Gov. Jim Doyle and State Assembly Speaker John Gard said today they would try to push through the Legislature in the next two weeks a deal raising the cap on Milwaukee’s voucher program and significantly increasing funding for a class-size reduction program.

Although a few lawmakers from both parties, including Rep. Annette Polly Williams (D-Milwaukee) and Rep. Glen Grothman (R-West Bend), said they would not support the compromise, Gard and Doyle said they are confident that the package will make it through the Legislature.

The deal would:

Increase the cap on the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program by 7,500 students, to a total of about 22,500.

Increase funding for a class-size reduction program called SAGE by $25 million statewide, about $8 million of which will go to the Milwaukee Public Schools.

Require all schools participating in the program to get accreditation from an outside group, such as the Wisconsin North Central Association, the Wisconsin Religious and Independent Schools organization, or Marquette University’s Institute for the Transformation of Learning.

Require all voucher schools to administer a standardized test and report the scores for use in a proposed longitudinal study of the program.

Change the eligibility requirements so students can remain in the program if their family income rises somewhat above the current limit, and eliminate the requirement that a student can participate only if they attended an MPS school the prior year.

The choice program allows low-income families to send their kids to private schools using state-funded tuition vouchers. If the package becomes law, it would ensure stability in the distinctive and still-controversial program for several years. The program has already hit its cap of about 15,000 students.

Doyle said he and Gard "worked through some very difficult issues to come to this point." He said the package addresses many of his chief concerns, including greater accountability in the program, making sure current students aren’t kicked out, and some financial relief to public schools in the form of increased SAGE funding.

Gard called the compromise an expansion of "hope and opportunity."

We both "gave on things to try to help find the greater good," he added.

Failing to reach a compromise would have been a political liability for both, given that thousands of families might have been kicked out of their current schools, and some long-established schools would likely have lost dozens, if not hundreds, of seats.

While Williams, who was instrumental in creating the program more than 15 years ago, and Grothman, both said they would not support the package, other lawmakers from strikingly different political persuasions stood behind Gard and Doyle at the announcement. They included Leah Vukmir (R-Wauwatosa), a consistent advocate for lifting the cap, and Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee), who said she supports the package partly because it heightens accountability for voucher schools.

Howard Fuller, the director of the Institute for the Transformation of Learning, said the compromise "gives people like me an opportunity to spend time working on improving the schools."

"I feel like now I don’t have to run up to Madison every year."

But two teachers unions - the statewide Wisconsin Education Association Council and the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association - issued a statement saying they don’t support the package since it increases the cap on a program they adamantly oppose.

And Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett followed the announcement with his own press conference, where he spoke out against the compromise because it does not provide any property tax relief for Milwaukee taxpayers.