Eliminate Chapter 220? Bad idea.

The Wisconsin Joint Finance Committee is contemplating the elimination of the Milwaukee's Chapter 220 program that allows students (4,150 last year) from Milwaukee Public Schools to attend and graduate at suburban schools, where more resources are spent on each student.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

School districts that receive Chapter 220 students get as much aid per student as they spend on their own students. At the same time, Milwaukee Public Schools gets to keep three-fourths of the Chapter 220 students going to suburban districts on their books for revenue purposes.

There's also major tax benefits for hosting districts:

Without the revenue that comes with bringing Chapter 220 students into the district, homeowners in Wauwatosa could expect property taxes to increase by about 15.5% to make up for the loss of about $4 million, according to Wauwatosa School District business manager John Mack. To the owner of a $200,000 home, that's about $235 more a year, Mack says. There would be an additional property tax increase of about 7.2% the next year because Wauwatosa would lose another $2.8 million in revenue because of the loss of students counted under the state's equalization aid formula, he says. [Aid is based on a three-year rolling average, meaning cuts in aid three years running for participating districts.]

As a graduate of a suburban Milwaukee school, Nicolet, I saw first-hand the benefits that the Chapter 220 program provides students. These students get a chance to study in a district that has a standard of instruction near or equivilent to that of most private schools. Without the Chapter 220 program, suburban schools wouldn't be nearly as racially or socioeconomically diverse as they are now, a benefit of the program for students living in the district that is often overlooked.

Whitefish Bay High School senior Marcus Switzer, 18, explains the benefits of the program (from the JS article):

"A lot of (Milwaukee) high schools are not up to college-bound standards," Switzer says. "It's a sad fact. But for many kids, to get that type of education, you have to go somewhere else."

Since the lawmakers in Madison aren't willing to spend the money to raise MPS up to the standards of it's suburban neighbors (I concede that it would be A LOT of money), they need to continue funding the Chapter 220 program to at least give a handful of kids a decent shot at a better education, especially if any of them want to claim that they support public education come the next election.

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article
Jay Bullock's post on the subject