Former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker joins the Students Over Systems podcast to discuss the 30-year history of the original school choice program, the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, and his efforts as governor to expand Wisconsin’s school choice options. He also outlines his experience taking on Wisconsin public-sector unions by drastically overhauling collective bargaining. Governor Walker also discusses his belief that every child deserves access to a great education and his efforts to ensure that governors actively support the universal expansion of educational freedom.
TRANSCRIPT
Ginny Gentles:
Today on Students Over Systems, we are celebrating the historical expansion of Education Freedom. Young America’s Foundation president, Scott Walker, joins us to discuss the moral imperative for school choice.
Welcome to Students Over Systems, a podcast that celebrates education freedom. I’m your host, Ginny Gentles. At Students Over Systems, we talk with the creators, advocates, and beneficiaries of education freedom. On today’s episode, we’re joined by former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who is currently the president of Young America’s Foundation. Governor Walker previously served as the Milwaukee County executive and as a Wisconsin State Assembly member. In November 2010, he was elected the 45th governor of Wisconsin, and he was re-elected in 2014. He currently serves on the boards of Students for Life Action, American Federation for Children, and the Center for State-led National Debt Solutions. Governor Walker, thank you for joining us.
Scott Walker:
Thank you. Great to be with you.
Ginny Gentles:
Well, let’s start with the moral imperative for giving parents choices in education for their children. You said back in a speech that I heard you give in 2015 that every child deserves access to a great education. For me, that’s a moral imperative. So what do you mean by that and what inspired you to support school choice and education freedom?
Scott Walker:
Yeah, it’s just simple. It goes back to that exact point. Every child, no matter what zip code they come from, no matter what their parents do for a living, no matter what they look like or where their family roots come from, every child in America, not only in Wisconsin, but across this great country, deserves access to great education. Not only the child, but their families. And to me, the moral imperative is if we want to live in a country that believes in the American promise that all of us are created equal, that God, not the government, gives us a whole series of fundamental rights, not the least of which are life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. If we believe truly that we’re created equal, then we’ve got to give people an equal chance.
Now, what those students and what those families do with it is ultimately up to them. It’s not the sole responsibility of the government to take it from there, but to at least start with a level playing field. We know if we give access to educational freedom to students and families in every different part of this country, we know overwhelmingly that they can succeed. And when they succeed, the country succeeds.
Ginny Gentles:
Well, thankfully, education freedom is expanding across the country. 2023 is already probably the biggest year in school choice history, at six states at the time that we’re recording this, have already signed new or significantly expanded school choice policies into law, and that’s after Arizona creating this gold standard of universal education savings accounts last year. And then there’s more states that still might pass expanded, significantly expanded, or new school choice programs. You’re looking at this issue now from a national perspective as a board member of American Federation for Children. What are your thoughts on why so many states are expanding education freedom right now?
Scott Walker:
Well, it was one of those where we were teetering. There were states like mine that started 30 plus years ago in the city of Milwaukee, and we’d seen some growth in expansion, whether it was in voucher programs like we have in my state or whether it’s education savings accounts. You saw Jeb Bush, Rick Scott, now Ron DeSantis doing great things in Florida. You’ve seen other key states, but it was always incremental out there, particularly when states like mine started with some of the bigger school districts. We knew whether you’re a Democrat or Republican or Independent, somewhere in between, that people overwhelmingly understand that a lot of these big city school districts are an absolute mess. It’s why for years, at least in the past, even Chicago and New York, we’re talking about giving [inaudible] control to those schools by making some changes. But again, we saw without full fledge authority of the parents to put the funding behind the student and not just the system, you don’t get the kind of positive results that we’ve seen in states that have taken this big push.
And so we knew it was teetering. I was happy to expand it statewide with a cap growth. But really Doug Ducey and lawmakers in the state of Arizona deserve tremendous, tremendous accolades as you referenced there. And then in talking with people we knew, I knew probably more than anything it was COVID. I talked to Governor Kim Reynolds in Iowa, and she was frustrated with what the unions were doing despite their recent efforts to redo history, but what the unions were doing to shut down schools. And I think what you saw during those two or three years or more in some cases of the shutdowns is not only did the parents get to see what was happening in the schools, but lawmakers and policymakers, like governors said, “We’ve had it. We’ve got to provide better opportunities, better choices.” And once that happened, the great thing is now it shifted. Now it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of how quickly will the next states fall in line.
