious schools, and by 2000, virtually all Cleveland voucher recipients were using them at a religious private school (mostly Catholic) rather than secular ones. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court narrowly rejected a challenge to the Cleveland vouchers; the court ruled that because the vouchers could be used for religious or nonreligious schools, they did not violate the constitutional prohibition against a state favoring religion. In the years that followed, vouchers spread to more districts around the state, taking on the name EdChoice. Initially, they were targeted at families in other districts deemed to be failing, but a decade ago, the state legislature — whose Republican majorities are buttressed by highly gerrymandered districts — made them available to lower-income students across the state.

Then came last year’s big expansion, eliminating income limits and raising the value of the vouchers. It offers major benefits even to many solidly middle-class families: A family of four at 451% of the poverty level, or $135,300 in household income, will receive $5,200 per year for a K-8 student and $7,050 per year for a high school student.

In the 2022-23 school year, before the expansion, EdChoice cost $354 million, on top of the $46 million for the Cleveland program, according to the state education department. That was already more than quadruple what EdChoice had cost a decade earlier.

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Ohio per student K-12 per student $pending.

NAEP results.

An update on Wisconsin’s Literacy changes

IMPORTANT ACT 20 LITERACY UPDATE

TODAY, council MAY soft-approve first batch of reading curriculum. (DPI and legislature must agree.)

District/charter/voucher that pick them get partially reimbursed. If not, they pay for new Themselves.

NOT recorded, so follow this thread!

— Quinton Klabon (@GhaleonQ) January 12, 2024

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

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Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Commentary on k-12 choice

Josh Cowen:

First, why are these new voucher schemes such bad public policy? To understand the answer, it’s important to know that the typical voucher-accepting school is a far cry from the kind of elite private academy you might find in a coastal city or wealthy suburban outpost. Instead, they’re usually sub-prime providers, akin to predatory lenders in the mortgage sector. These schools are either pop-ups opening to cash in on the new taxpayer subsidy, or financially distressed existing schools desperate for a bailout to stay open. Both types of financially insecure schools often close anyway, creating turnover for children who were once enrolled.

And the voucher results reflect that educational vulnerability: in terms of academic impacts, vouchers have some of the worst results in the history of education research—on par or worse than what COVID-19 did to test scores.

Those results are bad enough, but the real issue today is that they come at a cost of funding traditional public schools. As voucher systems expand, they cannibalize states’ ability to pay for their public education commitments. Arizona, which passed universal vouchers in 2022, is nearing a genuine budget crisis as a result of voucher over-spending. Six of the last seven states to pass vouchers have had to slow spending on public schools relative to investments made by non-voucher states.

That’s because most new voucher users were never in the public schools—they are new financial obligations for states. The vast majority of new voucher beneficiaries have been students who were already in private school beforehand. And for many rural students who live far from the nearest private school, vouchers are unrealistic in the first place, meaning that when states cut spending on public education, they weaken the only educational lifeline available to poorer and more remote communities in some places. That’s why even many GOP legislators representing rural districts—conservative in every other way—continue to fight against vouchers.

Charter Schools Keep Winning Students From Union Schools

This has been the year for school choice—from vouchers, to homeschooling, to pod schools with parents who use education savings accounts. The winners include charter schools, as union-run K-12 schools lost hundreds of thousands of students during Covid-19 who haven’t returned.

Yes they do. The trend holds for states of all sizes and political persuasions. From 2019-2023, charter enrollment grew in 40 of the 42 states analyzed, while traditional schools lost students in 40 states. Charter attendees surged nearly 20% in Texas (67,148 students), 19% in North Carolina (22,308), and 10% in Pennsylvania (15,353). District enrollment fell 0.83% in Texas and nearly 3% in North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

Part of the story is that states are working to improve charter offerings. The report says Indiana raised its per-student charter grant to $1,400 from $1,250, while allocating $25 million to a capital fund to help schools with facility costs. Enrollment in Indiana charters is up 9% over four years, versus down 2% for traditional schools. Legislative changes in New Mexico and Idaho come in for kudos as well.

The report flags evidence in New Jersey that growing demand for charters might be eroding political resistance to school choice in a state where public unions have traditionally all but run the government in Trenton.

What Would Happen If School Choice Loses

Daniel Buck:

Early in the fall, a far-left PAC filed a lawsuit, charging that Wisconsin’s school-choice program somehow violates the state’s constitution — hoping that our state’s supreme court, which flipped to a progressive majority last election, would whack their political lob and smack down vouchers in our state. Thankfully, on December 13 the state supreme court unanimously voted to reject the lawsuit.

School choice survives in Wisconsin, at least for now. But it remains under pressure in other jurisdictions. Last month, Illinois allowed a tuition program serving almost 10,000 students to die. Ohio and South Carolina also have lawsuits in the works seeking to strike down voucher legislation. And such lawsuits have succeeded before in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Nevada. Chicago’s Board of Education approved new district goals that include a movement away from school choice.

Even as choice will continue in Wisconsin, it’s useful to consider the counterfactual. What would have happened if the lawsuit had succeeded? What would it be like from a student’s and teacher’s perspective?

Consider a former student of mine. We’ll call him Zack. Zack’s mother works the late shift to make rent, but never misses a parent–teacher conference. Last year, our school went on lockdown several times, because local gangs threatened violence, and the Autozone across from us had police tape up after a murder the week before school began. Nonetheless, Zack outperformed students in our state’s most affluent districts, earning a place at a premier private high school.

School Choice Commentary (achievement not found)

Bob Peterson

Establishing two school systems — one public and one private, yet both supported with tax dollars — only expands the ability of private schools to pick and choose the most desirable students

Supporters of Wisconsin’s voucher schools make it seem that the schools are just one of many variations of our public schools. Don’t be fooled.

Voucher schools, often referred to as “choice” schools, are private schools that receive taxpayer money that pays for tuition. To argue that a private school is “public” merely because it receives public tax dollars is like arguing that Metro Mart is a public grocery store because it accepts food stamps.

Peterson was member of the Milwaukee School Board from 2019-2023, and board president for the final two years. He was also a classroom teacher for more 25 years, and president of the Milwaukee teachers’ union from 2011-2015.

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Lawfare and school choice

David Blaska:

Who is behind the lawsuit seeking to bring down Wisconsin’s school choice program that helps 52,000 low-income, often minority students, escape failing public schools? Guy named Kirk Bangstad.

Killing school choice is written into the Democrat(ic) party platform. Obeisance to the teachers union and the one-size-fits-all government school monopoly is central to Woke progressivism. Easier to seize control. That is why the news media says little more than that Kirk Bangstad is a Minocqua WI-based contract micro-brewer of beers named after his heroes, like “A.O.C. IPA” and “Biden Beer.” Ran for political office as a Democrat. Unsuccessfully.

→ Of the top 10 schools in reading proficiency in Wisconsin that largely serve low-income children, six are voucher or charter schools, according to the Institute for Reforming Government. — Wall Street Journal

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Ongoing School Choice Rhetoric

Wayne Shockley:

Kirk Bangstad and Julie Underwood attempted to make a case against private school vouchers in their column on Wednesday, “Why we’re fighting against private school vouchers.”

While they do make a couple of good points in their arguments, such as the need for greater accountability, most of their points are not valid. One of their points is particularly reprehensible. They attempt to smear all non-public schools with the history of “segregation academies” in the south after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of Education decision against segregated schools.

Underly and our long term disastrous reading results….

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Lawfare, school choice and the Wisconsin Supreme Court

Progressives tee up a case for the state Supreme Court’s new majority.

This should be an easy case, but the new 4-3 progressive majority on the Court is cause for worry. If the lawsuit is successful, it could end school choice in Wisconsin without a possibility of appeal because the case is based on state law claims. The result would mean upheaval for 29,000 children in Milwaukee’s voucher program, 4,000 in Racine and 19,000 in the rest of the state. Judges call that a “reliance” interest to consider carefully when considering a precedent.

The real power behind this case is the teachers union. Bob Baxter, executive director of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, says tests scores are a “fallacy” and that “every student that’s in a voucher school suffers.” Students who attend charters “are not learning the curriculum they need to learn in order to be a part of a democratic society,” Mr. Baxter adds. “We believe the right wing wants to crush participation in democracy.”

But the vouchers passed democratically. The real democratic issue here is whether four progressive Justices are going to trample their court’s precedent and the voters and impose their own policy preferences. That would rob poor children of better choices in favor of the unions who financed Justice Protasiewicz’s judicial campaign. Who’s anti-democratic?

WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

How you define ‘public school’ can say a lot about where you stand on big education issues in Wisconsin

The definition of a public school? For a third of a century, Wisconsin has stretched it and bent it into new shapes — and fought about it. The state is still doing all of these, especially the fighting.

How people define a public school often says a lot about where they stand on big education issues. Look at some of the current controversies in Wisconsin:
A major lawsuit challenging the funding mechanisms and even the existence of the state’s voucher and charter school programs.
Decisions on funding the different sectors of schools in Wisconsin that were pivotal in reaching agreement over a state budget for the next two years.
Disputes over rules about how much private schools need to disclose publicly.
Enforcement of public regulations on private schools

Over 10,000 students exit ONE failing school district after Florida allows this new freedom

Hannah Cox:

Earlier this year, Florida joined a growing list of states with universal school choice programs—meaning any student in the state can access a portion of the money the state spends on their education and use those tax dollars to homeschool, attend a private school, or do some sort of mixed-learning program.

Families have responded swiftly. As of this week, a hilarious hit piece hit the First Coast News website which spent the majority of its time hand wringing over the fact that nearly 10,000 students have left one school district in the state alone already.

Notes on Lawfare, taxpayer k-12 $pending and the Minocqua Brewing Company

Quinton Qlabon

I feel like when Minocqua Brewing Company turns in homework, it should not have factual errors in it.

Anticlimactic.

Locally, Madison spends > $25k per student.

Corrine Hess:

Wisconsin’s choice program serves over 52,000 students and plays a vital role in Wisconsin’s education system,” Esenberg said in a statement. “Unfortunately, far-left interest groups are uniting behind a Super PAC, to take education options away from low- and middle-income kids and families across the state.”

State Superintendent Jill Underly released a statement, saying she welcomes any opportunity that would strengthen public education.

“Education represents an incredible opportunity to learn, grow, and strengthen our state, but public education represents even more than that. Public education is a constitutional right,” Underly’s statement said. “Wisconsin needs to fulfill its responsibility to effectively, equitably, and robustly fund our public education system. I welcome any opportunity to move Wisconsin in that direction.”

The lawsuit is being funded by the Minocqua Brewing Company’s SuperPAC, which Bangstad has used since 2021 to fund liberal political causes.

The group has purchased billboard ads attacking Republican politicians and marketed beers named after Democratic politicians including an Evers Ale for Gov. Tony Evers and Tammy Shandy for U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin.

Bangstad first announced his efforts to end Wisconsin’s private school voucher system in August on social media.

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

20 October Event: Cara Fitzpatrick, author of “The Death of Public School”

Marquette:

Please join us for an “On the Issues” program at 12:15 p.m. on Oct. 20, 2023, at Marquette Law School. A new book by Pulitzer Prize-winning education journalist Cara Fitzpatrick takes up the rise of the school choice movement across the United States. The Death of Public School: How Conservatives Won the War over Education in America goes back to the beginning of advocacy for school vouchers and charter schools and chronicles the path to today. Milwaukee, home to the first urban voucher program in the United States, is a major focus of the book.

Fitzpatrick won a Pulitzer Prize in 2016 for a series of stories she wrote about school segregation in Florida. She is now an editor for Chalkbeat, a national online education reporting organization.

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

North Carolina embraces school choice

Tyler Cowen:

North Carolina’s budget for the new biennium would expand school choice across the state to an unprecedented level.

The budget, slated for votes Thursday morning, would enlarge the piggybank for the Opportunity Scholarship Program — the state’s voucher that enables families to choose a private school education for their children — to $520 million by the 2032-2033 fiscal year.

“Expansion of the Opportunity Scholarship Program would not only be a game changer for North Carolina families, giving parents a real choice on where they attend schools, the new legislation would help to redefine public education and underscore that not all state-funded education has to be publicly funded, administered and delivered,” said Dr. Robert Luebke, director of the Center for Effective Education at the John Locke Foundation.

