Education: School choice backers have long held that the competition for students would force public schools to improve. They were right. A report from Milwaukee school board member John Gardner spells it out. Academic performance at Milwaukee's public schools has increased at the same time its school choice program was growing. Milwaukee, as you may recall, was the first jurisdiction to give money to low-income students to go to private schools of their choice. Fought every step of the way by teachers' unions, Milwaukee's choice program is still up and running. It's also working - for all Milwaukee students. "Taken together, the quantifiable evidence shows that the MPCP (Milwaukee Parental Choice Program) and other programs that expand educational options have had a positive impact on Milwaukee's public schools," Gardner wrote in the January report. He has the data to back it up (see table). Since 1997, more students in Milwaukee public schools achieved proficiency or advanced grades on state tests. To be sure, the latest results are still too low. But an improvement is an improvement. Gardner says school choice is not the only reason for such improvement. But he says it wouldn't have occurred without the competitive pressures exerted by school choice. "The expansion of choice has prompted a positive response from many (public schools), which in turn generated internal pressure for the comprehensive systemic changes that have proven impossible in major urban districts," he wrote. What makes the report, prepared with the American Education Reform Council, all the more persuasive is Gardner's own background. As he writes in the report: "My bias is that of a left-wing organizer with 30 years' work for labor unions, public interest groups, community organizations, consumer and workers' cooperatives and, most recently, schools." Most school choice backers hail from the right side of the political spectrum. But Gardner, a parent himself with kids in the Milwaukee system, was willing to look at the facts on the ground and come to his reasonable conclusion. "The evidence of Milwaukee's revolution is clear: In the right framework, markets will serve the poor and two-party politics will begin competing to produce."