D is for Dismantle
The Wisconsin Educational System: A National Leader Under Attack
Preface
Wisconsin has always been a leader in public schools. We lead the nation in high school graduation rate and our test scores are well above the national average. This success is an inter-generational gift that has been bestowed upon our children since early German settlers to Wisconsin brought with them a great tradition from their homeland: community-based, public education.
However, there is a long-held belief among many on the Right that public schools are simply not an appropriate role of government and should be privatized through the use of vouchers. One of the staunchest supporters of this extreme view is Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.
Even though privatization voucher efforts have proven a failure in Milwaukee, Walker and his allies are propping-up the pseudo “Milwaukee Miracle” and using it as a template to demolish public schools throughout Wisconsin and replace them with a privatized voucher system. However, Walker and his allies know that this task will not be easy — the vast majority of Wisconsinites treasure their local public schools.
In this report, we will explore Governor Walker’s strategy to decimate public education in Wisconsin through a sophisticated three prong attack:
- Undermine public confidence in our schools and teachers by smearing them with bogus attacks,
- Make the biggest cuts ever to public schools in Wisconsin, and,
- As schools are being weakened by the first two actions, simultaneously push for a statewide voucher programs.
Though this report focuses on the smear campaign and the budget cuts, Walker’s attack on teachers and schools cannot be properly characterized without recognizing his assault on teachers’ unions. Unions play an important role in public education for both teachers and students. Efforts to eliminate the public unions are not about cost-savings, as Governor Walker admitted in testimony to Congress. A new report found that despite Walker’s assertion that his efforts to dismantle unions would allow school districts to meet education needs, both union and non-union districts suffered staff losses, program cuts and increased class sizes because of the major budget cuts. While unions fight to ensure that teacher’s salaries are fair and adequate to attract high-quality professionals, they also fight to ensure that classes are small, schools are safe, public teachers are licensed and well-qualified, and many other areas to help their students succeed.
In his efforts to break unions while pulling the financial rug out from school districts – Walker’s plan to weaken Wisconsin education and its defenders at the same time is laid bare.
Executive Summary
We do have an education crisis in Wisconsin. But it’s not what you think.
Governor Walker’s cuts to public education and his smear campaign against Wisconsin’s schools and teachers are putting our children at risk. When Governor Walker took office Wisconsin led the nation in graduation rates, ranked in the top-tier of ACT test scores, and received high marks from local parents.
In his campaign to dismantle public education Walker used phony assertions about failing schools and wealthy teachers to justify the largest cuts to education since the Great Depression. The budget cuts were unnecessary and unfair. Walker gave over two billion dollars in new tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy, meanwhile budget cuts hit poorer school districts the hardest.
It’s a recipe for failure.
Governor Walker has created an educational crisis to rationalize his efforts to privatize schools in Wisconsin with expanded school choice programs. Wisconsin cannot afford to subsidize private education for the wealthy at the expense of our children and local schools. At a time when local school districts are trying to maintain excellence and adapt to the millions of dollars lost in state aid and new revenue restrictions; the state cannot afford an expansion of school vouchers without compromising the quality of education for public school students in Wisconsin.
Milwaukee is home to the longest running school choice program in the United States – the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program – and has served as a model for school choice advocates including Wisconsin’s Governor Scott Walker. In his 2011-2013 budget, Walker increased funding for programs that support private schools at the same time that he cut state aid to public schools by hundreds of millions of dollars. Walker sought to expand the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program to all of Milwaukee County. In addition he tried to expand it to cities such as Green Bay and Racine, to increase funding for school choice at about $12 million to pay for an estimated 3,000 additional students and to raise enrollment caps. The Green Bay expansion was stalled, but with so much at stake, Wisconsin voters deserve to know more about the organizations behind the efforts to advance school choice, and whether or not it is good for Wisconsin’s children.
This report evaluates the unique challenges Milwaukee faces as a large and relatively poor region and considers the testing data and graduation rates of its public and school choice programs. We find that when comparing apples to apples Milwaukee’s Public Schools fare better than the choice program.
Moreover, we examine the assertion that choice programs save taxpayers money and the viability of increasingly broad implementation of school choice across the State of Wisconsin. Experts find that the gap between tuition and expenses raises questions about how much voucher programs can expand.
