Monday, July 20, 2009

Virtual Schools dispatch for Wisconsin Interest

I have a small "dispatch" regarding the virtual schools enrollment cap online at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute's website. The article is about two families who are hoping their children can attend Waukesha's IQ Academy this fall but are currently on the waiting list. An excerpt:
For parents like Deana Sheppard and Kathleen Seipel, the uncertainty is excruciating as they try to plan for school this fall. They have children on the waiting list for the state’s 14 virtual schools. Will they get in...or not?

That waiting list is the product of the new enrollment cap of 5,250 online students, insisted upon by Gov. Jim Doyle, as part of the political compromise engineered by the Legislature last year. The compromise kept the publicly run online schools open after the state’s largest teachers union won a lawsuit challenging state funding of the virtual schools.