January
2006
Cutting Through the Rhetoric on School Choice
Do Republicans in the state Legislature really want to know what’s in the curriculum at Milwaukee’s Malcolm X Academy? Is the evangelical wing of the party ready to link arms with Louis Farrakhan?
Of course they don’t, and neither do Alberta Darling’s neighbors in River Hills on the North Shore or Leah Vukmir’s in Wauwatosa, where parents are most concerned about funding for their own high performing public school districts. But, as we’ve suggested previously, that’s not the point in a school choice debate where all sides routinely turn a blind eye to some of the realities in Milwaukee schools.
Malcolm X Academy is a middle school in Milwaukee Public Schools that has, over the years, been more controversial than it should have been, with its curriculum and subcontracting practices under scrutiny from the MPS Board. But the school has survived; it’s not a place most MPS parents want to enroll their children in, but some parents do. These parents know what’s going on in their school because, in addition to the past public scrutiny, the school is accountable to state standards in testing in Math, Science and Language skills, the results of which are reported every year in the MPS annual report.
So why shouldn’t private schools in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program be accountable to those same standards? The way the choice program is set up, schools are not required to test kids on the basics, and, if they do test their kids, the test results are thrown in a file somewhere and usually not released to the public.
And if Republicans, led by Vukmir and Darling, want the cap on enrollment in the Choice program lifted, how can they actually propose that “no accountability” continue to be the rule in the choice program? They are.
Leah Vukmir, with a straight face last week, accused Gov. Jim Doyle of taking an “all or nothing approach” on the program, even as she and Darling pushed their proposal to remove the enrollment cap altogether. Democrats and Republicans are talking about lifting the cap while admitting that we don’t have, to date, any information on the progress of children in the program that anyone can trust. Doyle, Vukmir and Darling have all proposed that a Georgetown study take a long term look at how children are faring as they move through Milwaukee’s various programs: choice, charter, public-private partnership and public schools.
So politicians in Madison, men and women, black, white and Latino, Democrat and Republican, have all decided that the cap on the Choice program should be raised or lifted altogether, even though they all admit that they don’t really know what’s going on in a program that started 15 years ago, or in the lives of school children in Milwaukee for whom they are continually making policy. This is the height of irresponsibility by all sides but, nevermind that — it’s an election year and the cap will be lifted, even if it is a more modest lift as proposed by Gov. Doyle.
Doyle has also proposed an independent accrediting authority for schools applying for choice funds to prevent the highly publicized disasters at Mandella School of Science and Math, Alex’s Academy for Excellence, Exiter and Milwaukee Preparatory School, et. al., where funds were squandered, teachers weren’t paid, and kids were set adrift by the worst kind of hustler administrators, costing the state millions.
Doyle would be wise to remind voters in the state of those failures, something he seems a little shy about because the voucher crowd is already race-baiting him with a series of radio “spots” on WTMJ. Last week, the “spots”, which compare Doyle to former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, who literally “stood at the school house door” to stop school desegregation, became an issue in the blogosphere and in Journal Sentinel because right wing radio shill Charlie Sykes used TMJ resources and staff to make the ads free of charge, essentially an illegal corporate contribution.
While a nasty comparison to Wallace isn’t likely to make Doyle flinch, the voices of kids from Messmer telling the governor in these ads that he’s depriving them of their rightful education is a bit troubling for the governor. Doyle can’t win a debate with the kids at Messmer.
But Doyle can easily deflate the voucher crowd’s rhetoric — and he needs to do it quickly. Voucher advocates have long claimed to be “jedi knights” fighting the death star that is public education. Often they’re the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. DPI denied 21 schools entry into the voucher program in 2004. Since then, Mandella has closed; and Alex’s Academy and two others as well. The Journal Sentinel, which has been more than fair to the voucher program, calls some of the failures of the program “disturbing.”
The kids at Messmer are having a good experience in the Parental Choice program. But for far too many parents and children, it’s been a nightmare.
John-david Morgan
John-David Morgan, Watchdogging Education, Watchdogging Wisconsin
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Yeah Sure John - I’d call a 34% graduation rate disturbing. Try again. Thanks for playing though. Happy to visit your remote blogosphere.
“But for far too many parents and children, it’s been a nightmare.”
Similar to the MPS experience, huh?
