{"id":6446,"date":"2023-10-16T20:04:10","date_gmt":"2023-10-16T20:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=6446"},"modified":"2023-10-16T20:08:17","modified_gmt":"2023-10-16T20:08:17","slug":"wisconsin-school-choice-supporters-promise-to-fight-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=6446","title":{"rendered":"Wisconsin School Choice Supporters Promise to Fight Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/kirk-bangstad\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Kirk<\/p>\n

Several groups promised to fight a new lawsuit that challenges school choice in Wisconsin.<\/p>\n

Kirk Bangstad, the owner of the Minocqua Brewing, last week filed a lawsuit that accuses Wisconsin\u2019s voucher programs of harming public schools in the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the core of the issue lies the voucher school financing system, which appears to be designed more to harm school districts than to support voucher programs. The impact of this financing scheme has been devastating to Wisconsin\u2019s school districts,\u201d Brian Potts, an attorney on the case, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Bangstad is challenging school choice based on Wisconsin\u2019s Constitution<\/p>\n

\u201cThe revenue limit and funding schemes for voucher school programs and independent charter schools violate the Wisconsin Constitution\u2019s Public-Purpose Requirement and the Uniform Taxation Clause,\u201d Potts said. \u201cThis parasitic funding system is pushing public school districts into an ever-worsening financial crisis, which is leading to what can only be described as a funding death spiral for public education.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has support for his suit. Wisconsin State Superintendent of Schools Jill Underly said she agreed with Bangstad that school choice in Wisconsin hurts public schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cPublic education is a constitutional right. It says it right there in Article X, Section 3<\/a> of the Wisconsin Constitution. And as a right guaranteed to our children, and as an opportunity for our state to put our money where our priorities should be, Wisconsin needs to fulfill its responsibility to effectively, equitably and robustly fund our public education system,\u201d Underly said.<\/p>\n

A chorus of school choice advocates, free market reformers and others then immediately promised to fight the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf successful, [these] efforts would destroy a popular program that serves thousands of Wisconsin families, dismantling Wisconsin\u2019s education system, all to serve a purely political purpose,\u201d Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty President and General Counsel Rick Esenberg said. \u201cTheir so-called \u2018facts\u2019 are misleading, misinformed and it has caused their legal argument to fall far short. WILL stands ready to oppose their efforts and mount a staunch defense of the program in the court of law.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the lawsuit claims school choice hurts Wisconsin\u2019s traditional public schools, School Choice Wisconsin President Nicholas Kelly says ending the voucher programs would hurt low-income students.<\/p>\n

\u201cEfforts to kill school choice will hurt thousands of low-income families throughout the state. In Milwaukee and Racine, where four out of five choice students are Black and Hispanic, this would fall most heavily on families desperate for educational options,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n

This is not Bangstad\u2019s first lawsuit dealing with schools in Wisconsin. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he was looking for plaintiffs<\/a> to sue to enforce mask mandates and keep schools in the state closed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/kirk-bangstad\/ Several groups promised to fight a new lawsuit that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":831,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-right-now"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6446"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6448,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6446\/revisions\/6448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}