Many of the students who left traditional public schools in 2020 have not returned

Duey Stroebel:

A couple months after the bipartisan agreement over shared revenue and education were enacted we are already seeing the effects. Besides the record increase in public school resources of $1.2 billion, the deal included the passage of Act 11, which significantly increased state payments to school choice and charter schools. Until earlier this year, voting on education alternatives had almost always fallen along party lines, even though the area of the greatest usage of education alternatives has been Democrat-dominated Milwaukee.

Act 11, which I was privileged to author in the Senate, has laid down a bipartisan marker acknowledging educational alternatives are here to stay in Wisconsin. Five Democrats supported Act 11 on the floor, creating legislative super majorities in both chambers. Moreover, a Democrat governor, who considers himself to be the champion of public education, signed it.

Curious, context free school choice commentary

Ruth Conniff:

Still, the inequities among public schools in richer and poorer property tax districts are nothing compared to the existential threat to public education from a parallel system of publicly funded private schools that has been nurtured and promoted by a national network of right-wing think tanks, well funded lobbyists and anti-government ideologues.

For decades, Wisconsin has been at the epicenter of the movement to privatize education, pushed by the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation, a mega-wealthy conservative foundation and early backer of Milwaukee’s first-in-the-nation school voucher program. That program has expanded from fewer than 350 students when it launched in 1990 to 52,000 Wisconsin students using school vouchers today.

This year school privatization advocates scored a huge victory when Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, a longtime ally of public schools, agreed to a budget bargain that includes a historic bump in the amount of tax money per pupil Wisconsinites spend on private school vouchers. The rate went up from $8,399 to $9,874 for K-8 students and from $9,405 to $12,368 for high schoolers.

Not only is the amount of money taxpayers spend on private education increasing, in just a couple of years all enrollment caps come off the school choice program. We are on our way to becoming an all-voucher system.

This makes no sense, especially since, over the last 33 years, the school voucher experiment has failed to produce better outcomes in reading and math than regular public schools.

——-

Meanwhile, Madison taxpayers have long supported substantial, well above average $pending – now greater than $25k per student!

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Notes on taxpayer K-12 funding disclosure

Corrine Hess:

Wisconsin’s private schools are receiving more taxpayer funds than ever before, but a coalition of groups is objecting to that public money being included in an online dashboard about school district finances.

Last week, the Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee rejected a proposal by the state Department of Public Instruction to include private schools in the dashboard during its 14-day passive review process.

A GOP bill signed by Gov. Tony Evers in 2021 created an 11-member advisory committee and called for a “financial information portal.” The dashboard is designed to give taxpayers easy access to financial information about individual school and school district spending. It must include the total amount of local, state and federal funding received; cost per pupil; and how funds are distributed.

During the 2022-23 school year, private school choice programs received $444 million in taxpayer money according to state data.

But the Wisconsin Coalition for Education Freedom sent a letter to Joint Finance Committee members on Aug. 21 objecting to the private school spending being included. The letter stated the DPI process for creating the dashboard has been “shrouded in secrecy, delayed, and expanded into areas not included in the legislation.”

The group said DPI is attempting to “make law,” violating democratic principles.

Notes on Home Schooling

Laura Mechler:

Her program is part of a company called Prenda, which last year served about 2,000 students across several states. It connects home-school families with microschool leaders who host students, often in their homes. It’s like Airbnb for education, says Prenda’s CEO, because its website allows customers — in this case, parents — to enter their criteria, search and make a match.

An explosion of new options, including Prenda, has transformed home schooling in America. Demand is surging: Hundreds of thousands of children have begun home schooling in the last three years, an unprecedented spike that generated a huge new market. In New Hampshire, for instance, the number of home-schoolers doubled during the pandemic, and even today it remains 40 percent above pre-covid totals.

For many years, home schooling has conjured images of parents and children working together at the kitchen table. The new world of home schooling often looks very different: pods, co-ops, microschools and hybrid schools, often outside the home, as well as real-time and recorded virtual instruction. For a growing number of students, education now exists somewhere on a continuum between school and home, in person and online, professional and amateur.

Teeny, Tiny Schools

Megan Tagami:

Amanda Ray’s son attended public school from prekindergarten to fifth grade. But when he qualified for West Virginia’s school voucher program for the 2023-24 school year, Ray jumped at the opportunity to enroll her son in Eyes and Brains STEM Center, a small private school serving a total of six students in kindergarten to seventh grade.

Ray’s son had struggled with reading and writing, but the smaller setting allows him to develop a close relationship with his teacher, who is able to tailor lessons to his interests, such as a writing assignment about his favorite characters in the game Dungeons & Dragons.

“It’s the perfect fit for him,” Ray said.

Eyes and Brains STEM Center is one of a fast-growing number of so-called microschools in the U.S., which often serve between five and 25 students and operate as tuition-based private schools or learning centers for home-schoolers. Currently approximately 125,000 microschools exist across the country, reflecting an increase since the pandemic, according to Don Soifer, chief executive of the National Microschooling Center.

Across the U.S., microschools likely serve between one to two million students, said Michael McShane, director of national research at EdChoice, an organization advocating for school choice policies.

In some states, new voucher laws that provide more families with state funds for private-school tuition or home schooling and other academic expenses are helping to finance the growth in microschool enrollment. Those opposed to vouchers say the funding siphons money from traditional public schools to private schools that aren’t accountable to rigorous state oversight.

School Choice Expansion in Milwaukee

Rory Linnane

St. Augustine Preparatory Academy unveiled a new $49 million elementary school on Milwaukee’s south side Tuesday, showcasing a major expansion as school leaders also discussed plans for a new north-side branch on the former Cardinal Stritch campus.

About 730 students in kindergarten through fourth grade are expected to start school this week in the new building, which can eventually hold up to 900 students as the school plans to admit more students. Across the street in the older building, about 1,100 students are expected to attend middle and high school.

With the capacity to eventually serve a combined total of about 2,400 students at both buildings on the south side, school leaders said it has become the largest single-campus school in Milwaukee.

More exciting news for #SchoolChoice in Wisconsin even as @bangstad and Minocqua Brewing seek to snuff out the opportunity for these low-income, primarily minority students to have educational options. https://t.co/u3Q0PRr5YC

— Will Flanders (@WillFlandersWI) August 23, 2023

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Notes on funding school choice

Ameillia Wedward:

Janet Protasiewicz’ recent confirmation as a member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court earlier this month has conservatives worried about the possible end of a decade of conservative reforms, from Act 10 to voter ID laws. But another concern receiving less attention is the prospect of challenges to Wisconsin’s school choice programs.

School choice has stood against challenges in the past, but now that it’s at stake in state court, taxpayer dollars are on the line.

While there are several cases and laws that reaffirm Wisconsin’s choice programs from a religious angle — and Wisconsin’s own governor signed into law increases to choice earlier this summer — the current concern is that school choice will face scrutiny from a financial standpoint: Can the state fund both school choice and public schools simultaneously?

Currently, under the Wisconsin constitution, local funds must be used for local schools. Although the state finances the choice program, when a student leaves the public school system to participate, the state subtracts that pupil’s funding from their respective district, which then has to make up the revenue loss by increasing property taxes. In other words, to fund both systems, taxpayers end up paying twice: once to fund the school choice program and again to pay the district’s tax hikes.

Some have argued that this violates the state constitutional requirement that property taxes fund “common schools.” But concerns like this ignore a plausible funding mechanism that could appease school choice and public school advocates alike while sparing the taxpayer’s wallet. By decoupling private choice funding from property taxes and funding students instead, the state could reduce costs for local taxpayers. Under a decoupling plan, students that use school choice would be financed fully by the state, and all property tax implications would be removed.

This isn’t a new idea. By the 2024-25 school year, the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program will be funded directly via the state. By the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty’s conservative estimations — before the new law and under the old voucher amount — if the state followed the same model, decoupling would cut property taxes over $168 million statewide.

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Will Flanders and Cory Brewer:

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Commentary on taxpayer funded K-12 Choice

Ashley Rogers Berner

First, rigorous, knowledge-building contentworks. Across the K–12 continuum, mastery of rigorous content exercises an independent, positive impact on young people’s opportunities. When American schools fail to provide this, they are leaving one of the most powerful levers off the table.

In practice, this means that while a wide variety of public and private schools should be eligible for public funding and free to operate as they see fit, all should be held accountable for covering a basic corpus of knowledge. Mastery of this content should be assessed in all schools through rigorous exams, the results of which provide clear signals to parents and teachers about each student’s strengths and weaknesses, and to the public about each school’s.

Second, parents need help. A hands-off approach leaves too many parents behind. Many well-resourced families can navigate the choices and identify high-powered options. But almost 40% of parents in urban contexts are functionally illiterate, with limited social networks. Surveys of parents in high-choice systems, and research on individual voucher programs like Washington, D.C.’s, show that parents newly empowered to exert agency on behalf of their children’s education face a steep learning curve. As one of the country’s foremost scholars of educational opportunity Patrick Wolf put it, parents don’t need information—“they need a person.” Nonprofits are springing up in the United States to fill this person-to-person need, but some pluralistic countries build “parent navigators” in from the beginning.

Furthermore, as conservatives increasingly acknowledge, the market logic that works so well for commodities can falter when applied to more complex contexts. We humans can get attached to people, places, and things that do not serve us well—including schools. Conversely, markets eagerly dispose of things to which we might rightly be attached. Closing a school may be the right thing for any number of reasons, but it inevitably leads to collective grief, anxiety, and sometimes outright resistance from community leaders or lobbyists. Kevin Huffman, commissioner of education for Tennessee from 2011–2015, tells a harrowing story of what he called his “abject failure” to shut down “the worst performing [charter] school in Tennessee,” in the face of such pressures.

School Choice and improving education

Richard Hanania

The first thing to point out about public education is that it involves an extreme restriction of liberty beyond anything we usually accept. How common is it for government to force you to be in a certain place at a certain time? What I call “time-place” mandates are rare. Sometimes you have to go to the DMV, but even then you spend a short amount of time there, and can generally choose when to go. Sometimes people have to respond to subpoenas or jury duty, but those are uncommon events in most people’s lives. Government says to do your taxes, though you only have a deadline and can fill out the paperwork whenever and under whatever conditions you want.

The only substantial populations of individuals who have their lives structured according to time-place mandates in a free society like ours are prisoners, members of the military, and children. The mandates for children have gotten less strict over the years now that all states allow homeschooling, but opponents of school choice for all practical purposes want to do what they can to shape the incentive structures of parents so that they all use public schools (liberal reformers tend to like vouchers that can be used at charter schools, but not ESAs, which give parents complete control). Of course, children don’t have the freedom of adults, and so others are by default in control of how they spend most of their time. But it’s usually parents, not the government, that we trust in this role. Given the unusual degree to which public education infringes on individual liberty and family autonomy, the burden of proof has to be on those in favor of maintaining such an extreme institution.

Commentary

Josh Shapiro’s School Choice Sellout: The Pennsylvania Governor sides with unions over poor children in failing schools.

Wall Street Journal

So much for Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s gutsy support for school choice. After backing a Senate proposal for school vouchers for K-12 students—one of his 2022 campaign promises—the Democratic Governor caved this week to his party and the unions and will nix the scholarships from the state budget.

Pennsylvania Governor Vetoes School Choice

Stephen Caruso, Kate Huangpu, Katie Meyer:

This story has been updated to reflect a statement from Gov. Josh Shapiro that confirmed earlier reporting by Spotlight PA.

HARRISBURG — Gov. Josh Shapiro says he plans to scrap his push for private school vouchers in Pennsylvania’s state budget in order to close a deal with the commonwealth’s divided legislature five days after the deadline.

The Democrat issued a statement Wednesday acknowledging that talks had deadlocked over a $100 million voucher program, which he had supported and which state Senate Republicans passed as part of their budget proposal last week. Pennsylvania House Democratic leaders oppose vouchers and had refused to act on the Senate’s bill.

Shapiro’s solution, he said, was to promise state House Democrats that if they pass the Senate’s budget, he will then line-item veto the vouchers from the $45.5 billion spending plan.

“Our Commonwealth should not be plunged into a painful, protracted budget impasse while our communities wait for the help and resources this commonsense budget will deliver,” Shapiro said in a statement.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro promises to veto his own campaign promise: "I will line-item veto the full $100 million [school choice] appropriation." pic.twitter.com/Zx8RzkSMkJ
— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) July 6, 2023

Data Point Commentary on Growth in Wisconsin Taxpayer K-12 Spending

Rory Linnane:

To address some of the gaps in funding between districts, lawmakers previously set a minimum allowance for each school district, allowing them to collect at least $10,000 per student since 2020. As part of the voucher bill, lawmakers hiked the minimum to $11,000.

