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Thursday, March 1, 2012

Wisconsin education reform echoes ALEC’s agenda | Defend Wisconsin

Wisconsin education reform echoes ALEC’s agenda | Defend Wisconsin:

Wisconsin education reform echoes ALEC’s agenda

Republican state legislators are starting to move on a number of proposals to “reform” Wisconsin’s public schools. The bills bear the marks of having been poured through the filter of the American Legislative Exchange Council‘s agenda for school reform before they were exposed to the light of day.

This week the Assembly Committee on Education held a hearing on a voucher bill for special needs children that appears to be modeled on the ALEC Special Needs Scholarship Program Act. The bill would allow students with disabilities to attend a private or a public school outside their district with the help of a taxpayer-funded subsidy worth more than $13,000 per student.

Assembly Bill 110 would create a Special Needs Scholarship Program that would allow special education students to transfer to private or public charter schools. The school accepting the student would receive the aid for the student and the student’s former school would lose it.

Disability rights advocates and staff from the Department of Public Instruction say the proposal