This is a column by Nicholas Kelly. He is the president of School Choice Wisconsin
Wisconsin pioneered what has become a national movement to expand parent education options. From an initial program serving 341 students at seven schools, this year more than 181,000 Wisconsin students use choices that did not exist before the 1990’s. Across the political spectrum, and in all media markets, Wisconsin voters approve and favor expansion.
Opponents are undeterred, especially when it comes to programs that let parents choose private schools. More than 58,000 students are enrolled this year in those Wisconsin programs.
For more than three decades, opponents have advanced falsehoods and half-truths to describe these programs. This is illustrated in an error-filled attack in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel by the president of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association.
Her false claims include a canard that the paper’s education reporter debunked more than 20 years ago. Here’s a partial list of her falsehoods.
Choice opponents enlist academic ideologues to give the appearance of credibility to their false attacks. A prominent example is Josh Cowen, on leave from Michigan State University, who will be featured in January at the state convention of the Wisconsin Public Education Network.
Jill Underly, Wisconsin’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, will join him. Cowen and Underly can be expected to offer a narrative against school choice that opponents will rely on in the forthcoming legislative session.
Cowen’s affiliations and financial backing raise questions about his scholarly independence. He was warmly greeted this year at the annual convention of the American Federation of Teachers, where AFT President Randi Weingarten announced, “We have just started a new organization that Josh is going to be leading.” Cowen also is a Senior Fellow at the Education Law Center, whose major funders include the two largest teachers’ unions.
Wisconsin’s private school choice programs have been one focus of Cowen’s attention and misinformation.
In February 2023, he wrote (“School Vouchers: There Is No Upside”): “Despite supporter rhetoric that voucher schemes are about new opportunities, the reality is 70-80 percent of kids in…. Wisconsin [choice programs] were already in private school before taxpayers picked up the tab.”
This and other Cowen claims have become staples of anti-choice propaganda. Consider: “In state after state…vouchers have gone to parents who already were sending their children to private schools…” So claimed Nancy Loome, president of The Parents’ Campaign Research & Education Fund, in a Mississippi Clarion Ledger commentary in November.
Yet it’s simply untrue. The Wisconsin numbers this year are the exact opposite. According to DPI data, one in five new students in the statewide and Racine choice programs previously attended private schools. While comparable data for the Milwaukee program are not available, few would (aside from Cowen) seriously suggest that most Milwaukee choice students already were in private schools. As it happens, the number of Milwaukee choice students can be tracked closely to the decline over time in Milwaukee public school enrollment.
Cowen falsely claims the same situation prevails in other states. Jay Greene and Jason Bedrick convincingly refuted him in 2023.
Cowen has disputed a factual report from School Choice Wisconsin showing that private school choice students outperform public students on state tests. The data used in the report come directly from Underly’s DPI.
Cowen appears not to dispute the performance advantage that SCW documented. However, he told Ruth Conniff, at the Wisconsin Examiner, “It’s possible to achieve exactly what they’re describing simply by exiting the children who are the most expensive to educate.” He offered no evidence because there is none. His claim was a version of that offered by the MTEA president in her Milwaukee Journal Sentinel commentary. The paper refuted it more than 20 years ago.
Cowen resorted to a Wisconsin Watch report supposedly “documenting strategies that Wisconsin voucher schools use to select children out after admitting them originally…[W]e know for a fact that exits are where modern voucher programs truly choose their students…[W]hen it comes to using vouchers it’s the school’s choice, not parental choice.”
However, the Wisconsin Watch report provided no evidence to buttress the false expulsion narrative. It “documented” nothing. School Choice Wisconsin (SCW) has responded to clear this all up. I responded to Coniff, Cowen, and Wisconsin Watch here.
Separately, SCW and the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty refuted false claims that private choice schools discriminate against and underserve students with special needs.
