LAWMAKERS PUSH REFORMS TO HELP RURAL SCHOOLS
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 -- 12:35 PM
A group of legislators from rural Wisconsin are pushing for some "modest" changes to education policy.A series of bills sponsored by the rural caucus passed through an Assembly committee Tuesday, and will be up for a hearing in the Senate Committee on Education on Thursday.
Sen. Pat Kreitlow (D-Chippewa Falls) is a sponsor of the legislation.
One proposal would prevent unused school transportation aid from lapsing into the state's general fund.
"That's what it was meant for was to alleviate transportation costs and take pressure off of local property taxes," Kreitlow states. "Our bill would take any surplus and put it back out to districts, which would be a benefit to rural districts, who have higher transportation costs."
One proposal that may meet some resistance at the school level is a bill to add rigidity to the SAGE program. That program offers funding to keep class sizes at a 15:1 student-teacher ratio, but the DPI has too much flexibility to grant waivers, according to Kreitlow.
Their plan is to up the ratio to 18:1, but eliminate DPI's ability to grant waivers.
But, if a school getting SAGE funding has 19 kids in a class, they'd have to split the class and hire a new teacher.
"The same could be said if we raised that to 19, someone could say what about that 20th student. That flexibility was getting out of hand when that ratio went up to as much as 20:1," Kreitlow says. "It was getting waived far too often."
Kreitlow is optimistic the reforms will pass through both houses of the state legislature.
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