Evers Abandoned Public Education
With his background as State Superintendent, many thought Tony Evers would be a champion for Wisconsin public education. Evers’ campaign itself made this claim. And perhaps at one point he was, but that is not the Evers governing today. ‘Public-education’ hero Evers is now a staunch charter and voucher school ally. Funneling more and more public dollars into these private schools and giving public education just the scraps.
Evers first proposed budget as governor at least attempted to stay true to his supposed values as a public educator. He proposed freezing charter/voucher school enrollment and stopping their expansion. His original budget also included measures to increase public school funding significantly and make charters/voucher schools more transparent. While the Republican passed budget ultimately included only a third of what Governor Evers wanted for education, he used his veto powers to add another $65 million. While this budget was far from perfect, it demonstrates just how far Evers has drifted from his public education values.
It is hard to believe that the Governor Evers who originally sought to stop charter and voucher schools from expanding is the same one who is in office currently. How did Evers’ most recent budget treat charter schools? It gave them the largest funding increase in the history of the state. Now Evers will be known as having been more supportive of education privatization than Scott Walker was. This treasure trove of resources for school privatization was all part of the shared revenue negotiations. As Milwaukee Beagle has previously covered, this deal starves Milwaukee of resources, so cannot be used as an excuse for caving to Republican’s demands for more private school funding. When challenged on why he is about-facing regarding school privatization, Evers defended himself saying “What people forget is every time we have a budget for public schools, our money for charters or for vouchers goes up, too….And so there's almost nothing different this time than last time. We added a little bit more money in order to get this deal across the finish line.
So what was this ‘little bit more money’ that Evers added? Let us dig into the numbers. The budget increases the amount charter schools receive for each student in kindergarten to eighth grade from $8,399 to $9,874. That’s an increase of over $1,000 per student. For highschoolers, the amount per student was raised from $9,045 to $12,368. That is an increase of over $3,000 per student. Keep in mind, the biggest previous expansion of funding for charter schools was in 2014 under Scott Walker, which increased overall funding by 22%. This bill increases funding by 33%. So if the largest increase in private school funding ever is just a ‘little bit more money’ as Evers described, then the increased funding for public education must be massive right? Think again. While Evers will tout that this budget brought a billion more for public education, that amounts to roughly an increase of $325 per student. You read that right. Evers 'concession’ of thousand dollar increases per pupil for private schools only netted a $325 increase for public schools. And this is not even enough to keep pace with inflation. Evers then solidified this meager increase for the long term using a veto gimmick which will most likely make it more difficult to increase this amount when a more public education friendly legislature is in power. And these increased payments to private schools are raising everyone’s property taxes to the point that even some rural school districts are calling for Evers to stop funding private education with public dollars.
While Evers did not get public schools adequate funding, he did get them something though. More cops. Evers is undoing the historical decision by Milwaukee Public Schools to end their contract with the Milwaukee Police Department. Republicans included a requirement for MPS to hire 25 police officers to patrol their schools. Despite the evidence showing that police offices in schools do not increase student safety and only increase suspensions.
In a capitalistic society sadly, money is often a signal of value. Where you invest your money, is a sign of what you value. Budgets are moral documents. And looking at Evers’ changing budgets over his tenure as governor, no one can in good faith call him an advocate for public education. Maybe at some point in his career he was, but he clearly no longer is. His most recent budget includes historical increases for private education while only giving minor budget bumps for public education, and forcing Milwaukee to allow police back into our schools. Thankfully, the Department of Public Instruction is creating a transparency website, so soon everyone will be able to see just how much of their tax dollars are going towards these private educators. Public education needs true advocates, not two-faced politicians who claim to be public education allies while they shovel more and more money into private, unaccountable schools. Our students deserve better. As it appears that Evers will be running for re-election soon, we need to hold him accountable to his original values as a public school champion and not allow him to continue to funnel public dollars to private schools unchallenged.
