MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin will use money from the American Rescue Plan Act to invest $90 million into K-12 education.
Governor Tony Evers announced the move outside Leopold Elementary in Madison on Tuesday, which includes $15 million to double the “Get Kids Ahead” initiative and $75 million meant to address the state’s teacher shortage and support school districts.
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“We can and we have to do more,” Evers said. “Every kid deserves to have access to public education, from early childhood to our university and technical college systems, regardless of where their ZIP code is.”
The money will be handed out on a per-pupil basis, with an additional $91.15 per student. The funds can be utilized over multiple years and can be used to hire and retain teachers and pay for supplies, services and bussing.
“The bottom line for me always comes back to doing what’s best for our kids,” Evers said. “This $90 million will help provide what our kids need to be successful both in and out of the classroom.”
Districts who join the “Get Kids Ahead” program can also receive a minimum of $20,000 to provide direct mental healthcare to students. Evers initially announced $15 million for the program during his State of the State address in February. Tuesday’s announcement means that funding for the program now totals $30 million.
The campaign for Evers’ opponent in the November election, Republican Tim Michels, criticized the announcement.
“No amount of federal COVID aid can paper over Evers’ record of denying parents rights, refusing to reopen schools, vetoing curriculum transparency, and standing by as education standards plummet across the state,” the Michels campaign said in a statement.
Evers did direct the Department of Health Services to temporarily close K-12 school buildings at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in the spring of 2020, but school districts were free to make their own decisions starting the fall semester of 2020.
Joint Finance Committee co-chair Rep. Mark Born called Evers disingenuous and said that Republicans had made “historic investments” in K-12 education over the last several budgets.
Evers portrays himself as the savior of education, while Republicans have made historic investments in K12 education for several budgets in a row. It’s disingenuous and just another election year ploy by Evers to try to buy votes.
— Rep. Mark Born (@repborn) August 30, 2022
The most recent budget passed by the Republican-led Legislature increased K-12 education funding by $128 million, a tenth of what Evers proposed. The governor ended up signing the budget in part because vetoing the plan would have put $2.3 billion in federal coronavirus relief funding for K-12 schools in limbo.
That money was only given to states that met a certain federal requirement for education funding increases, which the Republican-authored budget did by allocating an added $650 million to schools. However, Republicans stipulated that the money from the budget had to be used to lower property taxes and could not be used for new school spending.
In July after Republicans convened, and failed, to override Evers’ veto of a bill ending $300 a week in federal unemployment aid, Evers called a special session to increase K-12 education funding by $440 million. Republicans gaveled in and immediately gaveled out of the session without taking any action. Both sides called the session a political stunt.
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