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Choice schools tackle pandemic-related learning loss

June 23, 2022

School Choice Wisconsin set out to see what some of our choice schools did last year and will do going forward to combat the disruptions and learning loss that followed the pandemic lockdowns. See what we found. Recent headlines, such as this story in The New York Times and this piece in The Atlantic, cite a pandemic-related learning loss that is more serious than many had realized. The loss was worse for schools that stayed closed longer in response to the pandemic, according to a study from Harvard’s Center for Education Policy. “Remote learning was a failure,” wrote The New…

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Will SCOTUS ruling in Carson v. Makin affect Wisconsin? 

June 23, 2022

Tuesday’s ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court in the Carson v. Makin case, a big win for school choice, may have implications for religious choice schools here in Wisconsin. In its ruling, the court struck down a law in the state of Maine that excluded schools providing religious instruction from a voucher program that allowed parents in areas with no public school to send their kids to private schools. “Maine’s ‘nonsectarian’ requirement for its otherwise generally available tuition assistance payments violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the court’s opinion on the case. He was joined by…

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2022 Spring Newsletter

March 31, 2022

Click to view or download PDF version   Download the 2022 Spring Newsletter  

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Department of Public Instruction Authority – Executive Summary

August 23, 2021

Wisconsin Private School Choice Programs and Special Needs Scholarship Program – Department of Public Instruction Authority – Executive Summary

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Department of Public Instruction Authority

August 23, 2021

Wisconsin Private School Choice Programs and Special Needs Scholarship Program – Department of Public Instruction Authority

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School Choice Wisconsin President Jim Bender To Step Down End of 2020

November 18, 2020

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…

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Supreme Court Rules In Favor of School Choice

June 30, 2020

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…

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Special Needs Scholarship Program Grows Again

July 10, 2019

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…

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