Pence, DeVos Rally for School Choice in Wisconsin
Madison, Wis. — About one thousand students, teachers and parents from 22 schools participated Tuesday in a school choice rally at the Wisconsin state capitol in honor of the tenth annual National School Choice Week. The attendees were joined by Vice President Mike Pence and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in the first-ever visit of a sitting vice president (or president for that matter) to the Wisconsin capitol building.
Leading up to the vice president’s speech, students highlighted their talent and diversity in performances that ranged from a poem recitation in Chinese from Lighthouse Christian School, to an acapella choir from Wisconsin Lutheran High School, and an Aztec drumming and dance routine from La Casa de Esperanza.
"We are excited that students from our high school could help celebrate the doors of opportunity that are opened through the choice program,” said Dr. Kenneth Fisher, president of Wisconsin Lutheran High School.
Wisconsin has been an important player in the school choice movement and Milwaukee was the birthplace of the first school voucher program in 1990. Then governor, Tommy Thompson, was present at the event. The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program began with about 300 students and has grown to about 28,000. In 2011 Wisconsin began the Racine Parental Choice Program and in 2013 extended vouchers to the rest of the state with the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program. Now the number of kids participating in voucher programs across the state has risen to about 40,000.
As for charter schools, there are close to 240 public, independent and virtual charter schools across the state, according to Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction.
School choice, however, encompasses more than voucher and charter schools, according to Jim Bender, the President of School Choice Wisconsin, and one of the rally organizers: “Anything that allows parents to have options in front of them so that they can choose what is best for their kids: public school open enrollment, virtual schools, charter, voucher, whatever it may be.” Open enrollment is a Wisconsin law that allows parents to decide to send their kids to a school in a different school district than the one assigned to their residential address.
Now a year into his tenure, Gov. Tony Evers has included language in his 2020 budget to attack successful charter schools and kill the voucher program. Prior to becoming governor, Evers was the state superintendent. But despite test scores that prove the success of school choice, Evers remained in lock step with the teachers union while superintendent and has continued to do so as governor.
According to Bender, the message is this: “We’re celebrating success. You’ve got amazing academic success. You’ve got amazing parental satisfaction. And you’re getting an amazing return on investment for the state. Because they’re putting in two thirds of the dollars and getting a lot more back.”
Pence echoed this message saying, “For the past thirty years, Wisconsin has shown again and again, that when parents are given the opportunity to choose the best school for their children—whether that’s public, or private, parochial, Christian, homeschool—outcomes improve. Kids do better. And education improves for everyone.”
He went on to highlight some very special student success stories and congratulated a few students on stage, such as senior, Trinity Moore, from Wisconsin Lutheran High School who will be the first in her mom’s family to attend college next fall.
DeVos told of the Education Freedom Scholarships initiative the White House is working on, which would help facilitate school choice on the national level.
“Students in charge of their pathway to a successful education, career and life. Families in charge of how, when and where their students will learn best,” DeVos said. “Teachers in charge of their classrooms and their careers. States and communities, not Washington D.C., in charge of local decisions.”
An event of this magnitude was almost impossible to go unnoticed by Democrats, especially because it took place in the capitol’s rotunda, on the same floor as Evers’s office. The governor, however, said he wouldn’t be in the capitol on Tuesday and didn’t remark further about where he’d be instead.
Despite the testimonies of student success that were shared and the students, parents, and teachers, directly following the rally, Democrat State Rep. Jonathan Brostoff hosted a press conference for a bill that would phase out the three voucher programs in Wisconsin altogether. In an invitation released ahead of the event he said that “the best way forward is ending the failed voucher school experiment and reinvesting in high-quality public education.”
But “failed experiment” is far from an accurate descriptor of the programs when you look at the data. According to a study released by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty ahead of the rally on Monday, students who participate in the voucher program have a higher likelihood of going to college and therefore have gone on to provide increased economic benefit to the state of Wisconsin compared to the average student who stays in public schools.
“Education, public or otherwise, is an extension of the family,” Bender said. “We need to have educational liberty and school choice represents that better than anything.”