About 221 of Wisconsin’s 421 public school districts would be eligible to increase base funding to $11,000 per student under the bill, according to preliminary calculations shared by the state Department of Public Instruction, while almost all other school districts were already getting more than that. DPI noted its calculations factored in provisions of the state budget yet to be approved by Evers, and didn’t factor in other special adjustments districts may be eligible for.

Looking at the largest school districts, Milwaukee, Madison and Racine were already above an $11,000 per-student revenue limit, while Kenosha, Green Bay, Appleton, Waukesha and Eau Claire will be bumped up.

Madison has long spent far more than most K-12 school districts, now > $25K per student.

Madison’s 2023 – 2024 budget is at least $581,000,000 for 25,000 students.

Shapiro cancels teachers union appearance in Philly, as Pa. budget talks continue

Gillian McGoldrick:

Gov. Josh Shapiro canceled his Saturday appearance before a state teachers union conference in Philadelphia, as he continues to negotiate a budget deal that missed its deadline on Friday.

However, it also comes as Shapiro continues to receive intense backlash from teachers unions and organized labor for his support of a private school voucher program for Pennsylvania students who attend the state’s lowest-performing public schools.

House Democrats, who control the state House with a one-seat majority, said any budget deal including private school vouchers is a nonstarter in their caucus.

Shapiro was scheduled as a keynote speaker at the biennial convention for the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, according to the convention agenda. He was set to appear alongside AFT national president Randi Weingarten, in Philly to provide a luncheon speech.

Shapiro pulled out of the AFT’s convention on Friday morning due to ongoing budget negotiations, AFT Pennsylvania president Arthur Steinberg said in a statement.

“It was our understanding that Gov. Shapiro had every intent to deliver a keynote address at our Biennial Convention luncheon,” Steinberg added. “While we’re disappointed that he couldn’t address our convention, we’re heartened that it’s because he’s pushing to fully and fairly fund public education.”

Private choice schools treat all students fairly

The recent article by Wisconsin Watch, “Wisconsin s tudents with disabilities often denied public school choices,” suggested private schools that participate in Wisconsin’s school choice program can discriminate against students.

The article specifically alleges that choice schools “expel” students with disabilities, without providing a single example of when this has occurred. While this is a criticism often leveled against choice schools nationwide, it doesn’t reflect reality. Schools in Wisconsin’s choice programs are subject to lots of regulations on admissions.

The statutes governing admission to schools in the voucher programs also are crystal clear: Schools must accept all students who apply within their space limitations. If more students apply than seats available, the school does not have the opportunity to pick and choose. Instead, their students must be chosen at random.

The reality is that the budgets of private schools in the choice program are often stretched thin, because of severe underfunding of these institutions compared to the state’s public schools. Given these budgetary constraints, it may be challenging for some private schools to meet the needs of students with the most severe disabilities. But the decision is still ultimately in the parents’ hands after consulting about any limitations the school may have.

It is also important to highlight that private choice schools around Wisconsin likely serve far more students with disabilities than the data from the state Department of Public Instruction (DPI) shows. A 2015 study from scholars at the University of Arkansas estimated that the rate of students with disabilities in these schools was likely twice more than what the data shows. The reason for this discrepancy is that private schools lack the financial incentive that public schools have to report a student as having a disability. Public schools receive more money from the state when a student is identified, whereas private schools do not unless the student goes through the lengthy process to qualify for the state’s Special Needs Scholarship Program.

Notes and links on Wisconsin Watch, here.

Suddenly, School Choice: Its Rapid Post-Pandemic Expansion Sets Up a Big Pass/Fail Test for Education

Vince Bielski:

What’s more, most of these states have also enacted education savings accounts, or ESAs. They give families much more freedom than traditional tuition vouchers, depositing state funds into private accounts to spend on virtually anything related to learning, from homeschooling and online classes to therapy and supplies.

The universal laws amount to a bracing change in school choice. Such programs have existed for decades but until now have been limited to a narrow set of students, such as those from low-income families, or in poor performing public schools, or in need of special education.

By making all students eligible, regardless of their ability to pay for a private education, universal programs in the eight states expand the pool of possible participants by about 4 million students, according to an estimate by EdChoice, an advocacy group. That’s a 40% increase in eligibility since 2021, bringing the total to 13.6 million students after the programs start in the next few years.

Notes on taxpayer supported K-12 spending

Corrinne Hess

In the 2021-22 school year, Wisconsin’s public schools received a total of $16,859 per student, which came from a combination of local property taxes, federal sources and the state. Of that, about $7,728 came from the state, according to the Department of Public Instruction.

“In fact, some of the federal funding factored into that district per pupil calculation is required to be used for services for private school students, meaning it does not support the kids attending public schools in that district,” said Abigail Swetz, DPI spokeswoman. “It is not legitimate for the Republican legislators to take credit for funds that come from local and federal sources, and if the Republican legislators and voucher advocates are claiming that the state provides $14,000 per student, that is patently untrue.”

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has said he will sign the bill.

The Wisconsin Coalition for Education Freedom praised Republicans and Evers for including funding for school choice in the proposal.

The coalition represents several groups including School Choice Wisconsin, the Badger Institute, Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce.

Will Flanders, research director with WILL and a coalition member, said the additional funds will allow private choice schools to be more competitive with teacher retention and hiring. And he said the increased funding may open more slots for students at choice schools.

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

K-12 Governance Climate: School Choice Rhetoric

There was a lot of good news for #SchoolChoice in WI yesterday, but it was disconcerting to see that some remain either grossly misinformed on the issue or are intentionally misleading. One of the worst offenders was @RepKristina, who made claimed the program is racist (1/x). pic.twitter.com/OrrC3sEHxx

— Will Flanders (@WillFlandersWI) June 15, 2023

School vouchers became a popular tool for perpetuating segregation after Brown v. Board of Education. Southern legislators enacted bills for tuition vouchers or grant programs to close down public school systems altogether, rather than desegregate.

The roots are in the history✌🏽 pic.twitter.com/wZHQF1GFtv

— Rep. Kristina Shelton (@RepKristina) June 15, 2023

Just mis-leading. Who start the Choice/voucher program in Wisconsin???? Wait for it…. Polly Williams a Black Woman Democrat from Milwaukee along with Howard Fuller, a Black Man, Gary George a Black Man, Democrat from Milwaukee, (R) Gov. Thompson https://t.co/XgzMLE8PPg

— Orlando Owens (@orlandoforwi) June 15, 2023

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Materiality: a lost concept in the legacy media? No mention of total $pending / changes over time….

Alexander Shur:

The Legislature’s GOP-controlled finance committee on Tuesday approved increasing K-12 education spending by $1 billion, $1.6 billion less than what Democratic Gov. Tony Evers requested in his budget.

The increase will go toward funding both public schools, which Evers prioritized, and the state’s voucher programs, which Evers had originally sought to limit in his budget despite Republican calls to dramatically expand it.

Many of the education provisions the budget committee approved Tuesday along party lines were first announced last week as part of a deal between Republican legislative leaders and Evers on a separate bill to increase local aid to communities across Wisconsin. Republicans have for months said they would increase spending on public schools if Evers agreed to spend more on the state’s voucher programs.

Same issue…

Somewhat related (deeper dive example): Did Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers veto legislation to increase literacy tests? More.

Legislation and Reading: The Wisconsin Experience 2004-

And..

In the world of Senator Larson, $1 billion in increases for public schools means they are being “defunded.” https://t.co/VQFgitZ492
— Will Flanders (@WillFlandersWI) June 14, 2023

Interesting “Wisconsin Watch” choice school coverage and a very recent public school article

Housed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Journalism School (along with Marquette University), the formation, affiliation(s) and funding sources of Wisconsin Watch have generated some controversy. Jim Piwowarczyk noted in November, 2022:

“Wisconsin Watch, a 501(c)(3) organization that disseminates news stories to many prominent media outlets statewide and is housed at the taxpayer-funded UW-Madison campus, has taken more than $1 million from an organization founded by George Soros over the years. Wisconsin Right Now discovered that the group is still prominently pushing out stories by a writer, Howard Hardee, who was dispatched to Wisconsin by a Soros-funded organization to work on “election integrity” stories and projects.” When major media outlets like WTM-TV and the Wisconsin State Journal run stories by Wisconsin Watch or Hardee, they fail to advise readers that he’s a fellow with a Soros-linked group. The group says that “hundreds” of news organizations have shared its stories over the years, giving them wide reach.

The Soros family also boasts significant influence over American media. An analysis from the Media Research Center found numerous media outlets employ journalists who also serve on boards of organizations that receive large amounts of funding from Soros.

More recently, and amidst Wisconsin’s biennial budget deliberations including many billions ($11.97B in 2019! [xlsx] excluding federal and other sources) for traditional government K-12 school districts, Wisconsin Watch writer Phoebe Petrovic posted a number of articles targeting choice (0.797%!! of $11.97B) schools:

May 5, 2023: Considering a Wisconsin voucher school? Here’s what parents of children who are LGBTQ+ or have a disability should know. (Focus on < 1% of redistributed state taxpayer spending).

May 5, 2023: False choice: Wisconsin taxpayers support schools that can discriminate. (Focus on < 1% of redistributed state taxpayer spending).

May 20, 2023: Federal, state law permit disability discrimination in Wisconsin voucher schools. (Focus on < 1% of redistributed state taxpayer spending).

## May 22, 2023 via a St Marcus Milwaukee sermon [transcript]- a church family whose incredible student efforts are worth a very deep dive. Compare this to Madison, where we’ve tolerated disastrous reading results for decades despite spending > $25k+/student!

## May 23, 2023: Curious (false claims) reporting on legacy k-12 schools, charter/voucher models and special education via Wisconsin coalition for education freedom. (Focus on 99% of redistributed state taxpayer spending).

May 31, 2023: ‘Unwanted and unwelcome’: Anti-LGBTQ+ policies common at Wisconsin voucher schools. (Focus on < 1% of redistributed state taxpayer spending).

May 31, 2023: Wisconsin students with disabilities often denied public school options via another Wisconsin Watch writer: Mario Koran. (Focus on 99% of redistributed state taxpayer spending).

WI’s open enrollment program is one of the best in the country, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t limitations. When anti-#SchoolChoice folks use @WisconsinWatch articles to attack, they should also remember the same things happen in public schools. https://t.co/EwPIiwm7CU

— Will Flanders (@WillFlandersWI) June 1, 2023

The free market roots of #SchoolChoice are often overlooked in today’s political debates. It’s important to remember that the goal of school choice isn’t the elimination of public schools, but rather the lifting of all ships by providing competition to the public school monopoly. https://t.co/t49It5boHq

— Will Flanders (@WillFlandersWI) June 1, 2023

Related: Governor Evers’ most recent budget proposals have attempted to kill One City Schools’ charter authorization…… and 2010: WEAC $1.57M !! for four state senators.

June 2, 2023 Wisconsin Watch’s Embarrassing Campaign against Vouchers and Christian Schools

Oops:

“Wisconsin Watch isn’t nonpartisan in a way that a layman would understand the term. Rather, it’s nonpartisan because there isn’t a party far enough to the left to earn its support.” @LutherAbel1 dismantles Petrovic’s reporting.https://t.co/2U1miyLSv7

— Patrick McIlheran (@PaddyMacMke) June 2, 2023

In examining who Wisconsin excludes from school choice, we’ve seen how private voucher schools discriminate against LGBTQ+ students and those w/ disabilities.

Here, @MarioKoran examines how public schools reject kids w/ disabilities from open enrollment https://t.co/gsNYBO6ocX

— Jim Malewitz (@Jmalewitz) June 1, 2023

Yeah, @WisconsinWatch has long leaned left and can easily be similarly accused of avoiding introspection. Lol https://t.co/GBseKikRh6

— Chris Rickert (@RickertWisSJ) June 3, 2023

Their literal next piece (by a different reporter, true) was on inadequate special needs funding, so it’s suspicious to overlook that when critical of voucher schools and special needs.

The sexuality piece was bad journalism with unfounded logical leaps.https://t.co/A8WQgg2bdP

— Quinton Klabon (@GhaleonQ) June 3, 2023

Why might civics minded have an interest in funding sources (such as Wisconsin Watch, WILL, ActBlue and so on)?

Two examples:

Billionaire George Soros is taking a stake in the Bernalillo County district attorney’s race, backing Raul Torrez with a $107,000 contribution to an independent expenditure committee.

