Madison official complains about Waukesha virtual school cost

Published on: 2/18/2010

A Capital Times blog post from earlier this week highlights complaints from one Madison School Board member about the discrepancy between the amount of state aid his district receives and how much Waukesha's virtual school gets.

Board member Ed Hughes says his district receives about $3,400 per student from the state, while virtual schools (like all schools in the state) get more than $6,000 for each Madison student they enroll through the state's open enrollment program. In addition, he pointed to a recent report by the Legislative Audit Bureau that found that Waukesha spent only $5,558 per child at its iQ Academy in 2007-'08, resulting in about a $500 per-pupil profit for the district.

"The legislature has created a system that sets up very strong incentives for a school district to contract with some corporate on-line operation, open up a virtual charter school, and set about trying to poach other districts' students," the blog post says Hughes wrote in a letter to state Sen. Fred Risser.

An interesting side note: the Madison Metropolitan School District's current business manager, Erik Kass, was instrumental to helping to keep Waukesha's virtual high school open and collecting a surplus when he was the business manager for that district.