Ginny Gentles:
Which is remarkable when you think back to those early days of the school choice movement. And those early days did happen, as you mentioned in your state of Wisconsin and in Milwaukee specifically. So let’s talk a little bit more about the Wisconsin School Choice story. Milwaukee’s Parental Choice Program was launched back in 1990. Some people don’t realize that, they think that school choice is a new thing that is about to happen or is happening now. You know the truth of the matter, we’ve been at this school choice thing for a long time. And so tell me a little bit about when you came into office, this Milwaukee Parental Choice Program existed and there were, I think about 20,000 students participating in it. What was your approach to expanding school choice while you served as governor?
Scott Walker:
Yeah, we expanded it. We took all the limits off. My predecessor wouldn’t kill it outright, but tried to really put some major weights on it by putting caps, which oftentimes were in the horrific proposition of where one kid might be in, a younger sibling might not be. You saw all sorts of other problems. We lifted the caps, expanded the boundaries, right off the bat, expanded it not only throughout Milwaukee, but to the city of Racine, one of the next largest city school districts out there. And then eventually with some caps, I proposed no limits, like what you see in Arizona, but no caps to get it through our state Senate, we had to phase it in. And so every year with or without friendly forces in the governor’s residence and in the legislature, it goes up automatically. But I think back all the way back when I was a state lawmaker in the nineties, and Tommy Thompson was the champion of this.
Really, you talk about history, not only back then, but people like Milton Friedman talking about this for decades and decades long before we’ve seen this massive push about the principle of putting parents and students back in charge of their education and not relying on the monopoly of government run education. You saw that happen in Milwaukee. It was a combination of Tommy Thompson and then his chief of staff, Scott Jensen, who very much had that Friedman libertarian point of view, combined with people like my old colleague, State Representative Polly Williams, who represented an overwhelmingly inner city, predominantly black school district. She, along with people like Dr. Howard Fuller, a longtime advocate for education reform, realized they needed to do something to help low income, predominantly minority families have better options than what they were facing then, like sadly many do across the country.
And that was this alliance of Republican and Democrat coalition to try and provide better opportunities. And now we’ve seen generations that we now have kids whose parents were involved in the Parental Choice Program now having the next step of excellent opportunity. So we expanded it, we lift the income levels. We wanted to make sure we not only helped low income families, but we thought middle class working families shouldn’t have to move out to the suburbs to have access to quality education either. And we’ve seen tremendous success despite all the attacks from the naysayers.
Ginny Gentles:
Right. So by 2018, you doubled the number of students that were participating in the programs in Wisconsin, and as you mentioned, expanded it to a statewide program. And historically these programs were focused on students who had qualifying factors, such as being from a low income household or being a student with special needs. We’re seeing something different happening in school choice now, and we have seen that over time. It’s not just this year or last year. Slowly those programs have become eligible to more and more students. What are your thoughts on expanding school choice to a more universal approach?
Scott Walker:
Well, I think it’s outstanding at the bottom. I mean, think about it, everywhere else in life, we have competition. Competition makes our lives better. It’s why you get whatever name of the product, your cell phone, the favorite restaurant you go to, anything out there. If you have competition, not only you get a better product, you get more innovation, more attention, more focus, but also you get it at a more reasonable price everywhere else in society. And so sadly, it was education and healthcare the two here that had been dominated by the government and traditionally, historically, that’s both the areas where the quality’s been poor, sadly, and the cost has been extremely high. Now we’re going to make good investments. We want to make sure that we’re getting a good response in return. And to be able to do that, to put that kind of pressure on particularly some of the traditional government run schools, there has to be an option for parents regardless of income, whether it’s low income, middle class, or otherwise, has to be able to take their dollars, follow their student, and go to where the best education is possible.
