Gov. Jim Doyle unveiled a proposal Monday calling for comprehensive reforms in Milwaukee’s public, charter and choice school systems.

The package aims to increase accountability in the city’s choice school program while promoting small class sizes and increased health and safety initiatives for all Milwaukee school students.

“In recent years, the debate in the legislature over education in Milwaukee has focused almost exclusively on how we should expand opportunities for children in choice or charter schools,” Doyle said in his address Monday at the Brown Street Academy in Milwaukee. “To me, the debate should be about what we can do to help all children who attend school in Milwaukee, whether they attend a public school or a choice school.”

The most contentious part of Doyle’s proposal involves increasing the accountability of the city’s 100 choice schools, where low-income families can send their children through the use of taxpayer-provided vouchers. These private schools are not required to hire licensed teachers and do not have to submit records of student assessment to the state.

“There is very little oversight at the state level,” said Joe Donovan, communications director of the state Department of Public Instruction. “The state superintendent has repeatedly called for meaningful accountability in the voucher program for students and taxpayers.”

Doyle’s proposal would require choice schools to administer standardized testing, institute background checks of all staff, and participate in a longitudinal study of the choice school program. To accommodate these and other accountability measures, Doyle’s proposal would increase the cap on voucher school enrollment in the city from 15 percent to 15.5 percent.

“The governor doesn’t support expanding the choice program,” Jessica Erickson, press secretary for Gov. Doyle, said. “But he believes there are things we can do to make it more fair and work better for the Milwaukee families as well as the taxpayers who are funding these schools.”

Pro-voucher groups argue the increase in enrollment is insufficient to the program’s needs.

“The positive is the governor is willing to engage in a discussion about raising the cap,” said Tim Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce. “But one-half of a percent doesn’t do anything.”

Accountability in the choice program came under fire earlier this year when the Mandella School of Science and Math failed to reimburse the state for $330,000 in unused vouchers, causing a judge to shut the school down.

As part of his proposal, Doyle would require all choice schools submit financial information to the DPI.

Sheehy agrees that fiscal accountability is needed, but views the other accountability measures as giving the state too much control over the operation of the private choice schools.

“The proposal attaches too many strings to choice schools,” Sheehy said. “The testing isn’t going to fly. The state isn’t supposed to be entangled with these schools, but I’m concerned this proposal creates those entanglements.”

Doyle’s plan would also increase funding in the state’s small-class-size program, SAGE, which Doyle credited as a program proven important to increased student performance.

Additionally, the proposal would increase funding for health and safety measures in Milwaukee public schools. Barriers keeping volunteer health providers from providing health care services to students would be removed, and a state grant would assist MPS in establishing safe routes for students to walk and bike to school.