The findings in this report demonstrate that Walker has intentionally misrepresented Wisconsin’s teachers and schools in a concerted effort to discredit Wisconsin’s education system and allow for greater privatization.
Key Findings
- Wisconsin’s Graduation Rate is #1 in the United States and Among the Best in the World
- Wisconsin is a National Leader in ACT Scores
- Four out of Five Wisconsinites Give their Public School Teachers High Marks
- Walker Misrepresented Testing Data to Smear Wisconsin Teachers and Students
- Walker Undermined Schools by Making the Deepest Cuts since the Great Depression
- Education Cuts were Unnecessary
- Walker’s Budget Resulted in Larger Class Sizes and Reductions in Teachers and Programs
- Wisconsin Teachers Earn Less than the National Average
- Milwaukee Public Schools Exceed Milwaukee Parental Choice Program
- Graduation Rates When Students with Disabilities and High-Mobility Students are Taken into Account
- Milwaukee Public Schools Outperform Milwaukee Parental Choice Program Voucher Schools in “Apples to Apples” Standardized Tests
- Milwaukee Parental Choice Program Schools Are Not Financially Viable
Finding One: Walker and the Right Wing are Selling Their Tax-Dollars-for-Private-Schools Scheme by Smearing Public Schools and Creating a Phony Education Crises
If Governor Walker were to tell Wisconsinites that he wants to destroy their public schools as part of his right wing, Milton Friedman-inspired agenda, it wouldn’t fly. So, he has generated a phony education crisis: Our schools are too expensive and they’re failing. Why, after all, spend money on something that is failing? Walker himself disingenuously stated, “Wisconsin’s educational system is failing our children.” In fact, the exact opposite is true: Wisconsin’s schools are among the best in the world and, as a percent of GDP, Wisconsin spending on education has dropped in recent years.
Finding 1A: Walker’s Categorical Claim That “Wisconsin’s Education System is Failing” Is False
By any measure, Wisconsin’s education system is not failing; rather Wisconsin has one of the best education systems in the world.
Wisconsin’s Graduation Rate is #1 in the United States and Among the Best in the World
Most education experts agree that one of the most important indicators of a successful education system is the graduation rate. Wisconsin has led the nation in the graduation rate three out of the last five years and has held their graduation rate around 90% for the last 40 years.
| State | Percent |
|---|---|
| Wisconsin | 90.7% |
| Vermont | 89.6% |
| Minnesota | 87.4% |
| North Dakota | 87.4% |
| Iowa | 85.7% |
| New Jersey | 85.3% |
| New Hampshire | 84.3% |
| Massachusetts | 83.1% |
| Missouri | 83.3% |
| Nebraska | 82.9% |
In fact, if Wisconsin were a country, our graduation rate would among the world’s best, as the following table demonstrates.
| Country | Percent |
|---|---|
| Germany | 100% |
| Finland | 97% |
| Greece | 96% |
| Japan | 93% |
| Norway | 92% |
| Korea | 91% |
| –Wisconsin– | 91% |
| Ireland | 90% |
| Switzerland | 89% |
| UK | 89% |
75% of Wisconsin Students Are Advanced or Proficient in Reading, Math and Science
According to the 2010-Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination (WKCE), the standardized test required by the No Child Left Behind Act, 75% of Wisconsin students scored in the top two categories: advanced or proficient.
Wisconsin is a National Leader in ACT Test Scores
Among states where at least 70% of graduating students take the ACT, Wisconsin ranks third in the nation. This is an especially notable accomplishment considering that all of Milwaukee Public Schools’ students– Wisconsin’s most challenged school district– are required to take the test, while in most other school districts, only those planning on attending college take the test.
Wisconsin is a National Leader in Four Year Old Kindergarten
Wisconsin is one of only a handful of states that have over half of its four-year-olds enrolled in four-year-old kindergarten. Four-year-old kindergarten has beneficial effects on early brain development and provides early learning opportunities, especially beneficial for children from immigrant families, non-English speaking families Hispanic families, and those that are economically disadvantaged. This is an area where Wisconsin has attempted to mirror other industrial countries, where four-year-old kindergarten is commonplace.
