The Voucher Wedge

My account of a scary visit in my changing hometown on March 4, 2006.

I recently went back home to Milwaukee to see just how much it has changed over the last few decades. It was and eye opener.

Despite the beauty of the middle class homes in friendly neighborhoods and the generations of families that still call brew town their own, I felt uneasy.

On my way into to Milwaukee I was inundated with a steady stream of conservative talk radio. I heard nothing from the left wing-nut side of the isle. The angry hosts spit out the same one-sided rants their listeners have grown so comfortable with over the many years.

The topic that day was generating a lot of calls: The endangered School voucher program.

I was shocked at the time to hear that Democratic Governor Jim Doyle was symbolically standing in the schoolhouse door, blocking hundreds of African-American students from getting a better education. Strange, education is a major part of Governor Doyle’s platform. Could it be, according to the Republicans, that the Democrats don’t like black people?

Despite the fact that the Governor struck a deal with Republicans by raising the cap from 15,000 students to 22,500, choice supporters were unhappy that the compromise didn’t damage the public school system as much as they had planned.

In a comment that should have disqualify any normal person from running for governor, an election he lost eventually and former U.S. Rep. Mark Green said at the time, “It doesn’t change my belief that there shouldn’t be any cap on the choice program.”

First, the choice program is sending taxpayer dollars into private schools that are not accountable to people of this state. I had heard Republicans were the party of accountability. Not only is there is no standardized test to compare private and public schools ability educate children, but choice supporters have blocked an honest evaluation to support their contention that private schools are better. They’re not, according to a recently released study.

A large-scale University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana government-financed study has concluded that “when it comes to math, students in regular public schools do as well as or significantly better than comparable students in private schools.” The new study said that right now, if private schools are going to get taxpayer funding, they need to be held accountable for the results.

Those “self-described conservative Christian schools, the fastest-growing sector of private schools, fared poorest, with their students falling as much as one year behind their counterparts in public schools, once socioeconomic factors like income, ethnicity and access to books and computers at home were considered. The report found that among the private schools, Lutheran schools did better than other private schools.”

But for some, these are only facts, not faith-based opinions.

Second, public schools could not budget accurately for the next year without knowing enrollment numbers. Suggesting that there be no cap demonstrates a lack of business savvy.

And finally, let’s look at the idea that Republicans are looking out for “hundreds of African-American students,” while our governor blocks them by standing in the school house door. The February 3, 2006 Capital Times editorial, Vouchers vs. Justice, reveals the dishonesty of choice supporters like WTMJ host Charlie Sykes.

In a key note address delivered in Milwaukee, Coretta Scott King “Described strong public schools as an essential underpinning of a functional and free America. ‘Anything that undermines them does a shameful disservice to children. I see no good reason private schools should be subsidized by taxpayers.’”

My visit in Milwaukee ended with this comment from a compassionate conservative friend who vehemently defended low income blacks using taxpayer dollars to attend private schools.

As we drove down the east sides legendary Brady Street, my born again tour guide said, “This area is now taken over by the Italians. They really cleaned it up when they got rid of the spicks and Niger’s.”

Maybe they're right. You can’t go back.