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Since the 1990s Wisconsin, and Milwaukee in particular, has been a national leader in the belief that parents should be the ones making education decisions for their children.  The granting of the No Child Left Behind waiver currently being debated in Madison may be the act that finally puts that notion to rest.

Wisconsin is, like other states, pursuing a waiver to the flawed No Child Left Behind law. Without a waiver most Wisconsin schools and districts will eventually be designated as failing.  The waiver has many positive aspects; most importantly it puts substantial focus on using student growth scores to evaluate school performance.  The day may actually be coming when Wisconsin’s assessment system can inform the public of the impact a specific school is having on student achievement. 

Included in the waiver, however, are provisions that give the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) substantial authority to intervene in private schools participating in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP).  As written, DPI will first identify MPCP participants that are “among the persistently lowest performing schools in the state.”  Schools that are identified will then have the option of:

1. Closing,
2. Entering into a three-year performance agreement with DPI after which schools failing to meet the terms of the agreement will be closed, or
3. Agreeing to first pay for an “on-site diagnostic review” by DPI, then to pay a DPI-approved vendor “to implement a turnaround model.”  Schools that do not agree to implement the turnaround model will be closed.

Technically schools will not be closed, just kicked out of the MPCP.  However, past experience shows cutting off MPCP funding is functionally the same as closing the school.

If implemented, these changes will bring the steady progression away from trusting low- and middle-income parents to make schooling choices for their children across the finish line.  Also dead will be any illusion that the voucher program is a means to empower parents; it will officially become a school governance reform.  

Of course, it is impossible to end a concept that never quite existed.  Pure parent choice has never been tried in Wisconsin. Even the original MPCP included (in addition to means testing) some minor academic and administration regulation as well as one major requirement that half the enrollment in a participating school be tuition paying pupils.   Since 1990, substantial fiscal, testing, transparency, and third-party accreditation requirements have been introduced with the goal of protecting parents from making poor school choices (or to cripple the program with excessive regulation, depending on your point of view). 

However, even with the substantial increase in regulation the existence of a private school in the MPCP has remained dependent on that school’s ability to get parents to buy into its mission.  No choice pupils, no choice funding.  Under the NCLB waiver, a school’s existence will first depend on its ability to meet state achievement goals, and failing that, its ability and willingness to pay for and implement a state-approved turnaround model.

From its inception, MPCP skeptics have argued that some parents lack the information and/or ability to make wise school choices for their children.  It appears the skeptics may win.  The waiver does not end Wisconsin’s private school choice programs, but it is a powerful blow to the very concept of parent choice.

-February 7, 2012