ALERT from Stop Special Needs Vouchers, 25 January 2015

[Stop Special Needs Vouchers]

Greetings from Stop Special Needs Vouchers -- please forward widely! 

Getting Ready: This Week and Next

This week (Jan. 25-31) the voucher and charter lobbies will be celebrating "School Choice Week."

From the Stop Special Needs Vouchers perspective, one might as well call it "Schools Choose Week" -- because that's what "school choice" actually means for students with disabilities. Voucher schools aren't required to educate students with disabilities, and charter schools are finding ways to avoid taking the students with the greatest challenges as well.  Meanwhile, the doors of the public schools are open to all students regardless of ability, even as the public funding gets siphoned off into vouchers and charters.  

Letter to the editor theme for this week:  When schools choose, students with disabilities lose!

The following week, all eyes will be on the February 3 release of the Governor's budget.  It is expected that the budget will propose some form of voucher expansion statewide, but so far we do not know whether we will have to fight special needs vouchers in the budget once again, or whether the proposal will emerge as separate legislation later in the session.

Either way, stay tuned -- we will have plenty of work to do!

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Public Hearing on SB1 - Tue. Jan. 27, 9am at the Capitol (Room 411S)

Stop Special Needs Vouchers will be submitting testimony at the Capitol on Tuesday January 27, with concerns about SB1 -- the Senate companion to a fast-tracked proposal known as the "school accountability bill."

According to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinal article on the Assembly version of the bill (AB1),  "The issue is closely linked to a separate Republican goal to expand the role of and funding for voucher schools statewide."
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/republicans-divided-over-school-accountability-measure-b99421210z1-287790121.html

The bill can be found online at http://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2015/related/proposals/sb1.pdf.

Stop Special Needs Vouchers testimony will be highlighting multiple disability-related concerns with the bill:

1)  Given recent "promises" that have been made about the return of the failed special needs vouchers proposals (http://tinyurl.com/qdnqayn), we note that SB1 does not address our objections to special needs voucher proposals, including the fact that private voucher schools are not accountable to the Individuals with Disbilities Education Act (IDEA). 

2)  SB1 does not provide a consistent set of definitions for private voucher schools to report disability-related data on enrollment and achievement; public and charter schools must use the IDEA categories that are echoed in Wisconsin state law (state statute 115.76).  Consistent definitions are essential across all types of schools receiving public funding.  

3)  Private voucher schools are not required to report suspension and expulsion data, which disproportionately affect students with disabilities; SB1 fails to offer any correction to this.

4)  The Assembly version of the accountability bill, AB1, specifies that independent charter schools would replace public schools that are deemed failing and insufficiently improved (a proposal that SB1 does not currently contain).  However, Milwaukee's independent charter schools do not educate nearly the same proportion of students with disabilities as their public-school counterparts.  Over 20 percent of MPS students are receiving special education services, while that number is under 10 percent in Milwaukee’s charter schools.  When it comes to students with cognitive disabilities, the numbers are even more concerning: MPS educates a five-times-greater proportion of students with cognitive disabilities than Milwaukee’s independent charters.  We have serious concerns about the prospect of turning over schools serving a high percentage of students with disabilities to a school sector that is currently failing to educate students with disabilities in fair proportions. The Senate must hold firm against any attempt to re-introduce such a provision.

What Can You Do?

This bill is moving quickly; now is the time to let your legislators know what you think!

1.  Attend the hearing.

Your presence will be felt, you can testify before the committee, and you can register your opinion on the bill in writing.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015
9:00 AM
411 South

2.  Contact the members of the Senate Committee on Education Reform and Government Operations by phone or email.  

They are:

Senator Paul Farrow (Chair) - Sen.F...@legis.wisconsin.gov; (608) 266-9174

Senator Sheila Harsdorf (Vice-Chair) - Sen.Ha...@legis.wisconsin.gov; (608) 266-7745

Senator Stephen Nass - Sen....@legis.wisconsin.gov; (608) 266-2635

Senator Nikiya Harris Dodd - Sen.Har...@legis.wisconsin.gov; (608) 266-2500

Senator Kathleen Vinehout - Sen.Vi...@legis.wisconsin.gov; (608) 266-8546

3.  Contact your legislators.  

If you are not sure who your state legislators are, you can find out here:  

http://legis.wisconsin.gov/

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