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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…
Read MoreFrom the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Milwaukee schools and universities that have been planning to offer face-to-face instruction this fall may need to shift gears after the city health department quietly enacted stricter guidelines for when in-person classes may resume.” Later in the article, Jim Bender explained that schools had been blindsided by Milwaukee area health officials, “Nobody saw this coming. Schools did not have any sort of consultative role in these changes. And they didn’t get any communication from the health department that the changes were being made.” Read the entire article.
Read MoreEspinoza 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…
Read MoreWisconsin Program Sees 37% Growth Enrollment for the Parental Choice Programs for 2019-20 show significant growth once again per DPI. Please see the tables below for headcount data and important information about DPI data releases meant to mislead the media/public with regards to prior year enrollment. “Year over year, the Parental Choice Programs continue to grow across Wisconsin,” Jim Bender said. “Combined with public school open enrollment and independent charters, more than 12% of students are educated with public dollars outside their resident district. That number continues to increase every year.” WPCP – District limits are at 4% of enrollment…
Read MoreFor Immediate Release September 12, 2019 Contact: Jim Bender DPI gets an “F” on transparency by withholding crucial data from media Test results released yesterday by the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) show that again this year, students in the Parental Choice Programs are outperforming their full-income, public-school peers on the ACT. As with all test data, a one-year snapshot of raw data has limitations but the trend of higher scores for students on a voucher is great news for both students and taxpayers. New this year were the results of the Aspire Exam as part of the ACT suite.…
Read MoreFor 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…
Read MoreWith State Budget Decisions Near, Study Shows ROI in Education is Clear A new study by Corey DeAngelis of the Reason Foundation calculates the productivity of public dollars for three education sectors in Wisconsin. By comparing local and state investments in the traditional public schools, independent charter schools and private schools in the Parental Choice Programs, the study compares the outputs in education based on the statewide report card developed by Governor Evers. The results are crystal clear – public dollars invested in the Parental Choice Programs and Independent Charters yield a much higher return. Milwaukee and Racine make up…
Read MoreFor Immediate Release May 9, 2019 Contact: Jim Bender, School Choice Wisconsin Without surprise, Evers’ proposed changes rejected across the board Statement from Jim Bender, President of School Choice Wisconsin on the omnibus motion to remove Governor Evers’ proposed changes to the Parental Choice Programs: “When Governor Evers proposed his changes to the Parental Choice Programs for the upcoming state budget, the expectations were very low that they would survive the legislative process. Nonetheless, in a play to his fervent base, those provisions were included. Today, calmer heads prevailed and all those items were removed. We would like to thank…
Read MoreFor Immediate Release April 8, 2019 Contact: Jim Bender, School Choice Wisconsin In Taking Swipe at Choice Program, School/City Make Huge Error Statement from Jim Bender on the confirmation that the City of Racine and the Racine Unified School District sent out flyers to taxpayers with erroneous information regarding property taxes and the Racine Parental Choice Program: “The City of Racine and the Racine Unified School District misled the public with a flyer designed to sway public opinion and shame parents of students in the Racine Parental Choice Program (RPCP). Their use of erroneous and incomplete data shows the true…
Read MoreFebruary 1, 2019 The Wisconsin Parental Choice Program Grows to More Than 250 Schools The Department of Public Instruction released the number of participating schools in three of the four Parental Choice Programs in Wisconsin. Once again, in reaction to parental demand, schools from all over Wisconsin are entering the program. Some of the schools listed below participate in more than one Parental Choice Program. Milwaukee Parental Choice Program Racine Parental Choice Program Wisconsin Parental Choice Program “Demand for the Parental Choice Programs continues to stay very strong,” Jim Bender, President of School Choice Wisconsin said. “As more schools enter…
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