Jim Doyle Always Disappoints
Governor Jim Doyle says he cares about poor children in Milwaukee’s failing schools, but rather than lifting the enrollment cap on Milwaukee’s Parental School Choice program, the “Education” Governor has slammed the door in their face, not once, but three times.
And the third time’s the charm.
Last week, parental choice advocates announced that the enrollment cap of 15% had been reached and the impact could mean as many as 4,000 students will be tossed out of their school of choice next fall. Worse yet, several schools in the choice program may be forced to close all together.
Rumor has it Jim Doyle is fit to be tied over the advertising campaign launched today by the Alliance for Choices in Education, expressing disappointment with Governor Doyle’s vetoes and encouraging him to correct his mistake.
I guess the families in the Milwaukee Parental School Choice program and the Milwaukee business community that supports it should just suck it up. How dare they tell their side of the story and make one last plea for Doyle to lift the caps!
Doyle says he’s willing to make the meaningless gesture of raising the enrollment cap by 3% in exchange for more money for MPS. That’s the only way he can sell any concessions on school choice to his friends at the state teacher’s union.
But why should Wisconsin taxpayers spend even one more dime on Milwaukee Public Schools when it costs half as much to send a kid to a choice school where they are twice as likely to graduate?
Jim Doyle has made the crass political calculation that opposing the school choice program would not hurt him politically because it affects only low income families who are less likely to make much difference in his re-election anyway. I guess only time will tell.
Still Doyle better hope his dirty little secret about Milwaukee doesn’t reach the rest of the state. You see, it costs about $13,000 to send a kid to MPS and $6,000 to send a kid to a choice school. The more kids Jim Doyle forces back into in the arms of MPS, the less money the state has available in school aids for other districts.
16 Comments:
Deb, thought you should see this. This was in Wispolitics today, the publication you blog for. Anyway, they had Scott Walker in the "rising" category. I think this best illustrates some of the strong points you might want to consider about Scott Walker.
Scott Walker: The Milwaukee Co. exec and GOP guv candidate may not beat his primary opponent on the money front come the end-of-the-month finance reports, but Republicans say he's made gains on the issues front. To some, primary opponent Mark Green's move to finally set aside Tom DeLay-related money appears to follow Walker's own public advice last week. While critics claim he has his share of tainted cash, Walker often moved more quickly than Green to remedy problems, strategists note. Walker's campaign also says it raised more than $1 million in campaign funds throughout 2005. But the campaign, which trailed both Green and Dem Gov. Jim Doyle in first-half 2005 fundraising totals, keeps lowering expectations on the money side, perhaps wary of insider comments about Green's large congressional transfer and more established statewide organization. A Walker campaign newsletter this week declares, "...money is a secondary factor in campaigns in Wisconsin and in the United States. The strength of leadership, experience, and ideas are truly what make people side with one candidate or another.'' Walker looks to be trying to become the anti-establishment candidate of ideas -- cementing the perception that he's the "property tax freeze'' candidate, getting credit by insiders for being out front on the automatic gas tax index repeal, heightening the kinds of ethics themes that got him elected county exec in the first place and promoting a New Year's 100-day agenda via a statewide campaign swing that collected plenty of what campaign types call "earned media.'' In other words, he got a lot of free, mostly positive press outside of his home base.
As a parent of an MPS school child I am concerned with "lifting the cap". Our schools are scrounging for every penny. My kids go to a good school but if the cap is lifted scarce resource will follow the choice student to schools that may or may not be affective. Good and bad schools in the choice program exist but with out SOME oversight we don't know if the money is going down the toilet.
Some will say the same scenario exists with MPS schools but there is a system of "checks and balance" that as taxpayers give us some comfort.
My point is that if choice advocates want to lift the cap then allow for reasonable oversight to insure the money for the children is being spent correctly.