George Soros, a multibillionaire who has only the most tenuous connection to Colorado, is paying for negative ads against incumbent District Attorney Pete Weir, a Republican, pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into the effort.

More on Wisconsin School Choice Governance, freedom of speech, civil rights and freedom of religion

Phoebe Petrovic:

Wisconsin Watch reviewed public materials for about one-third of the state’s 373 voucher schools and found that four out of 10 had policies or statements that appeared to target LGBTQ+ students for disparate treatment. Some had explicitly discriminatory policies, such as expelling students for being gay or transgender.

All 50 of the voucher schools with anti-LGBTQ+ stances identified by the news organization are Christian, with denominations including Lutherans and Catholics, among others. Almost every school cites religious principles as a basis for their positions.

Suzanne Eckes, an education law professor at University of Madison-Wisconsin, argued that language casting gay or transgender identities or behavior as sinful, even without policies codifying the perspective, “has a discriminatory intent behind it.”

She also pointed out how some policies, although not explicit, could result in LGBTQ+ students being treated inconsistently from others. For example, some schools specifically ban all sexual contact outside of a straight, cisgender marriage.

Green Bay Adventist Junior Academy, which has nearly 68% of students on vouchers, says that it “does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation (in admissions), but does discriminate on the basis of sexual misconduct,” which includes “homosexual conduct.” Reached by phone, a representative of the school said: “We have no comment.”

Werth, now approaching graduation from college, said his experience, although difficult, was not as hostile as the policies now in place at his alma mater and elsewhere.

It would be useful to compare $pending on traditional public schools and the voucher budget…

PART 2 of our series on voucher discrimination is now out, focused on students with disabilities. Per advocate: “We have two parallel school systems: one of which is oriented toward serving students with disabilities and the other which never has been.” https://t.co/J7npNaheRb
— Phoebe "listen to Open and Shut" Petrovic (@PhoebePetrovic) May 22, 2023

Curious (false claims) reporting on legacy k-12 schools, charter/voucher models and special education via Wisconsin coalition for education freedom.

A “Wisconsin Watch” look at voucher schools; DPI heavy, no mention of $pending or achievement…

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

The state capital of reading problems, Milwaukee Public Schools looks at how to turn things around

Year after year, MPS reading scores are abysmal, strong signs of the problems with educational success that lie ahead for many students. There are bright spots; some MPS schools consistently have better results.

But overall, in spring 2022 — the most recent results available — more than half (54.1%) of MPS third- through eighth-graders were rated “below basic” in reading on Wisconsin’s Forward tests, while 26.2% were at the basic level and 14.1% were rated proficient or advanced. Another 5.6% didn’t take the tests. Among Black students, 7% were advanced or proficient and 64.7% were below basic. In some schools, fewer than 2% of students were proficient and none were advanced.

It is fair and important to note that the overall success of students in private, parochial and charter schools generally wasn’t much different, although some schools stand out for above-average success year after year.

Specifically, in spring 2022 results for Milwaukee students using publicly funded vouchers to attend private schools, 41% were rated as below basic, 32% as basic, and 19% as proficient or advanced. The voucher percentages include ninth-, 10th- and 11th-grade students.

There are positive reading reforms for my Milwaukee! But:

1. the skyrocketing scores are not correct. 43% of that school skipped the pandemic test, sadly.https://t.co/SQmNwAMxAM

2. board meetings have not mentioned training/coaches/method/rigor. Scores seem flat this year. https://t.co/QlCbQhw5To pic.twitter.com/42hP6NEcNL
— Quinton Klabon (@GhaleonQ) May 31, 2023

“Well, it’s kind of too bad that we’ve got the smartest people at our universities, and yet we have to create a law to tell them how to teach.”

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Oakland Teachers Strike for Climate Justice

The union also wants reparations for black students to remedy alleged historic injustices. How about instead remedying the enormous learning deficits the union has caused by protecting bad teachers and closing schools during the pandemic? Perhaps the district could extend the school year, or, better yet, provide families with private school vouchers?

Instead, the union wants the first week of school each year to focus on creating a “positive school culture,” whatever that means, rather than instruction. It is also demanding a “Climate Justice Day for standards-based teach-ins, workshops, action, and field trips.” Maybe kids can’t read, but they can be unemployed climate warriors.

The Oakland union is taking cues from the National Education Association. “When we expand the continuum of bargaining, we build power, and go on the offense in order to fight for social and racial justice, for our kids, for our schools, for our communities, and for the future,” the NEA states on its website.

Tired of being criticized for prioritizing their own interests over those of children, unions are now pretending to promote what they call the “common good.” Yet in doing so they are substantiating the Supreme Court’s landmark Janus decision (2018), which held that government collective-bargaining implicates workers’ First Amendment rights.

More.

Educational choice is popular right now, but it’s important to use that momentum prudently.

Frederick Hess:

The reason for this success isn’t hard to fathom. During the pandemic, mediocre remote learning, bureaucratic inertia, and school closures taught many parents that they couldn’t count on school districts when families needed them most.

Parents were left hungry for alternatives, especially amidst bitter disagreements over masking and woke ideology. This was all immensely practical. It wasn’t about moral imperatives or market abstractions. It was about empowering families to put their kids in schools that address their needs, reflect their values, and do their job. And it came even as families continued to voice support for their local public schools.

There are important lessons here, several of which I discuss at more length in The Great School Rethink. The biggest may be the simplest: Families can want more options and still like their local schools.

Polling consistently shows that the lion’s share of parents say they’d grade their kids’ schools an A or a B. At the same time, last year, more than seven in ten endorsed education savings accounts, school vouchers, and charter schools.In short, parents tend to like both their child’s public school and school choice policies. They don’t see a tension between the two.

Budget Season: Notes on Wisconsin’s Substantial Tax & Spending growth

Walker [17-19] Last Biennial Budget: $76 billion
Evers[19-21] First Biennial Budget: $87.5 billion
Evers [23-25] Proposed Biennial Budget: $103.8 billion

Will you get $27.8 BILLION more value from govt? Sell underused properties, consolidate overlapping agencies. $0 INCREASE! pic.twitter.com/DNXG1aSozd

— Will Martin, Business Owner & Govt Reformer (@willmartinWI) February 20, 2023

WILL budget primer:

Massive Spending Growth: Governor Evers proposed budget increases spending by 18.5% compared to the previous budget. GPR spending would rise by 22.85% compared to the previous budget.
Agency GPR Growth: Some agencies would see massive growth in GPR spending. For example, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation’s GPR allocation would grow by 3351%. The Department of Tourism would have a 1027% increase in GPR spending.
Voucher Freeze: The governor proposes freezing enrollment in Wisconsin’s school choice programs at 2024 enrollment levels. This would shut the school house door on thousands of families in Wisconsin desperate for options stuck in schools that aren’t working for them.
DEI Positions: Governor Evers wants to spend more than $2.9 million of taxpayer dollars on 15 new executive-tier positions whose mandate is to use government activity to increase “equity.”
Work Requirements: Able-bodied adults are required to participate in the Food Share Employment and Training program to continue receiving Food Share benefits after the first three months. Governor Evers would repeal this requirement despite the economic and personal benefits they bring to the state and its participants.

Yet:

Note that spending increases annually, with Madison taxpayers supporting at least $23,000 per student.

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Scott Girard and Jessie Opoien:

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

The school-choice movement, riding a wave of parental rights campaigns, is resurgent

Laura Meckler:

For years, school-choice advocates toted up small victories in their drive to give parents taxpayer money to pay for private school. Now, Republican-led states across the country are leaving the limitations of the past behind them as they consider sweeping new voucher laws that would let every family use public funds to pay for private school.

Captives or Consumers? Public Education Could Be Facing a Major Change

Jonathan Turley:

Below is my column in the Hill on moves by some states to create greater choice and control for parents over the education of their children. The move to use funding to change the status quo could soon be used in higher education. Not only are alumni beginning to withhold contributions to schools with little or no diversity or tolerance on their faculties, but states could reduce their levels of support.

Here is the column:

What if they offered public education and no one came? That question, similar to the anti-war slogan popularized by Charlotte E. Keyes, is becoming more poignant by the day.

This month, Florida is moving to allow all residents the choice to go to private or public schools. Other states like Utah are moving toward a similar alternative with school vouchers. I oppose such moves away from public schools, but I have lost faith in the willingness of most schools to restore educational priorities and standards.

Faced with school boards and teacher unions resisting parental objections to school policies over curriculum and social issues, states are on the brink of a transformative change. For years, boards and teacher unions have treated parents as unwelcome interlopers in their children’s education.

“But I also think that if we just do more of the same, we’re going to get more of the same, which is mediocre test results and kids who can’t read. That’s dumb. So I want reform.”

The results, as Vos mentioned, have been poor. Reading and math scores on what’s known as the Nation’s Report Card dropped across the country last year, including in Wisconsin, where the gap in scores between Wisconsin’s Black and white students is the highest of any state, with only Washington, D.C. having a wider “opportunity gap.”

“When you look at the scores in Wisconsin, especially the gap between the races, it’s just unacceptable,” said Rep. Joel Kitchens, R-Sturgeon Bay, who will lead the Assembly education committee during this legislative session. “We have to do better, and we started to try to address it (in the last session). The governor vetoed that bill.

“But we really, really need to be able to work together, because I don’t see how we can address it if we don’t know that the governor is going to agree to what we do. So, I’m really hopeful we can for once work together on that.”

Kitchens was referring to a bill that would have significantly increased the number of literacy tests students must take and required the development of personalized reading plans for students deemed an “at-risk” reader. In his veto message, Evers said the bill didn’t provide adequate funding for its mandates.

“I want to go back and rehash that and say, ‘Why’d you veto this? What was the tweak that you need, right, or how can we make it better?’” Vos said of the proposal.

Republicans and those pushing for “reform” often focus on school choice, whether that’s voucher funding, charter schools or open enrollment opportunities. Public school advocates contend those options siphon money out of the public schools that need it.

To those advocates, the focus should be on making up for the past 14 years in which school spending increases were not tied to inflation — like they had been previously. If they had been, districts around Wisconsin would have been able to spend an additional $3,000 per student this school year.

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Baker A. Mitchell and Robert P. Spencer:

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

K-12 Tax and $pending Growth: Arizona Edition

Laurie Roberts:

Charter schools would be exempt from the cuts. They didn’t exist in 1980 and so they aren’t subject to the spending cap. Ditto for the state’s universal voucher program. The kids who are getting public money to attend private schools would see no decline in state support.

Only the children who attend traditional public schools would be penalized.

Horne told legislators that would be a “travesty,” but some of the Legislature’s most conservative members aren’t likely to see it that way.

“Eliminating and/or lifting the Aggregate Expenditure Limit (AEL) is a betrayal of our duty to every taxpayer in the state,” Rep. Jacque Parker, R-Mesa, tweeted last month. “Lifting taxpayer protections so government schools can spend endlessly without transparency is unacceptable.”

Sure, penalize the children.

Some Republican leaders say not to worry. (It’s worth noting that Senate President Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, was among the 20 Republicans who opposed waiving the spending cap last year.)

“Hear us now: Schools will not lose out on the money we have allocated for them,” House Majority Leader Leo Biasiucci, R-Lake Havasu City, said on Jan. 11. “We will address this. But we will not rush the process.”

A Federal Court Ruling Imperils the Charter-School Movement

The Fourth Circuit’s finding appears to have been based on little more than the convention of calling charters “public charter schools” and their being mostly funded by public sources. But hundreds of American cities contract municipal services out to private companies, which generally aren’t considered state actors. The Supreme Court rejected state-action claims against an investor-owned public utility in Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co. (1974) and an operator of a public-access TV channel in Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck (2019). If these aren’t state actors, surely neither are North Carolina’s charter schools, which the law promises freedom from government control.

Far more is at stake than CDS’s school-uniform policy, which was designed by parents of our students. The ruling comes at a time when the charter-school movement is growing. Oklahoma’s attorney general recently issued a legal opinion stating that religious organizations must be allowed to operate charter schools in the Sooner State. A key aspect of the opinion was a finding that charter schools are not state actors and, therefore, the Constitution’s Establishment Clause doesn’t prohibit the inculcation of religious values, as it does in government-run schools. In Carson v. Makin (2022), the U.S. Supreme Court held that a state voucher program couldn’t discriminate against religious schools.

