1
EDUCATING THE UNDERCLASS: HAS CHAPTER 220, A PRODUCT OF
IMPACT LIGATION, FAILED TO GIVE VOICE TO THE VOICELESS?
By Susan Barranco
April 27, 2011
“Too busy survivin’ to argue ’bout Darwin, darlin’.”
–Mos Def, ―Pretty Dancer‖
“The system’s broken: the school closed, the prison’s open.”
–Kanye West, ―Power‖
1. Introduction to a Classic Example of How “Law” Disserves Milwaukee’s “Core”
The ―American Dream,‖ despite all its rhetorical glory,1 eludes even American citizens.
For members of the American underclass, the emptiness or perhaps inapplicability of that dream
features prominently in legal history. Desegregation law provides an extensive example. Legal
advocates once maintained that the United States Supreme Court aimed to, through Brown v.
Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 495 (1954) (Brown I), and its progeny, ―transition from a
segregated to a non-segregated society.‖2 A half century later, despite the fact that—as far as the
law is concerned—we have entered an integrated era, underclass education remains segregated.
Members of the underclass would be blameless for believing that constitutional law‘s concerns,
then, do not seem to include them. But see, Buse v. Smith, 74 Wis. 2d 550, 567 (1976)
1 See, e.g., Remarks by the President in the 2011 State of Union Address. Available at:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/01/25/remarks-president-state-union-address. Last visited April 3,
2011 (―What‘s more, we are the first nation to be founded for the sake of an idea – the idea that each of us deserves
the chance to shape our own destiny. That is why centuries of pioneers and immigrants have risked everything to
come here. It‘s why our students don‘t just memorize equations, but answer questions like ‗What do you think of
that idea? What would you change about the world? What do you want to be when you grow up?‘ The future is ours
to win. But to get there, we can‘t just stand still. As Robert Kennedy told us, ―The future is not a gift. It is an
achievement.‖ Sustaining the American Dream has never been about standing pat. It has required each generation to
sacrifice, and struggle, and meet the demands of a new age‖). 2 Mark Whitman, The Irony of Desegregation Law, 1955-1995: Essays and Documents 79 (1998) (quoting Petition
for Writ of Certiorari, Bell v. School City of Gary, 324 F.2d 209, cert. denied 377 U.S. 924 (1964)).
2
(unanimously holding equal educational opportunity is a fundamental right grounded in
article X, section 3 of the Wisconsin Constitution).
Underclass education is especially segregated in Milwaukee County, where this paper
focuses on a legislative product of impact litigation in the desegregation era‘s height. Saying
Brown ushered in non-segregation within our constitutional jurisprudence admits the law itself is
powerless to stem trends balking at desegregation efforts. At times, impact litigation steers or
triggers public debate. This is a positive offshoot of vindicating one‘s rights. The problem has
never been the often-admirable constitutional holdings of Brown and other United States
Supreme Court decisions. The problem is one of remedy, meaning the reach of these holdings is
uncertain. The legal problem for the underclass is not courts‘ denial of their rights to equal
access to public education; the problem lies in the fact that even successful plaintiffs walk away
from federal courthouses as empty-handed as they entered.
The tale of chapter 220—a Wisconsin integration-finance law that can be characterized as
a Brown remedy, see Wis. Stat. § 121.85 (2011)—underscores the frailty of the judicial remedy.
Chapter 220 highlights the tension between the Supreme Court‘s articulation of American
constitutional policy, and constitutional law in practice. The law, a response to courts ordering a
―generation to sacrifice, and struggle, and meet the demands of a new age,3‖ at best provided
political cover to fend off constitutional challenge. We live in a country in which the election of
the first non-white president brought optimism about a post-racial America.4 Yet in spite of the
promise of that vision for our nation, in this year‘s State of the Union Address, Barack Obama
3 Remarks by the President in the 2011 State of Union Address, supra note 1.
4 See generally, Lydia Lum, ―The Obama Era: A Post-racial Society?‖ 25 Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, 14-
16, February 5, 2009. Available at: http://www.unc.edu/diversity/TheObamaEra.doc. Last visited April 15, 2011.
3
―did not include a single mention of poverty or the plight of the poor.‖5 Chapter 220 evidences
the hollowness of the American Dream for our nation‘s poorest.
Despite Brown, however, or the promise of electing President Obama, the fact remains
that our largely non-white underclass neighborhoods have long been considered ―citadel[s] of
isolation.‖ Alvin C. Eurich (Chairman) for the Academy for Educational Development, Inc.
Quality Education in Milwaukee’s Future, at 63, August 1, 1967.6 Our poorest citizens are
entrenched, and largely segregated by race residentially. As noted in a local federal integration
decision, ―Milwaukee‘s black population is concentrated in a central area,‖ which the parties to
the action referred to as ―‗the core.7‘‖ Armstrong v. Brennan, 539 F.2d 625, 634 (7th Cir. 1976);
see also, Eurich, Quality Education, at 65 (noting a lack of urgency to solve issues within ―those
schools euphemistically referred to as ‗Inner Core‘ schools, which are predominantly Negro
schools in ghetto-like communities‖). The problem of educational inequality for the underclass
seems to repel legally enacted ―solutions.‖ Constitutional issues, such as identifying the
segregative intent of those who administer the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS), were brought
into the fore in an attempt to undo the effects of socioeconomic isolation. Since identifying the
5 Charles M. Blow, ―Hard Knock (Hardly Acknowledged) Life,‖ The New York Times, Published: January 28,
2011. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/opinion/29blow.html. Last visited April 3, 2011. 6 This study is short cited globally as ―Eurich, Quality Education,‖ and referred to internally as the Eurich study.
7 In a recent conversation with Alan Borsuk, a well-known Wisconsin journalist who has chronicled issues in
education since the 1970s, Mr. Borsuk referred to the existence of ―the core‖ nonchalantly; it was a known fact of
the day that the city‘s black population seemed locked into housing south of North Avenue and north of McKinley,
and between Third and Twelfth Streets on the east and west. This understanding conforms to the Eurich study,
which noted that ―Negroes in Milwaukee are essentially concentrated in the same area as they were in 1960.
