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Executive summary
February 25, 2022 | By Jim Bender and Patrick McIlheran
The estimate by the Department of Public Instruction of $577.3 million in potential added costs to property tax payers from opening Wisconsin’s school choice programs to families of all income levels is deeply flawed.
It rests on an assumption that all children now attending private schools with tuition paid by their parents would switch to using state aid via the school choice program. This ignores the reality that choice schools, which can determine how many seats they offer through the program, usually can’t afford to have no tuition-paying students – because the choice grant is too far below the cost of education. Instead, the ratio of choice to tuition-paying students is likely to change more slowly.
Since the bill does not include an extension of the fixed window to apply for a choice seat next year, families made eligible by the bill could switch their children only if the bill is signed and the DPI revamps its application process in the next six weeks. It is more likely that no additional children will attend next year.
The estimate’s central claim, that such a shift would burden property tax payers, points to a possible reform. The program’s complicated financing shifts the burden in schools outside of Milwaukee to the property tax in districts that choice students live in. It would be simpler and, from a taxing standpoint, fairer to fund school choice statewide in a uniform way that mirrors how most of state government is funded – through general-purpose revenue raised primarily through the state taxes rather than local property taxes.
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