Politics & Government

School Choice Rally Features Gov. Walker, Waukesha Mayor

Gov. Scott Walker's school choice proposal could be extended to the Waukesha School District.

Gov. Scott Walker pushed for his proposed school choice legislation, which would allow some parents in the Waukesha School District to send their children to private school on a voucher system, at a rally with Republican leaders and private schools in Waukesha on Thursday.

“For us, in this budget, we are putting in language to expand opportunities choices for families,” Walker said. “Be it choice schools, charter schools, public schools and other environments so that every kid in this state – no matter where they come from, no matter what their background, no matter what mom or dad might do for a living – every kid can have a choice and have a great education.”

The rally, which was held at La Casa De Esperanza, featured politicians who support the voucher school program. Mayor Jeff Scrima spoke about education and the need to build skilled manufacturing workers while using basketball metaphor’s comparing the governor to a point guard.

Find out what's happening in Waukeshawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“We are thankful for Governor Walker for passing the ball for expanding our charter schools and also parental choice throughout the State of Wisconsin, specifically to Waukesha County, the City of Waukesha, to La Casa De Esperanza and to the other outstanding organizations in our community,” Scrima said. “A word about the skills gap: there is a lot of talk out there about a skills gap out there, specifically in manufacturing. I would just like to say that the Hispanic community is the answer to our skills gap.

"They are, they have been and they will be in the future. I want to give a special thanks to the Hispanic community for their commitment to hard work, ethics and family values. We are grateful to have you.”

Find out what's happening in Waukeshawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The choice program will be open to school districts with at least two underperforming schools who meet these criteria:

  • receive school report card grades of "fails to meet expectations" or "meets few expectations"
  • has at least 4,000 students
  • has at least 20 students intending to participate in the program

This expansion will be capped at 500 students statewide for 2014 and 1,000 for 2015.  Eligibility requirements for students would be similar to current choice program eligibility requirements.

 Not everyone’s in favor of the voucher school proposals. Democrats oppose the plan — as do many Republican senators — to allow low-income students in nine additional school districts to receive vouchers to attend private schools, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The school voucher program already exists in Milwaukee and Racine.

Waukesha Superintendent Todd Gray told Patch in March the voucher school proposals could devastate the Waukesha School District’s finances.“The proposal needs a lot of work,” Gray said. “Financially, for us, it could be very devastating, depending on how it works out. I think the vouchers should be limited to schools that are failing — we don’t have any failing schools — failing multiple years. I think if you have one bad year, you shouldn’t be subject to this.”

Students taking advantage of the program could shift revenues as much as $17,000 per student per year, Gray said, because the school district would not be allowed to count the student in enrollment counts for revenues but would still have to fund the vouchers.

While Gray thinks the voucher expansion will go through in some form, he hopes it doesn’t create too much damage to the Waukesha School District.

“Hopefully, if it is done, it is done so it doesn’t really take apart public schools,” Gray said. “We have a lot of good things going here. We worked very hard to build up some great programs, and I would just hate to see us lose a lot of those programs and have those programs minimized because of a big loss of revenues that we have.”


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

More from Waukesha