How do you respond to concerns
that taxpayers have that they are
being asked to,
you know, raise property taxes
because of the the
public school funding?
But everything else is honestly
very, you know,
like, tell me about parental
choice and what value
that brings to receiving.
Yeah. And that's also why I had
asked to speak with you, because you
have that Racine experience.
Yeah. Thank you.
Okay, John, are we ready
to get started?
Just another 10s or so.
No problem.
I'm just going to send you a record
request.
Yeah.
Okay. I think you're ready.
Thank you.
So, Brenda, why don't you start
by telling me a little about your
background, your connection to
the schools, and also what you do
now at school choice, Wisconsin.
Thank you.
I'd be glad to.
First of all, thank you for
asking me to participate
and and for giving
me the chance to be on the program.
My background is I'm
recently retired as a career
educator, and
I, I spent several years
in Racine as the president
of Siena Catholic Schools, which is
a system of K-12,
seven K-12 schools.
Excuse me. Let me back up.
It's a system of seven schools in
Racine that includes Saint
Catharines High School and sixth
grade schools.
And so I served as president of that
system for the last several years
of my career.
I also served as a
principal in
Milwaukee of a Catholic
choice school, and I served as an
associate superintendent for
the Archdiocese of Milwaukee
for ten years.
Yeah, and I see that Alec has joined
us here.
Can you explain what the school
choice movement in Wisconsin is?
What does that even mean?
Well, it's a wonderful
opportunity for parents now
across the state to have
a choice in where they
would like to send their child to
school. So regardless of zip code,
it allows parents who
meet certain income criteria
to be able to opt for a
school that participates
in the parental choice program.
So for the state that
includes 403 schools
and over 58,000 students
who now can have an option
and parents can choose the school
that they feel is going to be the
best for their child.
So if I'm a parent in Racine,
what is the process of getting
getting my child into a parental
choice program?
If you're a parent in Racine,
you have the option of 36
private and religious schools
that participate in the choice
program that if you or your family
meets certain income criteria.
So, for example, our family
of four, if their
income is
at or below $93,000,
approximately that you would be
eligible for a voucher so that
your children could attend one of
those 36 schools
tuition free.
So you would need to
live within the unified school
district and meet those income
criteria.
And then you would be allowed to
have a choice outside of Racine
Unified, where you would like to
send your children.
And I know that Racine and Milwaukee
have these parental choice programs
specific to those cities.
Can you explain why that is?
Well, historically, the Milwaukee
it's all started in Milwaukee
with the Milwaukee program
well over 30 years ago.
We have the oldest parental
choice program in the country.
And it started to give parents in
Milwaukee an option outside
of MPs For the same
reasons we talked about.
And then that program was
expanded by our state
legislator and the governor
to include Racine.
A number of years ago.
And then on top of that, it's
expanded now statewide.
There's actually four parental
choice programs, including a special
needs scholarship program as well.
And you touched on this earlier with
the financial requirements,
but what other kinds of barriers are
there to people who want to get
into the parental choice program?
Well, really, the only criteria
that a family needs to meet is
income and eligibility.
The schools that participate
in the parental choice programs
cannot
exclude children based on any
other reasons. So
race, religion, ethnicity
all of those are not barriers.
The family simply has to meet the
criteria set by the
state for income and where
where their children reside
in terms of residency in
the school district.
Yeah. And as our state legislature
gets into budget season
here, what are your
and your organization's priorities?
School choice. Wisconsin.
In fact, I should back up and
and say that currently I serve
the board for School Choice
Wisconsin. And three of our
priorities for
the next legislative
session are really centered around
number one, making sure
that we can advocate to
maintain the
2023
funding compromise that was
reached by Speaker
Vos, Senator Lamar
Hill and Governor Evers.
Secondly, we are
seeking to decouple
the way parental choice is
funded from property tax.
And thirdly, priority
is to advocate
for the continued educational
autonomy that
private schools have
had and is very
critical to our mission, so that we
can have the educational
independence to choose our own
curriculum and instructional
programs.
Very key to why
parents choose a private school
is because we can determine
what that curriculum instruction is
going to look like.
Can you talk more about decoupling
and how that would work?
Sure. So decoupling is just.
