A couple months after the bipartisan agreement over shared revenue and education were enacted we are already seeing the effects. Besides the record increase in public school resources of $1.2 billion, the deal included the passage of Act 11, which significantly increased state payments to school choice and charter schools. Until earlier this year, voting on education alternatives had almost always fallen along party lines, even though the area of the greatest usage of education alternatives has been Democrat-dominated Milwaukee.
Act 11, which I was privileged to author in the Senate, has laid down a bipartisan marker acknowledging educational alternatives are here to stay in Wisconsin. Five Democrats supported Act 11 on the floor, creating legislative super majorities in both chambers. Moreover, a Democrat governor, who considers himself to be the champion of public education, signed it.