Gov Tony Evers seeks to freeze enrollment in private voucher schools, suspend charter school expansion

Milwaukee Bucks Eric Bledsoe visits Eric Bledsoe visits Messmer Catholic Schools

MADISON - Gov. Tony Evers in his first state budget is seeking to undo expansions of private voucher schools and independent charter schools passed by Republicans over the last decade.

Aides say the proposals are an attempt to reduce property taxes and stabilize what the Democratic governor sees as two parallel systems of education in Wisconsin.

But Republicans who control the Legislature are likely to block many, if not all, of the measures Evers wants.

Evers, the former chief of the state's education agency, is seeking to freeze the number of students who may enroll in private voucher schools across the state, including in Milwaukee where the nation's first voucher program began nearly 30 years ago.

continue at JS

Umm... okay.  I can understand going after the whole state program, but attacking the Milwaukee program??

The oldest school voucher program was created in Milwaukee in 1990 with a singular focus on African-American students living in poverty. This school year, the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program issued nearly 28,000 vouchers for low-income kids to attend dozens of private and religious schools at public expense.

NPR:  Lessons On Race And Vouchers From Milwaukee

Tony, Let's Have That Honest Discussion About Vouchers - RightWisconsin

Evers’ State of the State Speech Omits Pledge of Killing School Choice

JS: Tensions rise as vouchers pick up traction across Wisconsin

I have to fix the quotation css styles here so bear with me: 

For the first time, the Chilton School District could face either an enrollment drop because children will use a voucher to attend the local Catholic school they couldn't otherwise afford, or more likely, the district will have to raise taxes to fund vouchers for children who already attend the private school.

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Liz Rollmann has been principal of Chilton Area Catholic School for more than a decade, during which student enrollment dropped from 140 to just 83 students.

"There is great support for Catholic education here," said Rollmann. "The problem is, a lot of families can't afford it."

When the priest of Good Shepherd Catholic Church announced in January that the school would join the voucher program this fall, parishioners applauded.

full article at JS

Cough...

I'm not sure the article is completely fair, the family gets a tax rebate, there isn't direct funding from the state.

Study: Vouchers kept Milwaukee Catholic parishes open, but at a cost to religious activity

The expansion of private-school vouchers in Milwaukee prevented Catholic parishes from closing and merging, but also led to a significant decline in participating churches' donations and religious activity, a new study says.

The study suggests the Milwaukee voucher program since 1999 led to a decline in non-school Catholic church revenue by $60 million, at least amid the more than 70 Milwaukee Archdiocese parishes studied by the authors. The findings raise new questions about the impact that expanding private-school voucher programs could have on religious life in America, at a time when voucher programs are expanding and the number of people claiming religious affiliation is declining.

"It's a complicated story, because vouchers are good in terms of keeping parishes open, but they seem to be changing what happens within the parishes," said Daniel Hungerman, an associate professor of economics at the University of Notre Dame who led the study released Monday. The National Bureau of Economic Research is circulating it as a working paper.

continue at JS

Go read the rest.  Important food for thought.

Is this really a voucher problem though, and not just the general attrition of Catholicism in the US?

Siphoning Money? Milwaukee's Parental School Choice Program will save public schools $500,000,000

Establishment folks in public education have done their best to make charter schools and other parental choice programs look like the Devil. Their story about how such programs drain money from public schools now seems as much a part of American folklore as Pecos Bill or Paul Bunyan. How many times did you see the words “siphoning money” in print in the weeks prior to Betsy DeVos’s confirmation?

But there’s a difference between propaganda and reasoned discourse. The truth is that traditional public schools do not need and should not claim public funds that would have come to kids who no longer sit in their classrooms. When they take advantage of new policy opportunities, including the funds they provide, private and charter schools are cheating no one. They are innovators who are fulfilling our nation’s promise to educate its children.
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A recent study from my home state of Wisconsin suggests that, far from swindling taxpayers, Milwaukee's Parental Choice Program (“MPCP”) will save them half a billion dollars in the long term.

