PHOTO/CHRIS HOPPE
CHICAGO—The plan by Governor Scott Walker to expand vouchers across Wisconsin is a direct attack on public education, the latest in a reign of destruction. Rather than negotiate with labor and the community to create family sustaining jobs, the governor has given away federal funds, and the Republican controlled-legislature has produced significant tax giveaways to the corporations. Vital services have been cut to the bone. Public employees have been gouged, collective bargaining demolished, and teacher’s benefits slashed, with many teachers consigned to working as seasonal labor. All in the name of making Wisconsin “open for business.”
Now the governor and the Joint Finance Committee aim to provide vouchers for the wealthy. Walker and his corporate sponsors are preparing to misallocate the public monies to pay for voucher tuition. They are preparing to undermine and dismantle the foundation on which the state public education system stands.
Wisconsin’s legislature has done little to nothing to fix the situation; the regressive school funding formula, based on the property tax, places the burden of payment on homeowners and renters. There is much to be angry about, and Walker’s plan to cut taxes exacerbates the issue. Walker avoids confronting the underlying problem that corporations are not paying their fair share.
Vouchers began in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with the claim that competition would provide children from poor families with the same ‘choice’ available to children from wealthy families: to attend another school where they could be better served.
But the effect has been just the opposite. Robert Miranda, contributing author to Defending Public Education from Corporate Takeover notes, the promise of choice was a “pipe dream.” What has returned is “separate but equal education” which, he argues, “is now being practiced in the private voucher educational system funded by public dollars.” Furthermore, Miranda points out an example: “St. Anthony’s voucher school in Milwaukee is the largest private school choice program in the nation. With 1,700 students, of which [only] 30 are not of Hispanic origin, it is also an example of segregation thriving in a private apartheid education system established with public funding.”
Governor Walker is opening the door for voucher expansions, to Educational Maintenance Organization (EMOs) which are certainly lining up to get a piece of the public pie. Indeed the EMO charter schools grew precisely because vouchers as public policy were failing to win support when brought to public referendum. As Jack Gerson, another contributing author, writes: “Charter schools receive public funding but are privately run—in effect, they are back-door vouchers. It’s more than a coincidence that the real push for charter schools across the country began just after the national campaign for vouchers was defeated more than a decade ago.”
Charter schools and vouchers, two sides of the same worthless coin, are part of a process of wrecking the obligation of society to provide education to its people. This amounts to nothing less than short-changing Wisconsin’s children. It calls for a national political solution that recognizes that public education should be available for all, funded equitably.
All school boards should be elected by the people they will serve. They should be required to have children in the school system at the time of their election and leave when they can no longer meet that requirement.
at the very least they should be elected and expected to have residence in the place they serve. I believe that the school and the district are composed of a number of stakeholders. The school provides a foundation for the community and community members should determine their representation.