29% of Milwaukee Teachers Send
Their Children To Private Schools
MILWAUKEE (Sept. 7, 2004) - More than twenty-nine per cent of public school teachers in Milwaukee send their children to private schools, according to federal census data in a national study released today.
The study also says that compared to all parents in the nation's 100 largest cities, public school teachers in Milwaukee are sixty-eight per cent more likely to enroll their children in a private school.
Alliance for Choice in Education (ACE) chairman Howard Fuller says "We support a teacher's right to choose a private school. We simply ask them to support the same freedom for low-income families."
State law caps participation in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program at 15 per cent of enrollment in the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS). ACE claims that efforts to eliminate the cap are opposed and have been blocked by the state's largest teachers' union, the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC.
"How would Milwaukee teachers feel if only 15 per cent of them could use private schools? They would call it outrageous, and they would be right," Fuller added.
"ACE has no problem with teachers choosing schools they think are best for their children," Fuller said. "It's hypocritical for them to oppose that choice for low-income parents," he continued.
In the last legislative session Governor James Doyle twice vetoed bills to eliminate the cap.
"If it's good enough for teachers, why not other parents," Fuller wonders.
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