Dispersal beyond these lines within the city or throughout Milwaukee County has been very slight.‖ Eurich, Quality
Education, at 70. ―Core‖ terminology, generally, is common to the desegregation cases, which suggests the
commonality of underclass problems across American urban areas. See, e.g., Keyes v. School Dist. No. One,
Denver, Colo., 313 F.Supp. 61, 84 (D.C. Colo. 1970) (―Although we have concluded that there is not de jure
segregation in the so-called core city schools,FN27a
we have found and concluded that there is a denial of equal
opportunity for education in these schools. FN27a: That is, the segregated schools referred to . . . above‖). As a final
example, in one of my favorite songs, ―Respiration,‖ the rapper Common paints the ironic picture of the Chicago
underclass: ―Some of this land I must own/Outta the city, they want us gone/Tearin‘ down the ‘jects creatin‘ plush
homes/My circumstance is between Cabrini and Love Jones/Surrounded by hate, yet I love home/Asked my guy
how he thought travelin‘ the world sound/Found it hard to imagine—he hadn‘t been past downtown.‖
4
city‘s educational segregation problem in part through facts found during impact litigation,
however, and since enacting legal changes such as chapter 220 directly in response, the problem
worsened; our city centers remain ―citadel[s] of isolation‖ decades after being identified as such.
Though Wisconsin was on the cutting edge of education reform in the 1970s8—the
decade that ushered in the enactment of chapter 220, a voluntary, race-based pupil transfer
mechanism, Wis. Stat. § 121.85—Milwaukee schools are now more segregated than ever,
Charlie Toulmin, Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau, ―School Integration (Chapter 220) Aid:
Informational Paper #28,‖ at 9, January 1993 (―LFB 1993‖). As of that paper‘s publication date,
two decades after chapter 220‘s enactment, ―the composition of MPS pupil population []
changed to where almost three-quarters of its enrollment are minorities (compared to 43% in
1976-77 [the year the program first went into effect]).‖ Id. If the point of chapter 220 was to
integrate Milwaukee schools—thereby improving opportunities for underclass youngsters to
break the poverty cycle—were these statistics not a sign of this program‘s epic failure? Perhaps
chapter 220 had a wholly different purpose, then: to promote a policy to repel ligation. This
paper explores whether chapter 220, and the impact litigation climate that led to its passage,
actually perpetuated the plight of the underclass toward equalizing educational opportunity.
2. Chapter 220 in Operation
Chapter 220 works by permitting transfers within cities, or outside of cities, if those
transfers increase a school‘s integration level. Accordingly, one only qualifies as a chapter 220
transfer if he or she would diversify the receiver school. Wis. Stat. § 121.85(2). Both sender and
receiver districts receive ―integration aid payments‖ based upon (1) the number of pupils
transferred/received, and (2) the ―equalization aid‖ formula the school receives based upon the
8 Alison Barnes, The Conundrum of Segregation’s Ending: The Education Choices, 89 Marq. L. Rev. 33, 36 (fall
2005). That our legislative process could be so construed itself shows how ―public discourse‖ surrounding chapter
220 allowed Wisconsin to avoid accountability, in the end, because it appeared to be properly reforming its system.
5
amount of property tax it collects.9 Both the transferred pupils‘ parents and the school districts
themselves must agree to the transfer. 1975 Wis. Laws ch. 220, § 1; see also, 1999 Wis. Act 9.
The most interesting or perhaps disappointing feature of chapter 220 as it relates to
underclass usefulness is that the law is not self-effectuating. Chapter 220 really went nowhere
without settlement agreements flowing from impact litigation.10
Appropriately, as the legislative
history discussed below demonstrates, impact litigation instigated the compromise legislation
that was chapter 220. In other words, to get chapter 220 off the ground, MPS had to be sued—
and to ensure suburban districts would use the measure, these school districts had to be sued as
well. Once enacted, absent litigation, the measure sat on the statute books gathering dust. The
obvious problem occurring where one must sue to vindicate rights—even those enacted on the
statute books—is expense. Wisconsin policy reflected constitutional norms, and meanwhile,
white suburbanites and city dwellers were secure knowing their kids would not be mandatorily
bussed out of their neighborhoods.11
Nonetheless, the settlement agreements set goal posts under
which suburban schools agreed to make use of chapter 220 to work harder at integration. Id.
9 A larger point about how the state finances education is beyond this paper‘s scope. It would be fascinating, for
example, to consider in greater depth whether the equalization aid formula is an effective way to help Milwaukee
County afford its public education system. Further, the chapter 220 program differs from newer measures like Open
Enrollment, see http://www.milwaukee.k12.wi.us/portal/server.pt/comm/enrollment/318/open_enrollment/38300,
because of the interplay between chapter 220 funding and property tax valuation. The effect of chapter 220 versus
new measures on general appropriations issues is, in a word, complex; Mr. Borsuk hypothesized that only 20 people
in the state even understand education financing. Finally, in terms of finances, another inquiry entirely would be
needed to evaluate whether it was prudent to inject through Act 9‘s ―Neighborhood Schools Initiative‖ a new
mechanism through which ―bonding‖ could be issued. Under that initiative, nearly $100 million has been issued
related to school building. LFB 2007, at 1. Whether these bonds are related to those recently held hostage for
refinancing by Governor Walker in Wisconsin‘s latest budget battle is unknown. 10
See Russ Kava, for the Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau, ―School Integration (Chapter 220) Aid,‖ at 9-12,
January 2007). The state‘s main tool evaluating the success of chapter 220 are informational papers produced by the
Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB). The papers trace the development of the program, examining how state
legislatures have modified its mechanisms over the years. Program changes come near exclusively from budget
bills—unsurprisingly considering the fact that chapter 220 is, over and above, an educational appropriation. Wis.
Stat. § 121.85(6)(e) (aid sources paid from Educational Communications Board appropriation). 11
See David J. Armor, ―Forced Justice: School Desegregation and the Law,‖ 13 (Oxford University Press 1995)
(explaining that ―mandatory bussing [] lost some favor in lower courts because of the white flight problem‖).
6
Today, the program‘s use within Milwaukee has leveled out, but its use by suburban
districts has plummeted. See Appendix A. For the past decade or so, Milwaukee has, within its
borders, shuffled around about 30,000 pupils annually. Id. The drop in suburban transfers
theoretically can be explained by the fact that litigation stopped, and by Governor Thompson‘s
changes to the program, addressed below. Further, though outside of this paper‘s scope, infusion
of ―choice‖ programs in Milwaukee likely accounts for drop in use of chapter 220, because those
parents who would be motivated enough to seek out the 220 option now have another choice
within the city.12
See 1989 Wisconsin Act 336; 1997 Wisconsin Act 27.13
Milwaukee Public
Schools need not spend money on legal fees litigating agreements, which could be construed as a
positive development. The modern practice of chapter 220 transfers simply entails private
contracts drafted between Milwaukee (or other urban areas like Madison, Racine, or Beloit) and
surrounding suburbs. School districts execute these informal contracts, called ―Interdistrict
Transfer Agreements,‖ under the authority granted within the chapter 220 framework.14
Wis.
