Do Poor Kids Deserve Lower-Quality Education than Rich Kids? Evaluating School Privatization Proposals in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. EPI Briefing Paper #375
Author: Lafer, Gordon
Date: 2014-04-24
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Privatization,Program Proposals,Program Evaluation,Educational Quality,Equal Education,Access to Education,Charter Schools,School Closing,State Legislation,Educational Policy,Educational Change,School Restructuring,Blended Learning,Models,Accountability,Debate,Academic Standards,Disadvantaged Schools,Minority Group Students,Educational Malpractice,Politics of Education,Funding Formulas,Finance Reform,Evidence,School Effectiveness,Poverty,Class Size,Experienced Teachers,Library Role,Advantaged,Lobbying,Foreign Countries,Elementary Secondary Education

During the past year, Wisconsin state legislators debated a series of bills aimed at closing low-performing public schools and replacing them with privately run charter schools. These proposals were particularly targeted at Milwaukee, the state's largest and poorest school district. Ultimately, the only legislation enacted was a bill that modestly increases school reporting requirements, without stipulating consequences for low performance. Nevertheless, the more ambitious proposals will likely remain at the core of Wisconsin's debates over education policy, and legislative leaders have made clear their desire to revisit them in next year's session. To help inform these deliberations, this report addresses the most comprehensive set of reforms put forward in the 2013-2014 legislative session. Backers of these reforms are particularly enamored of a new type of charter school represented by the Rocketship chain of schools--a low-budget operation that relies on young and inexperienced teachers rather than more veteran and expensive faculty, that reduces the curriculum to a near-exclusive focus on reading and math, and that replaces teachers with online learning and digital applications for a significant portion of the day. Rocketship proposes that its model--dubbed &quot;blended learning&quot; for its combination of in-person and computerized instruction--can cut costs while raising low-income students' test scores (Rocketship Education 2011). The call for public schools to be replaced by such tech-heavy, teacher-light operations comes from some of the most powerful actors in local and national politics: the major corporate lobbies, including Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, Americans for Prosperity, and the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC). It is these groups, rather than parents or community organizations, that provided the impetus for legislators to consider proposals for mass school closure and privatization in Milwaukee. This report evaluates the &quot;blended learning&quot; model of education exemplified by Rocketship and seeks to understand how the &quot;school accountability&quot; legislation debated during the most recent legislative session would likely affect Milwaukee schools. This briefing paper also explains how such proposals might fit within the broader economic agenda of both local and national corporate lobbies. Above all, the report questions why an educational model deemed substandard for more privileged suburban children is being so vigorously promoted--perhaps even forced--on poor children in Milwaukee.