Voters send message on support for schools

Yes. Yes. Yes. And yes 70-plus times more.

These yeses aren’t rooted in the election of a new governor. They come from the outcome of local voting across Wisconsin on referendum questions on whether school districts should spend more money — and tax their communities more — than state-determined spending limits.

Each referendum had its own specifics. But the wave of approvals, totaling well over $1 billion, signaled widespread willingness to give more support to schools.

There are other signs to support saying that. The Marquette Law School Poll (in which I have some involvement) has asked often in the last five years whether people put a higher priority on using money for increased spending for public schools or on reducing property taxes. Opinion was closely split on this in 2013. Now there is a clear majority for schools.

In a poll released on Oct. 31, the poll asked for the first time what voters thought of teacher salaries and benefits overall in Wisconsin.

The result: 58% said teacher compensation should be higher, 4% said lower and 32% said it was about right. Democrats were much more likely than Republicans to say compensation should be higher. Republicans were much more likely to say it currently was about right.

And then you have the election for governor, in which each candidate said he was the one who really supported education. And now we’ll have a longtime state superintendent of public instruction, Tony Evers, moving into the governor’s chair.

The overall message is pretty clear: People across Wisconsin want to have good schools and think more needs to be done to make or keep that so. The overall public disposition toward schools is better now than in a long time.

Where do we go from here?

What will this climate mean for the next several years of state education policy?

I suggest two answers that sound contradictory.

On the one hand, it is likely it won’t mean as much as Evers supporters want.

In a firmly and potentially bitterly split Capitol, with Democrats in the executive branch and Republicans controlling both houses of the Legislature, deadlocks are likely. Unleashing a big wave of new state money seems unlikely.

On the other hand, there may be some room for agreement or compromise. For one thing, as was the case during the 2017 state budget debate, Republicans overall may want to show more support for schools than was true in prior years.

Where might there be room to work together? A few possibilities:

Early childhood programs. Evers has called for increasing state support of funding for 4-year-old kindergarten programs and launching a program of start-up grants for 3-year-old kindergartens.

In 2016, a task force appointed by Rep. Robin Vos, the Republican leader of the Assembly, called for increased support of preschool programs and said money spent on early childhood was money well spent.

Mental health needs of children. A high priority of educators across the state, programs to address this have attracted support across the spectrum.

There was bipartisan agreement on some increases in state funding in the 2017 state budget. There likely will be more coming, including help for programs aimed at mitigating the impact of traumatic events on young children, a hot subject currently.

State funding for students with disabilities. This will be important.

State aid for special education has stayed basically flat for many years and is far below the level of support the state once said it would provide. And schools across the state are under financial pressure because of special ed costs.

Evers wants to see a very large increase in this area — $600 million over two years. That will be a tough sale to Republicans. But there could be some agreement on spending more.

Change in the state funding formula. Change in the formula has frustrated everyone who has tried to tackle it for many years. But there is wide agreement that the formula has problems and creates inequities.

As school chief, Evers has put forward a plan for change several times in the past, but he’ll be in a better position to push that as governor.

A Republican-created task force has worked on this for much of the last year but hasn’t issued a report yet. Could there be some meeting of minds? Only if there is a way to create winners without creating losers in terms of money flowing to specific school districts.

Where will agreement come hardest? Two areas stand out:

Overall school spending. Evers campaigned for large increases in state aid. Republican legislative leaders say they can’t see that happening.

But, as in 2017, they are likely to favor some increase. Expect much posturing and tough talk on both sides. Eventually, there will be a state budget and it will include a lot of aid to schools. But getting there will be bumpy.

Private school vouchers. The state has four different programs that allow students to use public money to pay for attending private schools.

There is a big partisan divide on this. Evers campaigned on cutting back on vouchers. Expect Republicans not to budge on this.

Overall, deadlock is very likely to mean little change in the status quo. But could protecting the voucher programs lead Republicans to compromise on something else? Seems like an important question.

The potential for division and deadlock within the Capitol on education is high. But in several ways, people across the state have been saying what they want. Their messages probably include wanting to see politicians work together.

They definitely involve wanting to see a healthier education landscape.

Alan J. Borsuk is senior fellow in law and public policy at Marquette Law School. Reach him at alan.borsuk @marquette.edu.