Again, I go back to what we were saying about COVID. This is one of the things I remember talking with our team at the American Federation for Children, Tommy Schultz and Corey DeAngelis, and others who’ve just been superstars on this. Not only coining the phrase, the funding should follow the student, not the system, but really pointing out during the last few years of the COVID shutdowns, making the case aside from the language we often use, vouchers, tax credits, things of that nature. Just simply look at parents and say, “Wouldn’t you rather have been in charge of your kids’ education last few years?” It might be a choice between two traditional government run schools, one’s open, and one a couple blocks down the way is not. It might be a private school, it might be a charter school, it might be a homeschool opportunity.
But in each of those instances, wouldn’t it be better for the parents, not only when it comes to education, but now simply things like, should they have a mask mandate, should they be vaccinated? Those are choices that parents want to make. They don’t want to leave them up to bureaucrats. And I think that’s really opened the door to the widespread expansion we see in the educational reform moment.
Ginny Gentles:
Right, absolutely. At the Independent Women’s Forum, we talk about the fact that school choice and education freedom provides options for parents, but it also gives them a voice and leverage for their public school system. We know that the public school systems and the school boards and the superintendents were not listening to parents throughout the COVID era. We want them to have that leverage to say, “Look, if you continue to not listen to me, I can and will leave.” And that benefits the parents who are participating in alternative options, and it benefits the parents who are staying in the public schools. I do want to talk about Act 10 and your relationship with the unions. Before we switch to that subject, I want to talk a little bit more about the role of the governors. Can you give us some insight into how the governors are perceiving this and how much are current governors talking to former governors who have fought these battles for education freedom and learning from the lessons that you can impart?
Scott Walker:
Yeah, I think it’s exciting. I’m still very much involved over the years with the Republican Governor’s Association in particular. And it’s been real exciting to see people like my friend Doug Ducey, to see other friends like Kim Reynolds, to see people like Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who’s doing a fabulous job right out of the gate in Arkansas, to see this competitive spirit out there, both with new governors as well as those like DeSantis or Greg Abbott or others have been around for a little while, all looking at ways that they can increase… Putting more power in the hands of parents and making the best decision for students. So there’s quite a bit of talk and discussion about this.
In the past, many of the discussions were, before a few years ago, were admiring what I and a few other governors did in states like Wisconsin or Florida and elsewhere, but not really willing to take that next step. Now, you see this climate, particularly when I go to Republican Governor Association meetings where they’re almost competing to see who’s going to be next. And I think that’s a really exciting dynamic for students and parents all across the country.
Ginny Gentles:
Right. And that leadership matters, right? This is a request coming from parents, “Hey, we need a voice. We need leverage.” And this is a desperation among legislators to meet the needs of their constituents, but we need the leadership of the governors to look across to other states and get good ideas.
Scott Walker:
Yeah. And it’s particularly important with the chief executive, the governor’s role, because one of the surprising things, I think a lot of people who may not be in the weeds on this issue might not fully appreciate is, it’s one thing, as I mentioned years ago in Wisconsin, other states doing this where they did it in large urban districts. In my case in Wisconsin, everybody knew Milwaukee was a mess. That was a given. What becomes much more challenging is when you both expand geographically to cover the whole state, and when you expand out of just low income, suddenly becomes more of a challenge, particularly in states… Mine was a swing state. I’m a blue state that I made kind of purple, but in some of these other states that are maybe more traditionally Republican leaning states, you’d think, “Well, this should be a slam dunk.” But oftentimes the challenge is from rural Republican lawmakers who their constituents don’t view their schools as being problematic.
In some cases, they might be right, they might be great schools. But what we’ve found is in a lot of these testing and other results, is that it’s not just the big cities that have problems. Oftentimes, there are problems which have been exposed the last few years, even in smaller school districts. And so giving those parents that choice, giving them that option, it’s not attacking public schools. Heck, both my kids went to traditional public schools. We were blessed to have great schools. My kids applied and got into private schools, but they chose particularly high schools in those areas that were the local school district. And that was great. But you’ve got to have governors who are willing to make that case to all the parents, to all the families, and ultimately all the constituents, because otherwise, the unions tend to circle around a handful of rural Republican state lawmakers and try to get them to block it. It takes the governor making the case, using the bully pulpit and going out not only on TV and radio, but particularly on social media to get the job done.
