how do you respond to concerns that taxpayers have that they are being asked to
you know raise property taxes because of the public school funding but everything else is
honestly very you know like tell me about a parental choice and what value that brings to
Racine 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? I just took another 10 seconds 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 Racine schools and also what you do now at school choice Wisconsin.
Thank you Aditi. I'd be glad to. First of all thank you for asking me to participate in
and for giving me the chance to be on the program. My background is I'm recently retired as a
career educator and I spent several years in Racine as the president of Sienna Catholic schools
which is a system of K-12 seven K-12 school excuse me let me back up. It's a system of seven schools
in Racine that includes St. Catherine's High School and 6th 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 10 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 your family needs
certain income criteria. So for example a 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 Racine Unified School District
and meet those income criteria and then you would be allowed to have a choice outside of
Racine Unified of 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 a 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 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 say that
currently I serve on 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 Voss,
Senator Lomahue and Governor Evers. Secondly we are seeking to decouple
the way parental choice is funded from property tax and thirdly a 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 to cover the cost so in Racine 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 in Racine 4.7 million dollars so it's a win-win to both the district
who would increase their state aids and it would be a win for property tax payers who would have
that burden lessened. I think it's important to point out that decoupling and 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 dollar 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 referenda which is then raising property
taxes. Well 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 fixed
that problem in Milwaukee and fixing it in Racine and other programs would make it the same standard
for property tax payers 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 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. That'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 RUSD students year after year in every academic area on the state test. So we all
take the same state test 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 on 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 show
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 legislators for
supporting that thank 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 so. 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 a 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.