Today is School Choice Day

John Fund has an excellent summary of the Wisconsin School Choice battles. It appears today on OpinionJournal.

Milwaukee's innovative school choice program has become a beacon of hope for reformers everywhere. But the educational establishment has never accepted its success and is now striking back. A cap on the number of students that can attend the city's private choice schools has been reached, and starting Feb. 1, education officials will implement a rationing plan to allocate the program's available seats. That could disrupt up to 4,000 families and create such chaos among the participating schools that several could be threatened with closure.

Governor Doyle continues to put the wants of the teachers' union over the needs of some of the state's poorest families. Now, this game of chicken he's been playing is on the verge of truly hurting families who actually care about their children's education. Doyle's State of the State speech is tomorrow (more on this later). Look for him to do three things regarding school choice.

1. Shift the blame
2. Try to seem compassionate
3. Leave a small window open

He's in a political bind. He can't afford to let the caps force kids out of the schools of their choice, and because he needs WEAC, he can't completely cave. It will take a while for this to play out, right now the odds favor a stop-gap. Perhaps a higher cap that gets Doyle past the next school year (and election day).