School choice continues to be a major focus in Wisconsin, Arizona, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other states around the country, especially with the midterm elections nearing. For the latest pertinent news here at home, see School Choice Wisconsin’s press release headlined Results again show that parental choice programs work for parents, students and schools. “As in prior years, students in Wisconsin’s school choice programs have outperformed traditional public school students on the college-readiness ACT exam,” says the release. Check out a few updates from around the country. Also see the interesting story about record numbers of young people in “Generation COVID”…

The top choice news in the state at the moment: As in prior years, students in Wisconsin’s school choice programs have outperformed traditional public school students on the college-readiness ACT exam. See our press release here.

ChoiceWords wants schools and parents to be aware of the services School Choice Wisconsin provides. ChoiceWords sees SCW staff in action daily, helping schools plow through complicated paperwork and often making in-person visits. ChoiceWords sees how SCW functions as a lifeline for school administrators and others across the state. “We are here to serve our communities and schools,” says Nic Kelly, SCW president. “SCW has a dedicated history of supporting our schools and empowering parents to be able to make the choices they want for their child’s education. We are united in these efforts to provide quality educational experiences for…

  As we get deeper into the school year, it’s uplifting to see varied activities, success and growth at schools participating in Wisconsin’s choice programs. The schools participating in choice vary in size, budget and mission. Occasionally, ChoiceWords peruses the websites and social media pages of participating schools to see what’s up on their campuses and in their communities. Below are a few updates we found.   Catholic Memorial, Waukesha, had one of the biggest news items as the school announced an expansion with the acquisition of Infinity Fields Baseball Park, W234-S3555 Les Paul Pkwy. “The expansion, improvement of the…

♦ Life Happens: A ChoiceWords series ♦ The state needs to add additional enrollment periods for the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program. The state should also end the program’s grade-level entry points, which can prevent families from accessing the program for years. This is the second installment in a periodic ChoiceWords series. More enrollment periods, please. That’s what one new school leader would like to see in the statewide school choice program. Currently the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program has one annual period when parents can enroll their kids, which goes from February through mid-April (see info from the Department of Public Instruction…

As the 2022­–23 school year draws nearer, we’re seeing a flood of articles across the U.S. media supporting school choice. Some articles focus on the new or enhanced programs in Arizona, Tennessee and elsewhere as the choice universe has grown exponentially. In 2021, 19 states enacted 32 new or expanded choice policies. Other articles point out that the pandemic and some public schools’ reactions to it have pulled many parents toward choice. The pandemic also exposed curriculum and content that some parents found objectionable or a waste of time. A scan of the media also shows that polling is looking…

Periodically School Choice Wisconsin provides you with news on happenings and trends in school choice and education in general. Among the most interesting news of late is a Gallup poll saying Americans’ confidence in U.S. public schools remains low, with 28% saying they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the institution. That figure is down from 41% in 2020. “Americans’ confidence in public schools increased early in the coronavirus pandemic as people rallied around professions that were severely disrupted by the economic shutdown, but that subsided a year ago and confidence has returned to its…

Parents and teachers may want to note that choice and public schools across Wisconsin will see a change in test-taking next school year, as the state is moving from the ACT Aspire test to the PreACT Secure. Both tests, given in grades 9 and 10, are meant to predict how students will perform on the college-readiness ACT test, which students take in grade 11. The vendor that supplies the test, Iowa-based ACT, has sunsetted the ACT Aspire, according to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. The 2021­–22 school year was the last for Aspire in Wisconsin schools. Among differences between…

Big choice news out of Arizona this week. The state legislature has passed and Gov. Doug Ducey is expected to sign a bill that will allow all the state’s students to take education funding to a school of their families’ choice. The bill will give all K-12 students in the state access to tax-funded ESAs—Empowerment Scholarship Accounts. Parents can use the accounts for tuition and other educational costs. Read more here. Congratulations to the more than 1.1 million students in Arizona and their families who can now take advantage of school choice. Educational Freedom Your Child, Your Choice — School…

Recently we ran into a headline that piqued our interest here at School Choice Wisconsin: The four high schools in the Madison Metropolitan School District, the second-biggest district in the state, have enacted a concept called bridge week. Students who’ve earned Cs or higher were not required to come to school on June 7 or 8 as the schools planned to focus on kids who’ve logged Ds and Fs on those days, the Wisconsin State Journal reported. The kids with higher grades were not to be marked absent. Final exams, which would have been an end-of-year focus, were scrapped more…