Notes on Wisconsin’s 2023 K-12 Tax & Spending Climate

Here are thumbnail sketches of issues that will be fueling action in the hives:

Revenue caps. Since the mid-1990s, the state has imposed caps on the general spending by school districts. Increases in the caps have been minimal in the last dozen years. Two years ago, Republican majorities in the legislature did not increase the caps at all, saying federal pandemic aid made that unnecessary. The end of the pandemic money is in sight and pressures on schools statewide have grown. So what will become of the revenue cap for the next two years?

Private and charter schools. Under Wisconsin’s several programs for charter schools and private schools that enroll students using vouchers, per-student annual payments run from about $8,400 to $9,100. Public schools get a lot more per student. Expect a strong push from voucher and charter advocates to narrow the gaps. And Republicans remain committed to making private school vouchers more widely available across the state, which Democrats oppose.

Special education. The state pays local schools about 30% of the costs involved with students with special needs. It’s one of the lowest rates in the nation. There has been advocacy – even bipartisan sometimes – to raise that. The issue will come up again, although the prospects for major change don’t appear to be good.

Notes on Wisconsin DPI school ratings

Scott Girard:

MMSD had its strongest ratings in the growth and on-track to graduation priority areas, though both were down slightly from last year’s scores. In growth, the district received a 73.6 out of 100, while it scored 77 out of 100 for on-track to graduation.

In the other two priority areas, MMSD scored a 57 on achievement and 58 on target group outcomes. Both, again, were a slight drop from the previous report card.

MMSD spokesperson Tim LeMonds wrote in an email that the district did not plan to make a statement on the report cards.

Overall scores for schools and districts can fall into five rating categories: significantly exceeds expectations (83-100), exceeds expectations (70-82.9), meets expectations (58-69.9), meets few expectations (48-57.9) and fails to meet expectations (0-47.9).

Earlier this year, Republicans passed a bill to require DPI to return its report card scoring formula to the one used in 2018-19 and force the department to use the public rules process to adjust the formula rather than make any changes itself. It would have restricted DPI from giving greater weight to measures of growth in student achievement than measures of actual achievement in determining a district’s or school’s overall score on the report cards.

Gov. Tony Evers vetoed the bill.

On a call with reporters Tuesday, DPI accountability office staff explained that the changes to the formula that went into effect last year helped soften sometimes large fluctuations in small student groups that “weren’t true school or district changes.”

Office of Educational Accountability assistant director Sam Bohrod said the work began prior to the pandemic and they believe it’s a “more useful tool” for districts and schools to identify where they are in helping their lowest performing students.

Rory Linane:

They reiterated their plan for recovery, including more funding for special education, mental health and general school costs.

“We know that obviously the stressors of the past few years have exacerbated a lot of problems but we also know that mental health for children in Wisconsin, and far beyond Wisconsin, has really been at a significant problem level for far too long,” said Abigail Swetz, communications director for DPI.

DPI provided report card scores for 1,920 public schools and 163 private schools — a minority fraction of the state’s private schools. Private schools are given report cards only if they receive tax-funded vouchers and have a large enough student population.

See scores for all types of schools below.

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

How “Education Freedom” Played in the Midterms

Jessica Winter:

The 2022 midterm elections offered many snapshots of the contemporary school wars, but one might start with the race for Superintendent of Education in South Carolina, a state that languishes near the bottom of national education rankings and that’s suffering from a major teacher shortage. Lisa Ellis, the Democratic candidate, has twenty-two years of teaching experience and is the founder of a nonprofit organization that focusses on raising teacher pay, lowering classroom sizes, and increasing mental-health resources in schools. Her Republican opponent, Ellen Weaver, who has no teaching experience, is the leader of a conservative think tank that advocates for “education freedom” in the form of more public funding for charter schools, private-school vouchers, homeschooling, and micro-schools. “Choice is truly, as Condi Rice says, the great civil-rights issue of our time,” Weaver stated in a debate with Ellis last week. In the same debate, Ellis argued that South Carolina does not have a teacher shortage, per se; rather, it has an understandable lack of qualified teachers who are willing to work for low pay in overcrowded classrooms, in an increasingly divisive political environment—a dilemma that is depressingly familiar across the country. Ellis also stressed that South Carolina has fallen short of its own public-school-funding formula since 2008, leaving schools billions of dollars in the hole. Weaver countered that the state could easily persuade non-teachers to teach, so long as they had some relevant “subject-matter expertise,” and warned against “throwing money at problems.” The salary floor for a public-school teacher in South Carolina is forty thousand dollars.

In short, the two people vying to run South Carolina’s public schools were an advocate for public schools, and—in her policy positions, if not in her overt messaging—an opponent of public schools. The latter won, and it wasn’t even close: as of this writing, Weaver has fifty-five per cent of the vote to Ellis’s forty-three. Weaver didn’t win on her own, of course—her supporters included Cleta Mitchell, the conservative activist and attorney who aided Donald Trump in his attempt to overthrow the 2020 election results; the founding chairman of Palmetto Promise, Jim DeMint, a former South Carolina senator who once opined that gay people and single mothers should not be permitted to teach in public schools; and Jeff Yass, a powerful donator to education PACs—at least one of which has funnelled money to Weaver’s campaign—and the richest man in Pennsylvania. (Yass, as ProPublica has reported, is also “a longtime financial patron” of a Pennsylvania state senator, Anthony Williams, who helped create “a pair of tax credits that allow companies to slash their state tax bills if they give money to private and charter schools.”)

Weaver borrowed the sloganeering and buzzwords of right-wing activist groups, such as the 1776 Project and Moms for Liberty—which, as my colleague Paige Williams recently reported, have turned public schools into the national stage of a manufactured culture war over critical race theory (C.R.T.), L.G.B.T.Q. classroom materials, the sexual “grooming” of children, and other vehicles of “woke leftist” indoctrination, as well as lingering resentment over COVID-19 lockdowns. During the debate, Weaver railed against C.R.T. and the “pornography” supposedly proliferating in schools, and associated Ellis with a “far-left, union-driven agenda.” (Incidentally, South Carolina’s public employees are prohibited from engaging in collective bargaining.) “They believe in pronoun politics. They believe parents are domestic terrorists, much like Merrick Garland,” Weaver said. (Weaver may have been referring to an incident in May, 2021, when Ellis’s nonprofit cancelled a protest after it “received harassing and threatening messages from groups with extreme views about masking,” including death threats.) “These are people,” Weaver went on, “who are out of touch with the mainstream of South Carolina values, and these are the people who my opponent calls friends.” Ellis maintained that those who profess to be hunting down proponents of C.R.T. in schools are “chasing ghosts.”

Wisconsin gubernatorial candidates split on aid to public schools

Steven Walters:

Public school funding in Wisconsin is at a political crossroads, with the two candidates for governor disagreeing over how state aid should be distributed in the future.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers wants $2 billion more spent on public schools, noting a projected $4.3 billion budget surplus by mid-2023.

His Republican challenger, Tim Michels, vows to “spend as much money as any governor” on K-12 schools, but would do that by removing all limits on the school choice program so that any parent could use a state-issued voucher to send their child to a private school.

In this important controversy, this statistic is important: State government will collect $20.8 billion in general-fund taxes — corporate and personal income taxes, sales taxes, cigarette, alcohol and utility taxes — this year. Of that, $6.6 billion — or almost one-third — will go for K-12 public schools.

Evers also directed $90 million in federal Covid relief to public schools, bringing total state aid for public schools to $6.7 billion this year, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. That’s an 11 percent increase over three years.

Four issues frame the controversy over state aid to K-12 schools:

“all of them stressed the importance of more funding for public schools”

Scott Girard:

“This means a lot to me because I don’t want students who are younger than me to lack various resources and opportunities that will be offered,” La Follette’s Yoanna Hoskins said. “I want my teachers to be well compensated and respected for all the hard work they put in every single day.”

Adding that she’s not yet old enough to vote herself, she urged everyone else to do so.

“And leaders, the adults that I’m supposed to look up to, let’s work together so we can get caught up (on funding),” Hoskins said.

Among the stakes in the Nov. 8 election are school choice. GOP candidate Tim Michels has offered support for universal school choice, and while he hasn’t provided detailed plans, it’s likely that includes a voucher system without income limits, given his past statements.

Incumbent Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, running for reelection, won’t likely get many of his policy priorities regardless of the outcome of the race, given the overwhelming Republican majority in the Legislature. But he used his veto pen regularly in his first term, including on education items, like halting a “parental bill of rights” and stopping a proposed breakup of the Milwaukee Public Schools district.

Evers, along with State Superintendent Jill Underly, have proposed adding almost $2 billion for public schools across the state in the 2023-25 biennial budget.

Kabby Hong, who teaches English in Verona and was a 2022 Wisconsin Teacher of the Year, said that the “public education system is on the ballot.”

“One election can radically change the landscape for all of us,” Hong said. “That is why I’m asking all of you to go out and vote and to not give in to cynicism, apathy and indifference.”

$$ Madison taxpayers have long spent far more than most k-12 school systems, now $21,720 per student!

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

“American Experiment’s polling indicates that by a wide margin, Minnesotans want the public schools to prioritize academic excellence, not politics, “equity” or culture war issues”

John Hindraker:

Minnesota, as in other states, concerned parents have banded together to try to wrest control of the public schools away from teachers’ unions, in order to improve the quality of education and to stop left-wing indoctrination. Earlier this year, we started a 501(c)(4) organization called the Minnesota Parents Alliance to lead those efforts in our state.

Today the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Star Tribune both posted stories on the MPA and Minnesota’s school board races. The Pioneer Press article is long, and is titled “Social issues bring wave of conservative candidates to MN school board races.” Is educational quality now a “social issue”?

The Pioneer Press piece is reasonably fair and includes an account of MPA’s founding:

In Minnesota last year, the Center of the American Experiment — a prominent think tank and member of the State Policy Network, which promotes conservative positions like an opposition to public-sector unions and support for voucher laws that help parents redirect tax dollars toward private school tuition — toured the state to fight against an “alarming” rewrite of the K-12 social studies standards for Minnesota schools.

“We filled rooms all across the state,” said the Center’s spokesman, Bill Walsh.

All true so far.

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Notes on Taxpayer Supported K-12 Wisconsin and Madison Enrollment Declines

Rory Linnane:

The picture isn’t complete, as the count excludes homeschooling and students who pay tuition in private schools. And the numbers released by the Department of Public Instruction on Friday are unaudited.

According to the preliminary numbers, the decline for public school districts is less dramatic than earlier years of the pandemic but continues a downward trend that creates more budget holes for public schools.

Scott Girard

Wisconsin public school districts saw a drop of 25,742 students from fall 2019 to fall 2020 amid the onset of the pandemic. The situation slightly stabilized the following year, when the decrease was 3,866, similar to the 3,788 student decrease from fall 2018 to fall 2019.

This year, though, there are 6,889 fewer public school students than last fall.

Enrollment in the four private school parental choice programs, meanwhile, increased 6.7% from last fall to 52,189 students this year.

The state uses enrollment to help determine a school district’s revenue cap, which limits the amount of revenue it can take in through a combination of state aid and local property taxes.

In its June preliminary budget, MMSD officials had projected an enrollment of 25,238 students.

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Elections, K-12 Governance and Parent Choice

Mitchell Schmidt:

A new coalition of conservatives, policy groups and advocacy organizations has begun developing a package of education goals for the coming legislative session — with expanded school choice as a top priority — that could play a considerable role in the upcoming race for governor this November.

Officials with the Wisconsin Coalition for Education Freedom say the goal is to give parents and students more options. But the proposals also stand in stark contrast to priorities laid out by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers — setting up an education policy battle in the Nov. 8 election, in which Evers, a former educator and state superintendent who has opposed expanded private school vouchers, faces businessman Tim Michels, a Republican who has pledged to expand school choice offerings across Wisconsin.

People are also reading…

“The election is critically important,” said Susan Mitchell, a longtime advocate for school vouchers and founder of School Choice Wisconsin. “Gov. Evers, both as (Department of Public Instruction) superintendent and as governor, has repeatedly opposed the expansion of these programs. Tim Michels has made public a completely opposite sort of perspective, so it matters a lot in terms of getting things done.”

The coalition, launched Thursday, includes conservative groups Americans for Prosperity, Badger Institute and law firm Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, as well as education stakeholders such as American Federation for Children, virtual education company K12/Stride, School Choice Wisconsin and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s largest business lobbying organization.

The group did not provide specific legislative proposals, but officials told the Wisconsin State Journal the two biggest priorities will be “school choice for all families” and legislation seeking to establish a “Parental Bill of Rights,” letting parents sue a school district or school official if they don’t allow parents to determine the names and pronouns used for the child while at school, review instructional materials and outlines used by the child’s school and access any education-related information regarding the child, among other measures.

