Monday, March 14, 2022

The Return of Patrick McIlheran (!?)

It's been several years since we've seen McIlheran's byline in local publications, but he showed up to trash the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction for its egregious lie about 'cost of Choice.'  Here's a taste*:

The warden of Wisconsin’s public-school status quo, the Department of Public Instruction, was wrong when it recently made an absurd estimate about the cost of opening up school choice to all families without regard to income.

More than that, DPI betrayed an arrogance — a presumption that thousands of parents can go right on working a second job, and maybe a third, for being uppity.

To be clear, the DPI was factually wrong....

... the central error was the DPI’s assumption that every tuition-paying family would right away switch to using the choice program.

Can’t happen. The choice grant, which must be accepted as full payment, is often well below schools’ actual cost, so a school’s ability to take more choice students is limited by its ability to tap outside donors. They need some “private-pay” students to lessen the fundraising load....

There's more!  Read it at the link.

McIlheran was always a kind soul.  Here, he ascribes "error" to the DPI report.

Others--more in tune with what Madison does--would call it "LYING."

* McIlheran aficionados will recognize that construction.  PaddyMac ran off to D.C. to work for Ron Johnson. 

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