MONROE — After running a software business shaping education for 35 years, now-retired Jon Aleckson of Mount Horeb is looking to get involved in shaping the Wisconsin political scene.

“After I retired, I just felt that I could give back,” he said.

Aleckson founded Web Courseworks, a company that specialized in created and managing advanced software programs for electronic education. He ran the business from 1992-2022 and is now an online learning consultant. He holds a PhD in educational technology leadership policy from UW-Madison and was an adjunct professor at UW-Platteville from 2012-2015.

Aleckson went to high school in Cedarburg and has called Milwaukee and Madison home for most of his adult life. He now lives in Mount Horeb, at the northern edge of Assembly District 50. A Republican, his campaign is built on buzzword phrases, “Smarter Schools” and “Stronger Farms”. He calls for the state to “Invest smartly in education — Deliver measurable returns to strengthen Wisconsin’s next generation” on his campaign website, jonaleckson.com. He also wants to “Champion Wisconsin’s backbone — prioritize small, family-owned farms and rural communities, restore Wisconsin’s Dairyland Status through sustainable innovation” and “Bring battle-tested small-business leadership” to Madison.

Lacking in further dialogue on his website, he’s hitting the campaign trail to talk to voters directly while listening to their concerns.

On April 24, he visited Christina’s Family Daycare in Monroe to talk with Tom and Christina Becker, as well as childcare provider Jillynn Niemeier, about the current situation of funding in childcare and public education.

Aleckson calls himself a problem-solver and promised the group he would not become a career politician, aiming to serve just 2-4 years in the Assembly.

Niemeier suggested that, if elected, Aleckson should bring in the day-to-day professionals of a subject to help problem solve specific subjects — something she and her fellow providers said they have not been seeing in Madison over the past several sessions.

“Unfortunately, that is not how it is right now. These bills will be introduced and there’s no conversation with us, like, ‘Hey, when this goes into effect, how will it effect you?’” Niemeier said.

Aleckson responded that he likes to be creative and has “always been a student of collaboration.”

“I’m going to be a collaborator. I’m going to find ways to come up with solutions that are win-win,” Aleckson said. “I think I can go to Madison and make an impact.”

Specifically on funding issues facing the state’s public education sector and child care landscape, Aleckson admitted to the group he was not as well versed at the moment as he would like to be.

Both Becker and Niemeier are skeptical of the marginal changes made at the state level to tackle childcare issues — which includes lack of available slots at daycare centers or in-home providers, as well as the temporary supplemental funding that saved the industry as the country navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the band-aid fixes was to lower the age of workers in centers, as well as increase the number of children that can be allowed per adult in a facility.

Becker said that her home is too small to accommodate additional children. Both she and Niemeier shared their reluctance to increase weekly rates, because they know full well the families they serve are struggling with rising costs of food, transportation and living expenses.

Christina Becker is a certified childcare provider and has been in business for more than 30 years. Niemeier opened her day care in 2020 and serves families of school district staff. Her husband is a fifth grade teacher at Abraham Lincoln and the two have two daughters.

“Honestly, the only reason why I am an in-home provider is because I couldn’t find care for my children — or rather, the quality of care I wanted for my children at the centers we looked at,” Niemeier said. “I left a job that I really enjoy doing to do this.”

She said that when her youngest daughter starts kindergarten next year, she won’t need to worry about full-time care for her children and she could go back into the workforce.

“Or I can keep my doors open to keep providing the quality care I have to the families that I have,” she said.

Her story is not dissimilar from many others. Many families have to choose between two working parents and rising childcare costs, or for one parent to stay at home. That affects not just the individual household, but the local economy.

“A big issue in Monroe is the schools. We just had a $2.5 million referendum fail by 154 votes. Twenty-two teachers and staff will lost their jobs for sure. The cause of that is there is no funding for public schools,” Tom Becker said. “Our co-chair and current senator, Howard Marklein, controls that. The whole state of Wisconsin, public schools got nothing, but private voucher schools get $700 million? There’s something wrong with the formula.”

Aleckson admitted that, at the time, he had not studied on the specifics of state funding for education.

“As a Republican, I definitely would like to see more efficiency within the schools, particularly with declining enrollment. As a former business person, if I didn’t operate with, you know, spending less that I brought in than I had for a budget, I had to do something about it,” Aleckson said. “My fundamental philosophy is our school systems do need to live within their means.”

Niemeier retorted, “How are you supposed to make a budget that is respectful of your community and being efficient when the state isn’t living up to their end of the bargain? So you have to have these $2.5 million referendums just to cover that.”

The Beckers and Niemeier attempted to bring Aleckson a bit up to speed on the lack of funds coming to the districts from the state.

“My heart is definitely with public education, so I will look deeply at some of those issues,” Aleckson said.

Those funds also include reimbursements for special education and the state rainy day fund sitting between $4-6 billion each of the past few years.

“Voucher schools can deny students if they want, but public schools can’t, and they are not getting reimbursed to what the law says,” Tom Becker added.

In 2024, Wisconsin’s School Privatization Price Tag for public school money taken out for private voucher and non-district charter schools was $780.5 million.

“They (private voucher schools) are getting all the money. We’re having lower enrollment because we have less children, because people can’t afford things. The food bill is $1,000 bucks a month.”

State Senator Chris Larson said that school vouchers have had virtually no effect on the percentage of Wisconsin students that attend public schools. When the Milwaukee school choice program started in 1990, 84.1% of Wisconsin students attended public schools. By 2000, it had dropped to 83.9%, but bounced back by 2010 (85.7%) and in 2020 was sitting at 84.6%.

“What has increased during that time is the amount of your tax dollars going to unaccountable private schools, going from $700,000 in 1990 to a whopping $700 million in the most recent school year,” Larson told his District 7 constituents in Milwaukee on April 21. “We cannot afford to fund two separate school systems. Public dollars belong in public schools — period.”

After having the weekend to look into the issues some more, Aleckson, in an email, told the Times earlier this week that he “strongly supports public education, our dedicated teachers, and excellent schools. That said, we must direct more resources to the ‘teacher-student learning transaction’ while streamlining bureaucracy at the DPI and district levels,” he wrote.

In reference to Monroe’s failed operational referendum, the only one in his district, he said the voters have spoken and “we must respect their decision.”

“Moving forward, the district must deliver quality education within this new fiscal reality. Maintaining strong local control, we should pursue efficiencies at every level. With my background in educational technology, I’m confident we can deliver excellent education at reasonable costs. I look forward to working with educators, parents, and community leaders on those solutions.”