D
uring the past year, Wisconsin state legislators debated a series of bills aimed at closing low-performing
public schools and replacing them with privately run charter schools. These proposals were particularly targeted
at Milwaukee, the state’s largest and poorest school district.
Ultimately, the only legislation enacted was a bill that modestly increases school reporting requirements, without stipulating
consequences for low performance. Nevertheless, the more ambitious proposals will likely remain at the core
of Wisconsin’s debates over education policy, and legislative leaders have made clear their desire to revisit them in next
year’s session. To help inform these deliberations, this report addresses the most comprehensive set of reforms put forward
in the 2013–2014 legislative session.
Backers of these reforms are particularly enamored of a new type of charter school represented by the Rocketship
chain of schools—a low-budget operation that relies on young and inexperienced teachers rather than more veteran
and expensive faculty, that reduces the curriculum to a near-exclusive focus on reading and math, and that replaces
teachers with online learning and digital applications for a significant portion of the day. Rocketship proposes that
its model—dubbed “blended learning” for its combination of in-person and computerized instruction—can cut costs
while raising low-income students’ test scores (Rocketship Education 2011).
The call for public schools to be replaced by such tech-heavy, teacher-light operations comes from some of the most
powerful actors in local and national politics: the major corporate lobbies, including Wisconsin Manufacturers and
Commerce, Americans for Prosperity, and the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC). It is these
groups, rather than parents or community organizations, that provided the impetus for legislators to consider proposals
for mass school closure and privatization in Milwaukee