« Charter School Bill On Fast Track | Home | Carry The Fight On The Common Core »
Legislative Alert: Charter School Legislation
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | October 8, 2013
Yesterday, we provided information to SAA members on Senate Bill 76 (Senate Substitute Amendment 1) relating to charter school expansion. Today the SAA is issuing a priority legislative alert on SB 76.
The Senate Committee on Education will hold an executive session (vote on) on the bill this Thursday October 10th. We also anticipate the bill will move on for a Senate floor vote next week. We are encouraging all SAA members to contact their legislators and encourage them to oppose this far reaching legislation for the following reasons:
- Greatly expands the number of entities permitted to authorize independent (non-school-board-authorized) charter schools to include all UW campuses, Wisconsin Technical College Boards and CESA boards of control.
- Reduces general school aids to all school districts and raises property taxes. Those additional authorizers will surely increase the number of independent charter schools authorized. Given that the per pupil payments to independent charter schools (currently $7,925 per pupil) are funded as a draw on the general school aids that would otherwise be payable to every school district in the state, this bill will result in a growing aid reduction to public schools. In 2012-13, the reduction in general school aid attributable to independent charters was 1.4 percent statewide on average. And because local school districts are allowed to levy property taxes to cover the reduction in state aid, this will likely result in an increase in local property taxes.
- Removes the right of school boards and newly proposed authorizers to determine if they wish to authorize additional charter schools. This could force school boards and other authorizers to replicate additional charter schools if the charter school operators are deemed to have a proven track record of success. Nowhere in state history has the legislature required a school board to create another school and stripped locally-elected officials of their authority to make such a decision on their own.
Please use the information above as well as the information on our previous post in an email or phone call to your legislators as soon as possible. For your convenience in contacting your legislators, I have provided links to the Senate Directory, the Assembly Directory as well as Who Are My Legislators.
Thanks for listening and, as always, thank you for everything you do on behalf of Wisconsin school children.
Topics: Legislative Action, SAA Capitol Reports, SAA Capitol Reports with Email Notifications, SAA Latest Update | No Comments »
Comments are closed.