Journal editorial on education and governor's race

Monday's Journal Sentinel had an interesting editorial comparing Gov. Jim Doyle and challenger Mark Green on education. It did a useful job of summarizing the differences between the two candidates (presumably the always-perceptive Greg Stanford played a major role), generally preferring Doyle.

Green has endorsed the so-called 65% solution, apparently raising the mandate so that 70% of education money would have to be spent in the classroom. While appealing on the surface, it is not clear that this proposal would actually improve education. It seems likely that the differences reported by districts in the percentage going to classrooms may have more to do with differing accounting systems and definitions than a genuine concentration on classroom resources. So far, attempts to find a connection between this figure and achievement have been unsuccessful. Depending upon how classroom spending is defined, the proposal could force resources away from areas with potentially higher impact on student achievement to those with less (for example, from school libraries to driver's education). Thus the proposal becomes one more mandate, telling schools how to do things, but disconnected from outcomes.

Another issue discussed in the editorial is that of vouchers. Clearly Green is a much stronger supporter than Doyle. As the editorial points out, Doyle tried to leverage expansion of the voucher enrollment to expansion of class size reduction. Doyle's relatively neutral position on school choice, while earning the enmity of some choice supporters, is probably as far as a Democratic governor could go, reflected by the fact that the compromise he negotiated was supported by only four Democratic legislators.

A disappointing Borsuk article

The surprisingly biased headline "MPS doesn't pass along savings: tax boost comes despite budgetary windfalls" sets the tone of a news article by Alan Borsuk attacking an MPS decision to put savings into classrooms. This article is disappointing, particularly coming from the usually thoughtful and fair-minded Borsuk.

While the MPS decision is difficult politically, it is the responsible one. MPS schools have been operating under an increasing squeeze caused mainly by benefit costs that have continued to rise faster than either inflation in general or the state spending caps. Finding savings in non-classroom areas and putting them into classrooms seems exactly the right strategy to ease that squeeze.

In addition, the state spending limits have a ratchet effect. Thus a decision to spend under the limit has the effect of making the squeeze in future years even worse.

Finally, it might be noted that this is in part a good news/bad news story. Taxes are rising in part because state aid decreased (bad news). But aid decreased in part because property values have continued to increase more in Milwaukee than elsewhere--good news because that reflects the increasing attractiveness of Milwaukee. And certainly improvements in MPS have played their part.

The challenges and accomplishments of giving families choices

Opponents of school choice sometimes accuse its supporters of believing that choice is a panacea for all the problems of American education. Of course it is not. At best, choice, broadly construed to include vouchers, charter schools, and increased flexibility within the regular Milwaukee public schools, offers opportunities--opportunities to try new models. Some of these experiments will fail. An article in tomorrow's Journal Sentinel reports an MPS charter school, Expressions School of Inter-Arts and Communication, asked to be closed after only four weeks of operations because two teachers had left. The opportunity to try new approaches does not guarantee success.

But there have been successes, mostly undramatic and therefore unreported. A recent article is a happy exception, reporting a study of students at Craig Montessori School comparing those who were accepted in the lottery to those rejected. It found, in the words of the article, "that Montessori students might be better prepared academically and socially than students in traditional classrooms." In recent years there has been a healthy increase in the number of Montessori schools in Milwaukee in response to public demand. I am on the board of Downtown Montessori Academy, a city charter school. The outside evaluators note that the average second grader last year read at a fifth grade level.

I believe, however, that a major impact of increased choices may have gone unanalyzed and unreported. Under the title, "City sets pace in home values," the Journal Sentinel reported that the five-year increase in Milwaukee home values exceeds that of either the state or the suburbs, according to a new Census Bureau report. It appears that this increase has occurred across the city rather than been limited to East Side and Third Ward condos aimed at empty nesters and others without school-age children. I would hope that some social scientist will study the connection between this phenomenon and the growth in the choices of schools. Among other things, such a study could look at the values of houses designed for families and values in comparable city and suburban neighborhoods.

Keeping a perspective on the advantages and limitations of giving choices becomes more difficult because of the stridency of partisans on both sides. Recent articles report on a series of attack adds against Governor Doyle sponsored by a pro-voucher group called All Children Matter. Ironically Doyle has been ahead of his party in allowing the voucher program to expand in Milwaukee. If nothing else, these ads will likely make it more difficult for Democrats to support school choice, therefore playing into the hands of hard-line choice opponents.