Holt, Roth: Weingarten slanders Milwaukee choice program

National teachers’ union president Randi Weingarten has a message for the thousands of students, parents, and teachers enrolled or teaching at private voucher schools: You are the pawns of bigots.

In a recent speech to the American Federation of Teachers annual convention, Weingarten said, “Make no mistake: This use of privatization, coupled with disinvestment are only slightly more polite cousins of segregation.” Weingarten went on to say, “The real pioneers of private school choice were the white politicians who resisted school integration.”

For Milwaukee residents, home to the country’s oldest private voucher program, Weingarten's comments ought to raise a few eyebrows. Indeed, for those with any real memory of the voucher program’s origins, particularly the black and Hispanic citizens who lobbied for it, the feelings range from indignation to insult.

Weingarten’s attack centers on the rare, but shameful, experience of some counties in the South where vouchers were sometimes used to allow whites to flee desegregated public schools. But that’s not what happened here. Milwaukee’s voucher program may have its roots in segregation, but not in the way Weingarten suggests.

In the late 1960s, before the federal courts "forced" the Milwaukee Public Schools District to end "separate and unequal" public education, it was black community leaders who petitioned the School Board to apply for a federal voucher grant that would have helped them escape a segregated and failing system. Two decades later — amid a desegregated but still unequal district, MPS Superintendent Robert Peterkin proposed the idea of a "school choice" program. While Peterkin’s attempt failed, success came in Madison. State Rep. Annette Polly Williams — an African-American liberal Democrat — helped shepherd a pilot voucher program to the desk of a supportive Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson.

Weingarten would have a hard time accusing the pioneers of Milwaukee’s voucher program of being the tools of racists. Peterkin, his successor Howard Fuller, the late Virginia Stamper, Zikiya Courtney and state Sen. Gary George, are all African-Americans who played critical roles in advancing choice legislation. What is more, thousands of African-American school leaders, teachers, volunteers and parents commit their lives daily to improving education outcomes through Milwaukee’s voucher program.

Today, more than 28,000 students in Milwaukee use a voucher to attend private schools. But they aren’t white kids fleeing the public schools. More than 90% are minority students. They use vouchers because they want to, and it’s not hard to see why. Schools in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program have higher test scores, higher graduation rates and lower crime than MPS. According to the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, the choice program will provide nearly $500 million in economic benefits through 2035 due to higher graduation and lower crime rates.

The situation in Milwaukee remains stark. The poverty rate is nearly 30%, and Wisconsin has the highest black unemployment rate in the country. The graduation rate at MPS hovers around 60% and reading proficiency for black eighth-graders is the worst in the country (and second worst for fourth-graders).

For Weingarten and her allies to slander those who look for better educational options is shameful. That she should do so in order to deny poor black children the same choices that wealthier families take for granted in order to keep them in government schools is beyond the pale.

The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program ought to be a point of pride for this community. It was here, for the first time anywhere, that we found a way to give poor minority children a real shot at better education options. It was here, through the efforts of community leaders of all races and politicians of both parties that we made a break with the past and tried something new. No effort is perfect, but the legacy of Milwaukee’s Parental Choice Program will stand longer than the lies, misinformation and slander of Randi Weingarten and her allies.

Mikel Holt is a columnist for the Milwaukee Community Journal and author of “Not Yet Free At Last: Our Battle for School Choice.” Collin Roth is a research fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty.