Yesterday, we highlighted Howard Fuller's alarm over Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to eliminate the income threshold for entry into the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program. The Black Alliance for Educational Options now has posted Fuller's comments to the Wisconsin legislative Joint Finance Committee, to which Fuller closed by saying:

I am a person who has taken blows for years from people who have said this program for some has never been about poor people. They warned that once the program got established the real agenda would surface, which is to get money for rich people. I have never believed and do not believe now that many people who have fought for the program over the years had this as their purpose. But, this is exactly what this provision does. I want everyone to understand that if this provision becomes law, I will become an opponent of a program that I have fought for over 20 years. I will never support a program that essentially provides a subsidy for rich people.

Those who favor private learning options for poor children can count few champions for their cause more passionate than Howard Fuller, who is almost singularly responsible for the success of Milwaukee's voucher program, the nation's oldest. That's why we should take seriously Fuller's heartburn over Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to remove the income restrictions to the voucher and open the Parental Choice Program to wealthier families.

If Walker is successful, Fuller told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel yesterday, "that's when I get off the train," and further called Walker's proposal "egregious" and "outrageous" during testimony of Wisconsin's legislative Joint Finance Committee.

The point Fuller is making is one that too often gets lost in the debate over education reform generally and vouchers specifically: Programs such as Milwaukee's began with the sense that families of wealthier means already had options beyond the neighborhood public school, and that poor families might benefit from public policies that empowered them to find the best fit for their children. And that sense still pervades current means-tested efforts such as Florida's tax credit scholarship and the pending measures in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Any movement in education reform is larger than one person, but let's not dismiss the jaw-dropping implications of Fuller's alarm. State legislatures may feel momentum toward greater school choice and choice advocates may be emboldened by the U.S. Supreme Court's move to legally insulate an Arizona tax credit scholarship, but Fuller would have us remember who needs our greatest help.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's consternation over the political power of public-sector unions is certainly understandable, but in the arena of public education we should be careful before we disempower any group. The better option is to bring more, not fewer, voices to the table.

Madison might resurrect its progressive history by allowing parents into a decision-making process that does more than just decide a compensation package for teachers. The thousands of state workers who have descended on the Wisconsin Capitol argue that protecting their ability to bargain for their pay and benefits directly affects student achievement in the classroom. That may or may not be true, but giving parents a legitimate role is one way to make schools more responsive to the needs of families.

This is easier said than done, of course.

Among the more extreme approaches is the kind of parent-trigger law recently exercised in California. Families at McKinley Elementary School in Compton powered their way into a proceeding that has long been the province of school boards and teachers unions. In that case, the Parent Revolution serves as the other union at the table, petitioning for an overhaul so dramatic at the troubled school that a charter operator would take over.

The California Teachers Association is in revolt over the idea, as is the school district, which at one point ordered McKinley parents to take outlandish steps to verify their petitions and now wants to "clean up" the law that empowered them in the first place.

Recent comments from Ben Austin, the Parent Revolution's executive director, have lessons for Wisconsin:

Our theory of change is not to get rid of unions. We're progressive Democrats. But they don't see this as about change. They see it as about power. (more…)