As an MPS parent, it’s always disappointing to see our schools bashed by people who don’t have any idea what goes on in the schools. My daughter and I have had a wonderful educational experience at both of the schools she’s attended, and the parents I’ve worked with on school governance councils would agree — we’re happy with the education our kids receive, and you’d be amazed at the quality and commitment of the teachers we’ve had. It’s too bad that the Journal Sentinel doesn’t see those stories as newsworthy as its neverending ministrations and handwringing over the parental choice program.
A 34 percent graduation rate? Where’d you get that, Jane, Charlie Sykes and WPRI?
Jane, if you had any sense of what goes on in MPS (or if you cared) you’d recognize that number as completely fraudulant — it’s off by 30 points, 100 percent! The 2004-05 graduation rate was 64 percent, tracking students who graduate in their four-year track. Because low income MPS families are on the move, changing schools — perhaps going to one of those disastrous choice schools for a time, then moving back into MPS — it sometimes takes 5 years or more for a kid to graduate … If you take transience into account, the graduation picture becomes more of a common sense figure, and gives you a much better idea of what’s going on in the schools and in the lives of many children in Milwaukee.
Fraudulant research and bogus numbers from the voucher crowd is an old game, Jane, and you’ve said nothing to dispel the statement that both sides in the School Choice political debate have admitted that they really don’t know what’s going on in Milwaukee schools, and shouldn’t be talking about lifting the cap at all until they can find common ground on this reality. In fact, your comment proves this point, all the more reason that the Legislature and Gov. Doyle need to be very careful with the School Choice cap, I’m sure you’ll agree.
A dozen years of voucher rhetoric (research paper 197), bogus studies, hobgoblin journalism stalking reform in the daily newspaper and conservative talk radio, more conservative talk radio, and now the blogosphere, too … It’s time to cut through it all and get some common ground on what’s happening in Milwaukee schools. Is Assembly Republican leader John Gard up to the task?
No, John Gard probably isn’t up for the fight, and that’s why this fight is being waged right where it is - in Milwaukee (in the blogosphere, on the radio, and in the newspaper). No one is running ads in Sun Pra… er, Peshtigo.
If I had to guess, I suspect Jane was sarcastically making a point with the 34% number… drawing attention to the abysmally low rate in MPS. You can fluff the “reasons” all you want, but MPS isn’t doing what its patrons are paying for.
Furthermore, just as you decry our suggestions that MPS shouldn’t be judged on the few poor schools, then perhaps you’d stipulate that voucher schools shouldn’t be judged by the few poor schools - Alex’s Academy, et al…
Gard should be up for a sensible compromise. Some accountability needs to be written into the school choice voucher program; it’s unconscionable that, after 15 years, there is still no accountability or certification process. It sounds as though Gard is ready to come to terms with Gov. Doyle on some of the governor’s proposals on standardized testing and certification, and that’s a good thing for everybody if it happens.
The 34 percent is simply bogus, and seeing numbers like that thrown around is nothing new. The business community, former Mayor Norquist, Charlie Sykes, the Bradley Foundation and the rest of the voucher gang has thrown numbers like that out there for more than 10 years, knowing that they’re wrong, knowing that everybody in the ‘burbs who hears them will say, “Oh my, MPS is a disaster, DO something … pull money from that “bloated education bureacracy” — to quote Norquist 12 years ago. Meanwhile, those of us who are in MPS every day look at these numbers, see how fraudulent they are, and say, “How do these people sleep? Is Bradley Foundation money that green?”
The graduation rate in MPS is 64 percent — that’s the hard number DPI reported for 2004-05. It is not fluffed. Beyond the 64 percent who graduate in 4 years, there are others who take longer, whose path to graduation is more difficult. If we don’t look at these students, their mobility and their needs, how can we as a state dare consider “reforms” to make their education better? It’s incredibly irresponsible that all sides have continually proposed legislation not knowing the needs of these kids, and that, in 2006, all sides are still admitting that they still don’t know.
I haven’t judged Messmer based on the failure of schools like Alex’s Academy, though it is fair to judge the program by those disasters, which have been there from the start. The dough-grab hustles that were Milwaukee Prep, Exiter, Mandella, Alex’s, etc., can be easily prevented, and that’s something Republicans and Democrats should support. It’s a no brainer.