Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Private school advocates in Wisconsin go on a full frontal assault against public schools.
Parents whose children attend the public schools in Wisconsin have been getting a barrage of phone calls lately offering "free tuition to send your child to a private or religious school."
"We at School Choice Wisconsin are proud to pay for this call, because we want the very best for you and your child," a woman's voice intones.
The friendly voice directs parents to a website: chooseyourschoolwi.org.
A little online digging reveals that the School Choice Wisconsin website address is registered to the American Education Reform Council -- a group funded by John Walton, of Walmart, to the tune of $1 million between 1999 and 2000, and also funded in part by grants worth hundreds of millions from the rightwing Bradley Foundation.
The American Education Reform Council's political arm has been heavily involved in pushing voucher legislation in Colorado and Michigan; "paycheck protection" (to limit unions' ability to spend money in elections) in California; and a failed Washington, D.C., voucher initiative designed by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey.
Why is this group calling parents in Wisconsin now?
The calls happen to coincide with the application process for the statewide voucher program created in the last budget, also known as the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program. The application period runs through April 21. Even if school vouchers are not available in a particular district, if enough people respond to these robocalls, voucher advocates can use the responses to demonstrate demand.
Ginning up demand for vouchers helps the people who want to expand the program -- which is why the Koch Brothers' Americans for Prosperity is holding pro-voucher events around the state during application season.
As if that were not troubling enough, it is only one strategy being used to undermine public education in Wisconsin.
Right on the heels of those school-choice robocalls, Wisconsin parents are now receiving postcards in the mail from "eAchieve Academy," "Wisconsin's Leading Online Middle and High School."
This is one of many virtual school programs that offer online classes and will be paid for with school vouchers. Of course with no need to maintain class sizes for each teacher, and no need of janitors to clean non-existing hallways or cafeterias, there is plenty of money left over for the owners of these websites to pocket.
And this is happening, not just in Wisconsin, but all over the country.
K12, Inc., the huge, nationwide virtual school operator that runs the McFarland online academy, raked in $848.2 million in profits in 2013 as a publicly traded company, almost entirely out of the public trough.
These schools are often NOT performing at anywhere near the standard set for public schools, and their test scores are often far from impressive.
Make no mistake, this has NOTHING to do with improving education, and EVERYTHING to do with undermining public education and sucking tax dollars away and putting into the private sector.
And we are losing this battle every day.
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