Are vouchers conservative?

I have been out of town for the past two weeks, which helps explain the lack of new posts. I will try to catch up with Milwaukee education news over the next few days.

A Journal Sentinel article notes that Republican state representative Scott Jensen has been hired by the Alliance for School Choice to promote charter and voucher programs in other states. Despite quoted objections from critics, this arrangement appears to have been approved by the state ethics board. Jensen is known as a skillful legislator who is also very partisan and increasingly conservative.

What does this say about the strategic direction taken by the dominant pro-choice group? It appears they have decided to cast their lot with conservatives and Republicans and have given up any hope of forging a bipartisan coalition in favor of increasing educational options for poor children.

One strength of the choice coalition of several years ago was that it was truly bipartisan, including people who might disagree with the Republican positions on most other issues. In addition to Republican governor Tommy Thompson and most Republican legislators, it included Milwaukee mayor John Norquist, Democratic legislators Polly Williams and Antonio Riley, and a majority of the Milwaukee school board. The apparent switch in strategy seems puzzling.

Today's Journal Sentinel has an article (not available on the web apparently) that gives further evidence of the growing willingness of voucher groups to forego any effort at bipartisanship. A new group, called People of Color United, is sponsoring a group of anti-Kerry ads on black radio stations. According to the article the new group is an outgrowth of DC Parents for School Choice. Apparently a major contributor is Patrick Rooney, a long-time supporter of choice. (See this article in Slate, which attributes his support--wrongly, I think--to his insurance interests.)

As I noted earlier, the lack of support by minority and other Democratic legislators who represent neighborhoods benefitting from choice and charters has frustrated the supporters of those programs. These efforts by choice supporters would seem to make it more difficult to gain that support.