Milwaukee, WI – Senator Chris Larson and Representative Jonathan Brostoff unveil their Public Education Reinvestment Act (PERA) along with public education advocates.
“Inherent to the idea of expanding vouchers is that we should give up on public schools and give up on the kids who are there and should instead only give some kids a path to success. Even if vouchers were successful, which they are not, this would be flatly unacceptable.
“Our Public Education Reinvestment Act puts forward an evidence-based approach to closing the achievement gap by lowering class sizes and ending the failed voucher experiment. Just in the 2019-2020 school year alone Wisconsin taxpayers will spend $349.6 million statewide on voucher programs. This represents resources that are being siphoned away from our neighborhood public schools with mixed results.
“What voucher proponents don’t point out is that their model has failed to do anything public schools couldn’t do on their own. Instead, they have cost us billions in the process. Our children deserve neighborhood public schools that are well resourced and ready to meet the needs of all Wisconsin students.
“To be clear, the results of vouchers have shown to produce the same results as public schools while siphoning off a great deal of money and resources and hurt public education overall. We must reinvest that money in our public schools, give our teachers the resources they need, lower class sizes, and provide a quality education for all of our neighbors, no matter what zip code they happen to live in.”