Stat. § 121.85(3)(a). Declining suburban numbers, and the casual nature of this relationship
shows the pressure of desegregation litigation has officially ceased.
3. A Hypothesis Formed Anecdotally
This paper has a middle-class bias. Who am I to question a measure that, for many,
became a bridge out of the isolated citadel of the underclass? Should we not ―save‖ those whose
12
The criticisms of choice schools mirror this paper‘s criticisms. Some say choice schools are a boon for parochial
education, providing funds for those who would otherwise be attending private schools anyway. But see Wisconsin
Act 27 (―Open Enrollment‖). Worse yet, a New Zealand study published the year our city‘s choice program went
into effect found that ―‗[c]hoice and competition are likely to polarize enrollment patterns by race, ethnicity,
socioeconomic status, and students‘ performance.‘‖ Donald Kauchak & Paul Eggen, Introduction to Teaching:
Becoming a Professional, 2nd ed., at 300 (Pearson Education, Inc., 2005). Thus, the ―choice systems have the
potential of encouraging social segregation and further damaging already weak inner-city schools.‖ Id. Others
maintain that because public schools are already segregated, ―choice can actually promote integration.‖ Id. at 301. 13
Wisconsin has both public, 1997 Wisconsin Act 27, and private, 1989 Wisconsin Act 336, school choice programs
that allow pupils to attend schools outside their residential district if seats are available. 14
A sample ITA can be found online as well as in Appendix B to this paper. See
http://www.mtsd.k12.wi.us/District/Board_of_Education/Board-Packets/Nov-17-08/interdistrict.pdf. Last visited
April 20, 2011.
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proactive parents take advantage of the program‘s offerings? This paper‘s inquiry began under
the direction of an anecdotal hypothesis based on the fact that I was been educated in one of
Milwaukee‘s suburbs, and had witnessed firsthand the fact that chapter 220 meant moving
outside of one‘s community to be educated. Though I benefitted from interacting with ―220
students‖ then, now, the law seemed to me to be a counterintuitive poverty-promotion
mechanism. Why not instill more value in the idea of picking up, rather than traveling away from
one‘s community? We are of course informed by our own experiences, which bias us toward
certain conclusions that did and did not bear out in the resulting research on this topic.
Interestingly, my worst fears confirmed, my family‘s decisions seem to mirror the historical
events underlying chapter 220.15
To me, chapter 220‘s weakness in the abstract—based solely upon my anecdotal
hypothesis and prior to understanding the statute‘s actual operation or the historical context
within which it was enacted—arose through its implicit message. Rather than pulling the
underclass community up so its schools are no longer viewed as institutions from which one
must escape to succeed, the law asks underclass members to leave their communities. Rather
than enacting policies that compel underclass citizens to demand more value out of their own
communities, we move their best students out from these neighborhoods. If desegregation cases
15
Perhaps, too, then, this paper is motivated by a sense of guilt. But my family history tracks the historical events in
this paper to an uncanny degree. When the Armstrong case finally made its way through the federal appellate system
and resulted in an order by Judge Reynolds in 1979, my sister Ann was born. Ann was the third of the Barranco
children—who my parents jokingly refer to as ―Tina, Tony, ‗Oops,‘ and ‗Oh My God.‘‖ The surprise latter half of
the family motivated my dad, then a math teacher, to leave the teaching profession, in 1980. That year, my mother
took a teaching position in the Menomonee Falls School District my dad exited. She had been teaching at Walnut
School in Milwaukee. The Armstrong litigation produced a settlement agreement that expired in 1984, at which time
MPS initiated suit against the Milwaukee‘s suburban school districts (commonly referred to as the ―Milwaukee
School Desegregation Case,‖ LFB, 2007 at 1). The case settled in 1987, the same year that my family moved from
Milwaukee to Menomonee Falls, one suburb included in this suit. Our move coincided with my entering
kindergarten. My siblings, while we lived in Milwaukee, were all enrolled in parochial schools. I asked my parents
whether educational trends factored into their decision to move to the suburbs, and they agreed—but insisted that
other factors could not be decoupled from the choice to take flight. We put moving signs in our yard (near the corner
of 77th and Lisbon Avenue), for example, the day after our home was robbed.
8
intended to impact public debate—push an issue to produce an outcome—was chapter 220
simply the necessary pushback to the message sought? If impact litigation focuses on promoting
a message, the resulting message becomes as important as the case‘s outcome. But the chapter
220 message seemed to be that nothing grows in the soil of the underclass neighborhood.
What I quickly encountered, however, is a two-fold problem with my emphasis on
neighborhood solutions. First, neighborhood schools policies themselves contributed to de facto
segregation, including within Milwaukee. Armstrong, 539 F.2d at 635-37; see also, Eurich,
Quality Education, at 70 (―Racial isolation in Milwaukee‘s schools follows naturally from
adherence to a ‗neighborhood school‘ concept which restricts all or practically all of a child‘s
school experience to a school close to his home‖). In fact, when sued by the NAACP, MPS
administrators largely defended their actions by claiming not to intentionally segregate, but to be
following a ―goal [] to assign students to schools within walking distance of their homes, in order
to foster a close relationship between community and school.‖ Id. at 629. My instinctive defense
of neighborhood promotion in the face of neighborhood educational exile may have in fact been
ruled unconstitutional. See Armor, at 36.
The second problem about my impulse to prefer promoting neighborhood solutions came
when I realized my ideas conformed to conservative political action.16
Republican Governor
Tommy Thompson, who in the late 1990s proposed ―sunsetting‖ chapter 220 altogether, favored
what became known as the ―Neighborhood Schools Initiative.‖17
The initiative incentivized
―MPS to increase the use of its neighborhood schools and reduce intradistrict and interdistrict
16
Perhaps I am revealing yet another bias here? 17
Charlie Toulmin, Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau, ―School Integration (Chapter 220) Aid: Informational
Paper #29,‖ at 16, January 1995 (―LFB 1995‖).
