Milwaukee proves school choice can work

The corner of 24th Street and Teutonia Avenue in Milwaukee, Wis., doesn't look that different from other intersections in Milwaukee. Wide, tree-lined streets separate decaying but beautiful homes. A few newer buildings are visible, but it looks like a typical urban intersection. This past fall, however, I learned that this intersection is anything but typical.

On Oct. 3 and 4, I visited Milwaukee with several fellow legislators, members of the State Board of Education, and one representative each from Education Excellence Utah and Parents for Choice in Education. While proponents and opponents of parental choice have long pointed to Milwaukee to buttress their cases, this trip was my first opportunity to see firsthand how parental choice really works.

We met with the president of the Milwaukee school board, leaders from the Milwaukee business community, and a Democrat and a Republican member of the Wisconsin Legislature. We also visited several private schools participating in Milwaukee's voucher program, where we spoke with principals, teachers, parents and students.

Kenneth Johnson, the president of the Milwaukee school board, described how vouchers have reinvigorated the Milwaukee public schools. Ten years ago, he said, the district was facing declining enrollment; nearly half of those who stayed failed to graduate. These problems were hardly new, but the blossoming voucher program instilled in teachers and administrators a renewed urgency to solve them. Today, the district's enrollment is higher, and the graduation rate is increasing steadily.

Perhaps most stunning was his report about the degree of cooperation that has emerged between teachers and school and district administrators. The district's principals and students had long suffered under what they called the "Dance of the Lemons" — bad, veteran teachers shuffling between schools. Once vouchers came in, however, the teachers union voted to make teacher qualifications and school needs — not length of service — the key factor in staffing schools; the dance was over. In his view, none of this would have been possible without vouchers.

Remarkable as these changes were, they pale in comparison with what I saw on the corner of 24th and Teutonia. Located in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Milwaukee, the four public and private schools that make up the Garden Homes Community of Schools each have a unique flavor. One public school uses a Montessori model. Two of the private schools are Lutheran, and the third has an Evangelical focus. The teachers and administrators all recognize that not every child will flourish in their particular school, so they frequently refer parents to each other.