One City Schools founder and CEO Kaleem Caire, left, foreground, and state Rep. Shelia Stubbs (D-Madison), center, take part in a Jan. 28 hearing on a bill to boost funding for "demonstration" charter schools. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

Wisconsin lawmakers are set to advance a bill that would create a “demonstration” charter school designation and boost state aid for that school by more than 50%.

During the Jan. 28 public hearing, Rep. Robert Wittke (R-Caledonia) and Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara (R-Appleton) said the bill would help create a mechanism in the state to try out innovative teaching methods and export them across the state.

“Right now, we are reinventing the wheel in isolation rather than sharing the blueprint for success,” Wittke said. “A teaching hospital receives higher funding to train research and innovate. Similarly, a demonstration school would be a K-12 education lab.” 

Independent charter schools are different from traditional charter schools. They are not authorized by a public school district and do not answer to a public school board, but instead are authorized by one of a number of designated authorizers, including the Universities of Wisconsin’s Office of Educational Opportunity (OEO).

AB 818 would allow the Office of Educational Opportunity to designate a school that meets a certain set of criteria as a “demonstration” charter school. For a school to receive the designation, it would need to participate in a longitudinal study; provide professional development opportunities; share the best practices from its educational model to other schools and maintain partnerships with community organizations. 

The school would receive an additional $6,863 per pupil — a 55% increase from its current funding. The bill is scheduled for a vote in the Assembly Colleges and Universities committee Tuesday.

Wittke said that any school authorized through the Office of Educational Opportunity could apply once the program is set up. 

“Once this bill would get signed into law, they would have to make an application to be designated as this. Any other charter school that is under the OEO presence could make an application to do the same. There could be others that want to be chartered under OEO for the purpose of doing this. We would love to see that,” Wittke said. “This is an idea that was brought in front of me, so we looked at this framework. It wasn’t to preclude anyone, but this is what I believe is a step in the right direction so that others can follow, and we can start moving the needle up so that our children will realize opportunities that are in front of us.”

The UW Office of Educational Opportunity currently authorizes nine schools, though there is one that is seeking to serve as a model for what the bill proposes.

One City Schools, a Madison area independent charter school, operates One City Elementary and One City Preparatory Academy. The two schools serve kindergarten through 8th grade, in Monona. It also operates One City Preschool, which serves ages 2 through 4-year-old kindergarten, on Madison’s south side.

Kaleem Caire, One City Schools’ founder and CEO, told lawmakers that the organization is trying to serve students who have not been served by traditional schools, as well as to act  as an incubator for innovation. But One City Schools is always in need of money to continue operating.

“If any of you have money that you don’t like, you can send it to One City Schools,” Caire quipped, adding, “Yes, we are always at risk of closing our doors” because of the needs of students. 

He said the student population of One City Schools is 94% students of color, about 70% students in poverty and 17% special needs.

“We are the least funded public school,” he said.

The school has struggled with sustainable growth in the past. In 2023, the school sent 51 ninth- and tenth-graders back to Madison Metropolitan School District after one semester due to teacher shortages, pausing its high school aspirations for several years.

At the time, Caire said the school would reopen its high school in 2025, but as of last year, those plans have been delayed until 2026-27 due to its eighth grade enrollment numbers, facility readiness and funding uncertainties.

Caire said the independent charter school currently serves about 400 students and its preschool serves about 80. Practices that he said set the schools apart from traditional schools include providing breakfast and lunch to students each day and its partnership with Project Read AI, an artificial intelligence program meant to help teach literacy.

The bill has support of one Democratic lawmaker: Rep. Shelia Stubbs (D-Madison), whose district includes the schools.

Stubbs urged lawmakers to support the bill, calling the school a “pioneer in providing innovative, high quality education and wrap-around support services to some of Dane County’s and Wisconsin’s most vulnerable scholars.” She said the bill will “ensure that an operator with an innovative learning model is able to continue improving the educational outcome of hundreds of scholars in our community every year.” 

Stubbs said the additional funding would come from the existing charter school payment appropriation.

“Why do we need to spend more if you’re really successful?” Rep. Dave Murphy (R-Hortonville) asked Caire, who said that the organization currently must raise about $5 million annually to meet the needs of its students.

According to written testimony provided by One City Schools, the organization’s long-term sustainability goal will rely on increased state funding, including by nearly doubling its student base and boosting state aid overall. 

“Their goal is to reach 900 students, which they consider a funding tipping point where they’ll receive more predictable public funding and substantially reduce their need for private support,” the testimony stated. It also identified a plan for achieving financial sustainability including securing multi-year funding, growing enrollment, achieving “economies of scale” and increasing state aid.

Rep. Jerry O’Connor (R-Fond Du Lac) said he didn’t think the funding in the bill would provide a “phenomenal advantage” to the schools, but would instead give them, as independent charter schools, “equal funding.” 