9
transfers by MPS students.‖18
In other words, the initiative, enacted as part of the state‘s biennial
budget, 1999 Wis. Act 9, expressly sought to reduce Milwaukee‘s dependence on chapter 220.
The budget bill also attacked chapter 220 implicitly—and in a manner that reveals a flaw in the
chapter 220 solution generally as it relates to underclass use. The budget conditioned MPS‘s
receipt of aid on the district receiving written parental consent for increasing percentages of 220
parents each year moving forward—reaching a 100% threshold by the 2004-2005 school year.
LFB 2007, at 4. The goal was essentially unachievable, as in 2004 MPS could not get 100%
permission for all the ―seats‖ that were 220-dedicated. This cost MPS 1.3 million dollars.19
Id.
Perhaps starving the very district that had come to rely on the program was the permission-
percentage requirement‘s purpose, considering the governor‘s opinion about the program.
Chapter 220, as found by an audit ordered by the legislature in lieu of following the
governor‘s order to dismantle the program, seemed to be working to integrate suburban
schools—but not working for Milwaukee. LFB 1995, at 17. The audit specifically questioned
―whether the [220] transfers could significantly alter de facto segregation because of the changed
demographics in the MPS district.‖ Budget Brief 99-18. Chapter 220 seems to have outlived its
usefulness in Milwaukee—if, indeed, the law was ever intended to be useful for the center city
beyond providing cover for constitutional claims. Governor Thompson wanted the city to use
more of its neighborhood schools, but, according to the number of pupils using the program, the
result has not stopped the intradistrict transfer mechanism from operating within cities. What has
decreased dramatically since Governor Thompson‘s changes—by at least 4% each year since,
18
Gary Watchke, for the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau, ―Budget Brief 99-18.‖ December 1999.
Available at: http://legis.wisconsin.gov/LFB/pubs/budbriefs/99bb18.pdf. Last visited April 20, 2011. 19
The budget, in other words, required an affirmative act by underclass parents—or their district would lose much-
needed funding from the state. This is directly anti-underclass.
10
including a use decrease of 8.9% between the 2005 and 2006 fiscal years, LFB 2011, at 8—is
suburban use of chapter 220. See Appendix A (chart 2).
Perhaps the law was doomed to failure because my middle-class bias also characterized
the voices in the debate leading up to the desegregation solutions enacted in decades past. Our
country‘s deficiency in injecting notions of class into our public policy debates is evident in a
chapter 220 analysis. Ironically, however, even early research such as the Eurich study,
conducted in 1967 to ―contribute to community unification in the support and improvement of
the Milwaukee Public Schools,‖20
suggested class should enter the conversation:
Possibly the difficulty, at least in Milwaukee, is that the
program activities . . . are aimed largely at making the
disadvantaged children as much as possible like the middle-
class children with whom the Milwaukee schools have in
the past been very successful. . . . [But a]s Dr. Gordon has
noted: ‗These children are not middle-class children, many
of them never will be, and they can never be anything but
second rate as long as they are thought of as potentially
middle-class children. At best they are different, and an
approach which views this difference merely as something
to be overcome is probably doomed to failure.‘ The Panel
believes that as long as these disadvantaged children
remain in their current state of racial isolation they are not
likely to understand or even see the middle-class goals and
values which the school system has in mind for them.21
Perhaps chapter 220‘s failings lie not in a cannot-succeed-here message, and more in a
misunderstanding of the class structure of our hollowed-out city center. Or perhaps, finally, the
success of chapter 220 is that it denominates a state policy favoring integration. This success can
be understood only if one grasps the extent to which federal courts attempted—largely
unsuccessfully, in Milwaukee‘s case—not to simply demand such a policy, but to put meat on its
bones, producing integration trends out of court-ordered desegregation plans.
20
Eurich, Quality Education, at iii. 21
Id. at 66.
11
4. Court-Ordered Desegregation Prompts Wisconsin Legislative Action
Equality rides on a slow-moving train, not a high-speed rail running ―with all deliberate
speed.‖ Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 349 U. S. 294, 301 (1955) (Brown II). Brown I
held that because ―[s]eparate educational facilities are inherently unequal,‖ plaintiffs and others
similarly situated had been denied equal protection of the laws when they were denied admission
to white schools under laws requiring or permitting racial segregation. See 347 U.S. at 495. The
Brown cases involved de jure segregation of the type common to Southern desegregation cases,
in which plaintiffs challenged state policies that affirmatively mandated or approved
segregation.22
Wisconsin had no such direct discrimination policy at the time, but still,
―Milwaukee reflect[ed] the national stresses and uncertainties about the future of public
education.‖23
Eurich, Quality Education, at iii. Despite the fact that over a decade had passed
since Brown, the Eurich study highlighted a ―stark truth . . . that no one knows how to eliminate
racial isolation in a manner acceptable to all people in a city.‖ Id. at 5. Nearly previewing
upcoming chapter 220 conversations, the study authors urged that:
A solution is equally important for white and Negro
children so that they will have the kind of common
experience to enable them to live and work together in this
multi-racial nation and the world, respecting and accepting
each other on the basis of what they do and are, rather than
on the basis of where they live or how they look.24
Id. The study suggested ―two essential elements for eliminating racial isolation.‖ Id. First, ―[a]
strong public commitment to eliminate it.‖ Id. And second, ―[a]n experimental and open-minded
22
See Armor, at 34-38 (outlining distinct treatment in United States Supreme Court cases between northern and
southern cases). 23
The study panel concluded this passage, part of an introductory ―letter of transmittal,‖ by opining that ―[i]t is not
too much to hope . . . that in time it will indeed be your public schools which will make Milwaukee famous.‖ Eurich,
Quality Education, at iv. 24
When I met Michael J. Spector, one of the principal drafters of chapter 220, one of his chief compliments of the
program was similar to this urged goal of the Eurich panel. He never had the chance to go to school with other black
children, and he maintained that allowing his son to have such a chance was a great success of chapter 220. The
problem, however, was never a lack of chapter 220 success within the suburban schools where his son was educated.
12
attitude on the part of all citizens and policy makers.‖ Id. The authors recognized that no
acceptable solution had been produced nationally to implement Brown or eliminate racial
isolation, but urged Milwaukee‘s leadership not to allow this to promote complacency.
