Utterly predictable. And yet another 1,000 or so families who are paying taxes for schools they aren’t using. We need more School Choice.
The Madison Metropolitan School District has 1,006 fewer students this year than last.
Projections before the COVID-19 pandemic anticipated a drop of only 51 students from the 2019-20 school year to 2020-21, but a survey this summer indicated it was likely to be much larger. The count of 25,877 students is based on the annual “third Friday count,” which is taken on the third Friday of September to determine state aid.
Elementary and 4-year-old kindergarten enrollments account for 90% of the overall decrease, according to a memo to the School Board, which will discuss the budget and enrollment Monday evening. In 2019-20, 1,717 students enrolled in 4K, but that number is down to 1,415 this year. The elementary school total was 11,789 last year, but is down to 11,173 for 2020-21.
“Leave”? That is generous.
“Escape the liberal Marxist hell” would be the description I would use.
Hey Owen, follow the logic… Pandemic leads to less parking revenue and so leads to fewer students. Duh…
You’re almost there, DJ Jason. You’ll be spotting weak logic before you know it. The pandemic means more kids stayed at home, so therefore we need more school choice!
Geek Squad Foust, tell us all how exactly school choice has hurt you. Be specific, use a doll if you need to. Sharing is Caring.
Which form of schooling led you to behave the way you do, Jason?
You avoided my request. Why? Is the topic too difficult to face?
An almost 4% drop in 1 year is pretty significant. I wonder if there will be a significant amount of teachers laid off?
I doubt it.
School choice? You mean having an alternative to the public schools? Not much, unless you want to argue the societal disadvantage of poorly educated kids. But why should I pay for someone else’s alternative that is a religious education?
But you knew how I thought about it, as I’ve stated it here many times, yet you had to ask again.
I, on the other hand, don’t know your justifications for your poor behaviors.
Some part of that 4-year-old loss is due to the decline in numbers of children.
But that excuse doesn’t work for the upper grade levels here. Assuming (at some risk) that the missing chilluns are not merely truant, then home-schooling has become a very big thing along with Catholic/Lutheran/Christian schools.
And that’s a good thing!
Of course school choice could mean going to the suburban schools.
And yes, jjf, we know you don’t want little Brown and Black children getting a better education than they get in public schools. Even if they are exposed to a little bit of religion or non-religious private school.
Mar, you keep repeating that, and you know I’ve never said it. Only you have.
Another blog (Blaska) provides useful information:
So ~20% went home-school/private school; almost as many fled the State (Evers caused?) and the rest are simply getting the hell out of Dodge.
Whatever reason you have jjf, pales in comparison to keep those kids down on the liberal plantation.
You should be cheering for these to kids ahead, no matter how they do it.
But you want to keep the kids down.
You don’t have to say it. Your words meaning and excuses are plenty of action on the subject.
But jjf, your secret of being a closet racist is not known to anyone but here.
If they have no choice when it comes to their schooling, then how were they able to go somewhere else? That doesn’t make sense at all.
And I don’t understand what you mean by “paying taxes for schools they aren’t using”. Society as a whole benefits from children being educated, and thus they are useful for everyone….why do you beleive otherwise?
Thank you for supporting School Choice funding!!
I have always supported allowing choices for schooling, and if you need financial assistance from society in order to educate your children then I’m ok with helping you out. However, I don’t support taxation without representation, and thus don’t beleive in just handing out “vouchers” which can be spent at any business and/or church which I have no vote nor voice in.
The lack of accountability in the “voucher system” is unacceptable to me and major changes will need to occur for me to support that particular welfare program.
Sounds rather socialist to me, Dad29. You want to use Other People’s Money to teach the kids your particular religion?
Just as you advocate using OPM to completely fail the children in MKE and Madistan, Jiffy. Equality!! OPM, OPM. All the same, see?
As to “accountablity,” we agree, P. However, we don’t agree that you get a voice in someone else’s religion. That’s the case in the public schools, too. We don’t have a voice. Did you get a voice re the 1619 Project materials?
Didn’t think so.
penquin, here is a list of regulations that choice schools have: https://www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/non-public-education/regulation-map/wisconsin.html
Depends if you are talking about a public or private school.
For public schools, curriculum is approved by the local school board and I get to vote for a representative on that board. With vouchers, they just take my $$$ and I don’t get any vote at all – hence, taxation without representation.
Good info & thanks for sharing – it helps prove my point about the lack of accountability these “voucher schools” have to the taxpayer.
Yeah, except my example of OPM seems to be in the state Constitution. For whatever reason, they said we should use OPM to educate kids, and “no sectarian instruction shall be allowed therein;”
This is actually a twisty problem. I can certainly see why people who are sending their kids to private schools or home schooling do not want to pay for public education that they are not using. It seems to make a lot of sense. And I can see how the tax credit to the individual is, in essence, going to the private school as one is ‘donating’ the tax credit value to the school in order to receive the credit in the first place (Nice legal laundering service there). So while we (everyone else) are not directly paying money to the private schools, we are actually indirectly paying for them by now making up all those $500 tax credits that others are receiving. Because public schools did not get $500 cheaper per tax credit for everyone else.
In principle, I am in favor of school choice. If your nearest public school puts out a crappy product that will guarantee an inferior education to your child, one should have the option of to use a different school.
However, as someone who has never fathered children, I have never been given any choice to not pay for public education (Constantly being fed the line that education for all helps all of us…fine). Therefore, someone who chooses a more (or less) expensive option than public schools should not be receiving tax credits for not using public school. If moving your child around (or moving your residence) to get better education for your kids costs you more, you should be liable for those costs. In general, private schools have traditionally had very high tuition costs that only the well to do can afford, so giving people tax credits for those tuition costs is just another tax credit for the relatively wealthy, in the end. If tax credits for sending your kids to private schools is okay with you then the same tax credit being available to people with no children at all should be equally okay because we ain’t using them skools neether.