The Headline Said "Barrett Proposes Expanding Choice"

And, before I read the article, I was, literally, planning to reprint my endorsement post from last spring with the whole thing in retroactive strikethrough. But then I remembered that the local paper has its own pro-voucher agenda and Tom Barrett is a lot smarter than that. And, as it turns out, I was right that the headline was quite misleading.

It's not that Barrett isn't proposing an expansion of the program; it's that he's proposing it in exchange for help for MPS:

Measures included in the proposal, which Barrett released to the Journal Sentinel on Saturday, are:

• A return to the state funding two-thirds of the costs of public schools, a commitment made in the 1990s but dropped in the last biennial budget to save money;
  
• Allowing Milwaukee Public Schools to count choice school students in state aid calculations, which would provide the school system an estimated $16.1 million a year to reduce its property tax levy;
  
• Raising the enrollment cap on participation in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program by 1,500 students per year over the next three years, or from 15% to about 19.5%;
  
Requiring private schools that receive vouchers to meet some accountability standards, such as accreditation, or through standardized testing of students.

"I felt it was extremely important that someone put out a marker as to what is important in Milwaukee Public Schools," Barrett said of his plan.

So, yes, tucked in among the four major elements of the mayor's plan is a note about "lifting the cap." That is hardly the major thrust of the plan, though.

I am willing to give my cautious support to this plan; I do not believe that this is time to "lift the cap"--type that phrase in the "Search" box above and see for yourself--but the other three items on Barrett's list are critically important, and, if politics is the art of compromise, it may be time to play politics here.

The two-thirds funding, for example, is a key element in the overall state-wide school funding scheme. For those of you unfamiliar with the history, about a dozen years ago, in a previous round of anti-tax hysteria (and deserved criticism of a regressive property tax), the legislature capped school districts' ability to raise money--we call it the revenue cap. As a reassurance to school districts that they would not go broke, the legislature--under Republican leadership--agreed to cover a full 2/3 of districts' costs through the more progressive income and sales taxes. For a decade--under Republican leadership--this remained in place, and school districts were able to get by under the caps. In the previous biennium--under Democratic leadership--that 2/3 figure was cut to about 65%, which was good for balancing the state budget, but less good for schools. This year, Governor Doyle--a Democrat who cut the aid last time--restored the 2/3 funding in his proposed budget for this biennium, now that the budget is closer to being in balance and the need for everyone to sacrifice is lessened.

Why am I stressing party affiliation here? Because some Republicans think that Doyle's and Barrett's calls to restore 2/3 funding are "bogus." Owen writes, thinking he's being funny, "This is straight off of the Doyle and WEAC (but I repeat myself) agenda.  Personally, I think that the arbitrary commitment to two-thirds state funding of K-12 is ridiculous, but in these tight budget times, it seems particularly ludicrous for the state to commit to such an arbitrary level of funding." One, he's not funny. Two, the 2/3 funding level, as we have seen, is not arbitrary: It was negotiated a dozen years ago to partially offset losses caused by the tax-saving revenue caps. Three, in "tight budgetary times," you set priorities: I think that our public schools should be a priority. And while a drop from 2/3 to 65% may not seem like much, for a district the size of MPS, that means a loss of 54 teachers and other cuts (in addition to the 130 teachers already cut, and the 600 teachers lost in the two previous years).

Even if the 2/3 funding doesn't happen, this can be offset (at least for MPS) with another aspect of Barrett's plan--the ability to count choice students in state aid calculations. If we were allowed to do that, we could reverse the cuts in classroom teachers (and librarians, counselors, other staff, and central office). These cuts have extended in the past three years well beyond MPS's actual declines in enrollment. I'll give you a personal example: The high school where I teach, three years ago, had about 1450 students. Next year, we are expecting about 1410--a loss of 40 students, which would mean a decrease, overall, of two or three teachers. However, in the last three years, we have not lost three teachers. Or five, or even ten. We have had to cut eighteen teaching positions. Our ninth- and tenth-grade English classes next year are being scheduled for forty or more students. And 40-1 is a common student-teacher ratio across MPS high schools. I doubt there's a voucher school anywhere in the city that tops 25-1.