Evers vetoed a GOP-authored bill last session that would have extended those powers to parents, stating in an April 15 veto message he opposed it “because I object to sowing division in our schools, which only hurts our kids and learning in our classrooms.”

He also vetoed a measure that would have vastly expanded private school vouchers by eliminating the income limits in the statewide, Milwaukee County and Racine County private school voucher programs, as well as create a temporary education expense reimbursement program for public school students. A fiscal report estimated the bill could raise property taxes as much as $577 million.

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Elections, K-12 Governance and Parent Choice

Mitchell Schmidt:

People are also reading…

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Charles Mitchell and Scott Walker:

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

No When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Elections and school choice

Chuck Ross:

Pennsylvania Senate hopeful John Fetterman (D.) opposes vouchers that let children in failing public school districts attend private and charter schools. But the progressive champion, who lives in one of Pennsylvania’s worst performing school districts, sends his kids to an elite prep school.

Fetterman’s kids attend the Winchester Thurston School in Pittsburgh, where parents pay up to $34,250 for a “dynamic” learning environment and an “innovative” approach to teaching. They would otherwise go to schools in Woodland Hills School District, where graduation rates are far below the state average. The local elementary school that serves Fetterman’s town of Braddock is in the bottom 15 percent of the state in academic performance. Fetterman and his wife Gisele have sent at least one of their three kids to Winchester Thurston for the past seven years. A 2018 news article mentioned that Fetterman sends his kids to a private school in Pittsburgh, though the school was not identified. Gisele Fetterman has been a “WT parent” since at least 2015. Last year, Winchester Thurston praisedGisele, a “WT Mom,” for her help on an art project.

Fetterman’s embrace of school choice for his own family opens him up to allegations of hypocrisy on several fronts. Fetterman, the lieutenant governor, has made his Republican opponent Mehmet Oz’s wealth a centerpiece of his campaign. He has also called for increased funding for public schools, though by sending his kids to private school he is diverting funds from Woodland Hills under a state funding formula that awards money to districts based on enrollment.

Wisconsin Lutheran Sues City of Milwaukee For Unlawful Property Tax Assessment

WILL-Law:

The News: Attorneys with the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) filed a lawsuit against the City of Milwaukee on behalf of Wisconsin Lutheran High School after the City unlawfully assessed the school for $105,000 in property taxes. The City is trying to tax Wisconsin Lutheran for a campus building that is owned by the school and used for student housing and other educational purposes. The lawsuit was filed in Milwaukee County Circuit Court.

The Quotes: WILL Deputy Counsel Lucas Vebber, said, “State law provides a property tax exemption for educational and religious institutions like Wisconsin Lutheran. The City of Milwaukee’s attempt to assess the school for more than $100,000 for this property is clearly unlawful.”

Wisconsin Lutheran President, the Rev. Dr. Kenneth Fisher, said, “This is an important issue for our school. We have a huge gap between what we receive in vouchers and our actual costs to educate our teens. We would much rather spend the $105,000 educating our students than paying for an improper tax. We are praying that our money can be restored to us so we can use it to further the ministry of our school.”

One city (charter) schools changed teacher work week: 4 days

Chris Rickert:

The free charter school is required to meet minimum instructional hour requirements contained in state law, which Davis said the school exceeds because its school day runs from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and its year from Sept. 1 to July 31, longer than most traditional public schools. The school will continue to exceed those minimums under the new schedule, he said.

It’s not clear what other traditional public, public charter or private schools in the state’s voucher program might have similar alternative staff schedules or are planning for them.

Nearby Oconomowoc High School changed their teaching and compensation model nearly 10 years ago.

“We believe Pennsylvania has a lot to learn from Wisconsin’s example”

The goal of Act 10 was to remove unfair powers wielded by government union executives over state budgets, education policy, and politics.

A recent study from the Commonwealth Foundation found that Act 10 saved Wisconsin taxpayers nearly $7 billion in 2018. Other analyses from a free-market think tank in Wisconsin suggested it helped resolve a $3.6 billion deficit without raising taxes, while the savings produced by Act 10 enabled future tax cuts that helped create 42,000 new jobs — including 20,000 jobs in manufacturing. Thanks to the reduced influence of government unions over state education policies, the number of low-income children benefiting from Wisconsin’s school choice program has increased nearly thirtyfold, to almost 15,000 students.

“As seen in Wisconsin, where public-sector labor reform leads, prosperity follows.”Charles Mitchell and Scott Walkernone

Pennsylvania and other similarly situated states could benefit from following Wisconsin’s example. The Keystone State has more government union workers than any other state except California, New York, and Illinois. Most of these workers lose a chunk of their paychecks each month to pay union executives who often prioritize a political agenda ahead of the workers they claim to represent. And look at what those government unions are achieving: Pennsylvania has the country’s fourth-highest unemployment rate and the second-highest business tax rate, while ranking 45th in economic performance.

As was the case in Wisconsin before Act 10, government unions are the largest campaign contributors in Pennsylvania. Since 2007, these groups have spent more than $150 million on politics, with 90% of campaign contributions going toward Pennsylvania Democrats. These government unions lobby for more government spending, against reforming the state’s pension system, for a government-run liquor monopoly, and against educational options for children and families.

Pennsylvania is not alone. A recent analysis showed that during the last academic year, the nation’s largest teachers’ union spent more on politics than on representing its own members.

Those interested in the rise of Scott Walker might find the Milwaukee County Pension Scandal illuminating.

Add 30 Days to the MPS School Year

Dan Shafer:

The crisis in Milwaukee K-12 education is huge. This cannot be overstated. Yet, the trend seems to be toward getting smaller and smaller.

For example, Milwaukee Public Schools just released its annual budget proposal noting it expects to lose 1,000 students between now and the start of the 2022-2023 school year, reducing enrollment to about 67,500 students. MPS has been shrinking for the better part of three decades for many reasons—some political, some demographic. Either way, the trend is shrinkage.

Some want to accelerate that. A bill passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature this year, sponsored by State Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills), would have split MPS into between four and eight smaller districts. This bill was vetoed by Gov. Tony Evers.

There is another law actually on the books that, if triggered by MPS’s status on state report cards, would force the district to hand over control of a handful of schools—called the “Opportunity Schools District”—to the Milwaukee County Executive. And for decades now, the legislature has been expanding the city’s non-MPS schooling options, from the Milwaukee Parental Choice (voucher) program to schools chartered by UW-Milwaukee and the City of Milwaukee.

These other “districts” are all pretty small compared to MPS—the LUMIN Lutheran schools in the voucher program enroll about 1,800 students; the Messmer schools, 725; the Seton Catholic schools, 2,500. Plus lots of other individual schools and even small “districts” are affiliated with MPS. On the whole, some small “districts” outperform MPS somewhat; others, not so much.

Wisconsin Governor Evers Friday Afternoon K-12 Vetoes: parents vs the taxpayer supported system

Molly Beck:

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers on Friday vetoed legislation that would have dramatically overhauled education in Wisconsin by making all children eligible to receive a taxpayer-funded private school voucher, regardless of their household income.

Parents would have been able to sue school districts for violations of a new “parental bill of rights” under another bill Evers vetoed on Friday.

Evers, a former public school educator and state superintendent of the Department of Public Instruction, rejected the legislation as Republicans hoping to unseat him in seven months make the policy idea central to their campaign against him.

Republican lawmakers passed a number of bills this session that would overhaul K-12 education knowing Evers would veto them. Evers has long opposed expanding the state voucher programs without overhauling how schools are funded in Wisconsin.

GOP lawmakers said Friday Evers was siding with school officials rather than parents in issuing his vetoes.

Mandates, closed schools and Dane County Madison Public Health.

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Lawfare, Parents and Taxpayer supported K-12 school Governance

Madeline Fox:

“I plan to focus on a broad spectrum of issues, including making sure students have access to high quality schools across the state, curriculum transparency and making sure that schools follow the constitution in enacting policies that respect and empower parents and their constitutional right to direct the upbringing of their child,” Brewer said.

Even before Brewer was hired, the organization has been working on school issues for years. It supported a legislative effort to create a parental bill of rights that would permit parents to review instructional materials and determine which pronouns are used for their children. And, WILL is currently suing the Madison and Kettle Moraine school districts over guidance to staff to use kids’ preferred pronouns and gender identity without first running it by parents.

WILL has also been supportive of plans to expand the state’s school voucher programs and create a new body to approve charter schools. It’s intervened in school district battles over masking policies, issues around race and what books are available in school libraries.

The Wisconsin chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which often champions liberal causes, has also focused more heavily on schools, in large part through the work of its Equal Justice Works Fellow, Elizabeth Lambert, who started a two-year fellowship with the organization in September 2020.

Mandates, closed schools and Dane County Madison Public Health.

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Libby Sobic and Will Flanders:

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

The Truth About Wisconsin’s Education Reform Bills

The Department of Public Instruction has estimated that expanding school choice will cost taxpayers over $500 million. This DPI estimate rests on faulty assumptions that would not occur in the real world. If a student whose family is currently paying for private school moved on to the voucher, there are, indeed, some tax implications for both the state and local taxpayers. (For a more in depth explanation, we have previously covered this objection here, and the Badger Institute later voiced similar points here.)

However, the way the voucher programs is currently funded means that if a student moves from a public school to a private school on a voucher, there is actually a resulting savings to local taxpayers. The extent of this savings varies by school district. School Choice Wisconsin has a helpful map using 2016-17 data to show the extent of the savings in every district.

The DPI “cost” is based on the assumption that every student currently enrolled in a private school who qualifies for a voucher, would begin using a voucher. This is not a guarantee.

Here’s why: private schools must identify the number of seats available for students in the voucher program. Some private schools limit choice enrollment due to the low level at which the voucher is funded. This was recently covered when HOPE Christian High Schoolannounced they were closing their doors and focusing on K-8 schools due in large part to the funding gap in the voucher program. Other private schools don’t participate at all for a myriad of reasons, including the extent to which they would be required to comply with state requirements for testing and auditing.

The bottom line is that the scenario DPI lays out—where 100% of current private school kids participate and no current public-school kids do—will not occur in reality, and therefore is a strawman defense of the status quo.

Mandates, closed schools and Dane County Madison Public Health.

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

More want a voice – and a choice.

Cori Petersen:

“I want to see parents more involved with the board of education,” said Scarlett Johnson who leads the Mequon-Thiensville parents group and is seeking election to the school board. “And I want to see less ideology in the classroom.”

National School Choice Week is a celebration of parents using publicly funded vouchers to send their children to private schools. However, the COVID-19 pandemic brought about a movement of parents who want more say in directing their child’s public-school education.

When schools went virtual in March 2020, parents became very involved in their children’s education overnight and needed the schools to open up as soon as possible. When Mequon decided to go virtual in the fall of 2020, a group of concerned parents began meeting and held some of the town’s first protests.

Once schools opened in later September 2020, this parent group shifted their attention to curriculum concerns exposed through virtual learning. For instance, in spring 2020, Mequon Thiensville paid $42,000 for Blaquesmith Consulting to bring “The Talk” and “Realizing Our Vision” to the district.

A proposal to Break Up the Taxpayer Supported Milwaukee K-12 School System, Expand Choice Opportunities and a parent bill of rights

Molly Beck:

Republican lawmakers plan to propose a sweeping package of legislation to overhaul K-12 education in Wisconsin that would break up the state’s largest school district within two years and expand private-school vouchers to every student, regardless of family income.

The proposal is part of a package that expands taxpayer-funded alternatives to public schools, including increasing the number of charter schools and giving parents money to pay for additional learning opportunities outside of the normal school day, including college courses.

“These bills are in response to a number of issues parents and children are seeing as COVID-19 and failed school leadership are eliminating educational opportunities in our schools,” Senate Education Committee chairwoman Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, said in an email to colleagues on Friday with summaries of each bill.

The new plan for Milwaukee public school students would be created by a commission consisting of the governor and the mayor of Milwaukee, both of whom would make two appointments each to the commission, and the state superintendent of public instruction, according to Darling’s summary of the expected legislation.

Why A Successful Milwaukee High School Is Closing Their Doors

Will Flanders

So, what happened? Why is HOPE closing their high school doors?

Schools in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (as well as the state’s other school choice programs) receive significantly less funding per student than do traditional public schools in the same area. For instance, Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) receives about $13,344 per student in state and local funds, while a school like HOPE High School receives just $8,946 per student. Not only is this amount lower than MPS, it is lower than any public school district in the state. And this doesn’t even take into account federal funds, which add $2,500 per student to MPS with a smaller amount going to private schools in the choice program.

