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Madison — As a bill to hold all taxpayer-funded schools accountable falters in the Legislature, its most powerful supporter, Gov. Scott Walker, has sought in private to salvage it.

The bill seeking accountability for billions of dollars in state spending on public and private schools is one of the biggest bills remaining in this waning legislative session, along with Walker's proposed $505 million tax cut bill.

Privately, the GOP governor has made a personal appeal to Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) to send him both high-profile measures, each of which have received a skeptical reception in the Senate.

But in his public speeches, Walker has focused much more on urging lawmakers to pass the tax cuts and related jobs bills than on the accountability proposal.

Rep. Steve Kestell (R-Elkhart Lake), a key supporter of the accountability bill, credited Walker for his past work on the issue, such as the school accountability task force called by the governor in 2011. But Kestell expressed frustration that a broad bill in his house has failed to win wide support and said the governor could do more.

"He hasn't really engaged since the task force ended," said Kestell, chairman of the Assembly Education Committee.

In June, the governor and GOP lawmakers expanded taxpayer-funded private voucher schools beyond Milwaukee and Racine and across the state, with a cap next year of 1,000 students for the statewide program. Republicans said that they would work in this legislative session to extend report cards on public school performance to taxpayer-funded private voucher schools and to have comparable consequences for any school that isn't meeting the mark.

On Thursday, the Senate Education Committee dropped a broader bill and voted 8-1 on a bipartisan basis to advance a measure that includes no sanctions for poor performing schools and doesn't attempt to overhaul the state's existing report cards for public schools. Instead, the bill extends those report cards — criticized for penalizing schools with poor students — to private voucher schools.

When asked, the governor still gives his support to a full accountability bill. But in a nod to the Senate bill, he acknowledges he might have to accept "something over nothing."

"I'd rather some accountability versus none, but in the end I've said over the last couple years...I believe every school that gets public money, whether it be a public school, charter school or choice (voucher) school, should be providing objective information about how those schools measure up," Walker said.

Walker hasn't included the issue as a core part of his stump speech — and it wasn't mentioned in his "state of the state" address last month. The governor also hasn't come out in favor of any of the competing proposals for the accountability bill in the Legislature or offered one of his own.

Last year, when Republican lawmakers and Walker approved a statewide expansion of taxpayer funded private voucher schools, they said an accountability bill would accompany that expansion. Further expansions of the voucher program could prove politically difficult if the state isn't using a similar standard for public and voucher schools.

Dan Rossmiller, the senior lobbyist for the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, which has supported a broader bill, emphasized repeatedly that he didn't know what Walker and his aides were doing behind the scenes on the legislation. But Walker hasn't made a public push in recent weeks, he said.

"Outwardly from a distance, I don't see that that kind of effort is being made on accountability," Rossmiller said. "From where I sit, I just don't see it. ... I'd love to be proven wrong."

Walker spokeswoman Jocelyn Webster said that the governor and aides are in contact with lawmakers daily trying to advance the accountability bill.

"There's a lot of work going on here," Webster said.

Since last summer, versions of the accountability bill have faced criticism from public school advocates and representatives of existing voucher schools.

Scott Jensen, a senior lobbyist for the pro-voucher American Federation for Children, said his group is "adamant" that a strong accountability bill is needed for parents to make informed choices about schools. Jensen's group advocates for expanding the voucher program but doesn't represent the schools currently in that program.

"I'm comfortable with the governor's (approach)," Jensen said. "He's made public comments and private comments, and I know that he's personally pushed this."

Both Webster and Dan Romportl, chief of staff to Fitzgerald, confirmed Walker's personal appeal on the bill to the leader of the Senate, where the measure faces its real challenge. Though the two leaders regularly talk about legislation, the aides said, such direct requests usually have been limited to budget and tax cut bills introduced by the governor, as well as bills on which Walker has a called special session.

Jensen said it's harder passing an accountability bill for voucher schools in Wisconsin, where they're already in place, than it was some other states where standards were put in place at the same time voucher schools were authorized. But passing a bill would be good politics and good policy for conservatives, he said.

If a bill doesn't pass, opponents next session will use the lack of a strong accountability law to try to block voucher expansions, Jensen said.

For his part, Sen. John Lehman of Racine, a leading Democrat on education issues, said he fears Republicans would use whatever accountability bill they might pass as a means to argue for more vouchers.

Lehman sees a deep divide among Republicans on vouchers now that they are available statewide and believes that has complicated their ability to get agreement on the accountability bill.

"I think they've run up to Republican opposition, with the outstate people saying, 'This isn't just Milwaukee and Racine anymore,'" Lehman said. "It's difficult for the governor to bridge that."

Sen. Luther Olsen (R-Ripon), an original sponsor of a broad accountability bill, said lawmakers don't have enough faith in the current report cards to tie school sanctions to them. For now, he said, it can only pass the Senate in its reduced form.

"This is a monumental thing, and the Legislature is not up for it right now. ... I know it's not going to happen in our house," Olsen said of a broader bill.

Olsen, the chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said the governor gave GOP lawmakers a broad goal but let them work out the details. That gave legislators more room to work but it also kept the governor away from a complex, explosive issue that "can blow up on you," he said.

Olsen said that a public endorsement from Walker for a version of the bill could give cover to Republican lawmakers who are wavering on whether to support it. But he stopped short of saying that Walker could tip the balance in the Legislature.

"Could he have been more involved? Yeah. Should he have been more involved? Probably not," Olsen said.

Patrick Marley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this article.