Public Schools Will Suffer From Voucher Expansion, Critics Say

Public school advocates argue the education budget approved by Republican lawmakers this week will slowly bleed money away from public school districts.

Republicans on the Legislature’s budget-writing committee filled Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed cut to public schools in the first year of his upcoming biennial budget, but they also changed the way the state pays for school vouchers. From now on, public and private voucher schools will both be competing for the same pot of money.

In the first year of the budget, that means voucher schools will get $18 million more while public schools get $18 million less.

Dan Rossmiller with the Wisconsin Association of School Boards said that will be tough for some public schools to handle.

“With no increase in resources for schools in the first year, we think many schools could actually find themselves with reductions,” said Rossmiller.

Making matters more difficult, Rossmiller said, is that the budget would freeze revenue limits, meaning it would be harder for schools to recover the lost state funding by raising property taxes.