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WisPolitics: School Accountability Stock Falling
By Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance staff | January 16, 2015
In its end of week political stock report, WisPolitics had this to say about what it called the falling political stock of school accountability:
School accountability: Ten months ago, lawmakers ended the session divided over how to test public, choice and charter schools, and whether those that consistently fail state benchmarks should be punished. Now they’ve got a lot of the same issues dogging the school accountability bill — and some good sniping between Speaker Robin Vos and Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald over the process. Both leaders said late last year school accountability would be a top priority of the new session. But even some backers say the early going has proved lawmakers should have waited another two to three weeks before unveiling the bills. The Assembly went first with legislation that would create one board to oversee public, voucher and charter schools with the state superintendent chairing it and making six appointments to the 13-member body. That had choice backers crying foul because they believe DPI and state Superintendent Tony Evers are biased against the voucher program and would seek to undermine it. The Assembly bill also called for turning public schools that consistently underform into charter schools. The Senate authors, however, proposed two boards, one for public and charter schools and one for voucher schools, hoping to ease concerns from the choice community and address constitutionality questions over DPI’s authority of public education under the package. Meanwhile, the Assembly plows ahead with a public hearing on its bill only to have author Jeremy Thiesfeldt, R-Fond du Lac, announce minutes before it began that he planned to make significant changes. That included dropping the idea of a board altogether. The move leaves Dems — and some Republicans — incredulous. How do you have a hearing on a bill that doesn’t exist? If that wasn’t enough drama, there’s the Vos and Fitz show. Tensions between the two leaders were noticeable last session, and insiders say they haven’t tempered with the new year. Vos raises the prospect the two houses could pass their own bills and then go to conference committee to hash out their differences. Fitzgerald, who days earlier knocked the “mob mentality” in the Assembly, rejects the suggestion immediately, saying it would be “foolish.” The guv injects some life into the topic as well, saying sanctions don’t have to be in an accountability bill to win his signature. Vos, however, is remaining firm that he wants them in. Add it up, insiders say, and Republicans may eventually be able to get there on an accountability bill this session. But the sausage-making won’t be pretty.
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