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Governor Vetoes School Choice Bills
See below for the newspaper's editorial dismay at the governor's action.
Gov. Jim Doyle vetoed the following six bills dealing with school choice:
AB 259: Eligibility for participation in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program
AB 260: Extending the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program to all private schools
AB 261: Charter schools located in a 1st class city school district
AB 126: Directing Legislative Audit Bureau to administer a study of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program
AB 472: Milwaukee Parental Choice Program income limit
AB 503: Enrollment of the charter school established by the University of Wisconsin-Parkside
The Veto: News release from the governor's office
Republicans and choice supporters called the vetoes "devastating" for individual schools and the voucher program as a whole. But several Democrats have said the action helps protect public schools, claiming that the expansion would siphon money away from the Milwaukee Public Schools system.
The major bill - which passed both the Assembly and Senate this fall - would have eliminated the cap in the number of participants in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program. That program provides thousands of low-income Milwaukee families with tuition vouchers to attend the private schools of their choice each year. The cap is set at 15% of the MPS population, or about 15,000 students. In September, about 13,400 students were enrolled in the program.
"We should work together to improve schools for all children, not just the few in private schools," Doyle said in a statement. "Any changes to the voucher program must be part of an overall package that improves education for everyone and addresses serious concerns that have been raised about accountability within the voucher program."
But Kole Kneuppel, principal of St. Marcus School, where a majority of the students attend on vouchers, said his school may lose up to 100 students if the cap is reached.
"I'm just disappointed that (Doyle's) allegiance to the teachers union has taken precedence over the kids and families in the choice program," he said.
The Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state's largest teachers union, has opposed vouchers throughout their 13-year history.
Most of the bills passed on close to a party line vote. But Doyle also vetoed those that had garnered more crossover votes, including one sponsored by Rep. Annette Polly Williams (D-Milwaukee), and another calling for a 12-year study of the choice program.
"Unfortunately, this bill lets schools opt out of the study if they don't think they'll do well, which makes the study next to meaningless," Doyle said of the bill calling for the study. "We don't make exams optional for students who haven't done their homework."
Supporters of the study said most schools had indicated a willingness to participate, and many already administer the standardized tests the study would have required.
Allowing for expansion
Other provisions in the bills would have opened up the voucher program to schools in the county, not just the city, and allowed families whose income grew to exceed the cutoff to continue using vouchers. It's unlikely that the Republicans could muster enough crossover votes to override most of the bills, particularly the one eliminating the cap.
Proponents of expansion have argued that the program will founder, and eventually collapse, if the cap is not lifted.
They cite a Department of Public Instruction memo saying the seats may have to be rationed evenly among the schools once the cap is hit.
"A failing school like Alex's Academics of Excellence would get the same number of seats as a strong school like Messmer," Kneuppel said. "That would literally take the choice that parents have now and remove it."
Alex's has been plagued with problems. The school was evicted from two locations, and teachers complain that they were not paid on time.
But Tony Evers, the deputy superintendent of schools, said the DPI has no idea how it would ration seats.
"We will gear up to do that," he said. "Clearly, the people who work in the choice schools will have to help us create a rationing plan, and hopefully by spring we will have something in place."
It is too early to tell what effect reaching the cap would have on families in the program, Evers said. There's room under current law to create a set of administrative rules governing how rationing would be done, he said.
Republican leaders accused Doyle of refusing to meet with them to negotiate a compromise he could accept.
"This is a sad day" for Milwaukee's children, said Senate Majority Leader Mary Panzer (R-West Bend). Most of the bills had support from Milwaukee parents and business and religious leaders, she said.
Recalling the stance taken by segregationists in the South in the 1960s, Panzer accused Doyle of "standing directly in the school door blocking parents' hope for a better life for their children."
But Doyle said in a letter to the Legislature: "The focus of state resources should be on strengthening public schools throughout the state. While private choice has provided an alternative to address the unique circumstances and problems facing education in Milwaukee, it should remain the exception rather than the rule."
Williams had asked Doyle not to veto a bill she sponsored, which would have allowed choice families to stay in the program if their incomes increased, up to a point.
Williams did not support many of the other Republican-sponsored bills, she said, but hers "was just helping our families; it's a mission for me."
In his statement about this bill, Doyle said flexibility for families in the choice program "has merit." But he did not want to put more state money into vouchers until broader questions of education reform are considered, Doyle said.
Here's the newspaper's reaction.
Editorial: Jim Doyle's terrible choice
On Wednesday, Gov. Jim Doyle hurt Milwaukee and Milwaukee schoolchildren when he did, sadly, what most folks expected him to do: He vetoed for a second time legislation that would have made some needed changes in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program - the landmark voucher program that has drawn national attention. The state Legislature has the opportunity to override Doyle's veto, but it has virtually no chance to do so unless a united Milwaukee delegation in the Assembly and state Senate does the right thing and votes for the kids and their parents.
Specifically, Doyle vetoed a half-dozen bills that the Republican-controlled Legislature had passed after the governor excised them from the two-year budget package. They included a bill that would have removed the cap on the number of participants in the school choice program; it is now 15,000 students, but the program's continuing popularity has pushed steadily against that cap - there are now 13,400 voucher students - and raised the possibility of rationing seats in some larger schools.
Doyle also vetoed a bill that would have made a sensible adjustment in an income cap for parents of choice students. The program targets low-income families, and currently, those families cannot have incomes higher than 1.75 times the poverty level, or $26,996 for a family of three. To avoid a child being tossed out of a choice school because the family's income exceeded that threshold, the cap would have been increased for current enrollees.
And the governor torpedoed Assembly Bill 126, which would have launched a 12-year study to follow the educational progress of choice students and measure it against the progress of public school students. Doyle's complaint was that choice schools could opt out of the so-called longitudinal study, which would be administered by the respected and non-partisan Legislative Audit Bureau.
We would have preferred that participation be mandatory, too, but the vast majority of voucher schools, we are convinced, would have cooperated voluntarily, finally giving researchers some real data to assess the impact of the program.
The Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state's main teachers union and an avid Doyle supporter, has opposed the study and other efforts to expand and adjust the choice program. Poor parents, on the other hand, overwhelmingly back the program because they recognize what WEAC apparently does not: that choice gives these parents education options available to the well off.
Choice also has been good for the Milwaukee Public Schools because it has made MPS more competitive and more innovative. The recently launched MPS program of small high schools within high schools makes the point.
— Sarah Carr and Steven Walters
Doyle vetoes school choice bills
Journal Sentinel
2003-11-27
http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/nov03/188235.asp
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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