Green Bay Parents Protest Proposed School Voucher Expansion

A group of parents lined a sidewalk on a busy Green Bay city street on Monday to voice their displeasure with a budget plan to spend more state money on private education.

“We’re talking about the willingness of our elected officials to throw our public school students to the dogs,” said protester Kathryn Carley, whose third grader attends Green Bay’s Aldo Leopold School.

Carley helped organize the protest against the budget proposal that would expand Wisconsin’s voucher program. She said the action is in response to a feeling that politicians aren’t listening to their objections.

“We have no choice but to take to the streets and to stand up for our schools, to show our teachers who are inside taking care of our children every day that we are out there — we have their back,” said Carley.

The Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimates the expansion would cost $800 million over the next 10 years.