[DEB WROTE] Still Doyle better hope his dirty little secret about Milwaukee doesn’t reach the rest of the state. You see, it costs about $13,000 to send a kid to MPS and $6,000 to send a kid to a choice school. The more kids Jim Doyle forces back into in the arms of MPS, the less money the state has available in school aids for other districts.
Nice sentiment from an upper middle class gal like you.
Lifting the cap by 3,000 pupils, as Governor Doyle has proposed, will cost state and Milwaukee taxpayers nearly $20 million.
Doyle is willing to do this but only if a reform package includes educational accountability in choice schools. Testing is required of all public schools, but why isn't testing the right thing for a program that already costs $93 million a year?
Today, we know that many choice schools are filled with incompetent administrators who have spent state dollars on Mercedes Benz for themselves and with teachers (who until this year) didn't even need a high school degree or GED.
Shouldn't parents also have the information they need to make the right choice for their children? Right now, these schools are not required to publicly report anything about education quality.
Deb-
Funny how your link to "Alliance to Choices in Education" actually takes one to the "School Choice Wisconsin" web site. I, too, constantly get confused about which of George & Susan Mitchell's pro-voucher organizations we're discussing at any given time. Is it the 'nonprofit' School Choice Wisconsin? Is it the Alliance for Choices in Education (nee the American Education Reform Council)which is funded by national right-wing organization who seem to be opposed to the interests of urban America on every public policy issue out there? Or Funds for Choice in Education which has funneled money to Republican candidates in many Wisconsin races over the past several elections.
I find it interesting that these front groups pose as champions of inner-city Milwaukee students when they're funded by individuals and foundations that also support the likes of the Heritage Foundation, The National Center for Policy Analysis, Clint Bolick's Institute for Justice (which gained fame with its character assassination of Anita Hill), and others.
I spend a lot of time doing volunteer work at a choice school and I agree with mke tidbits. Our choice school is an accredited school, everyone of the teachers at our school is state certified and our students take standardized tests to measure progress. It galls me to no end as a parent, as a choice advocate and as a taxpayer, that any yahoo can open a choice school in any vacant storefront and collect $6,300 per kid with almost no accountability.
We need to lift the cap, but we need to hold the choice schools accountable for taxpayer dollars too.
I hope that the Republicans can stop using Milwaukee's kids to try and put Governor Doyle in a political box and work towards a reasonable compromise.
I spend a lot of time doing volunteer work at a choice school and I agree with mke tidbits. Our choice school is an accredited school, everyone of the teachers at our school is state certified and our students take standardized tests to measure progress. It galls me to no end as a parent, as a choice advocate and as a taxpayer, that any yahoo can open a choice school in any vacant storefront and collect $6,300 per kid with almost no accountability.
We need to lift the cap, but we need to hold the choice schools accountable for taxpayer dollars too.
I hope that the Republicans can stop using Milwaukee's kids to try and put Governor Doyle in a political box and work towards a reasonable compromise.
Great, the accountability choir is out in force.
To begin with, let me ask when was the last time an MPS school closed due to its failure to meet even minimum standards in graduating kids?
Compare that to Choice schools, including the one that had the embezzler using funds for a Mercedes Benz. Is it still operating?
Which system is responsive?
Meanwhile minority kids graduate in the 30% range from MPS. Where's your outrage? You, like liberals everywhere, seem to recall the low hanging fruit in the Choice system, while ignoring the fact that for low income folks in Milwaukee, pretty much all the branches on the tree are scraping the ground.
I grew up in Milwaukee, and have watched that system grind up generation after generation of low income kids, with brave talk year after year from policy makers in Madison and the Milwaukee community. "More resources are here," they trumpet - every state budget, every special session on education, every deal with out state legislators on school spending. "Testing will do it, that'll turn around the system." They still can't even tell where all the kids in the system LIVE, for goodness sake, and they couldn't 20 years ago when I lived there. You talk about accountability for the Choice system!
