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

Borsuk Honored for “Building a Better Teacher” Series

Alan J. Borsuk, senior fellow in law and public policy at the Law School, was named a winner Monday in a major national education journalism competition. Borsuk was honored for his role in the project, “Building a Better Teacher,” which ran on the front page of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for eight consecutive Sundays in November and December.

The Education Writers Association, a national organization of education journalists, named the project the best series of 2010 by a large publication. The series resulted from collaboration between the Law School; the Hechinger Report, an education journalism organization that is part of Columbia University; and the Journal Sentinel, including reporters Amy Hetzner, Erin Richards, and Becky Vevea.

Borsuk helped design the plan for the series and wrote three of the eight pieces. Borsuk, a longtime reporter and editor for the Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, joined the Law School staff in 2009. He writes and edits pieces for Marquette Lawyer magazine, writes for the Law School’s web pages, and is involved in a variety of public policy activities. He also writes a Sunday column on education for the Journal Sentinel.

The education writers’ contest is judged by experts who are independent of the publications that enter. This year’s judging was directed by Tamara M. Cooke Henry, of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland.

The series can be found at http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/111494694.html.

Continue ReadingBorsuk Honored for “Building a Better Teacher” Series

Will MPS Get Squeezed Extra Hard?

We’re entering uncharted territory when it comes to school issues statewide. I think it was clear from pretty far back that Gov. Scott Walker and Republican leaders in the Legislature were going to push for state employees and for teachers across the state (who are not state employees, but the state can influence their job situations) to pay significant shares of their health insurance and pension payments. But I was caught off guard by the move to take away almost all the unions’ bargaining role, as Walker proposed last week.

This is going to be a tumultuous and momentous spring and summer when it comes to education issues statewide. I wonder what all will be different when it comes time to open schools in September.

Permit me to venture into one aspect of what lies ahead that I specifically wonder about:

Walker proposed that public employees pay 5.8% of their salaries toward their pensions and 12% of the cost of their health insurance coverage.  While I wonder how that’s going to play out across the state, I especially wonder how it will play out in Milwaukee Public Schools.

Continue ReadingWill MPS Get Squeezed Extra Hard?