350 of Wisconsin’s 425 school districts offered four-year-old kindergarten in the 2010-2011 school-year, a number that is nearly five times the school districts offering the service in 1996. The map below created by the National Institute for Early Education (NIEE) represents the percentage of four-year-olds served in Wisconsin pre-K relative to other States. NIEE ranks Wisconsin sixth with respect to access for four-year-olds to pre-K services.
The Vast Majority of Wisconsinites and Americans Give Their Local Public Schools High Marks
Every year Gallop does a poll measuring parents’ view of the public schools their children attend. In the most recent poll 77% gave their local school an “A” or “B” and only 1% gave their school an “F”.
Interestingly, when the same parents were asked to judge the nation’s schools as a whole, only 18% gave the nation as a whole an “A” or “B” and 6% gave the nation as a whole an “F.” In other words, 77% gave the school they are most personally familiar with high marks, but gave schools that they are not familiar with low marks – a disconnect that is attributable to the constant attack on public schools from the right wing and bad reporting in the media. In Wisconsin, there are similar findings, with a recent poll by Rasmussen Reports showing that 77% of Wisconsin residents have a favorable opinion of public school teachers.
Finding 1B: Walker Falsely claims “1/3 of Wisconsin Fourth Graders Cannot Read at Even a Basic Level”
In September of 2010, Scott Walker released a press statement saying, “Fully one-third of our state’s fourth graders can’t read at even a basic level – this is completely unacceptable”. Saying that a 1/3 of fourth graders can’t read may be an alarming statement, but test results prove Walker is wrong when he says this.
As part of President George Bush’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, Wisconsin administers statewide standardized tests called the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examinations (WKCE). The conservative group Wisconsin Taxpayers issued a report analyzing the results from the WKCE and found that the WKCE “results provide useful information on academic progress.” If Governor Walker had reviewed the most recent WKCE results, he would find that only 4% of Wisconsin’s 4th grade public school students cannot read at a basic level. Among students without a disability or English as a second language, the percent of students that cannot read at a basic level is less than two percent.
Rather than using the WKCE testing data, Walker was referring to a statistic from the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) test, which only tests a handful of Wisconsin students and has been widely criticized by a wide variety of groups, including the National Research Council (NRC) who said the NAEP tests are “fundamentally flawed” and “not believable.” Furthermore, NAEP claims that nationwide 34% of American fourth graders can’t read at a basic level, a contention that is belied by the fact that the United States recently scored second in third grade reading tests among industrialized nations.
Moreover, if Walker is sincerely concerned about fourth grade reading, he should be ensuring: 1) schools have qualified, fairly-paid teachers, 2) that all students in Wisconsin have access to four-year-old kindergarten, and 3) that all elementary schools have small class sizes. These three areas are all proven to increase fourth grade reading scores, but cost money. However, instead of increasing funding for Wisconsin’s schools, he’s doing the exact opposite and cutting spending — which threatens education for Wisconsin’s fourth graders and all students.
Find 1C: Walker Misrepresented Testing Data to Smear Wisconsin Teachers and Students
In recent months, Governor Walker has repeatedly distorted one of Wisconsin’s many NAEP test scores as a representative sample that Wisconsin schools as failing. Specifically, Walker and other public school opponents, focus on fourth grade reading — statistically, the weakest part of Wisconsin schools report card — and point out that Wisconsin’s 2009 score of 220.14 is “30th in the nation,” “bottom half of states,” etc. While the 220.14 number is correct, the reality is that Wisconsin was ahead of the national average of 219.60 and that only 18 states have what the NAEP defines as having statistically significant higher score.
In fact, Governor Walker’s ranking is a fabrication: The NAEP doesn’t release state comparisons as rankings, but rather the number of states that are significantly better or worse than Wisconsin. When they release the data they even put out a warning not to put the data in a ranking format, saying “It is important to consider whether apparent differences are statistically significant because the scores themselves are estimates and are variable, depending on sampling and measurement.”
In addition, NAEP State Coordinator Bert Stoneberg has said using NAEP test score data for rankings is “inappropriate.” He even wrote a seven page article for the journal Practical Assessment, Research and Evaluation entitled, “Please Don’t Use NAEP Scores to Rank States,” warning politicians not to misuse NAEP data to rank states.
