Wisconsin public schools held to higher standards than choice or voucher ones | Opinion

Supporters of Wisconsin’s voucher schools make it seem that the schools are just one of many variations of our public schools. Don’t be fooled.

Voucher schools, often referred to as “choice” schools, are private schools that receive taxpayer money that pays for tuition. To argue that a private school is “public” merely because it receives public tax dollars is like arguing that Metro Mart is a public grocery store because it accepts food stamps.

Some 383 voucher schools will receive an estimated $574 million in taxpayer money in the 2023-24 school year — more than half a billion dollars. Even when a voucher school does not have a single student paying private tuition, the school is legally defined as private. Therein is the heart of the problem.

Public schools held to higher standards of transparency

Here are a few of the differences:

• Public schools in Wisconsin are prohibited from discriminating against students on the basis of sex, pregnancy, marital or parental status or sexual orientation. Private voucher schools are allowed to circumvent these anti-discrimination measures.

• Public schools must honor constitutional rights of free speech and association, and due process when a student is suspended or expelled. Private voucher schools do not.

• Public schools must follow Wisconsin’s open meetings and record laws. Private voucher schools do not. Public schools are controlled by publicly elected school boards. Private voucher schools are not. Wisconsin school board meetings are open to the public. Private school board meetings are not.

The list could go on.

More:Parental choice programs more popular than ever. Bi-partisan effort cements their future.

The problems are particularly acute when tax dollars are used to subsidize religious education at voucher schools — and 95% of voucher schools are religious. Take the example of what happened to two female students in 2022 at Fox Valley Lutheran High School.

The two students were called into the dean’s office a few months before graduation, according to an investigative report last May by Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit, nonpartisan investigative news organization. One student was the cheerleading captain, the other a basketball player, homecoming queen and student council member. In separate meetings, the two were told they faced expulsion because it was suspected that the two women were dating each other. The school’s handbook, it was made clear, prohibits any “homosexual behavior,” on or off campus.

The cheerleading captain told Wisconsin Watch that the dean said they could graduate — on the condition they break up and speak to a pastor. The dean, meanwhile, “outed” the students to their parents.

In 2019, Sheboygan Lutheran High School canceled the valedictorian speech of Nat Werth after he came out as gay. According to Werth, the school’s handbook was subsequently expanded to include anti-transgender policies. 

Wisconsin taxpayers forced to fund anti-LGBTQ bigotry

Wisconsin has long been in the forefront of protecting LGBTQ students and employees, and in 1982 it became the first state to ban discrimination in public and private sector employment on the basis of sexual orientation. Yet today, because of public funding of private religious schools, Wisconsin taxpayers are being forced to fund discrimination.

Special education is another area where there are disturbing differences between public schools and private voucher schools. Public schools must adhere to all federal special education laws and regulations. Not so for private voucher schools.

An official from Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction (DPI), which oversees the voucher programs, told Wisconsin Watch that the DPI was “fully committed” to ensuring nondiscrimination of students with disabilities, but did not believe it had the authority to require the private schools to adhere to these federal requirements.

“DPI has significant concerns about the DPI’s authority to ensure that Choice schools do not discriminate against students with disabilities,” the agency’s chief legal counsel wrote in a letter.

Nicholas Kelly, president of  the voucher organization School Choice Wisconsin, disputed the allegations of discrimination and sent a letter to Wisconsin Watch that read, in part: “Fundamentally, parental choice and educational freedom provide accountability. If parents or students are not satisfied with the education they receive they can choose another school.”

School voucher program was originally designed to sunset

In 1990, the Wisconsin Legislature passed the state’s first voucher program, targeting a handful of non-religious private schools in Milwaukee and limited to low-income students. The program was designed as a five-year experiment, but then-Gov. Tommy Thompson vetoed the sunset clause. In the last three decades, the Republican-controlled state legislature has slowly but surely expanded the program throughout the state.

Other views. School choice triumph:Report card analysis shows voucher schools out-perform public schools

Wisconsin does not have a magic machine printing dollar bills. For every dollar that goes to a private voucher school, that money is unavailable for funding and improving our public schools. Yet throughout Wisconsin, our public schools remain the only educational institution both capable of, and committed to, serving the needs of all children.

I do not fault parents for doing what they think is best for their child and sending them to a private school. But when it comes to public policy, there is a responsibility to go beyond individual concerns and promote what is best for all children. Establishing two school systems — one public and one private, yet both supported with tax dollars —only expands the ability of private schools to pick and choose the most desirable students and only widens the gap between the haves and have-nots.

Nor should the public be forced to subsidize educational programs that promote specific religious beliefs that might be antagonistic to their own religious views. Religion is a profoundly private matter and should remain that way.

Gus Ramirez, whose family foundation runs the St. Augustine Prep voucher school in Milwaukee and plans to open another school at the former Cardinal Stritch University, is quite clear that the school serves a select student body and promotes conservative religious beliefs.

“We hold firm to the biblical description of family at this school,” he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in August. “That doesn't mean all teachers and all staff are part of a nuclear family, but we strongly believe that nuclear family generates a lot better student outcomes ... Some will say that we're too conservative, but for the most part our teachings are just aligned with Scripture.”

U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Milwaukee, was a state representative at the time when vouchers first passed the legislature, and voted for the program because it was small, secular and experimental. “Of course, this is a vote I deeply regret,” she later said. “I never was the kind of voucher person who wanted to destroy public education.”

Bob Peterson was member of the Milwaukee School Board from 2019-2023, and board president for the final two years. He was also a classroom teacher for more 25 years, and president of the Milwaukee teachers’ union from 2011-2015.