Education Committees to Take Up Bills Banning the Teaching of Race or Sex Stereotypes
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | August 5, 2021
From WisPolitics.com …
The Legislature’s education committees have scheduled a joint hearing next week to take testimony on bills Republican sponsors say would ban critical race theory in K-12 schools by prohibiting the teaching of race or sex stereotypes.
Critical race theory is often defined as a concept that institutions in the United States are inherently racist as they function and therefore maintain racial inequalities.
Along with banning teaching race or sex stereotyping, the legislation would prohibit instruction or training that one race or sex is inherently superior to another or that an individual bears responsibility for acts committed in the past by others of the same race or sex.
The committees also plan to take testimony Wednesday on legislation that would require school boards to post online information on learning materials used in pupil instruction.
See the hearing notices:
Assembly Committee on Education
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DPI 2021-23 Biennial Budget Summary
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | August 3, 2021
The Department of Public Instruction (DPI) has released its Summary of 2021 Wisconsin Act 58 (the 2021-23 Biennial Budget). This document summarizes action on the state budget for K-12 school funding, public libraries and lifelong learning, and the Department’s operations. Check it out here.
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Guv Calls Special Session to Spend $550 Million on Education
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | July 26, 2021
From WisPolitics.com …
Assembly Republicans will try to override Gov. Tony Evers’ veto of legislation seeking to cut off enhanced federal unemployment benefits when the chamber convenes tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Evers wants lawmakers to approve $550 million for K-12 and higher ed while they’re in the Capitol, calling a special session tomorrow to coincide with the veto override attempt.
Assembly Org this afternoon circulated a ballot adding AB 336 to the extraordinary session used last month to take up the budget and several other bills.
The enhanced benefits of $300 a week are set to expire in early September. The Legislature isn’t scheduled to be in regular session again until Sept. 28.
As word spread on Friday that the Assembly planned to come in, speculation immediately turned to the enhanced unemployment benefits bill. Minority Leader Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh, tweeted on Friday that Assembly Dems would uphold the veto.
Evers today signed an executive order calling on lawmakers to meet and take up a bill to increase education funding.
While the guv can call the special session, he can’t force lawmakers to act.
In a video announcing the special session, Evers said he was glad lawmakers aren’t “taking this summer off,” a dig over the Legislature not returning in 2020 after passing a bipartisan COVID-19 bill in April. He then accused Republicans of trying to play politics by seeking to override his vetoes.
“If Republicans have time to come into session just to try and override my vetoes, then they sure as heck have time to come into session and to do what’s best for our kids,” Evers said. “So If they’re going to come to Madison, then they have work to do.”
The offices of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, didn’t immediately return requests for comment.
Evers’ call was accompanied by these proposals:
*$240 million for increasing per-pupil aid by $146 per student;
*$200 million for special education aids;
*$90 million for the UW System;
*$20 million for the Wisconsin Technical College System.
The overall price tag of $550 million matches the transfer to the rainy day fund that GOP lawmakers had proposed in the budget. Evers vetoed that.
GOP lawmakers originally put $128 million in state taxpayer dollars into K-12 education with $89.3 million in GPR for special education, including money for special education, and $22.3 million for the UW System, the Wisconsin Technical College System and the Higher Educational Aids Board.
After the Legislative Fiscal Bureau upped revenue projections by $4.4 billion, the Joint Finance Committee approved another $408 million into general school aids and $72 million into funding technical colleges. That money was added to drive down property taxes.
Watch the guv’s video here.
See Evers’ release here.
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LFB Analysis of Governor’s High Cost Transportation Partial Veto
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | July 14, 2021
The Legislative Fiscal Bureau has produced a memo detailing the impact of the High Cost Transportation Aid Program Modification Under Enrolled AB 68 and Under 2021 Act 58.
Governor Evers used an item veto to delete the eligibility criterion limiting eligibility to districts with a membership of less than 3,500 pupils and restore the prior law eligibility criterion under which a district would not qualify for aid if its pupil population density was greater than 50 pupils per square mile. Based on the 2020-21 distribution of aid, this change would have resulted in two districts with a membership of greater than 3,500 pupils gaining eligibility (Kettle Moraine and Hortonville) and four districts losing eligibility as a result of the restoration of the population density criterion (Maple Dale-Indian Hill, Glendale-River Hills, Fox Point J2, and Nicolet UHS).
The memo shows the distribution of aid in 2020-21 under current law, as well as estimates of the aid distribution under the bill as passed by the Legislature and under 2021 Act 58.
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Evers Suggests $100 Million Will Be Distributed On Per Pupil Basis
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | July 14, 2021
Comments from the Evers administration, detailed in a Wisconsin State Journal article from this morning, suggest that the $100 million in additional federal funds for K-12 education that the Governor announced last week during the state budget signing will be distributed on a per pupil basis. Check it out here. We will forward additional information on this issue as we receive it.
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