As someone who lives in Milwaukee, I know what happened with St. Marcus School Lutheran School. St. Marcus is urban, and close to 100 percent of its kids are poor. But 90 percent of students at St. Marcus graduate.

continue at EdExcellence

Really, go finish the story.  Well worth the read.

HT Catholic Vote

Wisconsin school choice advocates cheer DeVos confirmation, liberals jeer

WAUKESHA, Wis. – When Vice President Mike Pence cast the tie-breaking vote Tuesday to approve the appointment of Betsy DeVos as the nation’s education secretary, school choice supporters in Wisconsin cheered the news while opponents said they would keep watch on DeVos.

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson in a statement said he was pleased to support President Donald Trump’s controversial nominee in Tuesday’s historic vote.

“No child, regardless of background or ZIP code, should be denied the opportunity to receive a first-rate education,” the Oshkosh Republican said. “I appreciate Ms. DeVos’ commitment to providing families with options for their children’s education…”

At the time of her nomination, DeVos was chairman of the American Federation for Children, a national school choice advocacy group, and a philanthropist who had been active in the school choice and charter school movements. Already targeted by teachers unions afraid of her support for education reform, a rocky confirmation hearing gave Democrats hope of blocking her confirmation. But only two Republicans, Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Susan Collins of Maine, voted against DeVos. With the vote evenly split 50-50, Pence cast the deciding vote in her favor.

continue at Wisconsin Watchdog

Which begs the question, who is running against Tammy Baldwin in 2018?  I'm rooting for Sean Duffy.

JS New MKE Seton Catholic School system bolsters voucher schools

Turner is in his second year at St. Catherine, one of nine schools in the inaugural class of Seton Catholic Schools, a nonprofit the Archdiocese of Milwaukee launched to boost enrollment and improve educational outcomes at its elementary schools that take part in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, which offers taxpayer-funded vouchers for low- and middle-income students to attend private schools.

Adopting more innovative teaching practices is just one of many priorities Turner has set for St. Catherine — up there with raising test scores, expanding extracurricular activities, and creating a culture where students and families feel welcome.

"I have a lot of 'number one priorities,' " said Turner, who spent 15 years as a Milwaukee Public Schools teacher before joining St. Catherine in July 2015. "We're a work in progress. But we're making progress."

article as JS 

Worth the read.  Also:

Catholic school enrollments peaked in the 1960s, when more than 15 million students were educated in 13,000 schools across the country, staffed primarily by religious sisters who offered a plentiful source of low-cost labor, according to the National Catholic Education Association. The movement of sisters into other ministries dramatically altered the economic picture for Catholic schools. And enrollments declined over the decades driven by a host of reasons, including rising tuition costs and a lessening of the moral obligation for Catholics to send their children to religious schools.

By 2015-16, there were just 6,525 Catholic schools, serving about 1.9 million students nationally. Enrollment in the Milwaukee Archdiocese is 30,772 this year, down from 33,559 in 2007-08, according to Kathleen Cepelka, who serves as superintendent for its 92 elementary and 15 high schools across the 10-county area.

Op-ed: Catholics need to lead on school choice

This week is National Catholic Schools Week. A week that the National Catholic Educational Association calls the “annual celebration of Catholic education in the United States.” This week is also National School Choice Week. It exists “to raise public awareness of all types of education options for children.”

It’s no accident that these two weeks coincide.

In the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, nearly 38% of the children in archdiocesan Catholic schools are able to attend because of school choice. So in Wisconsin, as in much of the country, there is a direct correlation between education reform initiatives and the operational capacity of Catholic schools. As a fundraising consultant I know tells his clients, “No margin, no mission.”

Because of this, Catholics have a responsibility to zealously support and advocate for school choice initiatives that help Catholic schools do what they have done well for generations: provide a high-quality, faith-based education.

The Second Vatican Council explained that, “The public power, which has the obligation to protect and defend the rights of citizens, must see to it, in its concern for distributive justice, that public subsidies are paid out in such a way that parents are truly free to choose according to their conscience the schools they want for their children.”

continue at JS

It's very good, read the rest. Some interesting statistics.

Jason S. Crye on Twitter