Assembly passes education bills on licensing, choice, curriculum

by Baylor Spears, Wisconsin Examiner
February 21, 2024

The Assembly passed a slate of education bills that would loosen license requirements, change the way voucher schools are funded, place a timeline on school districts for complying with requests to inspect school materials and one that requires schools to provide instruction about Hmong Americans and Asian Americans. 

Republicans said the bills provided solutions to ongoing challenges faced by schools, parents and students. But Democrats voted against many of the proposals, saying they provided inadequate solutions and that some could do more harm than good. 

Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine), at the outset of the session, said  lawmakers needed to think about how important it is to focus on the education of students and ensuring public schools have the resources they need to thrive. Yet, she said the Assembly was taking up several bills that don’t address the issues schools are facing. 

“In my community, our school district is facing a very significant budget deficit for this coming fall and I know that there are other schools across the state who are facing the same grim realities, and yet, the majority party continues to bring forward legislation to the floor that does not address those issues, does not properly fund our public schools and make sure that our students have what they need,” Neubauer said. “Instead, what’s being debated on the floor today? Removing requirements for administrators, funding an unaccountable system of schools that can discriminate against our students.” 

Loosening licensing requirements 

Lawmakers passed a pair of bills that would loosen some licensure requirements in Wisconsin schools with the aim of alleviating school staffing shortages. But opponents to the bills warn that the policy changes could affect the quality of staff that is employed. 

SB-335 would allow school boards across Wisconsin to hire school district administrators who aren’t licensed by DPI. The Senate passed the bill 21-11 without any debate. Sen. Romaine Quinn (R-Cameron) joined Democrats in voting against. The Assembly concurred in the bill 63-35, setting it up to go to Gov. Tony Evers.

Rep. Kristina Shelton (D-Green Bay) said the bill was not a workforce plan and could put students and families at risk, especially those with the greatest need. 

“The licenses that our superintendents must and our administrators must obtain ensures that they follow federal law, state law, [Individualized Education Program] processes,” Shelton said. “These are highly professionalized folks who deal with a lot of competing priorities in the school districts.” 

Under current law, all school boards are required to ensure that every administrator holds a license issued by the Department of Public Instruction with an exception included for a school district administrator elected by the Milwaukee Public Schools.

Coauthor Rep. Robert Wittke (R-Racine) said the bill was not specifically meant to address workforce shortages, but instead offers additional flexibility to other districts in the state that is already given to the state’s largest school district. 

Another bill — SB-608 — would create a pathway for paraprofessionals to obtain a lifetime teaching license from DPI without having to go through the traditional licensure path. The proposal is meant to address staffing shortages facing schools.

According to a Wisconsin Policy Forum report, rates of teacher turnover, including the number of teachers moving to different school districts and leaving the state’s public school classrooms altogether, rose sharply in the 2022-23 school year. The reports pointed to a number of potential factors including relatively high retirement rates, high demand for workers in other occupations, the impacts of high inflation and accumulated stress due to health, political and logistical burdens associated with teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Sen. Dan Knodl (R-Germantown) said in a statement about the bill that education is not immune to the tight labor market and the current standards for entry into teaching have “unfortunately fenced out many worthy candidates, including hundreds of high performing paraprofessionals already working in classrooms in our state.”

The Senate passed the bill 21-11 with Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) voting with Democrats against. The Assembly concurred in the bill in a voice vote.

The bill requires the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) to issue a provisional license to someone who passes a background check; has worked for at least three days a week for one year in a classroom as a paraprofessional and is recommended for licensure by the principal of the school, the director of teaching and the school district administrator. 

The license holder would only be able to teach in the school district that recommends the person for the license and would need to be mentored by a teacher who has taught for at least three school years in the school district.

DPI would then be required to issue a lifetime license to the license holder after they complete six semesters of teaching. 

Rep. Dave Considine (D-Baraboo) said during the Assembly floor session that the bill was a short-term solution and could have the unintended consequence of leaving rural school districts with fewer paraprofessionals. 

“To say those paraprofessionals could be teaching, are not dreadfully needed in the classroom, is I think a mistake… They are needed there for kids to be successful in that classroom,” Considine said. “As we take that paraprofessional in some of those suburban districts and we move that paraprofessional to a teacher, we create a vacant space for a paraprofessional in that district. That suburban district, many times, is much more affluent. They can do much better at pay than those rural school districts.” 

Coauthor Rep. Barbara Dittrich (R-Oconomowoc) pushed back on the opposition to the bill. 

“I’m so sinister and against public school haha that I actually want to help my public schools fill teaching positions,” Dittrich said. “This bill allows there to be… almost like an apprenticeship program.”

Dittrich has said the aim of the bill is to help with the recruitment, retention and placement of teachers. She called it a “unique tool” that could be given to schools. 

Funding all voucher schools through state GPR

The Assembly passed a bill that would change the funding for state voucher programs and new independent charter schools so that they are funded directly from state general purpose revenue (GPR), rather than through reductions in public school districts’ funds

The bill passed 64-35 along party lines. 

Currently, Wisconsin voucher and independent charter schools are funded in two different ways. 

Most funding for private schools in the Racine Parental Choice Program and the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program is tied to public schools’ funding. The per-pupil amount paid to private voucher schools comes through a reduction in state aid from the public school district that a student would otherwise attend.  

Payments to private schools in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, however, are funded through a combination of state general purpose revenue (GPR) and local funding, and the program is on track to be fully funded by GPR by the 2024-25 school year. Republicans want to bring the other programs in line with the Milwaukee program. 

“Currently, Milwaukee choice program will be completely funded by GPR by 2025 and already in state law legacy charter schools are funded by GPR,” Schutt said. “So what my bill does, it says, why not fund the rest of the choice program and new independent charter schools with GPR?”