“These are poor lives and kids and people, so I don’t have a problem with the funding,” O’Connor said. “I like the fact that the rules are in place. There’s accountability. There are consequences.”

Democratic lawmakers expressed caution and concerns about the bill, saying they weren’t sure how it would help schools and students more broadly. 

“It feels like you all are doing some amazing things at One City and I appreciate that. I think most schools would like to have the holistic approach that you are aiming for, but money is always the issue,” Rep. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire), a member of the committee, said during the hearing. 

Emerson noted that Democratic lawmakers have proposed legislation that would allow for free school meals at all public and voucher schools in the state. “That’s what I’d like to see our body advocating for more than picking winners and losers, and to be honest, sir, I feel like that’s what this bill is right now.”

Caire told lawmakers that there aren’t other schools that have volunteered to serve as a “demonstration” school for the state.

“That is why we’re coming here to you,” Caire said. “How many public schools in Wisconsin do you know of are germinating this level of opportunity for kids intentionally to scale across the country at an affordable price?… What we’re asking the state for is the average per-pupil revenue that the average public school system gets from the state of Wisconsin.”

The Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), the state’s largest teachers union, opposes the bill, saying it would further drain resources from traditional public schools. 

“This bill hands a single, unaccountable charter operator a funding windfall that educators in every comer of this state can only dream of for their own students,” WEAC said in written testimony. 

The union said the bill comes as public schools continue to face difficulties, and as state funding has not kept pace with inflation.

In the most recent state budget cycle, Wisconsin’s traditional public schools did not receive any increase in its state per-pupil aid. The budget did provide additional funding for special education, but the available funds are not expected to meet the percentage promised by lawmakers and Gov. Tony Evers. School districts are instead turning to property tax increases to raise additional funds.

“Public school educators experience the consequences of state budget choices every day in crowded classrooms, growing student mental health needs, outdated materials, and painful cuts to electives that once kept kids engaged in school,” WEAC’s statement said. “AB 818 does nothing to address those real and urgent problems. Instead, it carves out a special lane for one favored type of charter operator and invites others to line up for the same bonus, further draining resources from the vast majority of students who attend public schools that are transparent, democratically governed, and open to all.” 

Democratic lawmakers on the Assembly Education Committee, including Reps. Francesca Hong (D-Madison), Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire), Angelina Cruz (D-Racine) and Joe Sheehan (D-Sheboygan), submitted testimony opposing the bill. They said they had concerns the legislation would divert resources from public schools and continue a pattern of “linking education privatization to segregation.” 

“Policies that funnel public money toward select private and charter operators have repeatedly exacerbated segregation and disparities along lines of race, socioeconomic background, disability status, and more, leaving public schools with fewer resources to meet all students’ needs despite our constitutional obligation to help them do so,” the lawmakers stated. “AB 818 promises to continue that legacy.” 

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"What major purchase does anyone in this room make without knowing the cost before you make the purchase? It is inconceivable to me that we do not know what something is going to cost of that magnitude before we actually consent to the cost,” Sen. Mary Felzkowski said. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

A bill to implement state-level enforcement of federal hospital price transparency requirements in Wisconsin, with the goal of bringing down the cost of health care, received pushback from hospital representatives and support from employers on Wednesday.

Sen. Julian Bradley (R-New Berlin) told the Senate Licensing, Regulatory Reform, State and Federal Affairs Committee that ensuring that the cost of services provided would help with health care affordability.  

“When hospitals clearly share pricing information, patients can make informed decisions. Trust in the system grows and costs come down naturally,” Bradley said, adding that the bill would ensure Wisconsin “reaps the benefits” of changes made by the Trump administration. 

During his first term, President Donald Trump’s administration implemented rules to require hospitals to post pricing information online. The effects of the changes on patients’ costs have been mixed. At the start of his second term, Trump signed an executive order intended to bolster the effort and in December, the administration proposed a new rule that aims to simplify how price data is organized and shared with people. 

SB 383 would instruct the Wisconsin Department of Health Services to enforce federal price transparency requirements for hospitals. 

Bradley and Rep. Robert Wittke (R-Caledonia), the bill coauthors, said it is needed to help ensure that federal policies are being followed.

“Sometimes we need to take action to make sure that it goes all the way through the state and all of our residents have access to the things that are expected through federal law,” Wittke said. 

Bradley said the lawmakers aren’t trying to penalize hospitals, just ensure people have access to information. 

If a hospital is found to be out of compliance under the bill, Wisconsin DHS would be able to take several actions including providing a written notice to the hospital, requesting a corrective action plan or imposing a financial penalty. DHS would also need to keep a public list of any hospitals that have violated the requirements.

Hospitals would also need to be certified as being in compliance with the requirements when seeking judgment from a court against a patient who owes a debt for services.

Lawmakers introduced a similar bill in 2023, but it failed to receive a floor vote in the Senate and advance in the Assembly.