Since Walker is bringing up NAEP test scores, why doesn’t he discuss all the scores? Wisconsin ranked above the national average score in all a categories of the NAEP test in 2009. Below is a table of all the 2009 test scores—a very different picture of Wisconsin’s schools than the “failing” one Walker is trying to paint:
Finding 1D: Walker and His Allies Typically Attack All of Wisconsin’s Schools by Attacking the Milwaukee School District
The Milwaukee School District is one of 425 school districts in Wisconsin and represents about 10 percent of the students enrolled in Wisconsin public schools, yet the vast majority of right wing criticism toward Wisconsin’s public schools is routinely focused on the Milwaukee school district. The reason is clear: The Milwaukee school district, due to economics and poverty, has more challenges than any other school district in the state and, therefore is more vulnerable to right wing attacks. On the other hand, when Wisconsin is recognized for a statewide achievement– such as having the nation’s highest graduation rate – many of Wisconsin’s right wing think tanks and politicians routinely turn a blind eye to the achievement.
Finding 1E: The Right Wing Often Falsely Characterizes the United States’ Education System as Being near The Bottom In the World
State Senator Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) claimed, “Wisconsin schools are not that great right now… when the United States test scores are bad compared to other countries and Wisconsin test scores are bad compared to other states… we are worse than average, on national scores, United States is way worse than other countries on state scores we are worse than other states.”
Grothman’s assertion is simply not true. Among similarly large and diverse countries, we fair very well. We could, of course, do better but the right typically fails to mention that the small countries that do better than us on test scores typically have few poor people and fraction of the income inequality we have in the United States. In addition, most international countries that do better in tests offer their citizens many more public services, including early-childhood education. Nevertheless, nearly 99% of American citizens can read and write — putting us near the top of the list for the most literate nations. If we look at the top ten largest countries in the world by GDP, the United States ranks among the top tier:
The U.S. is a leader in Nobel Prize Awards
There is no greater international academic award in than the Nobel Prize. Historically, The United States has generated the most Nobel Prize awards in academics (physics, medicine, mathematics and economics).
As mentioned earlier the U.S. often does not finish well in many international tests with smaller countries because we have such a diverse population compared to the other countries we are competing against. However, the United States actually has a very large proportion of its students that finish toward the front of international tests, but we also have a large proportion of students that finish toward the bottom. In fact, the United States is the only country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to have this trait, which brings overall test scores down. However, if you were to take the top quarter of American students and match them up against the top quarter of the other OECD countries, our students perform better than the average of the other countries top students.
Therefore, the United States does not have a failing education system. The United States has an achievement gap that is directly proportional to a student’s family socioeconomic status. The United States has the highest income inequality among OECD nations, excepting Mexico and Turkey, and with levels of inequity increasing rapidly since 2000 “continuing a long-term trend that goes back to the 1970s”.
A Closer Look at Finland
Finland is usually touted as global leader in education and, as such, the right wing often likes to make comparisons with the United States. However, such a comparison really isn’t really fair considering that Finland has about the population of Wisconsin and almost 100% of the population is native born. Further, in Finland the percent of students living below the poverty line is about a quarter of the number of children living in poverty in the United States.
Finding 1F: Even Though Wisconsin’s Graduation Rate is #1 in the Nation and Has Held Steady the Last 40 Years, Right Wing Groups Continue to Falsely Claim that the Drop-Out Rate is a “Growing” Problem
In an outrageous attack on Wisconsin’s public schools, pro-voucher groups The MacIver Institute and the Friedman Family Foundation released a report with the headline, ‘The Growing Cost of Wisconsin’s Drop Out Rate’ and suggested that private voucher schools would somehow solve the problem of high school drop outs.
First, let’s look at the facts. This report came out in 2009. As stated earlier, Wisconsin has the nation’s top graduation rate and has been first or second in graduation rate the last five years. In fact, if we look at the last 40 years, Wisconsin’s graduation rate has held steady at around 90% and has time and again exceeded national averages.
Finding 1G: The Reality is that in the Last 40 Years Wisconsin’s Adult Population Has Gone From Being Very Uneducated to Very Well Educated
What makes the report even more scurrilous is that prior to Wisconsin reaching the impressive 90% graduation rate, Wisconsin’s public schools were singularly responsible for educating Wisconsin: 100 years ago, only 10% graduated from high school, while today only about 10% don’t graduate from high school.
As Table 1 (found in the Appendix) demonstrates, if we just go back 40 years, most Wisconsin counties (those highlighted) had populations where the majority of adults over age 25 had not graduated from high school. Today, 89% of Wisconsin’s adults over age 25 have graduated high school.
