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Health & Fitness

School Choice Wisconsin Fights Against State Standards

I had the opportunity to catch the Joy Cardin's WPR State Capitol Report: New Voucher School Standards. Her guest was Luther Olsen (Republican) State Senator from Ripon and the Chair of the Senate Education Committee followed by Jim Bender, President School Choice Wisconsin. During the interview Senator Olson discussed the introduction of a bill for the DPI to set standards for public, choice, charter and voucher schools.

The Republican bill would authorize the DPI to set specific parameters and standards for all students receiving public funding within the State of Wisconsin. This bill is being introduced to settle the issue of public schools having to meet one set of standards and the charter, choice and voucher schools meeting quite another set, if any at all.

What I found interesting during this interview was not the bill as outlined by Senator Olson, but Mr. Bender's reaction to the proposed bill. As the chief advocate for school choice in Wisconsin, he is the chief spokesperson for the Choice and Voucher Community. Mr. Bender was opposed the bill as it is proposed based on several elements of the proposed bill. 1) He rejected the idea that the DPI was capable to set parameters and standards that would adequately evaluate both student performance and school performance. He claims that the standards drafted by DPI is nothing more than a program that was designed, to the now rejected, to comply to 'No Child Left Behind'. (2) Mr. Bender proposes that the setting of standards should be left to local control as it is now. (3) His other focus is on the general nature of the legislation, claiming that it isn't specific enough and leaves too much up to DPI. In general, Mr. Bender appears to not trust DPI and feels that the past record of DPI's stated position on school choice will not necessarily be in the best interest of School Choice programs.

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After over twenty years of charter, school choice and voucher programs being in place, it's not unreasonable to draft a set of standards that apply to all students in the State of Wisconsin. I would think that Mr. Bender would welcome a set of standards that his programs could be evaluated against rather than oppose them. If the private school programs are really performing as claimed, then evaluation standards should prove the claims to be true.


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