Another one bites the dust

I alluded to this in a post over the weekend, but just for a sense of completion, I figure I should make explicit mention of this Milwaukee voucher school story:

The state on Friday kicked the voucher school L.E.A.D.E.R. Institute out of the city's school choice program. [. . .] In ordering L.E.A.D.E.R. out of the program, state officials cited financial insolvency, arguing that the school owes $497,822 for improperly cashed checks, improperly claimed summer school payments, past payroll payments and other debts.

L.E.A.D.E.R.--the letters stand for Learning Educational Assets Development and Educational Reform--is in its second year of operation. The school has students in kindergarten through 12th grade and is housed in a former bank at 2200 N. King Drive that was previously used by two other voucher schools that have failed, the Mandella School of Science and Math, and Academic Solutions.

Notice what is missing from the DPI's justification--no mention of the questionable academics at the school:

The DPI challenged the school in the fall on the grounds that it did not offer enough class hours in a school year to meet the legal minimum for private schools of 875 hours. Tyler argued that because the school met six days a week and in the summer, with about 10 weeks off spread out through the year, it met the total.

A DPI hearing examiner accepted Tyler's argument and said the school met the state minimums.

So the number stays at two--two schools in 16 years that DPI has successfully challenged based on their inability to meet minimum standards. Does anyone really believe that those two have been the only two wastes of taxpayer money since the system's inception?

When the cap gets lifted--because jeebus knows there is not the political will to do anything but--it will be the L.E.A.D.E.R.s of the world that take the additional students. Is that what we want for our money? It is not what I want for mine.