Ginny Gentles:
And those unions don’t just offer talking points to the legislators. They fund their campaigns. So the unions are funding Republican rural legislators in order to oppose school choice. Let’s talk a little bit about your relationship with unions. Your signature legislation Act 10 received quite a lot of attention nationwide back in 2011. Why did you prioritize these Act 10 proposals, which drastically overhauled public union bargaining, and what happened when you took on the unions?
Scott Walker:
Yeah, maybe I’ll go in reverse order. So when I took things on, they were threatened, and so they not only rallied within the state, they eventually brought people in from across the country. So much so that we were the occupied movement in Wisconsin before it even got to Wall Street. It started on my street many years ago, and they were really trying to intimidate us. They spent millions of dollars trying to push back. They ultimately got about a hundred thousand people to occupy our state capital and square, all of which was trying to intimidate me and my administration as well as our Republican state lawmakers who had just flipped from being a minority to being in the majority out there. So what we did overall is simple. We took the power out of the hands of the big government union bosses, the teacher union bosses, and put it firmly into the hands of the hardworking taxpayers, the voters of our state and the people that they duly elect to run their schools, their cities, their towns, their villages, and their state government.
And that’s what got the union upset. Before in Wisconsin, and sadly, like it is in most places around the country, the union bosses get to make most of the rules, it’s part of the problem. It’s why even in a place like New York City, which is heavily dominated by Democrats, one of the few relief mechanisms they have are charter schools where they at least get a little bit of relief from the union boss mentality out there. What we did effectively in Wisconsin was allow every school district and every school there within to become a charter school. The unions weren’t the bosses, were no longer in charge. People in those districts could staff based on merit, they could pay based on performance, they could put the best and the brightest in the classroom, and they could keep them there. And that really goes to the heart of the initial part of your question of why do we do it?
It was two simple reasons. One, we came in and inherited about a $3.6 billion gap in our state budget. And I knew in Wisconsin’s case, at least, it’s a little different state by state, but the only way to reduce that kind of a gap in the budget was to reduce aid from the state to local governments. I just come from being a local official, and I knew if you didn’t give us any tools at the local level, that would be devastating. And so we made that change, and that in turn allowed me to ask for a little bit of a contribution for healthcare and a little bit for pensions, balanced not only our budget, but local government, school districts, and other budgets. But probably in the larger context, like I said, the most important part of that was in doing that, I didn’t want to put a bandaid over things. I wanted fundamental reforms to come out of this.
I’ll give you a one quick story. So a year before I was governor, there were… Because the budget was tight and the economy had tanked, the state government cut aid to local governments, including school districts. One of those was in Milwaukee. And at the time, there was a young woman named Jessica Sampson, who was a brand new English teacher there in the city of Milwaukee. And she was so good that she was named the best new English teacher in the entire state of Wisconsin. She was just fabulous the way she worked with students and parents and fellow teachers, just the kind of teacher you’d want. Well, not long after she received notice of her award for being this outstanding new English teacher of the year, the local public school district in Milwaukee gave her another notice.
This was a pink slip, a layoff notice. How in the world could someone like that get laid off? Well, the old union contract said the last in was the first out, the first fired was the last hired, and we changed all that. So not only did we balance our budget and help local governments do the same, we put in place long-term structure reforms that allow our schools and our other local governments to put resources in the classroom where they belong and not be stuck with what the union bosses wanted to do. And they didn’t like it. They tried to recall me, but we ultimately prevailed with more votes and a higher percentage of the vote in the recall election.
Ginny Gentles:
Well, for governors that are looking for good ideas and being competitive with each other, they certainly should be looking to expansion of education freedom as a solution to the challenges in K-12 education, but also the Act 10 type measures to take on the unions because we can’t have a conversation about putting students over systems without the unions coming up. They are a huge impediment and a problem when it comes to academic and other measures of student success right now. I’d love to hear your thoughts on what needs to happen next in the education freedom movement. We’re not done with state legislative sessions yet. There’s still more to happen in 2023, but big picture, what needs to happen next?