Graduation rates have declined for minority kids over time. Think, just stop and think, of how many lives have been lost over the last 30 years in this system.
Of course Tidbits you take the line that your kids are getting yours out of MPS, so let's keep it that way. In a way, I don't blame you. However, your not thinking about what would happen if School Choice were to destruct, the way the Govcernor is trying to make it happpen.
Doyle would drive thousands of kids into the MPS system, forcing MPS to allocate resources they do not have to deal with them. Any increase in the school aids formula to accomodate this huge increase in attendance at MPS will NOT cover the surge in outlays MPS will need to make.
Given that the MPS leadership has been on balance feckless for years where do you think the money they will need is going to come from, tidbits?
Internally, from good schools in the system like the one your children go to. So before you convince yourself Choice is so detrimental to MPS, think again about Doyle's animosity to Choice through to the bitter end. Not only is he bent on consigning minority and low income kids to the worst of the MPS system, stripping them of an alternative that has provided them with a family structure and a source of actual hope in their lives: he is also bent on once again dumping a burden on MPS that it will not be able to sustain.
All for the teachers. Well you know what, I hate to sound like a liberal, but think of the children.
By the way tidbits, if Jordahl's upper middle class:
So is Doyle.
I don't get the "nice sentiment" line (a nice upper class "gal" can't talk about state budgets?).
But see my last post. Deb points out that out-state schools benefit financially from School Choice. Middle class women legislators from out-state point this out too by the way.
MPS benefits from Choice too. Choice relieves pressure on MPS, and Choice challenges MPS to do better. (See Androkopoulos's praise for Choice in the past).
For the record, MPS shut down four schools this year and reorganized others including North Division high school -- but I'm not here to defend MPS.
I support the school choice program. I live in a neighborhood full of choice schools. I volunteer my time and money to a choice school. The cap needs to be lifted.
Having said that I don't see how anyone can be opposed to improving the accountability of the schools in the choice program. Most of the schools in the choice program are fine, but there are some that are totally inadequated and need to be weeded out so more resources are available for the high performing schools.
Somebody explain to me why Republicans are opposed to holding schools that are using taxpayer funds accountable for results. Maybe it's easier to call people "liberals" than to try and reach an intelligent compromise.
Sherman, I'll lighten up. I posted over on free will and laid into you a little and I apologize. I refuse to accept however that "accountability" in this issue is going to be defined by Jim Doyle and WEAC. He has shown himself so virulently opposed to this program, and has played in bad faith on this every step of the way, that his calls for "accountability" should begin at home.
Look at his past vetoes of bills to expand the cap. He has refused to meet with delegations of Choice supporters, who traveled to the capital to plead their case. Any leader with any magnaminity, any courage, any leadership, any foresight, would meet and try to find some meeting of the minds and hearts. He did not. He shut his door to them entirely.
Someone so hostile to Choice is not someone I'd want instituting "accountability" or state involvement in the program. The entire education establishment in this state is inimical to Choice and always has been; I am not being a partisan when I say this, but a realist who watches elections and politics. Talk about a wolf in sheep's clothing, if the state were to get into the Choice program!
You'll have to forgive me, if I seem a bit confused. Governor Doyle has offered to increase the choice in enrollment caps in exchange for increased accountability. Would the Republicans, in effect, kill the choice program instead of agreeing to increased accountability? I don't understand this at all. The good choice schools are already giving their students some type of standardized test, why not make this a requirement?
Maybe MPS should be more accountable. Maybe Governor Doyle should meet with George and Susan Mitchell. There's a lot of history and a lot of politics when it comes to education reform.
However we need to focus on the issue at hand. There's a 142 choice students at the school I volunteer at 3 blocks away from my house. These kids depend on the school choice program. Are the Republicans willing to negotiate a compromise that both sides can live with or are they more interested in generating materials for TV ads the election this fall?
