Contacts: Susan Mitchell, 414.232.4324 Jim Bender, 920.222.5427 Brookfield, WI –  School Choice Wisconsin (SCW) President Jim Bender will step down at the end of the year to form his own business, Bender Consulting, LLC.  SCW will begin immediately to recruit a new president, SCW board chair Susan Mitchell said. “Jim has led SCW through a decade of major growth in programs, participating schools, and students,” Mitchell said.  “Thanks to his leadership, the number of programs has quadrupled, participating schools have tripled, and the number of students served has doubled,” she said. The pandemic has shown parents the value of the…

Espinoza v Montana Ruling Finds Montana DOR Violated First Amendment In a 5-4 decision, Justice Roberts writes that prohibiting religious schools from publicly-funded education programs violates the First Amendment, Free Exercise Clause of the US Constitution. In a shot directly at the basis for Blaine amendments of many states, banning entities from public programs simply because they are religious is discriminatory. In particular, the Alito concurrence focuses on the fact that “Montana’s no-aid provision retains the bigoted code language used throughout state Blaine Amendments”. “Today’s ruling adds further structural support for school choice programs to include all types of schools…

For Immediate Release July 10, 2019 Contact: Jim Bender, School Choice Wisconsin Additional Schools Join Program for 2019-20 School Year The Department of Public Instruction recently released the list of participating private schools for the 2019-20 school year in the Special Needs Scholarship Program(SNSP). The SNSP will now have 104 schools participating. The 2019-20 school years begins the 4th year for the SNSP. 2016-17     26 Schools, 235 students 2017-18     28 Schools, 252 students 2018-19     76 Schools, 692 students 2019-20    104 Schools, 31 are marked as new The geographic reach of the special needs program is expanding rapidly statewide. The…