Some critics of my book “Reign of Error” say that “reformers” are not privatizers. Who, me, they say, in all innocence?
I invite them to read this post by veteran reporter Bobby Tanzilo in Milwaukee. Here is a city with a thriving voucher program, a thriving charter sector, and a shrinking public school system (that contains disproportionate numbers of students with disabilities and English learners who are unwanted by the other two sectors).
All of this competition among the three sectors was to produce dramatic improvement, but it didn’t. Milwaukee has had school choice for 23 years. Today, it is one of the lowest performing urban districts on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
But the business leaders of Milwaukee, Tanzilo writes, want more choice. They want more privatization. They want the entire city school district turned into a “Recovery School District,” to emulate those in New Orleans and Memphis.