Thompson proposes school vouchers nationwide; Milwaukee's voucher program

Kudos to Tommy Thompson for supporting vouchers, based on his experience as one of the founders of the enormously successful Milwaukee voucher program.  See slide 10 of my voucher slides at http://www.tilsonfunds.com/Personal/Voucherslides.pdf, for a summary of the Milwaukee program and its results.

Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson wants school vouchers to be nationwide. Thompson proposed that idea Wednesday as he made official what has been obvious for months: he’s running for president..

Thompson says as president, he’d push for vouchers nationwide. He touted Messmer’s 98 percent graduation rate and that 90 percent of graduates are going on to college. He says “there’s no school like it in America.”

While I generally applaud any program that gives parents more control and choices over choosing a school for their children, it's important to understand a dark side of vouchers -- namely, decades ago, they were favored by Southern whites who wanted to pull their children out of formerly all-white public schools in the wake of desegregation.  This obviously isn't what vouchers supporters today are advocating -- in fact, nearly every voucher program in effect or proposed today would disproportionately BENEFIT minority students, who are vastly more likely to be trapped in failing schools.  The key is to design a voucher program that targets only students in a failing system (e.g., Milwaukee or the Washington DC Scholarship Fund) or failing schools (e.g., Florida's well designed program (recently shut down by the FL Supreme Court, in one of the most wrong-headed decisions ever), in which students became eligible for a voucher only when their public school was rated "F" for two consecutive years).

 

-----------------------------------------

Thompson proposes school vouchers nationwide
Chuck Quirmbach, Wisconsin Public Radio, Wheeler News Service
Published Friday, April 06, 2007
MILWAUKEE -- Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson wants school vouchers to be nationwide. Thompson proposed that idea Wednesday as he made official what has been obvious for months: he’s running for president.

Thompson has been campaigning in Iowa and trying to raise money in Wisconsin, but he’s trailing in some polls and in the money chase.

So partly to gain attention, Thompson held campaign kickoffs in Milwaukee and Iowa.  In Milwaukee, he spoke at Messmer High School, in a gymnasium named after him. Messmer is apparently one of the more successful schools in the Milwaukee voucher program.

Thompson says as president, he’d push for vouchers nationwide. He touted Messmer’s 98 percent graduation rate and that 90 percent of graduates are going on to college. He says “there’s no school like it in America.”

Thompson also promoted many ideas he’s mentioned before, including breaking up Iraq into 18 provinces and expanding preventive health care in the U.S. He’d also give families the option of paying a flat tax instead of being part of the graduated income tax system.

John McAdams, Marquette University political science professor, says Thompson is a presidential long shot who needs several other candidates to eliminate themselves. McAdams says the political problem with pushing the voucher issues nationwide is that for everybody in “the great American middle class” is pretty satisfied with the school it has. He says he’s not sure that’s a successful strategy on which to run.

Rumors persist that Thompson wants to be considered for vice president, but Thompson recently rejected that idea.