Core Principles

The Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools (WAES) is a diverse, statewide coalition working for comprehensive school-funding reform. Partnership in the coalition depends only on agreement with the following core principles:

1. Sufficient resources

   Wisconsin’s public schools need a system of funding that provides all children with the resources needed to provide them with the equal opportunity for a quality education guaranteed by the Wisconsin Constitution, the Supreme Court and federal and state statutes.

2. Resources should be linked to high standards

   A new system of funding should guarantee a base amount of resources to educate regular students to high standards and also provide enough resources to give the same opportunity to meet high standards to children with special education needs, those who live in poverty, students with limited English skills, and those with special needs determined by the size, location, and/or demographics of their school districts.

3. State tax reform

   New resources as part of school-funding reform should come from statewide — rather than local — taxes in a way that lowers property taxes while increasing fairness to all taxpayers.

4. Local control

   A new system should build on Wisconsin’s successful tradition of local control by trusting individual communities to decide how additional funding will be utilized and by assuring accountability for improved student performance.