To overcome this deficit, private schools are required to fundraise extensively, or limit the enrollment of students utilizing the voucher in the school in favor of tuition-paying students. These financial constraints tend to limit on the supply of private schools willing to participate in the state’s school choice programs because the voucher amount is, quite simply, insufficient for a typical high school education.

Commentary on K-12 student choice

Shannon Whitworth:

I work at a high school where the majority of the students are from inner-city Milwaukee. They are confronted almost daily with some form of dysfunction, depravity, or violence.

One day, some of my students challenged me as to why they should put a lot of effort into their studies when, from their perspective, the outlook for their futures looked bleak. I reminded them that God doesn’t want them to live in poverty or hopelessness. Rather, as stated in Proverbs 13, He wants them to live lives of prosperity, generosity and leave a legacy, which is possible if we follow His plan. I was able to share aspects of my faith with my students because the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) has enabled their parents to send them to Milwaukee Lutheran High School on a voucher.

BREAKING: Nebraska Senator Justin Wayne (D) again calls out his colleagues for sending their kids to private school while opposing school choice for others. pic.twitter.com/WiXAmcBRN8

— Corey A. DeAngelis (@DeAngelisCorey) January 11, 2022

Mandates, closed schools and Dane County Madison Public Health.

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Will Flanders & Libby Sobic:

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

Milwaukee’s taxpayer supported K-12 schools financial rhetoric

Like an old IPod set on repeat, Milwaukee Public Schools’ attempts to attack and provide misleading data about the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) is a song-and-dance that never stops. In their latest salvo against providing families with educational options, the district included information on the “cost” to Milwaukee residents of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) with property tax bills. An image of the mailer appears below.

The information on the cards is accurate, as far as it goes. But it leaves out key pieces of information which mislead rather than inform about the impact of this program on the city’s residents.

Overview of the MPCP

The MPCP, founded in 1990, is the nation’s first voucher system for low-income students. Today, students attending a private school on a Milwaukee Parental Choice voucher receive $8,336 per pupil for grades kindergarten through eight, and $8,982 for students enrolled in grades nine through twelve. No public-school student receives funding this low for any students.

In 2021, there were 129 private schools participating in the MPCP with a total enrollment of about 28,770 students. Each one of these 28,000 students live in the City of Milwaukee. With over 100,000 total students in the city of Milwaukee, students participating in the MPCP is still a relatively small percentage of the overall student population. Nevertheless, anti-choice advocates like to claim that the MPCP costs more than it is worth.

The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic”

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Libby Sobic and Anthony LoCoco:

Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?

What to Know About the Next Big Supreme Court School Choice Case

The U.S. Supreme Court recently held oral arguments in Carson v. Makin, a case that challenges Maine’s decision to prevent certain private religious schools from participating in its tuition benefit program for families without access to a local public high school. This case will likely provide guidance as to whether states can continue to ban religious schools from participating in publicly-funded programs on the basis of religious use of funding.

While we wait for the U.S. Supreme Court to make its determination, which could be awhile, here are three aspects of the case that Wisconsinites should know:

Wisconsin’s school choice programs are different than Maine’s tuition benefit program.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court held that the parent’s choice for the voucher, even if it is a religious private school, does not violate the Establishment Clause of the Wisconsin Constitution because the parent (not the government) is directing the dollars.

Maine’s program, on the other hand, allows parents to direct the funding to some private religious schools but chooses which schools can participate based on the use of religious curriculum. Therefore, Maine’s program is different than Wisconsin’s voucher programs because the state takes an additional step to try to determine whether state funding will be used to promote religious curriculum.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s holding could impact how both states and the federal government allocate funding to non-public schools.

School Choice Showdown in Michigan

Transcript (Machine generated).

Students with disabilities, in foster care, or in families making no more than 200% of the income cap for reduced-price lunches—nearly $100,000 for a family of four—would be eligible. Individuals or businesses that donate to the scholarship funds would receive a tax credit equal to their donation. The legislation allows up to $500 million in credits in the first year. No Democrat voted for the legislation.

The partisan opposition is a shame. A poll sponsored by the American Federation for Children in June reported that 74% of voters support school choice, including 70% of Democrats. The pro-school-choice Mackinac Center last year found 49% of likely Michigan voters—55% of parents—in favor of tax-credit scholarships. Only 34% were opposed.

The bills meet growing demand fueled by parental frustration with public schools that has increased during the pandemic. At least 60% of Michigan public-school students started last school year hybrid or remote. In math and reading, Michigan K-8 students “appeared not to make normal progress towards learning goals,” reports Michigan State’s Education Policy Innovation Collaborative.

Families have flocked to charters and private schools or teaching at home. In Michigan the share of households with school-age children that are home-schooling jumped to 11% from 5% from spring to fall of 2020, according to the Census Bureau. A report from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools found a 1.45% increase in the state’s charter enrollment from 2019-20 to 2020-21—and a nearly 5% decrease for traditional district schools, a loss of some 64,000 students.

The state already has nearly 300 charter schools and allows some students to attend out-of-district public schools. But a Blaine Amendment in the state constitution has barred the state from offering vouchers or education savings accounts for private K-12 schools. Five families are challenging this provision in a lawsuit. The scholarships differ from vouchers because public funds don’t go directly to students, and unions will sue to block them. But giving students more choice is still worth the legislative effort.

My question to Ben Wikler & Paul Farrow on Our Disastrous Reading Results and the 2022 Wisconsin Governor Race

October 21 WisPolitics Event (about 41 minutes into the video clip). A followup questioner, at 47:10, mentioned that the response to my question was money and in fact the school districts that spend the most money (Milwaukee and Madison) have among the worst results.

mp3 audio

Related: AB446.

Ben Wikler and a Teacher Union rally.

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Jason Bedrock and Ed Tarnowski:

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

Notes on school and parental choice climate

With 18 states enacting seven new educational choice programs and expanding 21 existing ones, 2021 has rightly been declared a “breakthrough year” for school choice. In the wake of all this progress, the one question we at EdChoice are most frequently asked is: how many students are newly eligible to receive a voucher, tax-credit scholarship, or K–12 education savings account?

Estimating Student Eligibility in Educational Choice Programs

Estimating the number and percentage of students eligible for a given educational choice program may seem straightforward, but it’s not so simple. For example, when a state makes multiple categories of students eligible (e.g., low-income, foster care, or special needs), even if it were easy to calculate the number of students in each category, it’s impossible to precisely determine the number of students who are in multiple categories. Without accounting for the overlap, adding up the number of students eligible for each category would produce an overcount.

Moreover, just because a child is eligible for a scholarship does not mean she is guaranteed access to a scholarship. That’s why it’s important to look at the maximum participation, or the number of scholarships that are actually funded. For example, the state of East Freedonia might have a universal school voucher program for which every one of its 2 million K–12 students is eligible, but if the program is capped at 50,000 vouchers, then its level of maximum participation is only 2.5 percent.

Another complicating factor is that that the limitations on participation are not always set in terms of number of scholarships. This is particularly the case with tax-credit scholarship programs, which often have a total credit cap (which may or may not be reached) and give scholarship-granting organizations discretion in terms of scholarship size. Under a given total credit cap, a larger average scholarship size will translate into fewer scholarships granted overall.

Given all of the above complications, we must make reasonable assumptions to produce realistic estimates. When calculating income eligibility, we will assume that the distribution of students is even across the distribution of families. (In reality, lower-income families are more likely to have more children than higher-income families, so this assumption will produce a conservative estimate.) For new tax-credit scholarship programs, we will assume that the total credit cap is reached and that the average scholarship size is equal to the maximum amount allowed. For new programs, we will also assume that scholarship-granting organizations will use the maximum allowed administrative expenses, but we will not factor this in for expanded programs. Finally, we will assume that the most recent quantity of scholarships actually issued was the previous maximum level of participation in order to calculate the new level of maximum participation.

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

Noah Diekemper and Will Flanders:

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

A Poll on Milwaukee School Choice

A new poll of likely Democratic Primary voters in Milwaukee County provides an interesting window into the divides over school choice and the Democratic coalition. The poll, commissioned by Milwaukee Works, a 501c4 organization with a focus on good governance in Milwaukee, asked respondents about a variety of issues, but school choice and charter schools – and the demographic breakdown in responses – provides a valuable view into the divides on education reform.

The majority of Democrat primary voters polled are opposed to the concepts of private school choice and charter schools. Just 37% support the concept of vouchers, while 35% support charter schools. 54% of white Milwaukee Democrats polled stated their opposition to public charter schools; and for school voucher programs the opposition was an overwhelming 62%. But 52% of African American respondents support school voucher programs, compared to a mere 30% who oppose (18% were “not sure”). And public charter school support captured a plurality of 44%, compared to 31% who again oppose (25% this time were “not sure”).

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

School Choice Marches Ahead

It’s been a banner year for school choice in the states, and legislatures aren’t finished expanding scholarship and education savings account programs (ESAs). In four state budgets that passed in the last two weeks, lawmakers included provisions that give families more educational opportunities.

In New Hampshire last week, Republican lawmakers approved Education Freedom Accounts, which students can use toward such expenses as private school tuition, tutoring, textbooks and technology. Scholarship funds are available to families earning up to 300% of the federal poverty line at an average of $4,600, the state per-pupil funding amount for public school students. The state Education Department estimates the program could save the state at least $360 million over a decade.

On Wednesday Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf signed a budget that includes an expansion of a high-demand state tax-credit scholarship program. The GOP Legislature pushed the measure, but Mr. Wolf will now share the political credit. The Educational Improvement Tax Credit cap will rise by $40 million to $175 million for K-12 scholarships, enough to fund an estimated 13,000 more students. The expansion “shows that the commonwealth is placing the focus on children, not on any one educational model,” said state Sen. Scott Martin.

Ohio lawmakers packaged several school-choice provisions into their budget that Republican Gov. Mike DeWine signed Wednesday. These include funding for high-performing charter schools and higher scholarship values for the state’s voucher program. The Legislature also created a new K-12 ESA program, which offers students a modest $500.

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

Report: State-level test scores improve the more school choice options are given

Bethany Blankley:

As school choice bills continue to make their way through state legislatures, a report on student achievement published by the University of Arkansas’s Department of Education Reform argues that the more educational options are afforded parents, the better statewide test results are.

“We find that higher levels of school choice are significantly associated with higher National Assessment of Education Outcomes (NAEP) achievement levels and higher NAEP achievement gains in all our statistical models,” the report states.

According to the Wall Street Journal, 50 school choice bills have been introduced in 30 states so far, designed to create or expand vouchers, tax-credit scholarships and education savings accounts, among other measures.

“This is a banner year for the educational choice movement. Hundreds of thousands of children nationwide will now have greater access to educational opportunities,” Jason Bedrick, director of policy at Ed Choice, a national nonprofit organization that promotes state-based educational choice programs, told The Center Square.

Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled

Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).

which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.

While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.

The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.

The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.

“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”

Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.

All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.

Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.

Assembly against private school forced closure.

Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

Will Flanders and Libby Sobic:

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

Commentary in Wisconsin K-12 Governance and School choice

James Wigderson:

The governor’s proposed state budget included an assault on school choice, three assaults actually, as Will Flanders of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) pointed out. The budget included an enrollment cap on all private school voucher programs, eliminating the charter school authorizer Office of Educational Opportunity, and a requirement that all teachers in the school choice program be licensed by the state (even as the state faces a teachers shortage).

We know from prior research that school choice helps close the racial achievement gap. We also know that Wisconsin has the worst racial achievement gap in the country.

“The persistent achievement gap is particularly problematic because this represents the situation prior to the coronavirus pandemic,” Flanders wrote last October in an op-ed. “Differences in access to supplementary materials, tutoring, and even basic internet access tend to fall along racial and economic lines. At a time when most education is being conducted at home, some research has suggested that the pandemic will serve to further exacerbate these gaps.”

The largest school districts in the state, serving the largest numbers of minority students, refused to be open to in-person instruction during the pandemic despite research showing that transmission of Covid-19 from students was minimal. Meanwhile, many suburban and rural school districts, along with school choice and charter schools, remained open to in-person instruction and demonstrated that it could be done safely. While the teachers unions kept the schools closed that served the state’s minority populations, Evers remained silent.

