Joel Turtel is the author of the book "Public Schools: Public Menace".

Joel Turtel claimed in an interview with Michael Shaughnessy in a August 3 EducationNews.org, article that: "Teachers might also blame the poverty of low-income families or broken families for the miserable performance of kids in inner cities. That might be partially true. However, when these same kids from poverty backgrounds get a voucher to transfer to a private school, like they do in Milwaukee , all of a sudden these same kids do much better in school."

As is the case for most of the claims made by Joe Tutel in this interview, the statement above is a lie! Milwaukee Choice schools are private schools that are funded by vouchers provided for students from low-income families. MPS schools are k-12 Milwaukee Public Schools."  

It is an absolute lie that students in all voucher schools (Choice schools) in Milwaukee perform better than students in MPS schools.   

The majority of Choice students are students previously enrolled in private religious schools. About 25% of Choice students each year previously attended MPS schools. But each year thousands of Choice students leave Choice schools and go to MPS schools, in numbers comparable to those leaving MPS. However it is impossible to measure the number of Choice students going to MPS schools because it is illegal for DPI, MPS or the Choice school to publicly identify individual Choice students.

Outrageously, there is no accountability data required for private Choice schools advocated by former MPS Supt. Howard Fuller, the business community, Milwaukee Mayor Norquist and his Republican political allies in the war against MPS. There are no required standardized tests and there are no state academic requirements for all students to graduate. Choice schools collect millions based on no evidence of success. There are no required standardized tests and there are no state academic requirements for all students to graduate for any private schools in Milwaukee or the State of Wisconsin . There are absolutely no validated studies that would indicate that students transferring to Choice schools outperform MPS students or improved in academic performance after transfer!

See www.jobseducationwis.org

251 Choice Schools in Milwaukee 2004-2005
By Dennis W. Redovich June 2004

249 The Best High Schools in the State of Wisconsin and America By Dennis W. Redovich May 2005 (Posted on EducationNews.org 2/23/05                                    

248 Choice Schools in Milwaukee and the War Against Public Education    By Dennis W. Redovich May 2005                                   

244 The Continuing Fallacious Belittling of American Public Schools By Dennis W. Redovich March 2005 (Posted EducationNews.org 3/21/05)

Dennis W. Redovich 414-421-1120 [email protected]
Center for the Study of Jobs & Education in Wisconsin and United States www.jobseducationwis.org