State Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, is circulating a bill in the state Senate that would allow UW System schools to sponsor private K-12 charter schools.
Wednesday was the final day for people to sign on to co-sponsor the bill, which would let planners of new charter schools approach UW System institutions for sponsorship. This would allow parents who wish to send their children to these charter schools to pay less money.
Forty states have laws allowing sponsorship of charter schools, but most of them only allow sponsorship by individual school districts. In Wisconsin, the university sponsorship system is already in place at UW-Milwaukee and UW-Parkside, where Milwaukee and Racine parents receive $5,000 vouchers toward charter school tuition.
Tom Petri, a spokesman for Darling, said the bill would allow more educational options for low-income children and children who may not do well in public schools.
\In many cases, they are smaller schools ... with 100-200 children,"" he said. ""A lot of times there's more one-on-one with the teachers, there's more parental involvement, there's more options for that school like on-site autonomy and accountability.""
He added that charter schools do not have to abide by all the rules and regulations set down by the Department of Public Instruction, so teachers could use different means of teaching and teach different classes.
This exemption from DPI regulations is one of the worries of those who oppose the plan, according to Petri. Other concerns are an absence of a system for testing the effectiveness of charter schools and the loss of public school funds if children in a district chose to go to a charter school.
""This would pull kids out of regular public school, and that's why the DPI and the teachers' union don't like it,"" he said. ""A school district that would lose the kids to charter schools would lose the state aid that comes along with those kids.""
According to Joe Donovan, the DPI's communications director, the state superintendent is reviewing the plan to decide whether it is a good idea.
Petri said he believes that Madison parents will want a charter school. But Casey Nagy, executive assistant to the chancellor at UW-Madison, said although his office does not see anything wrong with the plan, he does not believe UW-Madison's School of Education will take part.
""We think it's fine,"" he said. ""I think from our perspective, it's probably not a good fit for our School of Education, considering its mission.""
He added that other departments on campus may take up the opportunity to create charter schools.