Commentary on K-12 Choice Economics

Will Flanders:

It’s seemingly become a bi-annual tradition this time of year for school choice opponents to decry the “growing cost of vouchers” around budget time in Wisconsin. Among the latest attempts is a piece by Ruth Coniff for the Wisconsin Examiner. While this piece gets some facts right about how the program is funded, the overall narrative on the cost to property taxpayers misses some key facts, seemingly in an effort to paint the programs in a negative light. Here, I highlight some of the important issues with the piece.

Funding Students Who Leave the System. Among most voucher opponents, the notion that we should no longer fund schools for students who leave the system seems entirely lost. If a student moves out of one school district to another, we don’t hear complaints from unions about a loss of revenue resulting from the move of that student. Yet, for some reason, private school choice is regularly discussed in that manner, describing choice students as a “revenue loss” to the school district. This is no more logical than arguing that Pick ‘n Save should continue to collect money from me if I decide I’d rather shop at Meijer this week.

Placing the Blame for Tax Increases in the Wrong Place. Coniff seems to see raising property taxes for lost revenue to the voucher program as a necessity. She claims that districts face a Hobson’s choice between cutting programs or raising taxes. In reality, districts regularly have to make adjustments for changing enrollments, particularly in Wisconsin where most districts see continuing declines. If districts choose to raise taxes when a student leaves for choice, they actually end up with more money for each student remaining in public schools. This is because the same amount of revenue is now divided between fewer students.

Commentary on the 2021 Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Election

For many years, Wisconsin has reserved the position of state superintendent of schools for someone steeped in union politics and promising the status quo. But over the past year, COVID-19 has turned many such situations on their heads and polarized politics in a way never seen before. The superintendent election that took place across Wisconsin last week was not excused from the COVID-effect. For once in a long while, the status quo candidate—Jill Underly—faced a very serious challenge from Debb Kerr who, for focusing on getting students back in the classroom and promising to treat all school sectors equally, became the reform candidate overnight. Unfortunately for Wisconsin students, Underly prevailed. But the race exposed a growing schism on the left around the issue of education reform.

In the primary, Underly garnered support from the teachers unions by expressing her skepticism on school choice, and proposing a freeze on the programs that would effectively eliminate the option for countless kids around the state. Kerr supported working with the voucher and charter sectors, and viewing all sectors as part of a broader team working to improve educational outcomes for Wisconsin students.

In the past it was possible on the national level and in Wisconsin to receive support from the teachers unions while also allowing school choice. For instance, Arne Duncan, President Obama’s secretary of education, a supporter of education reform in its most tepid forms, endorsed Kerr in the last week before the election. However, these Democrats are finding themselves increasingly ostracized from the party’s mainstream when forced to address educational issues. For instance, Duncan’s endorsement of Kerr quickly led to a tweet from Wisconsin Congressman Mark Pocan claiming that Duncan was a “bad” Secretary of Education for supporting options like charter schools. Pocan also called voucher supporters a “cult.”

Much more on Kerr vs. Underly, here.

Advocating K-12 Governance Diversity

In the last year, I’ve gone from lightly supporting vouchers programs to vociferously supporting the complete, utter, and eternal destruction of public schools. https://t.co/30ffPiZoeK

— Hans Fiene (@HansFiene) April 5, 2021

Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled

Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).

which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.

While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.

The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.

The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.

“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”

Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.

All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.

Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.

Assembly against private school forced closure.

Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

13-1 Special interest $pending for Wisconsin DPI Superintendent Candidate Jill Underly

Wisconsin Democracy:

Liberal groups are winning the money race in the so-called “nonpartisan” state school superintendent race, where Pecatonica Area School Superintendent Jill Underly faces Deborah Kerr, a retired Brown Deer schools superintendent.

Three groups that generally back Democratic candidates in partisan elections – A Better Wisconsin Together, Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin – have doled out $766,425 to support Underly or oppose Kerr.

American Federation for Children, a pro-voucher outfit founded by Betsy DeVos that generally backs Republicans, has spent $56,500 to oppose Underly.

That’s a 13 to 1 advantage for the liberal groups backing Underly.

Two weeks out from the April 6 spring elections, eight special interest groups have topped $1 million combined in outside election spending on the state school superintendent race and two special legislative elections.

School choice and why it works

Jane’s Wigderson:

The presentation on the effectiveness of school choice coincides with more good news about more choices for parents who qualify for the state’s Private School Choice Programs. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction announced Thursday that 29 more schools will be participating in the programs next year:

The Wisconsin Parental Choice Program, which allows students residing outside of the city of Milwaukee and Racine Unified School District to participate, has 307 private schools and school systems registered for the 2021-22 school year, an increase of 27 from the previous school year. The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, which requires students to reside in the city of Milwaukee, has 131 private schools registered for the 2021-22 school year, which is the same as the previous school year. The Racine Parental Choice Program, which requires students to reside in the Racine Unified School District, has 27 private schools registered for the 2021-22 school year, an increase of two from the previous school year.

These programs allow students with qualifying family incomes to attend a participating private schools for children in K4 through high school. The private school receives a state aid payment, or voucher, for each eligible student. The application period for the 2021-22 school year begins February 1, 2021.

The States ranked by spending on school choice programs

Drew Catt:

We’re used to people freaking out whenever states consider creating private educational choice programs. The common refrain goes, “But it will drain money from our already underfunded public schools. It will break our budgets!” There are a lot of problems with the ethos and the pathos of that response worth digging into another day, but on its face, the data doesn’t back it up.

How much do states actually spend on private school choice programs, and how much is that in the context of total public education spending? This post breaks it down for you and ranks the states from highest spending share to lowest.

(For added context, see the national chart in this year’s edition of The ABCs of School Choice (also visible below), and for a refresher on how the calculations are made, see the inaugural spending share post from 2017.)

1. Florida (1)
ESA, Voucher (2), Tax-Credit Scholarships (2) | $1,146.0 million | 3.66% of Florida’s combined program and public K–12 current expenditures |3.25% of Florida’s combined program and public K–12 total expenditures

2. Wisconsin (3)
Vouchers (4) | $378.3 million | 3.49% of Wisconsin’s combined program and public K–12 current expenditures | 2.89% of Wisconsin’s combined program and public K–12 total expenditures

Removing barriers to school choice would help more low-income kids learn in person

Cori Petersen:

This past fall, many public schools made the decision to go virtual as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this wasn’t the case for most private schools. In fact, according to the National Association of Independent Schools, only 5% of private schools went virtual as of October. This is driving demand for private schools across the country and in Wisconsin.

“I think parents have seen how different schools have responded to the COVID pandemic. Some systems and schools went into a self-protective mode and put student needs in a subordinate place,” said Charles Moore, principal of High Point Christian School in Dane County. “Others stepped into ‘harm’s way’ and delivered in-person education despite the potential dangers.”

High Point Christian School, with locations in Mount Horeb and Madison, welcomed 57 new families to their school this past fall. Many parents cited their desire for their children to learn in person as the main reason for coming to the school. But as we celebrate National School Choice Week this week, it’s important to consider ways to expand access to the choice programs so that low-income families can send their children to an in-person, private school if they so desire. Reforms that would make choice more accessible are longer enrollment periods, allowing children to enter the parental choice programs at any point in time — no matter what grade they are in — and eliminating enrollment caps.

High Point Christian School is part of the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program (WPCP). This means there are vouchers available for students whose families make below 220% of the federal poverty limit to attend High Point, and other participating schools, at no cost.

Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled

Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).

which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.

While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.

The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.

The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.

“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”

Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.

All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.

Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.

Assembly against private school forced closure.

Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results

Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]

Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.

New report shows more than half of schools used restraint or seclusion at least once last year

Elizabeth Beyer:

The Madison School District, where the issue has drawn public scrutiny in recent years, reported using restraint or seclusion 1,259 times on students during the 2019-20 school year, including 233 incidents involving students with disabilities. On a per-pupil basis, that ranked 40th among the state’s school districts.

The report is the first of its kind provided on a statewide scale in Wisconsin after 2019 revisions to a decade-old law. Public schools, private schools participating in a voucher program for students with disabilities and private schools where students are placed by public districts are now required to report the information.

State law defines restraint as a restriction that immobilizes or reduces the ability of students to freely move their torso, arms, legs or head, and seclusion as the involuntary confinement of students, apart from other students, in a room or area from which the student is physically prevented from leaving.

Madeline Fox:

More than half of Wisconsin schools restrained or isolated students to control their behavior during the last school year, according to data released by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) this week.

The data, which was collected because of changes to the state law on restraint and seclusion, also shows that elementary school students and students with disabilities were more likely to be restrained or secluded. The 30 schools that reported the most seclusion incidents were all elementary schools.

Joanne Juhnke, advocacy specialist in special education with Disability Rights Wisconsin, said the practices are more common for lower grades because of the students’ size and the “relative ease of physically overwhelming” smaller children. However, it comes with a particular cost to elementary school-aged kids.

“These are happening with young children, children with whom this is an impressionable time, and can cause emotional harm, to be physically overpowered or shut in a blank little room that they’re prevented from getting out of,” she said.

State law defines restraint as a restriction that immobilizes or reduces the ability of students to freely move their torso, arms, legs or head; and seclusion as the involuntary confinement of students apart from other students in a room or area that they are physically prevented from leaving. It’s meant to be used as a last resort, and to manage a crisis rather than as a disciplinary measure, said Barb Van Haren, assistant state superintendent for the Division for Learning Supports at DPI.

A New Bill in the Wisconsin Legislature Would Expand School Choice

Will Flanders:

The pandemic has emphasized the importance of having many educational options available to families. Private schools, which have been more willing to keep their doors open than public schools throughout the pandemic, are one such critical option. Open enrollment into neighboring districts that may offer an alternative model of education are another one. Yet for far too many families, these options, that best fit the needs of their children, remain out of reach. Instead, families are forced to continue to fund their local public schools with tax dollars, even as they refuse to open at the behest of unions. A new bill from Senator Dale Kooyenga seeks to change that, at least for the 2021–22 school year.

WILL has long been a proponent of increasing the income limit for the WPCP. Currently, only families who make less than 220% of the federal poverty limit are eligible to participate in the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program (WPCP). The WPCP offers families a voucher to send their children to participating private schools throughout the state at no additional cost. While the program is laudable in it’s goal to serve low-income families, the bottom line is that the cost of private education is out of the realm of possibility for many in the middle class as well. While Wisconsin has relatively low-cost private schools compared to the rest of the country, the average annual cost for an elementary school is $3,445 and the average cost of high school is $8,110 according to the most recent data available. These are expenses that often only the wealthiest can afford.

School Choice: Better Than Prozac

Teachers unions have pushed to shut down schools during the pandemic no matter the clear harm to children, just as they oppose charters and vouchers. Now comes a timely study suggesting school choice improves student mental health.

Several studies have found that school choice reduces arrests and that private-school students experience less bullying. One reason is that charter and private schools enforce stricter discipline than traditional public schools. Choice programs also allow parents to pull their kids out of public schools if they are struggling and send them to schools that are safer or a better cultural fit.

The new study in the journal “School Effectiveness and School Improvement” is the first to examine the link between school choice and mental health. The Cato Institute’s Corey DeAngelis and Western Carolina University economist Angela Dills analyze the correlation between adolescent suicide rates and the enactment of private-school voucher and charter programs over the last several decades.

Related: Catholic schools will sue Dane County Madison Public Health to open as scheduled

Notes and links on Dane County Madison Public Health. (> 140 employees).

which pushed Dane County this week not to calculate its percentage of positive tests — a data point the public uses to determine how intense infection is in an area.

While positive test results are being processed and their number reported quickly, negative test results are taking days in some cases to be analyzed before they are reported to the state.

The department said it was between eight and 10 days behind in updating that metric on the dashboard, and as a result it appeared to show a higher positive percentage of tests and a lower number of total tests per day.

The department said this delay is due to the fact data analysts must input each of the hundreds of tests per day manually, and in order to continue accurate and timely contact tracing efforts, they prioritized inputting positive tests.

“Positive tests are always immediately verified and processed, and delays in processing negative tests in our data system does not affect notification of test results,” the department said in a news release. “The only effect this backlog has had is on our percent positivity rate and daily test counts.”

Staff have not verified the approximately 17,000 tests, which includes steps such as matching test results to patients to avoid duplicating numbers and verifying the person who was tested resides in Dane County.

All 77 false-positive COVID-19 tests come back negative upon reruns.

Madison private school raises $70,000 for lawsuit against public health order. – WKOW-TV. Commentary.

Assembly against private school forced closure.

Wisconsin Catholic schools will challenge local COVID-19 closing order. More.

2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results

Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.

My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results