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Starting in 2015-16, new RPCP and WPCP students’ vouchers will be funded similar to the open enrollment. While this ensures there is no voucher amount reduction, public districts unfairly receive a subsidy for students they do not educate due to revenue limit counting purposes. Below are some models showing how much “skim” would go to public districts throughout the state under varying enrollment projections. Approximately 75% of voucher students are in grade K-8 and 25% in grades 9-12. Using the current voucher amounts of $7,210 and $7,856, we can estimate how much undue funding public districts will receive. 2,000 Voucher…

Each year, the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) collects WKCE results from all public schools[1] as well as all choice pupils[2] at private schools and publishes them on WISEdash. Usually DPI attempts to skew the data in order to favor public schools. However, the aggregate results from the choice schools were too high to make this possible. The choice students outperformed the RUSD students in every grade in both subjects. The tables below show the percent of students who scored either proficient or advanced in the two subjects that the WKCE assesses, science and social studies.   School System 4th…

ASSESSMENTS (LFB summary page 352, #11) The budget proposes allowing parental choice program schools to administer an alternative assessment to the choice pupils in lieu of the state test. The tests that would be viable would have to be approved by the UW-Value Added Research Center (VARC) to make sure they meet certain nationally- normed criteria. The state would pay for the state assessment or the equivalent cost of the state exam if a school chose an alternative assessment that cost more. Additionally, once a school had results from their chosen assessment, they would need to submit the data to…