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Legislative Alert: School Choice Trailer Bill
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | September 30, 2011
The SAA has issued a priority legislative alert in support of Senate Bill 174 (School Choice Trailer Bill). Please contact your Assembly Representative and State Senator as soon as possible. Urge him/her to support SB 174.
Senate Bill 174 would prohibit any school district which has not already qualified for the program from qualifying after the effective date of the bill. So far, only Racine has qualified and opened its Choice Program earlier this month.
The bill is scheduled to receive a public hearing before the Senate Committee on Education on Wednesday, October 5th.
Background
The 2011-13 state budget, which was signed into law as 2011 Wisconsin Act 32, contains language that could easily pave the way for the expansion of private school voucher program to other communities beyond Milwaukee and Racine.
- That budget language, unless limited by the new legislation, could readily expand the state’s private school voucher program to school districts located in 16 second class cities in Wisconsin meeting certain criteria.
- Second class cities include: Appleton, Brookfield, Eau Claire, Fond du Lac, Green Bay, Janesville, Kenosha, La Crosse, Madison, Oshkosh, Racine, Sheboygan, Superior, Waukesha, Wauwatosa and West Allis.
- Pupils who reside in these districts would be eligible to participate in a private school voucher program if the district meets certain criteria regarding equalized value, shared cost and the percentage of their district’s enrollment that is eligible for the free or reduced-price lunch program.
- Undeterred expansion of taxpayer-financed private and religious voucher schools will drain resources from all of the state’s public schools, as the appropriation for voucher schools is sum sufficient. This means the state pays whatever costs the voucher programs incur, leaving diminished resources for public schools.
- No school district should be subjected to a voucher program simply because it falls within a set of criteria. Lawmakers should be required to vote on any specific expansion proposal. This bill would close the expansion “loophole” and ensure that no additional districts are added to the voucher program without a specific vote.
Please email or call your legislators as soon as possible using the information discussed above. I have provided links to contact information for the Assembly (Assembly Directory) and the Senate (Senate Directory). You can identify your legislators by referring to Who Are My Legislators.
Thanks for listening. And, thanks for all you do on behalf of Wisconsin school children.
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