Can anyone honestly vouch for the voucher program?

One of my readers pointed out that County Executive Scott Walker has no problems shipping millions of taxpayer dollars to the School Voucher Program and getting zero accountability for the money. Indeed many Republicans like Scott Walker have called for testing of public school children every time they turn around supposedly in the interest of making sure our money is spent well. Yet they have no problem having millions spent on a program that is best summed up by the subtitle from one of the stories in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel series examining the voucher program in some Milwaukee schools.

It's tougher to assess the quality of a voucher school than to open one

Apparently, this does not concern Scott Walker and the many other people yelling to lift the caps on this program. It really should. So should this:

You don't need any credentials to open a voucher school. Your teachers don't need any, either. You don't need to meet any detailed standards of educational progress or performance. You can hold school in just about any place, as long as you can get an occupancy permit from the city building inspector.

And so should this:

The use of state money by David Seppeh, founder of the Mandella School of Science and Math, to buy himself two Mercedes-Benz cars has become a lasting and embarrassing symbol of how some school operators have not put students first.

But the only thing they are all clamoring for is to let more students and money flow into this program without better accountability. I know some Democrats support this program and Governor Doyle is trying to work out a compromise on it. I agree with them that we should let kids stay in the program that are in it now so they don't have to switch schools, but we should not let any new families of children in this program. Rather, we need to assure that all of the children in Milwaukee Public Schools are getting a good education by giving the public schools the resources they need - something Scott Walker seems uninterested in at best.

I'm not saying that there are not quality private schools out there. There are. The Journal Sentinel series highlights them as well. But letting state legislators off the hook for short-changing the Milwaukee Public School System by pointing to their support of the voucher program as proof that they care about the kids of Milwaukee is dooming a lot of children in the public schools there to a lousy education.

I attended Catholic school as a child. The school I went to for first through fifth grade was a lousy excuse for a school and sounds like many of those mentioned in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel series. Science and Social Studies classes went like this - Copy one page out the encyclopedia about Science/Social Studies and you get a grade of "C", copy two pages and you get a grade of "B", and copy three pages and you get a grade of "A". The only good thing about the school was that it closed when I was in fifth grade. By the time I did get to a quality school, I was very behind my peers.

Is this the type of school you want your tax dollars supporting? Because right now, they do.

(Note to readers, the online version of the story I am quoting the subtitle for actually say, 'It's tougher to assess the quality of a voucher school than an open one'. I honestly believe the 'an' is a typo and I changed it to the word 'to'.)