Just wanted to let everyone know a kind lady from Wisconsin e-mailed me to respond to some of the entries that I have posted about the Wisconsin Virtual Academy case (see Blogging About Wisconsin and Virtual School Deal Reached In Wisconsin for recent entries).
Dear Dr. Barbour, [note: everyone should feel free to call me Michael!]I recently discovered your blog, “Virtual High School Meanderings”, and have enjoyed reading it, esp. your posts about the situation in Wisconsin. I have been following that situation very closely, because my daughter is a student at the Wisconsin Virtual Academy (the school involved in the lawsuit). I wanted to clarify a few things for you:1. The reason the virtual schools (and families) did not support the original Lehman bill was because it cut funding for virtual schools in half, which would have forced all of them to close. Virtual schools already receive about half the funding of traditional schools ($6000 per student compared to $11,000). To have that funding cut to $3000 would have meant death for these schools. To Sen. Lehman’s credit, he quickly released that and dropped that provision. The schools have no problem with full financial disclosure or with high standards for virtual schools, and those provisions were left in the bill that passed both houses last week.2. The reason the media did not make a big deal about Rep. Davis receiving donations totally $500 from people associated with k12 is because that is small potatoes compared to the amount of money WEAC (Wisconsin’s teachers’ union) has donated to other lawmakers involved in this issue. They gave over $140,000 to Sen. Lehman alone in his last campaign. Again to Sen. Lehman’s credit, he did not allow this to prevent him from working with Rep. Davis to come up with a compromise everyone could live with.3. The reason k12’s Wisconsin revenues totaled $5,000,000 last year was because k12’s contract with the North Ozaukee School District requires k12 to pay for all of WIVA’s costs. This includes teachers’ salaries, benefits and travel expenses (the teachers regularly travel around the state to meet with students in person), curriculum and supplies (including shipping costs), Internet stipends for students and teachers, computers for students and teachers, and legal costs (which have been quite high due to the lawsuit). WIVA has 850 students, so this comes to a per-student cost of just under $6000.If you have any more questions about this issue, I’d be happy to answer them or refer you to someone who can.I see that you did graduate work at the University of Georgia. I grew up in Athens. I really missed it this year, since our winter here in Wisconsin has been very long!Take care,XXXXXXXX
I’ll be honest and indicate that I don’t agree with everything that this individual has to say, and after AERA when things calm down I’ll try and respond to each point individually, but since they chose to take the time to respond I wanted to make sure that this side of the issue was heard.
I should note that the same individual also e-mailed me a link to the copy of the latest compromise bill - see http://www.legis.state.wi.us/2007/data/SB396-ASA1.pdf. When I return from AERA I’ll also do an analysis of this piece of legislation as I have done with the other ones.