Getitright, your president has demanded accountability from public schools all over America. Is that OK with you? If it is, then why it is so bad that Governor Doyle is asking for a minimum level of accountability and quality from schools that spend $93 million in tax dollars?
QUOTE: "To begin with, let me ask when was the last time an MPS school closed due to its failure to meet even minimum standards in graduating kids?"
MPS has closed schools in recent years and sanctions included in the No Child Left Behind act include the closing down of schools that fail to meet adequate yearly progress requirements as measured by assessment tests. This is will be happening, you can count on it.
QUOTE: "Choice relieves pressure on MPS."
This is clearly false. The choice program drains money away from MPS and drives up Milwaukee school taxes to make up the difference. In addition, the 15,000 choice pupils don't factor into Milwaukee receipt of school aids from the stte--the pot from which MPS pays 45% of the program's cost. All Milwaukee schools are losing out in this deal big time. Other states provides a much larger funding bump to urban districts that must educate a larger percentage of disadvantaged kids. MPS currently has excess capacity in its schools and could easily handle additional pupils.
QUOTE: "Meanwhile minority kids graduate in the 30% range from MPS."
You're clearly not doing your homework, getitright. How ironic. Hmmm. MPS reports a graduation rate of 64% in the 2004-05 school year, not 30%. Now, that's not terrific and there's more work to be done, but it is an increase of 9% in the last 4 years. And I'll bet it has a lot more to with improvements to teaching and instruction in MPS schools that it has to do withsome presumed competition from choice schools.
Finally, choice implies information. Right now, parents are not guaranteed any level of information about choice schools. They have little to base their decisions on. Some schools provide data, and some do a good job of educating kids. But it should be required of all schools educating kids with public dollars.
A couple of things:
First. The cost to educate a student in MPS is about 12K. Choice cost the taxpayer 6K. Yet, it said that "The choice program drains money away from MPS and drives up Milwaukee school taxes to make up the difference." I guess I can't quite figure the logic here. Is the problem that MPS is no longer getting the money that the would've got to educate those children. It seems fair to me that if MPS isn't educating the child they ought not get the money.
Second, 60% graduation rate is absolutely atrocious. If private schools had these sorts of results they’d close whether they were choice or weren’t choice. Additionally, the 30% was pointing to the minority graduation and the 60% figure is a composite of all students. I don’t know about the soundness of the 30% figure, but 60% is FAILURE no matter how you look at it.
Finally the subject of accountability has arisen. (Ironic as you’d never hear a group complain more about mandates from the state and feds than the teachers’ union) Parents, I believe, are the ultimate arbiter of accountability. But, the facts are the cry of accountability is the mantra of the day for those that hope to push kids out of Messmer, St. Adlebert’s, Urban Day School and the like. Of course choice schools are currently accountable to the DPI in many areas. And the same people who now cry for accountability, applauded Doyle when he vetoed a measure regular annual testing of choice students in 2003. Of course accountability is a straw dog. The choice opponents could care less about accountability. What they really want is to close choice schools and to protect what they believe to be their power and money and keep it out of the hands of the economically disadvantaged parents.
I responded to GetItRight over at Christianson's, but it's worth repeating some here.
MPS's African-American graduation rate was 62% in 03-04 (latest data), just below the district-wide 67%. The minority rate is up over the last several years.
Doyle would drive thousands of kids into the MPS system, forcing MPS to allocate resources they do not have to deal with them.
Actually, it's DPI, using their second proposed rationing plan. The first--which would have given preference to current kids and schools--was rejected by legislative Republicans because they knew this would make a good campaign issue in 2006. As Sherman has noted, Doyle is working furiously to avoid the crisis, but Republicans won't come to the table.
David, you also deserve a reply, for this:
Choice schools are currently accountable to the DPI in many areas. And the same people who now cry for accountability, applauded Doyle when he vetoed a measure regular annual testing of choice students in 2003.