Finding 1H: The Right Wing Fails to Mention Drivers That Actually Cause Students to Drop-Out
While right wing groups like the MacIver Institute painstakingly document Wisconsin’s (low) drop-out rate and (high) graduation with no sense of scale, they fail to mention the leading causes of drop-outs: low-income, parents dropped out of high school, physical and mental disabilities, and teen pregnancy.
Less than 60% of Under-18 Mothers Never Graduate High School
Teen pregnancy is a huge obstacle to graduating from high school not only for the mother, but often times the father as well. One reason why Wisconsin’s graduation rate is so high and drop-out rate is low is because of a coordinated effort by Wisconsin’s public schools and organizations like Planned Parenthood teaching students about preventing pregnancy. In fact Wisconsin’s teen pregnancy rate is at its lowest point since the 1970s.
However, the same right wing that criticizes public schools for drop-out rates, routinely tries to sabotage public school efforts to reduce teen pregnancy. In fact, recently introduced legislation (Senate Bill 237) by Senators Grotham and Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) eliminates comprehensive sex-education in Wisconsin’s classrooms required by the Healthy Youth Act. The bill repeals the Healthy Youth Act, and is opposed by the Wisconsin Medical Society because of its failure to provide students with medically accurate information. The bill passed the State Senate and has yet to be considered by the State Assembly, as of November 15, 2011.
Wisconsin Has Gone From a Nearly All-White State to a Very Diverse State
Below is a graph showing how Wisconsin’s overall population has changed since 1950. Up until 1970, Wisconsin was largely a homogeneous, white state, but from 1970 to the present, the minority population has more than quadrupled. While this represents an exciting time in Wisconsin’s history, there are often unique challenges to incoming ethnic minorities, such as English as a second language.
Because recent immigrants and people that move from one state to another tend to be younger, they also tend to be more likely to have school-age children – thus, resulting in a larger influx of minorities in schools than the overall population.
As the graph above demonstrates, today in Wisconsin schools, about one in five students are ethnic minorities, while in 1970 the number of minority students was about one in seventeen. In addition, in the last 15 years white enrollment has declined by about 10 percent, while during the same time period, Hispanic enrollment has more than doubled.
One in Three Wisconsin Children Live In a Single Parent Household
In 1970 one in ten children lived in single parent households, but now that number is nearly one in three.
8.7% of Low-Income Students Drop Out of High School
Wisconsin has seen a dramatic increase in economically disadvantaged students the last ten years.
Enrollment of Homeless Students Has Increased 125% in Recent Years
Since the 2003-04 school year, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction has tracked Wisconsin’s homeless students enrolled in public schools. Between the 2003-04 and 2009-10 school years, the number homeless children increased from 5,354 to 12,027 — an increase of 125%. According to the Campaign to End Child Homelessness, 58% of children are enrolled in school and 42% are below school age. In other words, combining school age children with below school age children, Wisconsin’s total homeless child population is 20,736. These figures do not include the approximately 1,100 high school age children who are homeless, not accompanied by an adult, and not enrolled in public school.
37.6% of Students with Disabilities Drop Out of High School
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) mandates that children and youth ages 3-21 with disabilities be provided a free and appropriate public school education. While IDEA is one the greatest progressive accomplishments in a generation, it also presented teachers and school districts with new challenges. In addition, as the graph demonstrates, the percentage of students covered under the IDEA has grown steadily since 1979 when the initial enrollment of IDEA students was around 6%.
Schools Serving Students with Disabilities Chronically Under-Funded
Another challenge for local school districts under IDEA has been that students with disabilities cost approximately twice as much to educate as students without disabilities. To help defray this cost, the Federal Government agreed to pay 40% of the cost of each disabled student. However, as the graph below demonstrates, since 1981, the Federal Government has paid only a small fraction of the 40% it agreed to pay:
The lack of federal funding for the IDEA has placed an incredible burden on local school districts, especially small districts that may have an unusually high number of students with disabilities. It’s also not fair to the students with disabilities who shouldn’t have their education threatened by lack of funding. In spite of the heroic efforts of public schools, students with disabilities are much less likely to graduate from high school than other students and this has had an impact on the graduation rate.