1) The current financing system for vouchers causes property taxes to increase due to the diversion of general aid to pay for vouchers. For this year RUSD property taxes increased 3.44%…without vouchers it would have increased .05%. That was with an enrollment cap of 500 for vouchers. Next year it will be unlimited.

2) According to data from DPI, only half of the students participating in the voucher program were students enrolled in RUSD. A significant percentage of students receiving vouchers were existing private school students. As a result, the greatest beneficiary of the voucher program in Racine has been private school parents who received a financial windfall. We actually had parents enroll their child in Horlick High School mid-year so they could get a voucher to Racine Lutheran for next year. All of the 9th graders who received vouchers in the first year of the program went to Shoreland Lutheran and none were previously RUSD students.

3) Test scores indicated voucher students in Racine performed worse than RUSD students. Choice advocates suggest that the students they are receiving have not been the best students creamed from RUSD and it indicates how low performing the students are that they are getting. The problem is that half of the students were never RUSD students! Since half of the students were either private or charter students and RUSD test scores were better, wouldn’t that indicate it was the former private school students who are dragging down test scores?