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NEWSROOM * CIRCULATION * ADVERTISING
Thursday
September 2010
2
Community Blogs
State Sen. Jim Sullivan represents the 5th Senate District, which includes Wauwatosa, West Allis, West Milwaukee, Elm Grove and parts of Milwaukee and Brookfield. Sen. Sullivan, a licensed attorney who graduated from Marquette University Law School, strives to be an effective, thoughtful, consensus-building representative of his constituents.
Go to Sen. Sullivan's website
Open Enrollment Cap Vetoed
I joined several Milwaukee area legislators last week in urging Governor Doyle to veto a cap on open enrollment. Hundreds of parents from throughout Milwaukee County have chosen to enroll their children in school districts within the 5th Senate District, including Wauwatosa and West Allis-West Milwaukee, and this provision would have a negative impact on them. Below is text from that letter:
Dear Governor Doyle,
We are writing to express our opposition to any attempt to cap open enrollment in public schools in Milwaukee County in the state budget. Neither the budget approved by the Joint Committee on Finance nor the one approved by the Senate contain a provision capping open enrollment. Please veto the cap on open enrollment for public schools in Milwaukee County.
The motion to cap open enrollment in Milwaukee County was offered by Rep. Young in the Assembly Version of the budget. The proposal was modified by the Conference Committee as outlined in the Comparative Summary of Recommendations, Assembly, Senate and Conference on Finance (page 10, Item 17).
While the Conference Committee’s modification would allow children to transfer from Milwaukee Public School District to another school district within Milwaukee County, none of these districts will receive an increase in state aid under the open enrollment program as a result of accepting pupils who reside in the MPS District. Implementation of this cap for the 2009-10 school year will require parents and students who are already enrolled in school for Sept 2009 to scramble to find another school to attend. It is extremely unfair to impose a change like this on school districts and families with no notice or warning.
Please veto the cap on open enrollment and return to the language in your original budget.
We ask that you seriously consider our concerns as you review the state budget.
Doyle vetoed the cap.
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6 Comments
groovyone26 - Jul 02, 2009 9:36 PM
I remember when if you moved to another city you went to the school in that city. These people are not paying taxes here for their kids to attend. In my opinion open enrollment outside of the district shouldn't be allowed. you want your child to attend our schools, than move here and be part of the community that supports the school your child attends.
groovyone26 - Jul 02, 2009 9:36 PM
I remember when if you moved to another city you went to the school in that city. These people are not paying taxes here for their kids to attend. In my opinion open enrollment outside of the district shouldn't be allowed. you want your child to attend our schools, than move here and be part of the community that supports the school your child attends.
jadedeye - Jul 03, 2009 6:19 AM
I believe that you are forgetting two cardinal rules: 1) Follow the $$$$; 2) It is all about the $$$$.
It is not about teaching the kids. It is about how to get more money to finance obese budgets and pie-in-the-sky attitudes at the top level. Everyone's greed makes them want a bigger slice of an ever shrinking pie of education $$$$. Open enrollment is the guise to attempt that under the pretense of providing a better education than other districts. Unfortunately, you get some bad eggs in the deal but then there are a few bad eggs here already, but that is for another blog altogether.
Personally, I would rather see district-to-district open enrollment canned. Force the districts to have to deal with the messes that they have created for themselves. If you want to go to a better district, move to that district. That is why when I purchased a house, iI stayed in West Allis because I like the school system, despite it issues.
tosaoutsider - Jul 03, 2009 8:05 AM
One of the arguments against school choice is that when students leave failing school systems, it further weakens those systems because the parents who care about their kids' educations are no longer involved. I guess the critics were right.
I'm not in favor of school choice, but that's what we have and it should be administered fairly. Maybe what we should really do is admit that the grand experiment was a failure and can the whole thing - open enrollment, 220, the fly-by-night "schools" to which desperate parents send their kids. If we do that, though, I think we need to look at more low and moderate income hosuing in our fair cities so that low income families have more opportunity to move to the 'burbs.
StubbornOldMan - Jul 03, 2009 12:23 PM
The Tosa and West Allis School Districts are morphing themselves into MPS-West (along with many of the problems associated with MPS). It's a small victory for suburban school parents to see that at least the financial incentive of increased State Aid to the 'Tosa and West Allis Districts to recruit MPS kids is gone.
It's not about the kids... It's all about the money. Anybody in the school system that tells you differently is not being completely honest with you.
LiveinTosaStillanOutsider - Jul 20, 2009 1:09 PM
So.... please stop acting like if "THOSE" parents should move to Tosa or West Allis everything will be ok for their children - because it will not be. Yes he is being educated but I question rather it is the best.
Tosa doesn't want minority students in their school district rather they live in Tosa or not. That's the reason why I am looking to pull him out of "YOUR" schools and putting him in a private school - someplace that he, hopefully, will feel that he belongs.
I am so sick of the down right Prejudice and bigotry or "you people" that I want to scream. I really hate that we move to Tosa but I hate it even move that my son has had to participate in a school district that doesn't want to see him coming.
BTW... no he is not one of those trouble makers you've spoken of. Actually he is an honor roll student, that participates in a lot of activities in "your" school district; and yes I am a home owner that pay taxes into "your" school district.
2 years of Tosa public schools is enough for me, but all of that does not matter, we are still treated like we do not belong. I'd rather go back to paying for my sons education than to continue to subject him to the treatment that he receives from the parents, teachers and students in Tosa.