The Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce continues its tradition of advocating free market solutions for education. It championed school choice and teamed up with Republicans to extend choice to Racine and suburban Milwaukee private schools as well as raising the income levels to allow much of Milwaukee’s middle class to participate in the choice system.
Previously the MMAC went down in a blazing crash in its attempt to turn over the school system to the mayor. Nationally Milwaukee became the firewall against mayoral control, and since then, few other cities have considered the idea. Evidence is increasing that some cities with mayoral school control may return to elected school boards.
So the MMAC is turning to a new concept similar to New Orleans Recovery District. Under this concept, the school board is left in place only running a fraction of the city’s schools. A new recovery district is created to run the rest of the schools. Most power is in the hands of a state appointed board, not elected by the local citizenry.
One could make the argument that, under mayoral control, at least the public elects the mayor. Under a recovery district, the public would elect no one. One only has to look across the waters to Michigan where state government now has the power to control all forms of local governmental units. The poor folk of Benton Harbor, Mich., may have lost the public park on the shores of Lake Michigan in order to provide a country club golf course for the well-to-do, all at the hands of a state appointed “overseer” who runs local government.
Just how effective the recovery district has been in New Orleans largely depends upon where one stands. Free marketers consider the recovery districts an unqualified success. Professor Kristen Buras from Georgia State University has evidence that it has been a disaster. Few believe that the recovery district is the magic bullet to reform education by itself.
But the MMAC is not simply relying on the creation of a recovery district to reform Milwaukee’s educational landscape. It is only a tool to bring more free market reforms to education.
The MMAC also supports fixing the state “funding flaw.” Presently state funding requires Milwaukee Public Schools to pay money out to private schools in the choice program but limits the ability of MPS to count those students in the choice program for state funding purposes. Under the MMAC proposal, MPS can get more state funding, but they also propose more equalization of funding between the private and public schools, which means more money would pass through MPS without any going to the school system.
It is hard to imagine legislators from outside Milwaukee supporting a bill to give more education money to Milwaukee. Many outside legislators supported the choice program in the first place, not because it meant better education for Milwaukee children, but because the choice system was cheaper than the state aid going to public schools.
Of course the state legislature could simply raise the dollar amount that MPS must pay for each child in the choice system without increasing state funding. That would bankrupt the Milwaukee school system, and make educational choices worse for thousands of children in the city.
The proposal makes little reference to modes of instruction of best educational practices other than a brief reference to common core standards. Quality teachers? The MMAC proposal relies more on the Teach for America program which makes city teachers nothing more than a version of Peace Corps volunteers.
But free market competition will take care of all these problems, right?