The need for segregation efforts was, and remains most acute in urban settings. Painting a
picture, the Eurich study notes:
The large city today is a many splendored thing. It is the
center of culture, headquarters for industrial and political
leadership, sponsor of great athletic teams—a center of
power, wealth and progress by any standard. The large city
is also the home of the poor, the uneducated and the under-
educated; for these the city is a citadel of isolation. It is
ironical (but true) that within the borders of this symbol and
source of power, progress and prestige in our society, there
exist so many of the alienated, the powerless, and the
regressive. The children from these situations are called the
‗disadvantaged,‘ most of them are Negro! It is these
children whose increasing numbers, obvious handicaps and
sudden concentration in the cities have drawn attention so
sharply to the need for yet another massive public school
effort to equalize educational opportunity. What seemingly
worked well with generations past, in terms of school
materials, school organization, teachers and techniques,
will not necessarily serve adequately this latest group of
children in a seemingly never-ending parade of
‗disadvantaged‘ youngsters passing through the schools.
This was the urban landscape, as reported in a study produced for Milwaukee school
administrators, in the year before a case initiated called Amos v. Board of School Directors of
City of Milwaukee, 408 F.Supp. 765 (D.C. Wis. 1976). The study‘s timing is fascinating in
retrospect, given the fact that Milwaukee was in essence put on notice of the unequal conditions
of its ―core‖ schools the year before the NAACP sued MPS. Amos, after many procedural
orders—even reaching the United States Supreme Court eventually25
—became the Armstrong
case. In Armstrong, the district court found that responses by the MPS administration to
25
Brennan v. Armstrong, 433 U.S. 672 (1977) (summarily reversing).
13
overcrowding in the mid to late 1960s ―had the effect of keeping the concentrated black student
population from spreading to the rest of the city.‖ At 631. When inner-city schools burst at the
seams, the MPS school board responded by expanding facilities, constructing additions, or
utilizing substandard classrooms. Id. Armstrong, initiated by the NAACP, resulted in a
settlement agreement. When the agreement expired, it was MPS that took action—initiating suit
against the suburban districts, essentially alleging what its Board had been accused of in the
Amos/Armstrong litigation. LFB 2007, at 9-12. The agreements, as noted above, accelerated
chapter 220‘s use. See Appendix A (chart 2). But given their expiration dates, Armstrong
produced a short-lived victory. It seemed Milwaukee‘s problem could be fixed only by undoing
what was already done. The demographic, socioeconomic shift could not be reversed. The tax
base had depleted. And the United States Supreme Court‘s unified front in school desegregation
cases like Brown divided like our cities.26
5. The Life (and Death?) of Chapter 220: from Impact Litigation to Legislation
Chapter 220 seems to flow directly from the Brown imperative. To the extent chapter 220
could be construed as a Brown solution, it was a solution that was not oriented toward the city of
Milwaukee. Curiously, however, it was an identified problem of Milwaukee that all but
guaranteed passage of the legislative act, whether it was a solution or not. In Willan v.
Menomonee Falls School Board, a minority group pupil unsuccessfully challenged chapter 22027
on equal protection grounds because the school district denied funding for him to go against the
integration trend and attend a Milwaukee summer school program not offered in the suburbs. 658
26
See Armor, supra note 14 (―Unlike the major Supreme Court school decisions from Brown to Swann, which were
decided by a unanimous Court, the Keyes decision marked the beginning of a divided Court on the critical issue of
de facto–de jure distinction and the scope of remedies‖). 27
A different result would be likely today because of the United States Supreme Court‘s recent holding in Parents
Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1, 551 U.S. 701, 723 (2007). In that case, the Court held
―that state entities may not experiment with race-based means to achieve ends they deem socially desirable.‖ Id. at
748 (Thomas, J., concurring).
14
F.3d 1417, 4213 (1987). The Willan court stated that chapter 220 represented a legislative
―attempt to foster equal opportunities for education.‖ Id. The stated ―[l]egislative declaration‖ of
purpose under the 220 program, however, does not mention educational equality. Id. Instead, the
state‘s declared policy interest was ―to facilitate the transfer of students . . . to promote cultural
and racial integration in education . . . [and] to encourage such transfers through the provision of
special aids.‖ 1975 Wis. Laws ch. 220, § 1. Equalizing underclass opportunity is absent from the
face of chapter 220.
Chapter 220‘s largest success seems to be political and judicial cover for the results of de
facto segregation via white flight. Despite its stated purpose, the actual impetus behind chapter
220 seems to have been to stem the silent migration of white residents leaving Milwaukee in
record numbers, and not to equalize inner-city educational opportunity. Early advocates of the
plan could never state this baldly, of course, so myth of the program‘s equality purpose thrived.28
Early reviews characterized the program as a ―necessary step toward equalizing educational
opportunity and exposing suburban youngsters to the realities of a multiracial society.‖ Miriam
G. Palay for the Milwaukee Urban Observatory (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), Chapter
220; Student Exchanges Between City and Suburb – The Milwaukee Experience, at 7, spring
1978. Unfortunately for members of the underclass, the latter—the purpose to expose
suburbanites to urban realities, and to empower whites through exposure to nonwhites (on their
own terms)—came to override the former equality purpose. A Milwaukee Journal editorial on
January 8, 1976 exemplifies the efforts‘ true object: ―the purposes of such legislation is to
promote school integration, not merely to bail out financially troubled school districts.‖ Id. at 20.
28
Stating publically that the program was intended to mitigate white flight would have worked directly against
integration efforts. See Armor, at 12-13.
15
A year before the Armstrong order, initial efforts at integrating MPS were underway that
favored a school district merger plan.29
Dennis J. Costa, at the time a powerful state legislator
representing Milwaukee‘s East Side, proposed merging five school districts: two city (Lincoln
and Riverside), and three suburban (Shorewood, Whitefish Bay, and Nicolet). Id. at 6. His fear,
absent legislative action, was that ―Milwaukee [would] become a segregated school system
within ten years or so if it were not merged with some suburban districts.‖ Id. The Armstrong
litigation lurked in the background of all segregation efforts, prompting city leaders to ―adopt[]
wait and see attitudes,‖ though (perhaps unsurprisingly) ―suburban communities were
disinterested.‖ Id. United States Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, who was then a state senator,
represented the opposition movement rebuffing Conta‘s merger plan. Id. Those opposed denied
that race was their motivating factor. Id. at 7. Conta contemplated socioeconomic disparity in
school districts being the key problem, and emphasized that although segregation was a
Milwaukee problem, ―an order limited to the city would aggravate the problems of integration,
that the burden would fall on low income-whites and blacks. ‗The best solution is to talk about
countywide redistribution of income groups,‘‖ Conta claimed. Id. at 8.
