School Choice Gives More Bang for Less Bucks

Your Beertown-based Peasant doesn't like to brag ---
oh, yes he does, when it's about something that puts
the Left's nose out of joint! Milwaukee's landmark
voucher program is not just the talk of my town,
but is on the minds and tongues of much of the country.
Liberal politicians and activists adamantly opposed to
school choice contend that vouchers and charter schools
deprive traditional public schools of money, but the fact
is that these charter, or choice schools, typically spend
less money per student. Moreover, a recent study
conducted by WILL (Wisconsin Institute for Law and
Liberty), a nonprofit organization that advocates for
educational reform and limited government, discovered
that students participating in Milwaukee's voucher
program will provide the city, state, and children
nearly half a billion dollars in economic benefits through
2035 thanks to more students graduating and less
of them getting arrested and sentenced to prison or
juvenile hall.

Basing their study on data from a crime and graduation
study by Corey DeAngelis and Patrick Wolf at the
University of Arkansas, WILL's study finds that through
2035 Wisconsin will receive a $473 million benefit from
higher graduation rates by school choice students.
More and better education makes for higher incomes for
the students when they are ready to begin their careers,
more tax revenue for Wisconsin's treasury, and a less
likely need for welfare, food stamps, or other payments
from government social programs. No wonder so many
Democrats and left-wing activists are chewing their
fingernails down to their knuckles! In addition, the
resultant greater economic opportunity also takes away
the urge for young adults to turn to lives of crime, which
WILL's study estimates will save Wisconsin $1.7 million
from decreasing misdemeanors and $24 million from
waning felonies over the same time period.

If the lefties were really concerned about the plight of the
inner city children trapped in the deteriorating public
school system's inept and ineffective schools and their
futures, given their propensity to spend our tax monies like
drunks in a bar on social programs which only promote
dependency rather than independence and economic
opportunity you would think that they would jump at the
chance to support school choice. But then, their intransigence
speaks volumes about their agenda and their true priorities.


MEM