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.