Choice schools are accountable in three ways: 1) they have to have a physically safe building and no child molesters on staff; 2) they have to have a solid business plan and no fraud; 3) they have to meet the statutory definition of "school." That's about a billion ways fewer than public schools.
In addition, the bill vetoed by Doyle in 2003 (I really wish we could put this canard to rest!) was crap. It
• funded the “study” with money from biased, pro-voucher interest groups
• allowed any school that wanted out to opt out
• did not require the same tests required in public schools, making any point-to-point comparisons irrelevant
• provided no enforcement mechanism, meaning taxpayers would be forced to keep funding demonstrably failing schools (a problem many of you righties seem to have with MPS)
Doyle was right to veto it, and call for real accountability.
"Governor Doyle is working furiously to avoid the crisis" and "maybe Governor Doyle ought to talk to George and Susan Mitchell" (why them?) Why not parents of the kids to start with? He won't meet with them! He has shut them out whenever they've come to Madison. He does not like talking to these people - parents, school teachers and administrators, you name it. He wants this fought in the press.
Now that's a furously working Governor all right! He has vetoed every single bill the legislature has passed to raise the cap at the behest of Choice families and advocates, and has attached a killing quid pro quo each and every time (including spending more money on Milwaukee). He's vetoed studies of the Choice program that would track the program over time with consistent data and measures. If you want a School Choice program that is removed from the clutches of a state administration that is philosophically and ideologically inimical to it, then quit attaching quid pro quos.
And I will repeat that the schools in the Choice program that have not worked out are not now running.
That's wonderful, that MPS has closed some of the schools in its system, due, JayB attributes it, to No Child Left Behind. So the Federal Act liberals have savaged (in conjunction with Choice, I would add, according to MPS administrators), appears to be benefiting a heretofore sprawling public school system after all!
MPS has been abysmal in the way it has served its kids, and even more inert and incapable of responding to ACKNOWLEDGED, GLARING failures. If the Choice program has benefited MPS, why undermine it? If the parents and families and the schools of the Choice program are working (and they are Sherman), why change it except to eliminate the cap?
Sherman and interloper and Jay B studiously avoid the facts: that families and students and teachers involved in Choice schools are deeply committed to them, have hope and a sense of future in them, and in the long run I submit are building more of a sense of community in a blasted Milwaukee inner city than imposing a reliance on MPS and government testing and government control will bring. The program is working as it is going and you want bureaucrats to move in to start undermining the program.
The governor is by the way simply mendacious when he tries to claim he has done everything he can to solve this. I would say he might by this point be furious at the unions and maybe himslef for throwing his future blindly behind their cause on this; maybe he just doesn't care.
The students and parents and teachers and administrators of the Choice program know exactly who is trying to degrade Choice. The business community that has helped build the program knows it. You can try to partisanize this issue in your efforts to defend Doyle and deflect his responsibility for this, but this is in danger of becoming a real tragedy. Democrats who ought by their own lights to be supporting those with little power are not doing so but instead are marching, on behalf of a teachers union leadership that is churlish and obsessed with its short term interests, into a corner they won't be able to escape. And they're being led by Jim Doyle.
I've said, I grew up in Milwaukee in the 60s and 70s and 80s, and I've seen the steady lack of progress in not only MPS but Mkee's communities - large swathes of Mkee have less hope and a future for kids than 30 years ago, don't you agree? Don't you agree Choice schools have provided some kind of light and an anchor in those same communities? Do you ever really listen to Howard Fuller, who talks about growing up in Milwaukee and seeing neighborhoods that once had a sense of community with values and local identities and vibrancy wiped away? Why do you think he's so committed to Choice? He wants MPS to succeed, but he wants Choice to remain untrammled by DPI and the "accountability" that will bring in the 'crats who hate it.
I am not even sure why you would want or need to demand, in order to get rid of the cap, that you have a study that compares MPS with Choice schools anyways. What is the point? That can be done without insisting on a quid pro quo. It's just another red herring.
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