Area residents gathered at Chippewa Valley Technical College on Wednesday to express their views about Gov. Scott McCallum’s proposed 2001-03 state budget to members of Wisconsin’s Joint Finance Committee.
The committee is traveling to areas of Wisconsin, such as Eau Claire, Superior, Milwaukee, La Crosse and Marshfield, to hear public testimony about the proposed budget before they make revisions and send it to the governor for approval.
The public spoke out about a variety of issues, including education, health care and opportunities for the physically-disabled.
One widely versed issue was the expansion of the statewide Student Achievement Guaranteed Education program. The SAGE program is “administered through five-year grants designed to promote academic achievement through lower class sizes in elementary schools,” according to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
The program, which began in the 1996-97 school year, reduces the class sizes of schools who have an enrollment of 25 percent or more low-income students to a 15-to-1 student-to teacher ratio. The program has grown from 30 participating schools in 1996 to nearly 600 in 2001.
Gov. McCallum’s budget proposal would change parts of the program. The percentage of low-income students enrolled in the participating schools would be raised to 50 percent. Schools participating in the program that only meet the 25 percentage mark can continue to participate in the program, but will only get aid for kindergarten and first grade. Schools that meet the 50-percent mark will be able to expand the program to the second and third grades.
About 400 out of the 500 schools that started the program in the 2000-01 school year would not be able to expand the program, according to Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction.
The DPI requested about $17 million for next year and an additional $35 million for the 2002-03 school year. The governor’s proposed budget would only add about $6.6 million for next year and $15.6 million for the 2002-03 school year, according to the DPI.
With the SAGE program in effect, teachers are able to handle kids with special needs, said Tammy Jackson, a mother, who said she has witnessed the benefits of the SAGE program.
“(The SAGE program) makes teaching a different experience,” she said.
Jackson and fellow mother Nikki Hanna said they want to expand the program at all the schools it already exists at.