Rather than taking money away from public schools, the 10-year-old school voucher program in Milwaukee, Wis., actually gives money
back to the state, according to
School Reform News, a monthly education report published by the Chicago-based
Heartland Institute.
Basing its findings on a
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel news report by Joe Williams, School Reform News found that of the 82 choice schools in Milwaukee, 39 spent less than their $5,000 per student voucher allotment, resulting in a $1.2 million refund to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
George Clowes, editor of School Reform News, told WorldNetDaily that the low overhead and other administrative costs of the choice schools enable these schools to operate more efficiently.
“The continued enrollment of fee-paying students along with students receiving vouchers also puts a downward pressure on costs. Only with low costs can poor fee-paying students afford to go to the school,” he said.
These especially low costs may only continue until such time as vouchers become universal, but will typically remain well below public-school costs, Clowes says. “Public schools have no incentive to keep costs low.”
The news turns on its head conventional wisdom about the effect of voucher programs on public-school funding.
This conventional wisdom is represented by the fiercely anti-voucher National Education Association. NEA President Bob Chase has based much of his organization’s opposition to school choice on the notion that voucher programs divert money from public schools. Chase has even accused voucher programs of
“bleeding” urban public schools.
Yet, the Milwaukee experience indicates otherwise. Whereas Milwaukee public schools are spending $9,500 per student annually, some private choice schools are spending less that a third of that amount.
The St. John Kanty School, for instance, located in an ethnic, blue-collar area of the city, was the lowest-cost school, spending just over $3,000 per pupil and returning $1,888 to the state for each student enrolled.
Another school welcoming students with vouchers, Oklahoma Avenue Lutheran, spent just $3,725 per pupil, an amount that, according to school administrator Richard Gottschalk, will actually decrease in the coming year.
Milwaukee’s choice schools receive just over half of the $9,500 per pupil allotted to Milwaukee’s public schools. Indeed, voucher schools received only $4,984 per pupil last year, yet were still able to refund unused money.
St. John Kanty’s administrator, Lois Maczuzak, told the Journal-Sentinel that the school’s substantial operational autonomy is the reason for the cost savings.
“We don’t have to pay for a huge administration and a lot of red tape,” Maczuzak said.
In an interview with WorldNetDaily, Susan Mitchell, director of the Milwaukee-based American Education Reform Council, which spearheaded the choice initiative in the city, was careful to point out that while the lower costs are certainly a bonus, the real question is whether poor children are receiving educational opportunities equal to their wealthier counterparts.
“For a long time, as their constituencies have gotten poorer, these schools have had to have low costs just to survive. They probably have a need to spend more per pupil, but still not nearly as much as the public schools seem to be spending,” Mitchell told WorldNetDaily.
Regardless, the cost savings have not seemed to affect adversely the quality of education offered by Milwaukee choice schools. The Wisconsin Audit Bureau published a
report in February indicating that the choice schools offer a smorgasbord of educational opportunities to students, including alternative educational approaches, bilingual programs, multicultural programs, special education programs, programs for at-risk students, college preparatory curricula and vocational programs.
The Milwaukee program is also serving a higher proportion of African-American students than the public school system. In addition, 76 of 86 schools in the program were accredited or were actively seeking accreditation.
While Wisconsin taxpayers have reason to be happy about the savings engendered by the school choice initiative, Milwaukee parents appear to be the real “satisfied customers.”
According to the Audit Bureau report, parents select choice schools based upon factors like higher educational standards, good teachers and safe and orderly environments. Participation in the program is expected to grow to over 10,000 pupils in the coming school year.
As the first and largest voucher system of its kind in the nation, the Milwaukee program has been closely monitored by school-choice proponents and opponents alike since its inception in 1990. Originally limited to nonsectarian private schools, the program was expanded in 1995 by Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson to include private schools of all stripes.
This expansion galvanized the litigation arms of the National Education Association, the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, all of which sought and received a state court injunction against the program on First Amendment grounds.
In 1998, however, the Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected these arguments, and the United States Supreme Court let the decision stand.
Then, in a last-ditch effort to squash the program, the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association openly made last year’s local school board elections a referendum on school choice. All of the candidates endorsed and supported by the union — including three incumbents — were defeated.
Notwithstanding, the NEA remains adamant. At its national meeting last week, held just 90 miles south of Milwaukee in Chicago, the NEA reaffirmed its commitment to fight against voucher programs, including the imposition of a five-year, $5 fee increase for members with the specific purpose of fighting education reform initiatives.
NEA spokesperson Barbara Parker told WorldNetDaily that three dollars of the fee increase will be earmarked to challenging “anti-public education measures such as vouchers” at the ballot box. The other two dollars will fund a nationwide pro-public education media campaign.
When asked if the NEA considered vouchers to be the main anti-public education initiative, Parker responded that, while there were certainly others, “vouchers is the first one that come to mind.”
Related story:
Supreme Court ruling opens door to vouchers
Roger Abramson is an attorney and an education policy analyst with the
Tennessee Institute for Public
Policy.