Of course, Owen disapproves, calling this "perhaps the most idiotic part of Barrett’s proposal.  The Milwaukee Public Schools want to count the choice school kids in the state aid formulas so that the public schools can receive the money for the kids, but not have to actually educate them." But, of course, Owen, we do educate them. Many thousands of voucher students are in the program for just a year or two, and then it's our responsibility to try to get them back up to grade level. More importantly, hundreds of students every year get kicked out of voucher schools after the state checks have been cashed, and we have to teach them for free. And, of late, as voucher schools have been shut down for being unsafe, or because their principals buy Mercedes Benzes for themselves, or because the teachers stop coming to work because they haven't been paid in months, those students also end up in our classrooms with no money attached to them. I know--they've come to my classroom that way.

But perhaps the most important aspect of Barrett's proposal is the final one, adding accountability or accreditation standards. It never ceases to amaze me that the state has been forking over millions of dollars a year to a program that has zero accountability to the public. And by zero, I mean zero. There is absolutely nothing in the voucher authorization law that requires any voucher school to collect or report any kind of data regarding how students do. Given that the whole theory behind the voucher law is that we want to provide academic opportunities for students not served by MPS, there is a mind-boggling irony in knowing that we have no way to know that those opportunities are being provided at all. But that sits poorly with some people:

State Rep. Jason Fields (D-Milwaukee) blamed the push for additional accountability measures for voucher schools for preventing the parties from signing on. He said the accountability proposal is too unspecific to be worked out in time to be included in the Legislature's budget.

"We've agreed with the money that will come back to Milwaukee Public Schools as well as Milwaukee, we're all on board with that," Fields said. "The hang-up is this accountability piece, which I think the mayor should leave alone. . . . It's getting too greedy. You can't ask for the money and then want all these other items in this short of a timeframe."

Oh, boo hoo. The state has had fifteen bloody years to develop standards for voucher schools. Here's a thought: Why not just apply the Wisconsin Model Academic Standards that we spent years and millions of dollars developing for our public schools to follow? And we can test them with the WKCE that every public school in the state is required to give? Owen knows why not: "Most school choice supporters oppose mandatory tests and accreditation standards for many reasons.  Primarily, they oppose them because of the very real fear that more government intervention in the private schools will drive up costs and hurt education." What's that, you say? Public schools are more expensive because we have to give these stupid tests? Hm . . . I wonder how we could cut budgets . . .

At the very least, we can require accreditation; a quick googling found the WRISA, which already accredits 41 Milwaukee schools, many of which participate in the voucher program. How hard would it be to make every existing and new voucher school prove itself through an accreditation program such as WRISA's before letting them reel in that taxpayer money?

Finally, Owen opines that, "The Joint Finance Committee plans to take up school funding as early as next week.  Barrett’s proposal, with all of its vagaries and contentious issues, was offered today.  There is no time to properly parse through all of the aspects, debate them, and decide on details before the budget must be decided." Again, I say, boo hoo. The Republicans running the legislature make it a habit to do "legislation by stopwatch":

This troubling practice is on the rise in the Legislature--rushing bill drafts to public hearing before they have been formally introduced. Until they are introduced in a house of the Legislature, bill drafts traditionally are for legislators' eyes only. They are not posted on the Legislature's Web site or other public access points. A citizen has no way to know what the bill says, unless he or she has an inside connection to the bill's author. [. . .]

Another troubling practice is to vote bills out of committee by ballot, away from the committee table, rather than in the full light of public scrutiny. Far too many chairs of committees are taking votes on important legislation in secret by what is known in the Capitol as "paper ballot."

Legislators have a duty to debate the merits of legislation in the full light of day. We should be required to justify our reasons for passing bills and to defend our reasons for opposing them. [. . .]

Republican leaders cite "efficiency" as the reason for these practices. They say they want to make government more efficient. Speeding up the process may be a virtue when it comes to making toothpaste, but when it comes to making public policy speeding up the process tends to shut people out.

If they can fast-track lobbyists' bills, then they can fast-track Barrett's plan to help the school district in the state that most needs help--and attach some much-needed accountability for voucher schools while we're at it.

Forget cautious support--nicely done, Mr. Mayor.