Attorney Claims School Choice Program Could Increase Segregation

A program to let poor Milwaukee public school pupils enroll in private schools at state expense could disrupt the racial balance in the state’s largest school system, an attorney argued in court Saturday.

Patrick McDonnell, an assistant city attorney for Milwaukee, told a Dane County Circuit Court judge that the state’s school choice program could “cause the entire Milwaukee public schools system to become more rather than less segregated.”

But an attorney representing six parents and six of the private schools favoring the program said school choice creates a new educational opportunity and gives parents more control over their children’s education.

Judge Susan Steingass heard testimony from about half a dozen attorneys in two lawsuits against the program, which is scheduled to start next month.

Under the program, the first of its kind in the nation, the state would provide $2,500 per pupil for low-income families who want to transfer a child from the Milwaukee public schools to a non-sectarian private school. It was approved in April and signed into law by Republican Gov. Tommy G. Thompson.

The primary lawsuit, on which Steingass is expected to rule next week, claims the program is unconstitutional for providing state dollars to private schools.

It was filed against the state by the Wisconsin Education Assn. Council, Wisconsin’s largest teachers union. The union is among several education groups that oppose the program along with State Supt. Herbert Grover, saying it undermines public education because private schools cannot be held as accountable as public schools.

“What the Legislature did is ignore 25 years of history of desegregating Milwaukee Public Schools,” McDonnell said, contending the exodus of students in some areas could upset the ratios of white and black students in the city’s federally ordered desegregation plan.

Robert Friebert, representing the Milwaukee chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and three statewide school groups, said the Legislature failed to include in the law means for the state to monitor the progress of the program’s pupils.

“You can’t have the public funds without the public controls” under the public purpose doctrine in the Wisconsin constitution, Friebert said.

Landmark Legal Foundation Center attorney Clint Bolick, whose Washington-based group is representing the parents and private schools, said the school choice plan creates a new educational opportunity, which the Legislature is allowed to do under the state constitution.

“It transfers power in the area of public education from the educational establishment to the parents,” Bolick said.

The plan was a step in equalizing educational opportunities for poor pupils with those of wealthier pupils, Bolick said.

Warren Weinstein, an assistant attorney general representing the state, said it was not unconstitutional for the program to receive state funding.

Weinstein said the law calls for scrutiny by Grover and an audit by the Legislative Audit Bureau by 1995.

The second lawsuit, filed by Landmark Legal Foundation against Grover, claimed the school superintendent was illegally trying to force private schools in the program to meet complex and strict requirements not spelled out in the law.