School Choice Cap Hurts Families
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a story today about the fate of the School Choice program in Wisconsin's most troubled school system. While light on specifics (there's more to the story than they choose to report) it does provide a glimpse of the problems families will face if Doyle remains joined at the hip with WEAC.
Stable voucher schools could take biggest hit, group says
An analysis by advocates for Milwaukee's school voucher program suggests that long-established schools could lose hundreds of seats, disrupting upwards of 4,000 families, if state officials impose the rationing plan they have proposed for the program.
"I have no doubt that if this goes into effect, some schools will close," said Susan Mitchell, the president of School Choice Wisconsin. She added: "My own opinion is that we would be talking about dozens of schools."Her organization used enrollment figures from this year to calculate how many seats individual schools would have lost this year if rationing using the proposed formula had been in effect. It shows that Messmer Catholic Schools would have lost 248 seats; Holy Redeemer Christian Academy, 161; and Urban Day School, 225.
State Department of Public Instruction officials agreed Wednesday that the plan they proposed could have the effect envisioned by Mitchell's group. They said the proposal does not distinguish in rationing seats between long-standing, top-performing voucher schools and proposals from people with, at best, dubious credentials who apply for next fall but have no realistic chance of opening.
Last week, DPI said a rationing plan will be imposed for the 2006-'07 school year for enrolling students in more than 120 schools in Milwaukee's private school voucher program unless Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle and Republican legislative leaders reach an agreement on how to avoid that. The controversial voucher program has hit the legal cap on its enrollment of about 14,500.
School Choice Wisconsin calculated the number of seats that schools would have been given last year had rationing been in effect, and compared that number to the schools' enrollment this fall for its analysis. Eighty-two schools would have had to cut seats - a couple by more than 50%. Forty-four schools would not have been affected by the rationing.
"Clearly this raises all sorts of issues" for many of the schools, Mitchell said. "Do you stop offering a certain grade? Do you take some students out of every grade?"
Shame on you, Governor Doyle. You don't have the guts to tell the folks at Nob Hill (Fittingly named home of WEAC) that you are more concerned about the educational opportunities available to thousands of, mostly black, poor kids than you do about the close-minded self interest of the state teachers' union.
Maybe the poor black families in Milwaukee should pool their hundreds of thousands of dollars they make in casino profits or mandatory union dues and support your reelection efforts. Would you then stop preventing them from choosing how to best educate their kids?
And to Superintendent Burmaster: Perhaps you should pay more attention to the educational decay in Milwaukee's Public School system, and spend less time worrying about school mascots.
School Choice works for Wisconsin. More on this soon...
5 Comments:
What do you know about the poor black families in Milwaukee? As a long time Republican hack and now a "part time" blog hack do you have any children attending either MPS or a choice school? Much like your myopic story did, I will do my best to paint you a picture. You, Mr. Fraley, are a white man living in a suburb with no direct ties to either MPS or schoold choice. Given all of your "experiance" in the political arena, why don't you propose some changes that promote school choice while funding MPS? I'm sorry Mr. Fraley, but you are nothing more than a spin machine for the right. We all know it, and it undermines everything you are going to post on this site. Good day.
The arrogance of our Governor and Deptartment of Public Instruction is unbelievable.
Together they are trying to destroy school choice by refusing to lift the cap.
Econ 101 says competition works and monopolies do not. This idea that public education is monopolized education is wrong. Taxpayers can and should be supporting competitive education statewide.
The Governor's action also carries a huge price for Milwaukee taxpayers. By capping the voucher system he will also cap a huge taxpayer cost savings so desteratly needed in Milwaukee. Voucher Schools receive approx. $6,300 per student whereas MPS spends approx. $11,300 per student. I can only imagine what it would mean for the city if education costs were reduced approx. $5,000 per student.
The potential savings is a mind boggling number. In fact, if school choice were available statewide, over time, Wisconsin would become the shinning star of the United States.
I agree, with your premise--the situation will hurt families this year--and I believe that the Republicans should come to the table and help Jim Doyle lift the caps.
Jay is spot on. Republican legislators and the choice lobby are the ones to blame--not Governor Doyle. The Legislature, at the behest of School Choice Wisconsin, rejected a Department of Public Instruction rule earlier this year that would have protected existing choice schools and current choice students. They chose, instead, to torpedo a sensible fix for two reasons: (1) to politicize the cap for campaign 2006 and (2) to make the Governor a bad guy to provide a continued impetus to raise tens of thousands of dollars in national right-wing contributions. These supposed choice advocates, of course, are willing to sacrifice the interests of these low-income, urban kids in order to keep the participation cap as a political issue rather than broker a compromise that helps these kids.
To mkeblog: Governor Doyle has chosen to remain - all through his 3 years as Governor now - ignorant of Milwaukee's poor families. And while I'm at it, I'll clear up your condescending (and faintly racist) ignorance regarding the 15,000 low income attendees at Milwaukee's Choice schools: they are not all from black families.
Every single time the supporters of School Choice - the low income parents of the children who go to the schools in Milwaukee, who have had something to say about the Choice programs, and how they benefit their kids - every time they have come to Madison to talk to the Governor and plead their case to get him to sign legislation to expand the program: the Governor has shut them out and refused to even meet with them.
Apparently, ignorance is a policy basis for the Governor's veto decisions. Ignorance, and the input of the Teacher's union, which funnels money to him as well.
And funding for MPS? Don't be trite. Choice relieves pressure on the public school system; it challenges the MPS to do better with what it has (more money sends the message the status quo is just fine after all, and more money, which has always been the demand from MPS and the liberals and the union, has never - NEVER - resulted in improvements in what has now become a 35% graduation rate among MPS minority seniors).
I'm sure I'm speaking to the unpersuadable, but I grew up in Milwaukee and have spent the last 30-plus years watching the schools fail and more and more kids be ground up and lost as adults under the paradigm you and Jim Doyle and the teachers (yeah right) union are so enamored with. Give up the ghost.
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