$47.5 million shortfall is worst-case projection

Ending the private school choice program could leave Milwaukee Public Schools with a $47.5 million deficit next year, MPS officials say in a report that examines the difficulty of instantly unraveling a decade of change in the city education system.

The potential deficit is a worst-case scenario, and choice critics were quick to contend that proposals to cut voucher funding really pose much less risk to MPS. But choice supporters said the harm could be very real.

"I don't think anyone denies that if MPS had to absorb even 2,000, much less 5,000, 6,000 or 10,000 kids next year, we would be in disastrous shape for space, money and class size reduction," School Board member John Gardner said Wednesday.

The possible problem for MPS isn't necessarily in ending school choice. It's in ending the program right away, as voucher supporters fear will happen if Democrats who control the state Senate persuade the GOP-controlled Assembly and Republican Gov. Scott McCallum to approve a 50% cut in choice funding.

Republicans want to expand the program, which since 1990 has let low-income children attend private schools with taxpayers' money, and have vowed not to give ground to the Democrats.

Meanwhile on Wednesday, Milwaukee Innercity Congregations Allied for Hope called on politicians of all stripes to stop using choice as a bargaining chip.

Group members are divided over vouchers, but they agree that public schools need more money, said Theadoll Taylor, co-chair of the MICAH education committee.

"We are kind of fed up with seeing people taking delight in dividing our community," Taylor said. "So we were trying today to challenge our leaders to grow up and start acting in the best interest of our children."

Although it might be weeks before legislators work out their differences on choice, people with MPS are starting to look at the risks. The district produced the report at the request of board member Kenneth Johnson, a voucher advocate.

"People were talking anecdotally about all the things we could do if choice was ended, and I think that people needed to know what was the truth," he said.

In a statement, Superintendent Spence Korte said that taking on the nearly 10,000 students in the choice program "would cause significant challenges."

He said, "Ask any superintendent in Wisconsin what it would take to start up a 10,000-student district in two months."

One challenge would be logistical: finding schools for all those students to attend. Many children might have to ride buses, because most of the empty space in MPS classrooms is on the far edges of the city. But student services director Aquine Jackson promised that the system would fulfill its obligation to provide a seat for any child who wants to enroll.

In addition, Gardner said, ending choice could undermine MPS partnerships with private schools for everything from recreation programs to shared buildings.

There's also a financial challenge.

Under state laws, school districts' spending is limited according to the number of students they have. But changes in enrollment are phased in over three years. That means, for example, that if three more students enter MPS, the spending limit rises enough for only one student -- but the district must educate all three.

In the long run, the district gets the money for all students who arrive. So after several years, said Jason Helgerson, an MPS lobbyist who worked on the report, the district might come out ahead financially if choice ends.

The deficit report assumes that if choice ends, all the 9,600 children receiving vouchers will return to public school.

Critics of the choice program questioned the assumption on several grounds. No plan now before lawmakers would end the choice program, they said, and even if the program shut down, some students would find ways to stay in private schools.

"I'm not sure what the relevance is to anything that's going on in the Legislature, because no one's proposed eliminating the choice program," said Mike Browne, an aide to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala (D-Madison), who was in meetings and not available to comment.

But choice supporter Howard Fuller insisted that the Senate Democrats' plan would be the death of choice.

"I told Chuck Chvala from Day One that to stand up and say, `We're going to cut the voucher in half, but it's not going to send kids back to MPS' -- it's ludicrous," Fuller said.

Mayor John O. Norquist, also a choice supporter, said that if vouchers vanish and MPS is hurt, regional racial and economic segregation could increase.

"It would push Milwaukee back into the form of school choice that is common in other metropolitan areas of the country, which is, basically, if you have money and kids, you leave town," he said.

Bob Peterson, a voucher critic who teaches at Fratney Elementary School and is an editor of the education policy publication Rethinking Schools, said the MPS report highlighted a weakness in the choice program.

The report uses estimates of how many choice students participate in special education, have limited English skills and live in various parts of the city. The state should require the schools to report more data about choice students, Peterson said.

"It's sort of setting up a straw man and complaining about it," he said of the report, "whereas in fact it's a pity that the original voucher legislation didn't include enough public accountability so we could have a rational conversation about the impact of changing the program."

The report was distributed to the board Tuesday night. Members directed district lobbyists to support ways of financing choice that are "most advantageous" to MPS and its taxpayers.