Tierney with another great Op Ed in today's NY Times.

Now there's one combined newspaper with a different point of view. The Journal Sentinel, which endorsed John Kerry in 2004, has parted company with the Democratic Party on the voucher issue. It backed Republican efforts this year to expand the program, which has led to the creation of dozens of new private schools in Milwaukee.

"We've seen what school choice can do," said Gregory Stanford, an editorial writer and a columnist at the paper. "It's impressive to go around to the voucher schools and see kids learning. Their parents are much more satisfied with these schools. And the fears that the public schools would be hurt have turned out to be wrong."

In fact, the students in public schools have benefited from the competition.

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March 7, 2006

Op-Ed Columnist

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/opinion/07tierney.html

City Schools That Work

By JOHN TIERNEY

MILWAUKEE

At first glance, the near north side of Milwaukee can be a bleak place, now that it has lost the department stores, factories and other businesses that used to thrive there. But if you want to see inner-city children getting a good education, it's the most beautiful spot in America.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel refers to one of the area's arteries, North Avenue, as the Main Street of School Reform because of the new schools that have opened since the city's radical experiment in education began 15 years ago. At that time, there were two newspapers in Milwaukee, the liberal Journal and the conservative Sentinel, and they both editorialized against the new school-voucher program.