Court Opinion

ID: 9688232
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 17:41:20.535672+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:36.796311
License: Public Domain

LOUIS J. CECI, J.
(concurring). Let's give choice a chance!
Literally thousands of school children in the Milwaukee public school system have been doomed because of those in government who insist upon maintaining the *547status quo. The sacred cow of status quo has led to the terrible problems that manifest themselves as described in the majority opinion.
The Wisconsin legislature, attuned and attentive to the appalling and seemingly insurmountable problems confronting socioeconomically deprived children, has attempted to throw a life preserver to those Milwaukee children caught in the cruel riptide of a school system floundering upon the shoals of poverty, status-quo thinking, and despair.
The dissent by Justice Bablitch attempts to paint a difference in that the schools that these deprived children would attend under this experimental program would be the recipients of "the state's largesse." Dissenting opinion at 569. IMAGINE THAT! If the expenditure of a mere $2,500.00 per child to teach the deprived children of the poor of the city of Milwaukee is — largesse— what foolishness are we engaged in when the taxpayers are spending approximately $5,000.00 for each of these same children in a failing public school system? The reason why the legislature adopted the classification of private schools specifically located in the city of Milwaukee is that the Milwaukee public school system evidently is viewed by the legislature as a failure despite the dedicated labors of its hundreds of teachers and administrators. Perhaps this experimental program will point the way for improvements that can be utilized throughout the public schools of this state.
As recently as December 11, 1991, Dr. Howard Fuller, Superintendent of the Milwaukee Public Schools, addressing some of the awesome problems of the school system, stated in a television interview that he was unwilling to let things be as they were. In other words, the status quo must go. While not addressing the school choice program, he was attempting to address the *548problems that exist. More recently, the mayor of the city of Milwaukee has given his public voice of approval to the school choice program.
The dissent opts for maintaining the status quo. Justice Bablitch obviously does not now trust the legislative process he claims to know so well. His dissent is replete with anecdotal statements not a part of this record, and it is improper that such purported information, known to him alone, be used. Unfortunately, the dissent does not want to attempt to give choice a chance.
On February 22, 1989, less than two years ago, the dissent in Kukor v. Grover, 148 Wis. 2d 469, 531, 436 N.W.2d 568 (1989), stated:
The fashioning of a constitutional system of public education is not only the legislature's constitutional prerogative, it is far better equipped than any court to do it. I am not unaware of the terrible political complexities involved in fashioning such legislation, but I have full confidence in the legislature's ability to resolve it.
(Emphasis added.) The author of the above-quoted dissenting opinion? Justice Bablitch.
Apparently the legislature has decided in this constitutionally proper experimental program to give choice a chance. I believe that the legislature has fashioned a constitutionally correct experimental program to deal with the terrible problems it is attempting to resolve. I join the majority opinion, with which I am in full accord.
Let's give choice a chance!