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.

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―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.‖

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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.

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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.

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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‖).

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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

To Suburbs

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26

Appendix B: Sample Interdistrict Transfer Agreement

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