Tell it to the kids who will have no school

On the eve of hundreds of students, parents and teachers coming to Madison to tell the story of the Wisconsin Virtual Academy to the members of the state legislature, One Wisconsin Now decides to attempt to smear the member of the state legislature that has created a bill to save the school.

Assembly Education Committee Chair Rep. Brett Davis (R-Oregon) will hold a public hearing today on a bill he has authored that will benefit operators of Wisconsin virtual schools including K12, Inc., the Virginia-based for-profit company behind the Wisconsin Virtual Academy, and whose top executive and senior staff contributed to Davis's last campaign.

"What kind of smell test does this one pass?" asked Scot Ross, Executive Director of One Wisconsin Now. "Brett Davis's campaign takes contributions from top executives of an out-of-state, for-profit company and then sponsors legislation that specifically would help this for-profit company with taxpayer funds."

The horror, the horror. The sum total of these donations? $500. Probably less than one hour of legal bills paid by the taxpayers to investigate the activities of Scot Ross when he worked for the legislature. Meanwhile, do you remember State Senator John Lehman (D-Racine) who tried to kill Wisconsin virtual schools while pretending to save them? Lehman got $142,525 from the state teachers union, enough to fund all sorts of scandalous behaviour by Scot Ross if he wanted to.

One Wisconsin Now does not believe that "every kid deserves a great school". The state teachers union claims that it wants every child to go to a great school, but they're doing everything they can to close one down. We'll see how many members of the legislature are willing to close a school down merely because it is successful.