Conta‘s rhetoric matched strategies Miliken v. Bradley, the Detroit desegregation case—
which like Milwaukee‘s was considered a ―metropolitan case‖30
—in which ―the district court
concluded that an effective remedy could not be attained within the confines of the Detroit
system.‖ Armor, at 39. While the Miliken Court overruled the remedy imposed by the district
29
Ironically, as this paper is being drafted, school districts in Memphis, Tennessee have proposed a nearly identical
plan to the proposed Conta merger. The Memphis urban-suburban dichotomy reflects the slow progress of
underclass educational movements. See ―Memphis And Shelby County Schools Merger Prompts Battle Over
Politics, Race And Money,‖ The Huffington Post, Gabrielle Canon, First Posted: 03/15/11 11:36 PM Updated:
03/15/11 11:41 PM. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/15/memphis-shelby-county-schools-
merger_n_836333.html. Last visited April 1, 2010. 30
Armor, at 38 (―A metropolitan case is one where liability or remedy encompasses a group of adjacent but separate
school districts, usually those suburban school districts surrounding a central city school district.‖)
16
court,31
it is nonetheless interesting to note Conta‘s socioeconomic focus from the outset because
of the more-common practice at the time to engage school inequality solely on racial terms. The
issue is more complex than skin color, despite the morally questionable correlation between this
nation‘s race and poverty problems.32
But pursuit of a solution solely on racial terms may have
upended thinking about the economic inequalities inherent in both the ability of whites to take
flight, and in their confining a huge problem in the city, where its solution could not be achieved
without those who recently abandoned its borders (in effect causing the problem).
While Conta‘s merger plan gained traction, Sensenbrenner‘s opposition movement made
similar advances. Palay, at 9-10. Conta opined that ―big city schools [were] becoming
increasingly segregated, unmanageable, and morally unacceptable.‖ Id. Fears of the era
prompted legislators to craft chapter 220 in a way that decreased property tax burdens for
―receiving districts.33
‖ But Sensenbrenner lamented that ―tax incentive is a blackmail . . . the
public is told ‗you go along with my scheme to bust up the neighborhood school system and you
can get a reduction in property taxes.‘‖ Id. at 10.34
Sensenbrenner‘s proposal was to put this issue
31
Whitman, at 232 (―Miliken v. Bradley did not make interdistrict remedies for school segregation impossible, to be
sure. As Harvie Wilkinson noted bluntly, however, ‗Miliken . . . rejected what some believed to be the last hope for
mass betterment of America‘s blacks‘‖). 32
There are three kinds of inequality of educational opportunity: (1) innate, (2) environmental, and (3) state-created.
Julie K. Underwood, School Finance Adequacy as Vertical Equity, 28 U. Mich. J.L. Ref. 493, 495 (spring 1995).
The latter two forms ―bring forth the need for vertical equity—the rationale for treating individuals differently in an
attempt to mitigate these inequalities. Vertical equity requires differences in resource allocation based on legitimate
differences between individuals.‖ Id. at 495-96. Horizontal equity, by contrast, seeks to treat every individual the
same because ―all students are considered equivalent.‖ Id. Pursuing the racial strand of segregative inequality rather
than this more-nuanced (not to mention more updated) understanding likely seemed more productive at a time of
obvious inequality. Chapter 220‘s formula is grounded in the state‘s equalization aid mechanism, so in at least that
sense, there exists some vertical equity. 33
This is a classic example of responsibility-evasion politics; problems are identified, no one in particular is
responsible, so no one in particular will be required to suffer. This contrasts directly with President Obama‘s
depiction of generations past meeting the demands of the age, because no ―age‖ makes ―demands.‖ See supra note 1. 34
Perhaps consistently with Sensenbrenner‘s prediction, this measure that has proved to be the most attractive
feature of chapter 220—in terms of suburban acceptance of the program (though, as this paper argues, the suburban
schools no doubt should have accepted the plan, as it was oriented toward these districts and not the actual school
district—MPS—within which the problem was identified). However, as Mr. Borsuk recently noted, the property tax
incentives under chapter 220, wherein ―receiving‖ school districts earn school aid that does not have to be collected
in property tax revenues, remains a huge incentive today. Alan J. Borsuk, ―MPS Watches Kids Hop Border: Exodus
17
to popular vote.35
Id. at 12. Every single county municipality joined Sensenbrenner‘s opposition
movement—except Milwaukee and adjacent suburb West Allis. Id. at 13. Because Armstrong
lurked in the background, Sensenbrenner began to circulate a plan of his own within which no
mergers would occur, and no district boundaries would change; instead, where parents and
school boards approved, state aid would be provided for pupil transfers. Id. In essence, this, ―the
Sensenbrenner plan,‖ emerged as a bill and the Conta plan died. Those who opposed integration
efforts were officially steering the conversation. Id.
The added element of voluntariness, and its statewide expansion rather than focusing on a
specific Milwaukee merger experiment, made the Sensenbrenner plan more palatable to
neighborhood groups. Sensenbrenner went to great lengths to promote what he saw as a
compromise—traveling 5,000 miles to promote the plan to local school boards and to describe
(falsely, according to Conta) the adverse effects of a merger plan. Id. at 16. Sensenbrenner also
hoped to convey ―that residents of suburbs had a high degree of social consciousness and
concern for students in the Inner City.‖ Id. Conta himself soon caved, scrapping the merger plan
in an effort to compromise in conformity with Sensenbrenner‘s more ―politically feasible‖
legislation. Id. at 18. The problem is that what emerges as politically feasible compromise can be
worth about as much as the internet-produced, monitor-projected pixels the statue is written on.
In the midst of strong movement toward compromise, on January 19, 1976, Armstrong
came down. The case had not completed is path through the federal system when chapter 220
officially published. In the end, ―financial incentives for the suburbs were greater than they were
Adds Challenge for School District.‖ Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, February 6, 2011, at 6B (noting that in one
Milwaukee suburb, ―the 226 Chapter 220 students in Wauwatosa this year save property-tax payers in the
community about $2.5 million a year‖). 35
This majoritarian suggestion—allowing the majority (whites) to vote on whether they should come together to
solve a problem faced, because of their actions, by a minority alone—echoes recent fights in the marriage equality
movement within which conservatives insist our majority straight population should be permitted to put others‘
rights to a popular vote.