“It is an accounting fix. It is creating consistency across both programs,” Schutt added. “We actually heard from administrators and school board members about how they wanted this, this would help them set their budgets every year and make it less confusing.” 

Democrats railed against Republicans for prioritizing the state’s private voucher schools over public schools, and neglecting to address the broader issue of school funding in Wisconsin.

Considine, a Democrat from Baraboo, acknowledged that there were public schools that said they wanted the change, but he added that public schools have been saying for years that they need additional funding. 

“They’ve been wanting us to give them additional funding for a long time, so they don’t have to go to referendum,” Considine said. “Any little piece that we give them they say, ‘Thank you. Thank you.’ But then they have to go back the next year and beg again and hope to get a little bit more.”

Republicans’ proposal comes after a budget cycle where public schools received a $325 per-pupil increase, something that advocates said was inadequate because it didn’t make up for  the rate of inflation. 

In contrast, the Legislature passed and Gov. Tony Evers signed the largest increases in school choice funding in the history of the program. Under the law, private schools in the choice programs and independent charter schools will receive total increases of between $1,000 to $3,500 per student over the biennium. 

“AB 900 is pure politics. This is a bill that will flood guaranteed sum sufficient GPR dollars, so this is public money that comes from our most flexible source of spending in the state budget, moving that money into private vouchers and independent charter schools without any public oversight, without an elected school board, without the same standards of accountability and transparency as public schools,” Shelton said. “These are schools that can discriminate against our students. These are schools that just received a massive boost in funding just last year.”

Shelton warned that while Republican lawmakers were framing the bill as an accounting fix, in the future the cost could grow, noting that enrollment caps for the private school choice program come off in the 2026-27 school year. 

The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, which advocated heavily for the change, celebrated the vote in a statement, saying the policy would be a “win-win” for voucher schools and public schools. The conservative organization has said the bill would also be advantageous because it would “help to insulate the school choice program from constitutional challenges.” 

“Since it was first instituted, school choice in Wisconsin has been upheld multiple times by courts. Nevertheless, changes to the composition of the Wisconsin Supreme Court could reignite potential challenges to the program anyway,” Will Flanders, WILL research director, wrote in a brief on the issue.

Gov. Tony Evers’ spokesperson Britt Cudaback has said he opposes the bill because Wisconsin “already has a public school system that is woefully underfunded.”

“Gov. Evers will not support creating a separate school funding system so certain schools can be funded differently than every other public school in our state,” Cudaback said in an email last week.

Setting a timeline for inspection of instructional materials

AB 638 would require public schools to comply with written requests from residents in their districts to inspect a textbook, curriculum or instructional material within 14 days and to post lists of adopted textbooks on their websites. The bill passed the Assembly 63-35 along party lines.

Democrats said that the bill was unnecessary since there are laws that already require public schools to disclose information and that it unfairly targets those schools. 

Rep. Kristina Shelton (D-Green Bay) questioned the idea that the bill was about improving engagement and transparency in Wisconsin schools, pointing out that independent charter schools and voucher schools would not be subject to the requirements of the bill. 

“If we truly believe that we need to consider engagement and transparency then we should have standards across all of Wisconsin schools,” Shelton said. “This really is not about engagement and this is actually not about transparency but rather what it is is a continued attack on public education and teachers.” 

Several Republicans said that the bill is the result of COVID-19 pandemic and parents not being able to access school materials in a timely manner. 

“This is a bill that says I would like to see what my child is learning in the classroom and I had difficulty getting responses from the school districts. During COVID, this became a big problem.” Rep. Amanda Nedweski (R-Pleasant Prairie) said.

Coauthor Rep. Barbara Dittrich (R-Oconomowoc) echoed those sentiments, saying the bill was “not red meat for the base,” and is meant to “rebuild the bridge of trust between parents and schools.” 

Dittrich said that the bill would make things easier for parents because they would be able to go online to see what is being taught in the classroom.

Incorporating Hmong and Asian American instruction in curriculum

A bill that would require Wisconsin school boards to incorporate instruction about Hmong and Asian Americans into curriculum passed the Assembly in a bipartisan voice vote. 

Currently, Wisconsin law requires school boards to provide instructional programs designed to give students “an understanding of human relations, particularly with regard to American Indians, Black Americans, and Hispanics.” AB 232 would add the words “Hmong Americans and Asian Americans” to existing statute. 

Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison) said that the bill holds significant personal meaning to her as a Wisconsinite and Korean American. 

“My parents, they made Wisconsin home after immigrating here in the 80s and my sister and I grew up absolutely loving this state,” Hong said. “However, we, like so many other Asian Americans in our state and country, grappled with very complex feelings around identity,” Hong said. 

Hong said that her parents struggled with whether they should raise their children more American or more Korean, especially as they knew classrooms would rarely provide instruction on their history and “that for much of our young lives we would not see us reflected in the educational system.” 

“This erasure took a toll on my mental health and led to what I see many Asian American children do: minimizing identity and minimizing Asianness,” Hong said. “No child should feel like their stories hold less value.”

The Assembly public hearing on the bill featured testimony from students, teachers and parents that emphasized its importance. 

Rep. Katrina Shankland (D-Stevens Point) called the vote “historic,” noting that the idea has been proposed in several legislative sessions. The bill didn’t receive a public hearing last session.

“Today, it’s about recognizing the many contributions of the Hmong and Asian American people and including them in the lessons our public schools are teaching,” Shankland said.  

Shankland added that the Assembly’s action was not the end for the bill, saying that there still needs to be a vote in the Senate Education Committee, which held a hearing on the bill in January, and then a vote on the Senate floor before it could go to Evers.

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