I evolved into an advocate of school choice when it became clear that under the traditional government monopoly in education, children from affluent families were leaving the public schools, and leaving children from less-affluent families behind. Instead of choosing an alternative school for their children, wealthy parents were choosing an alternative place to live. Our city, and too many other cities, were left behind. Vouchers equalized the power of choice. School choice put vouchers - the power of money in the hands of the parents of low income children.
Schools have to compete for our children every day, all year.
And they will attract money only by convincing parents they will teach the children well, and only by delivering on that promise will the schools be able to prosper. And so, after nine years of Milwaukee's voucher experiment, more than 6,000 students attend about 90 parochial and secular private schools. Together with a robust charter school program, school choice has helped children and their parents, and test scores are rising. Precisely because these children and their parents have a choice, school systems have an incentive to ensure schools are safe, provide challenging academics, and dedicated themselves to the success of their students. Under a choice matrix, the school system is learning that if they always do what they always did, they'll always get what they always got - and that is not good enough for parents who now have the freedom to leave.