A way to separate
out from the
funding, the funding formula for
public schools in Racine
and the statewide program,
a certain portion of that state
aid to public school districts
goes towards funding the
choice program in
that the state
aid to those public districts is
reduced up to cover
the cost sewing machine.
That would mean
a certain portion of the
state funds to Racine Unified
is then
goes towards funding the choice
program, and then
school districts like Racine often
make up that gap in their
funding through raising
property taxes.
So if
we can decouple that, like
Milwaukee is fully decoupled,
it would save property tax
payers and Racine $4.7
million.
So it's a win win
to both the district who would
increase their state aides,
and it would be a win for property
taxpayers who
would have that burden lessened.
But I think it's important to
point out that
decoupling
in the way the state funding
is works now is
a separate issue
from the referenda.
Public districts.
Many public districts around the
state choose to go to
referenda, because they believe
that the state
spending limits that are set for
public districts are too low.
And so in Racine, Racine
Unified, that $190
million referenda
is a separate issue from
the way choices funded.
It's really related to
that state spending limit
for public districts.
Yeah. And
you have basically
answered this question, but I want
to give you the opportunity to I
just want to rephrase it.
How would you respond
to taxpayers who
have concerns that,
you know, funding for these voucher
programs comes from the state?
And because of that, these
schools have to go to referendum,
which is then raising property
taxes.
Well, I would I would say that
we have a legislative fix
for solving the property
tax issue when it comes
to funding school choice,
and that legislative fix is
called decoupling.
So we already have
fix that problem in Milwaukee,
and fixing it in Racine and
other programs would make it the
same standard for property
taxpayers.
And then secondly, I would say the
referenda is a separate
issue not related to
school choice. It's related.
For districts and districts
who feel that they have to go to
referenda to make up for
that low, that
low spending limit.
And two separate things.
Thank you.
What is your perspective on how
the expansion of voucher
programs in the state?
Or how about in Racine?
How does that bring value to Racine
in terms of building community
and also the services that are
offered to Racine?
It's a great question.
Well, first and foremost, I would
say academic
success is
there's a lot of research that
shows that our
choice schools in Racine are
outperforming our city students
year after year in
every academic area on
the state test. So we we all take
the same status.
Schools that are participating in
the choice program take the same
state assessment that the public
districts do.
And so we can just look at
those scores and see that in Racine,
the 36 private schools
that are participating in the choice
program are significantly
outperforming our USD and
the state measures of academic
progress. So that's first and
foremost. Academic success is
important to a community for its
students. And secondly,
the research nationally and locally,
so that
one of the ways choice schools
really shine is in character
formation.
So there's
a lot of research that shows
choice schools make a difference
in how students
grow in those
life skills.
Like attendance rates are higher,
graduation rates are higher, College
enrollment rates are higher.
Statistically, we can see
that kids have greater self-respect,
greater respect for the law, so
it reduces and reduces
crime. All of those things
combined make communities
stronger. Strong schools
make strong communities.
And
that's a significant benefit of the
program, the academic improvement
for students and that
character development that really
lasts for a lifetime for those
students.
Thank you. Brenda. Is there anything
else you want to add?
I would add that we're
very grateful to the legislature
for the continuous growth of
the program year after year,
and allowing parents an
option to choose the school
that best fits
their wishes and their desires
for their child is
very important in our state.
And thank the legislator
for legislators for supporting
that.
Thank think parents
for choosing what
school they believe is best for
their child, and
thank the viewers for
their support as taxpayers
for education in our state
as a whole. We have wonderful
options in our state for parents,
and we're grateful for all the
support that our
schools across the state are
given to educate children.
Thank you so much, Brenda.
John, are we good?
Please.
Okay, great. Thank you so much.
This is
I'm working this week on collecting
all of the video and interviews
that I intend to use
in the story.
I believe it's set to air
three Fridays from now.
I don't have the date off the top of
my head, but our program airs
Friday nights and it's it should
be three Fridays from now.
I can follow up with Alec when I
know for certain that date.
Great. Well, thank you for giving me
the opportunity to address
the questions and
respond and give a perspective
that I hope is helpful
for everyone.
Great. Thank you so much, Brenda.
Thank you, Alec and John also.
Thank you.
Okay. Bye bye.
Bye.