18
for the city.‖ Palay at 22. The resulting bill‘s voluntariness element, demanded by suburban
districts, rendered the law toothless: ―Each Milwaukee County suburb had to set up a council to
recommend a plan for accepting transfers, but each district had the power to accept the plan,
modify it, or reject it altogether.‖ Id. Tellingly, Wisconsin‘s only black senator voted against
chapter 220, calling the measure ―‗a bounty bill,‘ . . . that [] would establish payments allowing
suburban school districts to skim talented black pupils from inner city schools.‖ Id. at 23.
The senator correctly foresaw that the mechanism would work largely for suburban
schools and suburban taxpayers. Chapter 220 certainly worked to minimize the impact of impact
litigation. So catering to needs of suburban districts during the legislative process helped
perpetuate the myth that this problem was only Milwaukee‘s to bear, despite Conta‘s efforts to
extend keep solutions suburb-focused. The issue thus becomes one of mutual ownership of a
problem created in both groups; still, many do not believe themselves responsible for its creation,
so urban plight is not for them to solve. Strangely, though white flight exacerbated problems of
urban inequality, the suburbanites display an attitude now similar to that which existed at the
time chapter 220 passed—that this was not their problem. The law does nothing to call out such
attitudes. Instead, northern de facto segregation decisions go to great lengths to rebuff efforts to
draw the necessary causal link between white residential patterns and state action.
Today chapter 220 comes off like a huge carrot planted by seeds of discontent from those
whose own actions predicated the need for integrative efforts, then programs. As the segregation
problem came sharply into focus by facts found in impact litigation, those who could help solve
the problem put themselves out of reach. By leaving Milwaukee to its poorest residents, white
flight resulted in the perverse problem in which decay in property tax revenues combined with an
uneven number of disadvantaged pupils who were needier in terms of school fund allocation.
19
The more well-to-do, who were able, financially, to escape the city, left these costly problems to
those of meager means who remained in the city.36
Milwaukee‘s urban ―core‖ had become like a
high-risk insurance pool; and those healthy suburbanites, through chapter 220, were the focus of
efforts to help stem this problem they had helped cause, and somehow the ―solution‖ was to
award these acts.37
How can society solve problems where no one takes responsibility? Or is this
not a problem where ―blame‖ can be divvied—even in adversarial America?38
Finally, it is easy to see from its legislative history why chapter 220 may not have lived
up to its purpose: because its purpose is so difficult to identify. Fears of what Judge Reynolds, a
former Wisconsin governor, would order as a remedy to the Armstrong case colored the
legislative process surrounding the eventual chapter 220 compromise. The madness produced an
inconsistency in purpose. See, Matthew C. Greene, Unsuspected Shoals in Equal Protection:
Adapting Wisconsin‘s Special-Transfer Program to Survive Parents Involved, 2008 Wis. L. Rev.
1201, 1219 (―Chapter 220‘s goals are fairly subjective, which makes evaluation difficult. In a
2000 Public Policy Forum study, a group of fourteen Chapter 220 administrators were asked to
identify the current goals of the program, which yielded seven different responses‖). Legislatures
never speak with a unified voice. The Conta-Sensensenbrenner legislative dynamic produced
conflict and thus divert attention from urban poverty to integration as solution within itself.
36
Whitman, at 211 (noting that the Miliken record ―revealed the usual depressing pattern of ‗white exodus to the
suburbs and the resultant surrender of the inner-city to . . . blacks‘‖). 37
It was akin to insurance companies having to be bribed to come to the table in the healthcare reform debate
instigated by President Obama: they demanded, as a condition to even participate in the conversation, that an
individual mandate be placed into the package—the element that, of course, the Obama administration now fights in
court against conservative opposition. Yet, insurance itself helped create the problem. So the problem creators
dictate terms that threaten to disrupt the legislative process entirely. 38
This is not unlike the underclass paint paradox. See John S. Gray & Richard O. Faulk, ―Judges Impose Reality
Check on Public Nuisance Litigation,‖ Legal backgrounder, 27 July 2007, at 4 (explaining the outcome of a
Milwaukee lead paint litigation case in which a jury found a public nuisance, but not causation).
20
6. Conclusion: Our Political Processes Confuse Our Ends, Producing Meager Means
One has little trouble creating a caricature of integration as an easy fix of underclass
problems. Come on, ―minorities‖!39
If you just go to our schools, you will be fine. If you just
leave your neighborhoods to be educated, the paths with open up. Considering the even-more-
segregated-today MPS numbers, is this just a case of be careful what you wish for? Or was there
no sufficient remedy at law in Armstrong from the outset? This is what our Supreme Court
(including a graduate of Shorewood High School!) seemed to suggest—and without prompt, at
that. See Armstrong, 433 U.S. at 673 (summarily reversing) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (explaining
that because Judge Reynolds ordered an interlocutory appeal before even fashioning a remedy—
certifying to the Seventh Circuit only the issue of liability—there was no need for the Court to
reverse on the remedy issue).
In the Governor Thompson-ordered audit of chapter 220, a suburban parent whose child
participated in the program commented that ―‗children should go to school in their
neighborhood, not be transported across town to go to a ‗better‘ school.‘‖ Wisconsin Legislative
Audit Bureau, ―The Chapter 220 Program,‖ Report 94-24, November 1994, at 55. Considering
the governor‘s goals, the quote seems aptly selected for highlighting by the audit authors. The
problem, of course, is that the neighborhood school model, coupled with residential segregation,
may not survive constitutional muster. Id. at 62 (―While some may argue that schools should be
built in the neighborhoods where students live so that transportation costs can be minimized, this
approach may not be accepted by the courts. Housing patterns within the city of Milwaukee are
so segregated that building neighborhood schools would inevitably result in segregated
schools‖). This indicates the entrenched nature of our nation‘s underclass poverty problems.
39
See Wis. Stat. § 121.845(2) (defining ―minority group pupil‖ as ―a pupil who is Black or African American,
Hispanic, American Indian, an Alaskan native, or a person of Asian or Pacific Island origin, and who has reached
the age of 4 on or before September 1 of the year he or she enters school‖).
