Gov. Walker’s proposed 2011-2013 biennial budget calls for an expansion of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program by repealing the enrollment cap, allowing private schools anywhere within Milwaukee County to participate, and expanding eligibility to all City of Milwaukee families by eliminating income limits.
During tough budget deliberations, it would be good to know whether the expanded choice program is likely to save or cost state taxpayers over the long run. Either is possible – taxpayers save if the students who join the expanded program otherwise would have been students at more costly public or charter schools and taxpayers lose if the new voucher users would have otherwise been free to the state as tuition-paying private school students.
There is a debate over the likelihood that the program will be able expand considerably, as capacity for new students in the county’s existing private schools appears constrained at this time. However, the debate so far has overlooked the fact that the proposed budget would allow new voucher users to be existing private school students starting in the 2012-13 school year. There is a real concern that the expanded program may, in fact, increase costs for the state over the long run by increasing the total number of Wisconsin K-12 students who receive state support for their education.
11 thoughts on “Will an expanded Wisconsin voucher program cost more or less?”
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I feel the lack of any meaningful (or even basic) benefit/cost, pro/con analysis is appalling, and irresponsible from both fiscal and policy perspectives.
It’s not about the children – or even fiscal restraint it appears – duh…
No excuses – the Gov and cronies need to get busy doing their homework!!!
Cost more or less? Doesn’t matter. The purpose is to use new and private schools as sources of investor income so they can float their yachts.
Think of McDonald and Burger King school systems. Or online schools, where the CEO make $12M per year. Sound familiar? Let a teacher make $60k a year and benefits and the “reformers” have conniption fit. But CEO’s of private but publicly financed schools making $12M is good ol’ fashioned capitalism.
At the root of all this is the belief held by some that there is something inherently special or extra-noble about the teaching profession. This belief has been carefully cultivated in society for generations and has been used to justify any expense. The truth is, there is nothing more special about teaching than farming, collecting garbage or digging ditches. Teaching is merely a process by which one generation takes a body of information and knowledge and shows it to the next. It is a natural process. All animals do it. Because it is a natural process, to suppose it is immune from natural law is folly.
i know Larry. i’ll laugh a nano-second or less at the snarky silliness of RCS and keep working on issues.
Also, Larry, after reading the newbie Governor’s budget, it’s clear he does not understand economics or business beyond ho-hum pay my friends and punish my enemies. No vision with a mission and path with measureables. Accountability – forget about it; not there.
Silly me to expect that from a Republican:)
Walker knows nothing, but he is the same company as Arne Duncan, Barack Obama, George Bush (choose either), Diane Ravitch, Michelle Rhee, Bill Bennett, Chester Finn.
Every opinion that has made it into the general discussion is transparently idiotic.
The theoretical broadening which comes from having many humanities subjects on the campus is offset by the general dopiness of the people who study these things.
Richard P. Feynman
Really – cutting $900 million from public education in WI without any semblance of a plan but enough of an idea to know we’ll be transferring wealth from public education to private vouchers for all income levels w/o accountability? His “idiocy” coupled with his “actions” puts him at the head of the class and greatly worries me for many reasons – education, business, economics, general welfare…
The Gov is way, way beyond having an opinion…
“Meticulous attention,” the president insisted in 1937, “should be paid to the special relations and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government….The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.” The reason? F.D.R. believed that “[a] strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to obstruct the operations of government until their demands are satisfied. Such action looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it is unthinkable and intolerable.”
I guess FDR was snarky and silly too, eh Barb?
no – just you RCS 🙂
I have PCBS (Post Collective Bargaining Syndrome). You see, I am from Hortonville, WI and was a Sophomore in HS when the school strike was going on in 1974. Seeing your normally reserved 8th grade homeroom teacher being dragged away screaming by 2 officers in riot gear does leave an impression. I have seen first hand the damage caused when powerful outside influences use and manipulate a community into behaving in a way it normally would not. The current situation will evolve into something much less ominous than it seems to be now. I hope everyone remembers that memories of things said and actions taken in the heat of the moment last far longer than the issue that caused them in the first place. 🙂 to you too.
To put it simply: The voucher system allows the state to have a part in each public and private school student’s education. This is bad.
The voucher system frees up public educational facilities for more non-voucher using students. This is good.
The voucher system allows parents to have a say in how their children are educated. This is of the highest importance and it is very good.