Biggest winner in Joint Finance K-12 moves- vouchers.

This week, the GOP-controlled Joint Finance Committee voted to go along with Scott Walker's plans to add back some of the money that has been cut from public K-12 education over the past 6 years. As Wispolitics describes, most of the $639 million increase for K-12 comes in the form of increased per-pupil aids in each of the next two years.

The overall package would come in less than Gov. Scott Walker’s $649 million plan. But the 18-page motion also would keep the heart of Walker’s K-12 proposal by pumping more than $500 million into categorical aids that are split evenly among school districts....
Under the proposal:

*Districts would see their per-pupil categorical aids go up $200 per student in 2017-18 and another $204 in 2018-19 to $654 per student in the final year of the budget. That payment would be $630 in 2019-20 and every year after that.

The flip side of this is that General school aids, which are geared to give more aid to poorer districts, would stay at the same level for this year, and only have a 1.6% increase for 2018-19. And that was before the GOP-controlled JFC got going on Monday. By the time they were done, those General Aids were actually getting cut for this year. And why? Because the money was being sent to private voucher schools.



This happened through several budget changes. First of all, $17.45 million in General Aid was already going to be taken away from public schools and $15.7 million of that money funneled to voucher schools to reflect higher-than-projected enrollment at the voucher schools under the current programs. Then, the Republican Finance Committee members came up with new new ways that the voucher program is expanded, with all money paid for by funneling dollars away from public schools.

1. Students from richer families now can attend voucher schools, as a result of this change.

Specify that a pupil could participate in the statewide choice program with a family income of less than 220% of the federal poverty level, rather than 185% as under current law, beginning in the 2018-19 school year. As a result of this provision, it is estimated that an additional 550 incoming pupils could participate in the program in 2018-19 relative to the estimates in the bill. In 2017-18, DPI indicates that the current 185% limit is $44,955 for a family of four, and is $51,955 if the pupil's parents are married

This will cost public schools a cool $4.4 million, and Robbin’ Vos and other ALEC clones in the Assembly wanted this income limit to go even higher, so you know that’s the next step if the voters of this state are stupid enough to give them the chance after 2018.

2. Another change in enrollment rules that open the door to more students to use vouchers if they’ve applied in the past.

Create an additional prior year attendance criterion that would allow a pupil who applied to attend a private school under the statewide private school choice program in any year but was placed on a waiting list as a result of school district enrollment limits, to enter the program regardless of grade level at the time of entry….

The LFB estimates that another 100 students will use this provision, and it’ll cost public schools $794,500 as a result.

3. There’s also an item that allows for a voucher student to continue to receive a voucher if he or she doesn’t even attend a school that wants to be part of the voucher program. And it’ll only cost public schools $6.36 million.

For the Racine and statewide private school choice programs, specify that if a private school that does not participate in a private school choice program enters into an agreement to be subject to the same governing body as a private school that participated in the Racine or statewide private school choice program in the previous school year, the prior year attendance criteria would not apply in the first two school years in which the schools are subject to the same governing body.

And that’s not even all of it. There are also other grandfather clauses and even more money given to DPI to hire more people to oversee the added amount of schools and students in the voucher program. This results in $29.8 dollars sent away from public schools ON TOP OF what Gov Walker’s 2017-19 budget was already funneling out of them.

If you’re wondering why the WisGOP Legislature keeps doubling and tripling down on voucherization despite little or no improvement on K-12 education, and destabilizing public education, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign has a simple explanation. Follow the DeVos and Bradley money.

Between January 2010 and December 2016, mostly out-of-state school voucher interests doled out about $8.5 million for direct campaign contributions and outside election spending in legislative and statewide races – nearly all of it to support Republican candidates.

Special interest outside election spending by the pro-voucher American Federation for Children, which was founded by President Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos, totaled about $6.4 million between January 2010 and December 2016. A leader of the American Federation for Children in Wisconsin is none other than the disgraced former Speaker of the Assembly, Republican Scott Jensen.

The federation issued a statement commending the committee’s action.

Campaign contributions by mostly out-of-state millionaires and billionaires who support vouchers totaled about $2.1 million.

Yeah, it's nice that most Wisconsin public schools will be getting a needed bump in per-pupil funding from the state. But don't let the headlines of "$639 million increase" fool you, as a notable amount of that increase is heading to voucher schools, and the drop in General Aids for next year means that it is likely that poorer schools will have an even tougher time trying to compete with the richer communities. In addition, if the state is foolish enough to keep the paid-off voucher proponents in the GOP in charge after 2018, you can bet that much of that "added investment" to public schools will be taken away.