The current version of the bill includes a provision that says that if federal laws change and are eliminated, then provisions in the bill that establish state level requirements for publishing prices will take effect.

Under those provisions, each hospital would need to make a list of “shoppable services” — ones that can be scheduled in advance such as a knee replacement — available with the standard charge for each item that would be publicly available. A hospital’s list would need to include at least 300 “shoppable services,” and if a hospital doesn’t provide that many, it must list all of its shoppable services.

The change is meant to avoid overlapping and varying requirements, though hospital representatives expressed concerns that would happen anyway.

The Wisconsin Hospital Association (WHA) opposes the bill. Christian Moran, the WHA vice president of Medicaid and payer reimbursement policy, said during the hearing that the organization’s opposition to the bill is not opposition to price transparency.

“Our opposition is to the added regulatory complexity that is created by layering on state level enforcement and state level regulations and unlimited fines on Wisconsin hospitals when robust federal regulation and enforcement already exists,” Moran said.

Moran said no Wisconsin hospitals have been fined for noncompliance since the first federal regulations went into effect. 

“Personal experience, it’s somewhat inevitable: if you pass legislation on the state level that mirrors the federal level it will eventually not match up,” John Russell, president and CEO of Prairie Ridge Health, said. 

Hospital representatives also expressed concerns that not enough attention was being given to the role of health insurance companies. 

“The solution proposed to you in [SB] 383 is to double up on existing enforcement for hospitals while ignoring the state’s current responsibility to enforce and monitor insurance compliance,” Moran said.

Brian Stephens, CEO of the Door County Medical Center, said the state should be more focused on the “middlemen” including insurance providers, saying that bolstering the transparency of hospital costs has its limitations. He spoke to the work that his medical center has done over many years to improve transparency of prices.

“There’s a disconnect in this country between the concerted efforts of health care providers to provide reasonable and transparent prices and the costs that people are paying for health insurance. Unfortunately, hospital price transparency efforts have not put a dent in that dichotomy,” Stephens said. “Perhaps we need to be asking for more transparency from health insurance companies and other middlemen to understand the real drivers of health care costs in our country. Perhaps hospitals have just become a good punching bag for folks who need an effective sound bite. The reality is that, despite our wholehearted commitment to providing reasonable upfront prices, transparency has its limitations. What are the odds that a person waking up with pain will take the time to bring out his or her phone and search the most affordable hospital or clinic prior to seeking treatment.”

Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) said the testimony focused on the insurance companies’ role sounded like “a lot of finger-pointing.” 

Several other states have adopted laws or are in the process of advancing bills to bolster price transparency including Colorado, Washington State and Ohio. 

Patrick Neville, a former Republican state representative in Colorado who helped pass a similar law in his state, testified on the Wisconsin bill, saying provisions in his home state have already helped. He told the story of one patient who was charged nearly $80,000 for a hysterectomy, but didn’t have to pay the cost.

“Because we had the consumer protections in this bill in Colorado, and they weren’t compliant with price transparency. They couldn’t actually collect that $80,000,” Neville said. “That was really important and powerful for the actual consumer in this case, and so it’s actually working in Colorado.” 

Neville added that the Colorado legislation did not codify the federal rules, but he wishes it had. 

“Any president could get rid of those rules at any point and I think the way this bill is crafted… It’s hugely important,” Neville said. “That’s a clever way to craft it.” 

Several employers testified in favor of the legislation. 

Erik Sonju, president of Fitchburg-based Power System Engineering, described the unpredictable jumps in health care costs that his company has grappled with since 2018 when he started in his position. He said that 2023 was the year the “straw broke” as they dealt with a 20% increase in insurance rates and he wasn’t able to get clear answers about the rising cost. 

Sen. Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk) told the committee that the cost of health care is too high. 

“This is common sense. What major purchase does anyone in this room make without knowing the cost before you make the purchase? It is inconceivable to me that we do not know what something is going to cost of that magnitude before we actually consent to the cost,” Felzkowski said.  

Felzkowski is the lead coauthor on two of the other bills the committee took up. SB 796 would require insurers to submit information about claims to the Wisconsin Health Information Organization (WHIO), a nonprofit organization that collects health care claims data, and SB 797 would provide a $600,000 grant for the WHIO to establish an online dashboard of health care claims information and to add new payer data.

The committee also took testimony on SB 703, coauthored by Wittke and Sen. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield), which would establish that employers who sponsor group health insurance plans have a right to data relating to the employees and dependents covered under those plans, including claims data, utilization reports and other information necessary to understand and manage health care costs.

Wittke said the bill will maintain privacy protections by requiring employers to designate a HIPAA compliance privacy officer and ensure that the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance maintains oversight. The bill also includes a provision prohibiting data from being sold to any party without the permission of the plan sponsor and the person to whom the claims data relates.

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