Scott Walker:
Well, per your last question, your last comment, I would tie it all together, and that is, for me, as an advocate for many decades now in this arena for educational freedom and opportunity, it doesn’t just mean sending kids with vouchers or tax credits or whatever else you want to come up with to private schools. It means making sure that every child in every family in every part of the country has access to an excellent education. And part of that means making sure that not only in Wisconsin but across the country, we free local school districts up from the entrapment they had before from the teachers union. We make other changes that allow them to put their attention and focus on making classroom, actual teaching a priority. When we do that, it not only makes opportunities greater when they’re given vouchers or tax credits or others to go to a private or charter school.
It improves the public schools and it gives them the tools to do just that. So I think long term, the best approach is not just to say, “Hey, we’re going to create a voucher, a tax credit program.” But to say, “What are we going to do overall to make sure that every one of our choices in education is outstanding?” One of the best stories I heard after I expanded our state wide program was a mother in Appleton, Wisconsin who came to me and talked about her son, who had been in a traditional government run school, who had been down and out and was really despondent, despised going to school, was depressed about things. When the program expanded statewide, she took advantage of that. He went to a private Catholic school in that same community. He’d come out of his shell. He loved school. He was in the band, he was on the football team. His grades were up. He loved going to school every day, but at the same brush, she told me that her daughter a couple years younger, stayed at that local community public school and excelled there as well.
And that’s really ultimately what we should want, is find the school that’s right. My kids are older now. They’re graduated. They’re in the late twenties, but one of them when he went to college, went to Marquette University, a private Catholic institution. The other son went to the University of Wisconsin, a public institution. Nobody looks at me funny when I say that because that’s normal when it comes to higher education. We should provide the same excellent choices when it comes to K through 12 education. And I think that’s the next wave is to make sure there’s just as wide open, as great an opportunity for great education, no matter what they pick. For each student, it’s going to be different.
Ginny Gentles:
Well, certainly your work at American Federation for Children is making a difference to expand education freedom across the country. It’s an exciting year and will continue to be exciting because other states are going to need to keep up. I live in Virginia where it’s a bit bleak when it comes to school choice. So I’m hoping that Virginia will catch on to this school choice wave, and AFC will step in and encourage Governor Youngkin and state legislators to pay attention to what’s going on around the country. As we conclude, I’d love to know what is your favorite school choice myth? And when I say favorite, I mean the one that bothers you the most and that you would like to dispel today.
Scott Walker:
Well, it goes to the heart of what I was just saying with my own kids, that there’s so many people on the left who think those of us who are pushing for educational opportunity hate public education. I’m a product of the Delavan-Darien School District, a small little town in south central Wisconsin. Both of my kids went from junior kindergarten all the way through 12th grade in the Wauwatosa Public School district. But I believe, as I just mentioned, when it comes to higher education, one went to a public institution, one went to a private one. I believe that we need to provide those choices for every student and every family anywhere in America to make the right choice for their child, to make the right choice for that student.
And that’s the myth is that somehow those of us involved in this movement dislike or hate or want to attack traditional public or government run education. We don’t. We want it to succeed. We know there’s great teachers, we know there’s great principals. We know there’s great superintendents out there, but we know all too often they’re trapped in many cases by the union bosses and obnoxious union contracts. We want to free them of that as well and provide as many excellent choices for families and students as possible.
Ginny Gentles:
Well, Governor Walker, thank you so much for your leadership over many years. As you expand education freedom, you free up teachers to do their job and do their job well, and you empower parents and students to have the education choice that they so deserve.
Scott Walker:
Oh, my pleasure. And thanks for having me on. Thanks for your leadership as well.
Ginny Gentles:
Yeah, we appreciate the opportunity to talk to you today. We hope listeners found today’s conversation informative and encouraging. If you enjoyed this episode of Students Over Systems, please consider leaving a review on your favorite podcast app. And don’t forget to share this episode with your friends. To learn more about the work of the Independent Women’s Forum’s Education Freedom Center, please visit iwf.org/efc. That’s iwf.org/efc. Thank you for listening to Students Over Systems. Until next time, keep celebrating education freedom and brighter futures.
