“The Case for Voucher Expansion” is Weak

Post-Crescent Article Lays Out the Case

Jim Bender’s article entitled “The Case for Voucher Expansion” that appeared in the Post-Crescent on May 23, 2013 lays out the case for public funding private school vouchers, and it is a very weak case. Mr. Bender makes two important points. The first is that “data shows that students in parental choice programs graduate at higher rates than their public school counterparts and are more likely to enroll in college.”  Unfortunately, things are not so clear. The findings to which Mr. Bender refers come from a 5-year, longitudinal study of comparing a sample of students in Milwaukee’s Parental Choice Program (MPCP) voucher program with a matched sample of students in Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS).  For detailed reviews of the reports of the study’s findings, visit the website of the National Education Policy Center.

The Finding is Based on Fewer Than Half of the Students in the Sample

The study was based on carefully drawn matched samples that were chosen at the beginning of the 5-year period, but of course, the students in the samples did not always stay put for 5 years. In fact, 56% of the students in the MPCP sample left the program before the end of the period. The finding that the MPCP students were more likely to graduate and enroll in college than their MPS counterparts was based only on those who remained in the sample at the end of the five years.  No results were reported for the large number who left the program. So, we do not know what happened to them. Did they graduate?  Did they go to college? Did they move to other cities? We don’t know.

The Differences Were Too Weak to Be a Basis for Policy Decisions

In addition, the differences between MPCP students and MPS students were found to be statistically significant only by using an unusually loose definition of statistical significance.  The differences between MPCP students and MPS students were so small that they were significant only at the level of p = .10 instead of the more usual p = .05.  This is important because the study used a very large sample size (more than 800), and with large samples sizes, statistical significance is easy to obtain.  In short, what we have here is a very weak finding of a very small difference, and no conclusions about the general value of voucher programs can be drawn from it.

Parental Choice is Not the Issue

Mr. Bender’s other important point is that parents ought to be able to choose where to send their children to school.  No one can quarrel with this sentiment, but parental choice is not the issue. Public funding is the issue.  No one denies the right of a parent to send his or her children to private schools. The question is: who should pay the tuition?

Private schools have always played an important role in our educational system.  In our own Fox Cities, generations of immigrant parents struggled and sacrificed to send their children to Catholic or to Lutheran schools.  The schools had and continue to have scholarship programs to help families that cannot afford their tuition.  Because of these scholarships, parents already have the choice to send their children to private schools.  Public funding will not change that, but it will drain scarce dollars from our public schools. 

We Have Great Public Schools.  We Should Not Weaken Them

Wisconsin has some of our country’s very best public schools.  We have them in part because we have consistently supported them. We have not diverted desperately needed dollars to the support of private schools instead, and we should not do so now.  People come to live here because of the quality of our schools.  Businesses locate here because of the quality of our schools.  They are our very best investment.  Why would we want to weaken them by diverting funds to private school vouchers?  Mr. Bender would like us to think that Milwaukee’s experience with vouchers offers proof that they make a big difference in students’ lives, but his evidence is very weak. We should not abandon something that has worked well for us for many on the basis of such weak evidence.

WEDC Invests in Scott Walker’s Political Future

Gov. Walker Doesn’t Care About Jobs

Scott Walker doesn’t care about creating jobs. Yes, I know, he promised to create 250,000 jobs in Wisconsin, but we all know that hasn’t happened. Now, we also know that he doesn’t really care. How do we know this?  We know it because he has not bothered to supervise the agency that he created for that purpose, or so he said.

The Post-Crescent ran an article on May 10, 2013 headlined “State Job Agency Put on Legislative Notice.” It was the latest in a series of articles describing the results of an audit of The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC). The article says that the audit found that, “WEDC did not follow state law or adequately track loans it awarded. … the agency also sometimes gave money to companies that didn’t quality for tax breaks.” The article goes on to say, “… the audit said WEDC claimed its efforts created or saved 5000 jobs. But the audit said WEDC received only 45 percent of required progress reports from award recipients and didn’t verify any of the information.”

We Know He Doesn’t Care About Jobs Because He Didn’t Track Progress in Creating Them

It is one of the most basic principles of management that if you want to make something happen, you have to track its progress, but Gov. Walker was perfectly happy to allow tens of millions of dollars to be spent with no adequate oversight or reporting. There could be no more convincing demonstration of his priorities. He cares about giving tax money to businesses, but he doesn’t care what they do with it.  If he had cared about jobs or anything connected with the economic development of our state, he would have insisted on receiving detailed reports.  If the reports didn’t demonstrate that WEDC was successful in creating jobs, he would have wanted to know why, and he would have insisted on whatever changes were needed to make the program a success. But he didn’t do any of that.

Gov. Walker Cares About Building Business Support For His Political Career

So, if Gov. Walker doesn't care whether the companies that received the money created jobs or contributed anything to our state’s economic development, what does he care about?  I suggest that he cares about building political support among the recipients of the money.  I suggest that he cares about getting campaign funds from businesses.  I suggest that the state money given out by WEDC in the form of loans and tax breaks was intended as an investment in Gov. Walker’s political future.  There may of course be other explanations, but mine makes sense of the facts.  He made sure that the money was given out, but he didn’t worry about what it was used for.  If you don’t agree with my explanation, what do you suggest?

Radical Rightists Prefer to Reduce Taxes Rather Than Create Jobs

Radical Rightsts Don't Care About Creating Jobs

The Radical Rightists’ attitude toward creating jobs in Wisconsin is becoming clearer every day. They don’t really care about jobs at all. They care about reducing taxes on rich people, and they will do anything to achieve that. The Post-Crescent recently (May 1, 2013) reported that a project to expand and improve Outagamie County Airport may be delayed because of Congress’s recent  decision telling the FAA to use money from the airport improvement budget to pay the air traffic controllers and thereby avoid flight delays.

Reid Ribble Agrees: Avoid Airport Delays at All Cost

You may remember that the air traffic controllers had to be furloughed because of the federal budgetary “sequester.” With fewer controllers at the airports, flights had to be spaced further apart and that led to the delays. Congress decided to view delays at airports as a national emergency that demanded immediate action and passed a law modifying the “sequester” to allow money to be moved from the airport improvement budget to pay the controllers’ salaries.  With less money for construction, some projects will of course be delayed, and that brings us to jobs. Moving money out of construction will cost jobs. Apparently, creating jobs is less important than avoiding delays at airports.

Our own Representative Reid Ribble shares this attitude, as he made that clear in a recent release from his office. “Representative Reid Ribble (WI-08) today praised House passage of a bill that will give the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) flexibility to avoid flight delays stemming from mandatory budget cuts known as the sequester.” Translation: the FAA can cut construction and eliminate jobs in order to avoid delays at airports.

Is There a Pattern Here?

We can see a pattern here. Recently, the radical rightists in Madison decided to turn down federal funds for expansion of Medicaid to cover more uninsured people. As I discussed in an earlier post in this blog, the decision to reject the expansion of Medicaid will cost jobs in the Fox Cities as well as Madison, Marshfield and other communities in Wisconsin that have regional medical centers. Governor Walker’s reason for turning down the funds was that the cost of the program might later fall on Wisconsin. He was concerned that the state might later need to increase taxes, and avoiding tax increases comes before creating jobs every time for a radical rightist. The next time you go to the polls, ask yourself whether you agree or not.