- The statewide school choice program has been
in place for four years now.
For the first time Governor Scott Walker did not propose
an expansion of choice in his budget.
So the issue is not getting as much attention as in years past.
But public and private schools are still adjusting,
trying to determine if the number of schools using vouchers
has stabilized or will continue to grow.
Two years ago we visited Wausau to look at what expansion of the
choice program would mean there.
And wanted to check back in.
As you might expect, Here & Now's Zac Schultz found that
public and private schools have completely different views on
how choice is working.
- Eight, now take eight away.
How much do I have?
- Two years ago, Principal Bill Zuelsdorff in Trinity
Lutheran School didn't have any voucher students.
They had just joined the choice program
and ended up with 15 in the fall.
- The first 15 that we had the first year probably two-thirds
of those were students we already had here.
So we didn't really grow that much.
That's five.
Six. Yep.
- In year two, that has grown to 27 choice students.
18% of their total enrollment.
- Some of the families I have are new families that would be
in public schools but really probably the majority of our
choice families are families that were already here.
- Just from a raw number standpoint,
we're postured to grow.
- A mile away, Newman Catholic School President Mike Martin has
seen choice grow from 13 to 94 students in just four years.
- It's about 14,000 plus students in what's called the
Wausau metropolitan area.
And we have 94 of those students right now.
- Well it's certainly a negative impact on us.
- Kathleen Williams is retiring as superintendent of Wausau
public schools this year and she's not changed her mind on
the dangers of the choice program.
- People look at it at the surface, no big deal.
It is a big deal.
- This year, 82 students that live in the Wausau school
district are attending private school with a voucher.
The state caps the number of kids
that each district can lose at 1%.
For Wausau, that's 86 voucher students.
But that cap will increase to 2% next year.
Meaning they could lose 172.
The nearby D.C. Everest School District
has lost 37 voucher students.
At the 2% cap, they could lose 118.
Add it all up, and next year there's 290 vouchers available
in the Wausau area.
- I probably have about 2,000 Catholic kids
in the public school system right now.
One of my challenges,
how do I get them back into Catholic education.
- We definitely have a lot of seats we could fill yet.
And if it's going to be through the choice program,
that would be a good option.
- The key is how that impact is going to grow.
- Kathleen Williams is concerned
about the increasing cost of choice.
In particular because Wausau public schools
are paying for those vouchers.
And they're required to raise property taxes to do so.
- Those people who are scrutinizing their tax bills are
going to say, "Hey, you know, the Wausau School District is
charging more money."
- Originally, school choice was funded directly by the state.
But in the last budget, the Republican majority shifted that
so each voucher student
counts towards the public school's enrollment.
The school district taxes their local property taxpayers for
that student's voucher cost.
And the state withholds that amount from the school's last
state aid payment and sends the money to the private school.
- That's the significant danger in my mind.
We may be losing those tax dollars and those students,
but I think the greater impact is the fact that most people
don't understand the local implications of that.
That our taxpayers are funding choice.
- Last year, Wausau schools increased their property tax
levy by $428,000 to pay for those 82 vouchers.
That works out to an extra $16 a year
for the owner of a $150,000 house.
But that homeowner would not know it by looking at their tax bill.
Because it's hidden in the public schools tax line.
- How many times have you heard the term,
we need to be transparent?
Well then, let's be transparent.
Let's let everybody fully understand
where their dollars are going.
- Those choice dollars have become a critical part of the
choice school's budget.
Each voucher is worth around $7,300 for grades K-8 and $7,
500 for high schoolers.
- That's about a $700,000 amount of money coming into
Newman to help educate those students.
That's real money in my lexicon.
- For Trinity Lutheran, it adds up to $190,000 this year.
- It's a good chunk, yes.
Our budget is a little over a million dollars, so about 10%.
- Neither Trinity nor Newman had to hire additional teachers,
since so many of those students were already in house.
But how they've used the money shows how politically unstable
the choice program is viewed.
- We have to have this plan that this may not always be here,
and what happens then?
- Neither school has given their teachers a raise
due to the extra income.
- We would not tie teacher salaries
to that part of enrollment.
- At Newman, they have a list of upgrades to the facilities.
- One of them is offsetting some of the costs
of the new roof we put on the high school here.
- At Trinity, the church congregation gets the break.
- What the choice program has done is helped us pay those
regular expenses we have so the church does not have to put in
as much.
- Everyone is aware the next election could shift power
in Madison.
And lead to changes in choice.
But Trinity and Newman hope by then the program will be so
established, it won't be so easy to roll back.
- The longer the program is going
and as long as it's showing to be a positive thing,
I think that's less likely to happen.
- The ship has already sailed in the sense
it is so popular now that it's probably here to stay.