School Choice Voices

Governor Doyle, the heat is on.

The Aliance for Choices in Education is giving voice to the poverty stricken parents who refuse to have their children trapped in the Milwaukee Public School system. They’ve launched an advertising campaign imploring the governor to ‘Lift the Cap.’

Advocates for Milwaukee's school voucher program launched a large television and radio advertising campaign Friday aimed at pressuring Gov. Jim Doyle to agree to raise the cap on the number of students who can enroll in private schools in the program next fall.

The step was the first in what is likely to be an extended and heated series of moves by partisans on all sides as the cap issue comes to a head in coming weeks and, along with it, possibly other Milwaukee-related education issues. It came four days before Doyle is to give his annual "state of the state" speech.

Under the law covering the voucher program, the number of students using state money to attend private schools cannot exceed 15% of the enrollment in Milwaukee Public Schools. The program is at the cap this year and is almost sure to exceed it next fall.

The state Department of Public Instruction last month issued a plan for handling the issue that voucher advocates say is likely to lead to thousands of students being forced to change schools and many schools being harmed or forced to close. The DPI would ration the vouchers equally among schools that apply for them, making no distinction between well-established voucher schools and newly created ones, some of which never open their doors.

In the ad, one student currently enrolled in a voucher school says, "Gov. Doyle's just made a big mistake," and another responds, "He's throwing away my dream."

Voucher advocates have previously urged Doyle to support lifting the cap on the voucher program, but Doyle has said he would do so only if other conditions are met.

Susan Mitchell, vice chair of the Alliance for Choices in Education, declined to say how much money was being spent on the advertising but described it as "a large buy." She said the ad was running on numerous TV and radio stations in Madison and Milwaukee and more ads are likely to follow.