School choice — sounds promising, doesn't it? Don't hold your breath — "school choice" is nothing more than a misleading label for a radical right policy that seeks to supplant public education with privatized, unregulated, and in a fair number of cases, religious instruction. The Milwaukee school choice program, which provides state-funded vouchers of up to $6,351 per student for low-income kids to attend private schools, is at a critical point in its sixteen-year run: Wisconsin state law caps the number of participants in Milwaukee at about 14,500, and this year the district has reached the limit. Next school year promises to bring more applicants than the system can lawfully admit.

Rather than address Milwaukee's public school problem, officials have used the voucher system to provide themselves cover while Milwaukee's public schools continue to deteriorate. Unfortunately, it looks like the voucher program isn't going away anytime soon. The problem remains, then, what to do about the enrollment situation for next school year. The Department of Public Instruction (DPI) has proposed a temporary fix — a rationing system that would keep enrollment in the program under the state regulated limit. Governor Doyle and the Republican-controlled state legislature are coming under increasing pressure from voucher supporters to amend state law to lift the enrollment cap. Lifting the cap is absolutely the wrong choice; more vouchers are not the answer to Milwaukee's public school problem.

My conservative counterpart and I agree that more accountability should be required of the private schools that participate in the voucher program. For example, it's ridiculous that students at schools receiving state-funded vouchers do not have to take the same standardized tests that are required of their public school peers. However, she and I differ as to which parts of the current voucher program we think are worth protecting. It's clear to me that a better temporary fix to the enrollment problem than DPI's rationing system would be to eliminate religious schools from the program. It's ludicrous that taxpayer dollars are currently being spent to fund religious education.

I'm not declaring a war on religion, but if ever there has been an inappropriate mixing of church and state, this is it. The recent landmark judicial ruling against the teaching of "intelligent design" in Pennsylvania public school science classes helps demonstrate why it's a bad idea to transfer our duty to provide our kids with a quality education to religious institutions. "Intelligent design," an invention seeking to provide a religious alternative to evolution, fails to meet the standards of a sound public education, but how can we be sure that this pseudo-science isn't taught to kids attending private religious schools that receive public funds? Under the current voucher system in Milwaukee, we can't. Taxpayer money should not be spent endorsing unfounded, unscientific ideas like "intelligent design."

Make no mistake, I find my alternative to DPI's temporary enrollment fix less than exciting. When it comes to education, however, the means are just as important as the achieved ends. Taxpayers must be vigilant about how public money is being spent on education. If public funding must be applied to private education, public funds in private schools should only be awarded when accountability standards are met — including reasonable standards of curriculum content in science classes.

The voucher debate is larger than enrollment caps, of course; the whole voucher system is really just a temporary fix to Milwaukee's public school problem. Rather than diverting funds and a handful of students away from public schools, Milwaukee's education leaders should reexamine how public education in the city is managed and administered. Efforts to improve the Milwaukee Public School system should take priority over funding private school education for a select few — it's the only way to be fair to all. Education reform should be enacted with a sustainable future in mind — one in which kids will receive a superior education at any Milwaukee public school.

For now, however, let's make sure that the information kids are coming home from school with is accurate, consistent, and valid. As long as public funds are being applied toward private education, public standards of education should also be upheld.