MADISON - The state Senate passed a compromise bill early Friday to allow Milwaukee's landmark school voucher program to add thousands of students, turning aside objections that the expansion will harm the city's public schools and taxpayers.
The Senate voted 19-13 to accept the deal brokered last month by Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, and Assembly Speaker John Gard, R-Peshtigo. The Assembly approved the measure Thursday evening on a 60-37 vote.

The votes capped two months of intense lobbying by voucher supporters after the state warned thousands of students would be turned away or forced to return to public schools next year because the program reached its limit of 15 percent of enrollment in Milwaukee Public Schools.

The bill allows the program to expand to 22,500 students, up from the current limit of about 15,000. It would also allow families with higher incomes to qualify for vouchers and eliminate a requirement that the student must be from Milwaukee to enroll, although schools would still have to be within the city to participate.

"We will be providing certainty to these children," said Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills. "They have a right to continue their education and others should be given the same chance."

Doyle pledged to sign the bill, which would also add accountability standards requiring the schools in the program to apply for accreditation and implement standardized testing. The bill also sets aside an extra $25 million over the next two years for public schools statewide to limit class sizes in kindergarten through third grade.

The Senate vote came after a daylong debate dominated by Democrats who argued the bill would raise taxes in Milwaukee, devastate the public school system for 85,000 Milwaukee students and do too little in demanding accountability for voucher schools. They warned the public schools will be left with students who need costly special education programs and score lower on tests.

"If this bill passes, this will be the death spiral of Milwaukee," said Sen. Tim Carpenter, D-Milwaukee. "People won't want to live there because our school system will collapse."

Approval in the Senate had been uncertain because some members balked at the additional spending to lower class sizes and at the impact on Milwaukee taxpayers, who pay $1,000 more in property taxes for each voucher student.

But senators who were considered swing votes, such as Sens. Jeff Plale, D-South Milwaukee, Spencer Coggs, D-Milwaukee, and Tom Reynolds, R-West Allis, decided to support the plan, providing the votes needed for passage. Two Republicans, Sens. Mike Ellis of Neenah and Robert Cowles of Green Bay, joined 11 Democrats in opposition.

The program, created in 1990, allows low-income Milwaukee families to send children to private and religious schools at state expense of up to $6,300 per student.

Rep. Polly Williams, an architect of the original program, said eliminating the residency requirement and increasing the income level would destroy the program's original intent of helping low-income Milwaukee children. Currently, a family of four making up to $29,025 can qualify, but the legislation would boost that to $42,570.

"This was not designed for middle-income families," said Williams, D-Milwaukee.

In the Senate, Carpenter tied up the chamber in debate for hours Thursday as he offered dozens of amendments that were ultimately rejected. He and other Democrats in the minority used a procedural maneuver to block a final vote until early Friday.

Supporters, including business and religious leaders, say the program has been a success despite financial and other problems that have shut down some individual schools that received voucher money. Their lobbying effort since December targeted Doyle, who vetoed previous bills to expand the program.

One radio ad drew criticism because it compared the governor, the father of two adopted black sons, to the segregationist southern governors of the 1950s and 1960s. A black student in one TV ad said Doyle was "throwing away my dream."

Doyle insisted on the extra $25 million for a state program that holds down class sizes for public school students in 5-year-old kindergarten through third grade. The governor also embraced the measures requiring schools to obtain accreditation within 3 1/2 years and to administer standardized tests to students in fourth, eighth and 10th grades.

Clint Bolick, president of the Phoenix-based Alliance for School Choice, said the expansion means Milwaukee will keep its status as the "Mecca of the school choice movement." Cleveland and Washington D.C. have adopted similar programs but Milwaukee remains the model, he said.

The expansion is welcome news for Lamel Adkins, a sophomore at Messmer High School who skipped school to rally at the Capitol Thursday. His school, which has the second most students in the program, would have been forced to cut its voucher enrollment to 470 from 761 this year without the expansion under the state's proposed rationing plan released last week.

"Some of us don't have the money to go to a school like Messmer," said Adkins, who enrolled in the Catholic school after attending public school through eighth grade. "It's been such a great experience for me."