MILWAUKEE – For years reformers have been accusing inner-city education officials of trying to keep poor kids trapped in failing schools by opposing school choice programs.

Why would they do such a thing? The schools receive money from states for every student they enroll. If students were free to leave, the money would dry up, and a lot of teachers and other school employees would lose their jobs.

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Of course public school officials have always denied the accusation that they care more about money and the preservation of their jobs they than they do about students.

But now there is absolute proof, at least in one major city, that public school officials are willing to prevent children from moving on to better educational opportunities.

Milwaukee Public Schools, an academic and financial failure by anyone’s measure, has experienced sharply declining enrollment in recent years, and as a result has found itself with several dozen empty school buildings.

But MPS and its allies in the city government have steadfastly refused to allow private schools or public charter schools to purchase or lease those buildings.

That outrageous position, which has limited the ability of private and charter schools to expand and serve more students, finally forced the state legislature and Gov. Scott Walker to act.

They recently approved legislation that will force MPS to sell unused or underutilized buildings exclusively to private or charter schools for the next two years.

The entire situation is explained in a recently released report from the Wisconsin Institute of Law and Liberty, titled “Why the State of Wisconsin Forced Coca-Cola to Sell to Pepsi.”

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“Forcing the city and MPS to sell unused buildings is not a silver bullet, but it is a step in the right direction,” the WILL report said.

“The most successful private schools in the choice program and charter schools – the ones for which there is great demand – will now have greater access to taxpayer-funded facilities to expand their programs and give children more access to high quality schools.”

Coke and Pepsi

For decades, lower-income Milwaukee families had no choice but to send their children to MPS schools, regardless of their academic record.

And that record is clearly not good.

In 2013, only 20 percent of MPS students displayed proficiency in math in state tests, while only 14 percent were proficient in reading. Those scores were far below the state average (48 percent math, 36 percent reading).

In recent years the district’s graduation rate has hovered around 60 percent, and 70 percent of the students in the district are habitually truant, according to the WILL report.

Milwaukee families finally started getting some educational options in 1990, when the state established the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, a unique school voucher initiative that allows underprivileged students to use their share of state education money to pay tuition at designated private schools.

The program has been increasing in popularity over the years, with nearly 30,000 students participating in 2014-15. As more kids have opted for the choice program or charter schools, enrollment has MPS has continued to dwindle.

Since 2009, MPS enrollment has dropped by 11 percent while voucher program enrollment has increased by 33 percent and charter school enrollment has jumped 175 percent, according to the WILL report.

Those exodus of students has left MPS with approximately two dozen empty school buildings and many more underutilized school buildings. It has also left many growing charter and private schools desperately seeking more classroom space.

MPS has clearly intended to sell the unused buildings, to gain much-needed revenue and relieve itself of the huge maintenance costs. But not to just anyone.

In January 2011, MPS labeled every empty building as “surplus” and therefore for sale, according to the report. Six months later, when interest among private and charter schools became obvious, “MPS took all of its vacant buildings off of the market,” the report said.

From that point forward, MPS has been actively trying to keep its students trapped in the district, despite its denials.

The president of the MPS school board, Michael Bonds, admitted as much a few years ago, when he said selling a particular vacant school building to a private school in the choice program would be like “asking the Coca-Cola Company to turn over its facilities to Pepsi so Pepsi can expand and compete with the Coca-Cola Company.”

In other words, MPS doesn’t want competition for students, even if school choice would benefit those students.

No shortage of evidence

Public school defenders are quick to note that many of the private schools in the Milwaukee choice program also struggle academically. Overall their student test scores are no better than MPS.

But some of the schools in the program are clearly outstanding. Those are the schools that are attracting the most students and need more classroom space. And those are the schools that are being blocked from purchasing unused school buildings by MPS.

The evidence is overwhelming, according to the WILL report.

