Hey there, folks! Governor Tony Evers here.
Wisconsin was the first state in the nation to create a private school voucher program.
And as a former science teacher, principal, superintendent, and state superintendent, I’ve spent decades of my life watching the impacts that draining public funds from public schools to fund private voucher school programs has had on kids, schools, and public education in Wisconsin. Wisconsinites have, too.
With each passing school year, public school districts continue to endure capped and prorated state funding, strict revenue limits, and with the need to go to referendum just to keep up with inflation.
Folks, public funds should go to public schools. Period.
That’s why I was proud to veto a bill that would have required opting Wisconsin into a new nationwide federal voucher program created by President Trump and Republicans.
Republicans’ so-called ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ created the first-ever federal effort to fund private school scholarships.
Put another way, the federal government is now going to use public funds that should be used for public schools to essentially reimburse donors for helping fund private schools instead. No joke, folks!
This nationwide voucher program has no student achievement metrics, no school accountability measures, no minimum or maximum scholarship size, no certain end date, and no cap on how much the federal government can spend.
Republicans just gave the federal government a blank check to run a nationwide voucher program without regard for whether it actually does what’s best for kids.
Folks, that doesn’t cut it for me, and it won’t cut it for the more than 800,000 Wisconsin public school kids for whom the state has a constitutional obligation to invest in to provide the best education possible. So, I vetoed it.
I’ve always said what’s best for our kids is what’s best for our state, and as governor, I am going to keep working to do what’s best for our kids. Thank you.
