Say 'No' to Voucher Expansion, Says Former Superintendent

To the editor:

As a Lake Country resident and Waukesha county school and district administrator since the late 1990’s, I am writing to share my feelings about the voucher expansion highlighted in Governor Walker’s 2013-15 budget.

 Voucher expansion is misguided public policy for many reasons:

1)    Vouchers do not improve student achievement.  These are the findings of numerous studies over the years, including the most recent five-year longitudinal study conducted by the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau.

2)    Vouchers eliminate public accountability.  And this stands in stark contrast to the strong controls placed on public schools in many areas, including teacher certification, instruction/assessment requirements, graduation requirements, student admissions and due process protections, and financial oversight. 

3)    Vouchers take resources away from public school students.  Two recent memos from the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau highlight the following summary in their analysis:  voucher school expansion means property tax increases and student service reductions at the local level.

It is for reasons like these that even prominent Republican lawmakers raised major concerns immediately about the governor’s proposal.  For example, Sen. Michael Ellis (R-Neenah) shared that this voucher proposal was phase one of an effort to expand this misguided policy statewide.  In addition, Sen. Dale Schultz (R – Richland Center) stated that the voucher system creates two educational systems in the state, and we struggle to fund one adequately.  I couldn’t agree more. 

Therefore, for the reasons above and many more, I encourage you to contact your legislators and ask them to oppose any further expansion of voucher schools.  At the very least, ask that they have this major change in public policy pulled out of the budget bill, where this highly important issue to Wisconsin’s future can be debated in the light of day and stand, or fall, on its own merits.

Joe Schroeder