The most publicized example is St. Marcus Lutheran School, which serves a student body that is 90 percent black and 89 percent low-income. Ninety-three percent of St. Marcus students graduate from high school in four years, a percentage far greater than MPS, which serves a very similar demographic.

In December 2012, St. Marcus officials sent a letter expressing interest in purchasing the vacant Malcolm X Academy school building. A city official responded that “city policy does not contemplate the sale of city controlled real estate for use by private schools affiliated with the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program,” according to the report.

Two years later St. Marcus officials offered $1 million for the building, but instead MPS entered into an agreement with a new corporation called 2760 Holdings LLC to convert the Malcolm X building into a community center. Under the agreement, MPS would have been allowed to lease a portion of the building with an option to buy.

But somehow the deal fell through, and instead of making $1 million from the sale of the building to St. Marcus, the city had to pay “over $500,000 ti 2760 Holdings LLC as a condition of ending the agreement,” the WILL report said.

The Malcolm X building, which has been vacant since 2007, remains so today. Taxpayers have forked out more than $200,000 on maintenance for the unused structure since 2012, according to the WILL report.

In 2014, St. Marcus officials tried to purchase the vacant Lee school building from MPS for its appraised value of $1.4 million, according to the report., but negotiations ended when Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett demanded that St. Marcus pay an extra $1.3 million as a “school choice tax,” the report said.

There are many similar examples.

The 88th Street School has been closed since 2004 and taxpayers have spent nearly $70,000 on maintenance for the building since 2012, according to the report. Woodlands School, a successful charter school that has existed in Milwaukee in some form since 1936, tried to purchase the building, but was rejected by the city without explanation.

Hayes Bilingual School has been closed since 2012 and more than $168,000 has been spent on maintenance since 2012. In 2013 Notre Dame Middle School – which boasts a 99 percent high school graduation rate and 88 percent college attendance rate for its former students – expressed an interest in purchasing or leasing the building, but was told it had been designated for “repurposing” and was not available.

Fletcher School was closed in 2010 and has cost taxpayers more than $100,000 in maintenance costs since 2012. In 2014 Risen Savior, a choice program school that performs better than the average MPS school, was denied permission to lease the building.

Wheatley School was closed in 2011, and taxpayers have spent nearly $125,000 on maintenance since 2012. In 2012 National Heritage Academies, which already operates one school in Milwaukee that’s highly ranked for its reading scores, submitted a letter of interest in purchasing the building, but MPS refused to sell.

Carleton Elementary closed in 2009 and has cost taxpayers almost $140,000 for maintenance since 2012. Lighthouse Academies tried to lease the building in 2010, and Milwaukee Christian Prep expressed interest in purchasing the structure in 2012, but neither offer was accepted.

Wisconsin Avenue School closed in 2007 and taxpayers have spent nearly $120,000 on maintenance since 2012. In 2011 Highland Community School, which has operated in Milwaukee for more than 40 years, tried to lease the building, to no avail.

Obviously MPS officials would rather see school buildings sit empty than have children filling the classrooms and learning from teachers from private or charter schools.

“This is pretty blatant,” C.J. Szafir, associate counsel and education policy director for WILL, told EAGnews. “They have the mindset that they should not help private schools in the choice program because they are the competitors.

“The great irony is that, if you talk to officials from the best private and charter schools, they acknowledge that they compete amongst each other for students, but they also point out that everyone helps each other and works with each other for the benefit of the students.

“MPS is the only one holding on to this grudge.”

Szafir said MPS complied with the first part of the new law, which required the district to provide a complete list of facilities, how many students are served by each, and the current use of each, by Aug. 15.

It remains to be seen how many private or public charter schools will step forward in the coming months and once again attempt to purchase or lease the buildings, and how much cooperation they will receive from MPS, he said.

“We’ll see if MPS is ready to play ball or not,” Szafir said. “We’ll be watching to make sure they follow the law.

“We hope a lot of schools will take advantage of this. We’ll see. MPS and the city did such a great job in the past of creating a hostile environment, it could deter some of them.”