Here & Now

School Choice in Wausau Continues to Divide the Community

Frederica Freyberg:

The statewide school choice program has been in place for four years now. For the first time Governor Scott Walker did not propose an expansion of choice in his budget. So the issue is not getting as much attention as in years past. But public and private schools are still adjusting, trying to determine if the number of schools using vouchers has stabilized or will continue to grow. Two years ago we visited Wausau to look at what expansion of the choice program would mean there. And wanted to check back in. As you might expect, Here & Now’s Zac Schultz found that public and private schools have completely different views on how choice is working.

Bill Zuelsdorff:

Eight, now take eight away. How much do I have?

Zac Schultz:

Two years ago, Principal Bill Zuelsdorff in Trinity Lutheran School didn’t have any voucher students. They had just joined the choice program and ended up with 15 in the fall.

Bill Zuelsdorff:

The first 15 that we had the first year probably two-thirds of those were students we already had here. So we didn’t really grow that much. That’s five. Six. Yep.

Zac Schultz:

In year two, that has grown to 27 choice students. 18% of their total enrollment.

Bill Zuelsdorff:

Some of the families I have are new families that would be in public schools but really probably the majority of our choice families are families that were already here.

Mike Martin:

Just from a raw number standpoint, we’re postured to grow.

Zac Schultz:

A mile away, Newman Catholic School President Zac Schultz has seen choice grow from 13 to 94 students in just four years.

Zac Schultz:

It’s about 14,000 plus students in what’s called the Wausau metropolitan area. And we have 94 of those students right now.

Kathleen Williams:

Well it's certainly a negative impact on us.

Zac Schultz:

Kathleen Williams is retiring as superintendent of Wausau public schools this year and she’s not changed her mind on the dangers of the choice program.

Kathleen Williams:

People look at it at the surface, no big deal. It is a big deal.

Zac Schultz:

This year, 82 students that live in the Wausau school district are attending private school with a voucher. The state caps the number of kids that each district can lose at 1%. For Wausau, that’s 86 voucher students. But that cap will increase to 2% next year. Meaning they could lose 172. The nearby D.C. Everest School District has lost 37 voucher students. At the 2% cap, they could lose 118. Add it all up and next year, there’s 290 vouchers available in the Wausau area.

Mike Martin:

I probably have about 2,000 Catholic kids in the public school system right now. One of my challenges, how do I get them back into Catholic education.

Frederica Freyberg Bill Zuelsdorff:

We definitely have a lot of seats we could fill yet. And if it’s going to be through the choice program, that would be a good option.

Kathleen Williams:

The key is how that impact is going to grow.

Zac Schultz:

Kathleen Williams is concerned about the increasing cost of choice. In particular because Wausau public schools are paying for those vouchers. And they’re required to raise property taxes to do so.

Kathleen Williams:

Those people who are scrutinizing their tax bills are going to say, “Hey, you know, the Wausau School District is charging more money.”

Zac Schultz:

Originally, school choice was funded directly by the state. But in the last budget, the Republican majority shifted that so each voucher student counts towards the public school’s enrollment. The school district taxes their local property taxpayers for that student’s voucher cost. And the state withholds that amount from the school’s last state aid payment and sends the money to the private school.

Kathleen Williams:

That's the significant danger in my mind. We may be losing those tax dollars and those students, but I think the greater impact is the fact that most people don’t understand the local implications of that. That our taxpayers are funding choice.

Zac Schultz:

Last year, Wausau schools increased their property tax levy by $428,000 to pay for those 82 vouchers. That works out to an extra $16 a year for the owner of a $150,000 house. But that homeowner would not know it by looking at their tax bill. Because it’s hidden in the public schools tax line.

Kathleen Williams:

How many times have you heard the term, we need to be transparent? Well then, let’s be transparent. Let's let everybody fully understand where their dollars are going.

Zac Schultz:

Those choice dollars have become a critical part of the choice school’s budget. Each voucher is worth around $7,300 for grades K-8 and $7,500 for high schoolers.

Mike Martin:

That’s about a $700,000 amount of money coming into Newman to help educate those students. That’s real money in my lexicon.

Zac Schultz:

For Trinity Lutheran, it adds up to $190,000 this year.

Bill Zuelsdorff:

It's a good chunk, yes. Our budget is a little over a million dollars, so about 10%.

Zac Schultz:

Neither Trinity nor Newman had to hire additional teachers, since so many of those students were already in house. But how they’ve used the money shows how politically unstable the choice program is viewed.

Bill Zuelsdorff:

We have to have this plan that this may not always be here, and what happens then?

Zac Schultz:

Neither school has given their teachers a raise due to the extra income.

Mike Martin:

We would not tie teacher salaries to that part of enrollment.

Zac Schultz:

At Newman, they have a list of upgrades to the facilities.

Mike Martin:

One of them is offsetting some of the costs of the new roof we put on the high school here.

Zac Schultz:

At Trinity, the church congregation gets the break.

Bill Zuelsdorff:

What the choice program has done is helped us pay those regular expenses we have so the church does not have to put in as much.

Zac Schultz:

Everyone is aware the next election could shift power in Madison. And lead to changes in choice. But Trinity and Newman hope by then the program will be so established, it won’t be so easy to roll back.

Bill Zuelsdorff:

The longer the program is going and as long as it’s showing to be a positive thing, I think that’s less likely to happen.

Mike Martin:

The ship has already sailed in the sense it is so popular now that it’s probably here to stay.