National Momentum for School Vouchers

A couple years ago, I would have said that the growth prospects for school voucher plans were not  good. Proposals to allow students to attend private and religious schools using public money had died in several states, court rulings had not been favorable in places such as Florida where there were strongly worded constitutional bans (“Blaine amendments”) on giving public money to religious schools, research on student achievement in Milwaukee, the nation’s main show case of voucher use, had shown nothing impressive, and  Congress had pulled the plug on a voucher program in Washington, D.C.

The landscape is much different now, thanks primarily to the 2010 elections and the wave of Republican victories.

There’s legislative action on multiple fronts in Wisconsin. Bills to lift the enrollment cap on Milwaukee’s voucher program and to allow suburban schools to accept city of Milwaukee voucher students are moving ahead. A proposal to phase out the family income limits for voucher recipients has brought  controversy and seems likely to morph into raising, but not eliminating, the income standard. And this week, Gov. Scott Walker said he supports expanding the program to include Racine, Beloit, and Green Bay.

It is useful to put the local developments in national context. Here are three examples of what’s going on:

Continue ReadingNational Momentum for School Vouchers

Restorative Justice Conference: Keeping the Victims Foremost

The eight-year-old who wasn’t there: That was one of the most important people involved in last week’s impressive two-day conference at Eckstein Hall on dealing with clergy sex abuse scandals.

The Archbishop of Dublin, Ireland, the Most Reverend Diarmuid Martin, brought the eight-year-old into the conference.

Of course, no children were literally present. But Archbishop Martin, who has attracted substantial international attention for his strong stands in the aftermath of large-scale scandals in Dublin, recounted how he had a bit of time before a program at a school he was visiting. The principal asked if there was anything he wanted to see. He said he wanted to visit a class of eight-year-olds.

The reason, he said, was that he wanted to look at their faces and underscore in his own mind their images. When people deal with issues related to the scandals, they tend to see the victims as the adults they are when what happened to them comes to light, the archbishop said. He said, “It is important to see the face of eight-year-old.”

When dealing with the issue of sex abuse, it is the images of the victims, both as children and adults, that should come to mind first, not the images of clergy members or the situation of the church overall, Martin said.

That was one of the key messages of the conference, “Harm, Hope, and Healing: International Dialogue on the Clergy Sex Scandal.” The sessions, the Law School’s annual Restorative Justice Initiative conference for this year, brought together experts from around the world and attracted wide attention, particularly in the Catholic press.

Continue ReadingRestorative Justice Conference: Keeping the Victims Foremost

Supreme Court Candidates Debate: Testy Talk About Collegiality

Four thoughts in the aftermath of the debate Monday evening at Eckstein Hall between incumbent Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser and his challenger in the April 5 election, Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg:

First: As a news reporter, I’ve never covered a race for a Supreme Court seat. I was struck by how awkward the debate is, compared to the plain old partisan races I’ve covered fairly often. It’s similar to confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court justices: Basically, if you have something substantial to say, you can’t and shouldn’t say it. You can’t say what you would do with any potential upcoming issues. Frequently, you can’t (or won’t) comment on past actions, although Prosser did talk about some past cases and said he was glad to run on his record. So you end up standing there, saying repeatedly that you are independent and nonpartisan and will judge each case fairly and with an open mind. Which both Kloppenburg and Prosser did. But it is very clear that Prosser is being backed by conservatives and Republican-oriented groups and Kloppenburg is being backed by liberals and Democratic-leaning groups. Do all these people and groups know something the candidates don’t know? Are they wrong? Or is this a curious exercise in avoiding talking about the issues, even though everyone seems to know what you’d say if you did?

Two: I’ve been at some testy and tense debates and joint appearances by candidates in various races, but this one was way up the list, if it wasn’t the champion on my personal list.

Continue ReadingSupreme Court Candidates Debate: Testy Talk About Collegiality