21
Perhaps the problem with chapter 220 from the outset was a misidentification of the
proper ends to be achieved. But all parties wanted to save face, appear racially comfortable, and
maintain the ends were quite proper.40
Still, more than six decades post-Brown, we have not
found the means to meet admirable ends. The Eurich study conceded, despite an extensive
analysis of education trends in Milwaukee and recommendations for the city‘s future, ―the
present lack of any clearly perceived and successfully demonstrated means for assuring an
acceptable and broadly applicable ‗racial balance‘ in the schools on a national basis should not
be used to rationalize any lack of effort to eliminate racial isolation in Milwaukee.‖ Eurich,
Quality Education, at 5. The means, the paper assumes, are yet to be realized. How do we do it?!
But the means, of course, is integration itself. It is the ends that are misidentified: the goal is not
racial balance but a desire for its conditions to be removed—for underclass neighborhoods not to
be isolated in poverty. The issue is not solely the exclusion of the minority child from
opportunities that migrated to suburbia, but why those schools plunged into such disrepair. The
sting of segregation was likely the only way to focus suburbanites on what they were causing.
An underclass analysis once noted:
The great paradox is that the underclass is a byproduct of
two decades of extensive black success. Once civil rights
laws and the War on Poverty expanded housing and job
opportunities for blacks, middle-class and solid working-
class inner city minorities fled their ghettos, leaving the
unsuccessful behind. Economically diverse communities
turned almost overnight into homogeneous enclaves of
poverty. The stranded suffered in their isolation. Their
culture became one-dimensional, demoralized, with few
hardworking role models to show that thriving in school
40
In Willan, the plaintiff conceded the program‘s ends were proper. Willan, 658 F. Supp. at 1423. The student,
noting that achieving racial integration is a noble goal, restricted his challenge to how the statute applied to him
under particularized circumstances. But no question was lodged about whether that end was actually the means
toward a greater end: making schools in the inner city good enough that transfer away from one‘s home community
no longer was recognized as the best option.
22
and getting up in the morning to go to work are normal
activities that often produce success.
Myron Magnet, ―America‘s Underclass: What To Do?‖ Fortune, 11 May 1987, at 133. This
quote is problematic for three reasons. First, the author does not identify directly with the
underclass, seeing the problem as one affecting not his own, but ―[t]heir culture.‖ Id. Of course I,
like Mr. Magnet, cannot completely identify with underclass culture. But this type of us-versus-
them attitude slows the deliberative processes within which all parties should be equally
engaged, as the solutions stand to benefit all parties involved. What if Sensenbrenner made peace
and not war between suburban and city families who obviously were being driven apart even
without his efforts? Second, the author highlights how underclass solutions come strictly from
without, rather than from within. This makes sense only if one approaches equality problems
strictly from a funding perspective because underclass neighborhoods are cash-deficient by
definition. Nonetheless, moving ghettoized citizens out of poverty seems all the more difficult
when the message sent is consistently that opportunity exists exclusively outside their
communities where success seems more palpable.41
And of course the inherent problem is that
we ourselves, because of how and where we choose to reside, seem to create a segregated
society. The point of this chapter 220 analysis is just that our political processes seem to further
rather than reverse these impulses within us. Finally, third, the author identifies as a ―great
paradox‖ the fact that reduced underclass isolation did not follow directly from civil rights
successes. But just looking to one such success (Armstrong) belies such a thesis. The resulting
―remedy‖ flowing from this ―civil rights success,‖ or the legislation produced fearing what such
41
But see Eurich, Quality Education, at 63 (noting with disapproval that Milwaukee‘s pre-chapter 220 ―program of
compensatory education does not necessarily follow the disadvantaged student if he chooses, as some do, to transfer
for schooling out of his neighborhood setting‖).
23
a remedy may entail, reveals why it is not so paradoxical that underclass neighborhoods remain
isolated despite rights‘ identification in the courtroom.
We seem to be a problem-oriented society. In the context of desegregation, this fact is
evidenced by the results of a concentrated era of efforts. But by turning the volume up on an
integration conversation via impact litigation such as Armstrong, we got chapter 220. Have we
gotten anything, then? Our suburbs surely have by avoiding impact litigation costs, a finding
their boards intentionally segregate, and allowing their students—like myself—to become more
rounded by exposure to racial minorities. But to say the underclass and city center too saw
progress because of chapter 220, we would have to backtrack and agree on the program‘s
point—on its ends. But the means themselves are meager in the face of such a huge problem.
The result of the movement was to further isolate America‘s underclass—a classic example of
perpetuating problems politically identified. Dr. Edmund Gordon once stated that ―‗the fact is
that despite our current efforts, tremendous gains are not being achieved. We are probably failing
because we have not yet found the right answers. And to act as if the answers were in is to insure
against further progress.‘‖ Eurich, Quality Education, at 66. Yet chapter 220 allowed lawmakers
to do just that. The law is a collective throwing up of our hands at the problem of unequal
educational opportunity for Milwaukee‘s underclass.
24
Appendix A: Chapter 220 Use Charts
Fiscal Year Intradistrict pupils Transferred within city
Interdistrict pupils Transferred citysuburb
1976-77 13,451 384 1977-78 18,368 690 1978-79 22,807 841 1979-80 25,633 994 1980-81 25,982 1,032 1981-82 25,982* 1,032* 1982-83 26,676 1,142 1983-84 26,185 1,218 1984-85 26,678 1,403 1985-86 28,308 1,957 1986-87 28,870 2,763 1987-88 28,596 3,720 1988-89 27,554 4,533 1989-90 28,002 5,157 1990-91 28,775 5,876 1991-92 29,285 6,400 1992-93 31,099 6,349 1993-94 30,991 6,503 1994-95 31,535 6,457 1995-96 31,835 6,193 1996-97 31,660 5,661 1997-98 32,660 5,473 1998-99 32,824 5,442 1999-00 33,204 5,494 2000-01 31,920 5,457 2001-02 31,424 5,234 2002-03 30,220 4,846 2003-04 31,204 4,520 2004-05 31,148 4,150 2005-06 33,172 3,794 2006-07 33,576 3,457 2007-08 31,580 3,251 2008-09 31,200 3,111 2009-10 30,416 2,905 2010-11 29,096 2,756
*Data identical because annual calculation of integration aid payments changed from current to prior year data in 1981-82. Data compiled from Table 1, across LFB informational papers.
25
Data extrapolated from table above.
“MSDC,” Milwaukee School Desegregation Case.
“Neighborhood Schools Initiative,” 1999 Wisconsin Laws, Act 9.
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Chart 1: Chapter 220 transfers into and out of Milwaukee
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26
Appendix B: Sample Interdistrict Transfer Agreement
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