MADISON, Wis. – The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction has released school report cards for the second year, and overall the results indicate good things about public schools in the state.

Nine school districts “significantly exceeded expectations,” 134 “exceeded expectations” and 269 “met expectations,” according to a story published by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Only 10 districts were ranked under the category of “met few expectations” while only one, Milwaukee Public Schools, was labeled as “failed to meet expectations.”

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Eighty-eight percent of individual schools met or exceeded expectations, an increase of two percentage points from last year.

The results might prompt many observers to conclude that Wisconsin, overall, has pretty good public schools, and that would probably be accurate.

We would argue that the increased emphasis on academic improvement, and the decline of the power of state teachers unions, probably had a lot to do with the increase in the number of schools making the grade.

Recent changes in state law have given school administrators more power to shape their staffs, assign teachers to the most appropriate positions for their skills, and fire teachers who are not effective.

The pending development of a statewide teacher evaluation system, which will be strongly tied to student achievement, has probably made a difference even before its rollout. Teachers see the writing on the wall. Student learning is now the focus, and those who don’t produce will not last long.

One Wisconsin public school superintendent recently told EAGnews that she’s overheard more teachers discussing strategies to increase student learning than ever before.

That’s because the atmosphere has changed. The top issue is no longer how big the raises might be at union contract time. Schools are finally refocusing on their main priority – the education of children.

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While the positive scores for state schools are welcome news, we hope they won’t be used as ammunition in the ongoing debate over the state’s private school voucher program.

Gov. Scott Walker and the legislature recently expanded the voucher program statewide, on a very limited basis. Previously the program was limited to qualifying students from Milwaukee and Racine.

For too long the debate over voucher schools (and charter schools, for that matter) has been largely based on the success or failure of traditional public schools. In areas where public schools are meeting expectation, the argument has been that there is no need for state-funded alternatives.

That point of view completely misses the point.

Even parents in the finest of public school districts should be able to choose the school they feel is most appropriate for their children, whether it’s public, public charter or private. They should also be allowed to use the state money designated for their children at any type of school.

Parents know their children better than anyone, and what type of school environment would be best for their kids. There is no good reason for keeping children trapped in traditional public schools when they or their parents would prefer enrollment elsewhere.

A kid may attend the Mequon-Thiensville district, which was the highest scoring district in the state in the report card process, and still be out of place for one reason or another. Perhaps a private school offers a particular program that fits a particular student’s needs. Maybe some parents feel more comfortable enrolling their kids in a school where religious instruction is included.

There are a million different reasons why parents might choose private or charter schools for their kids, and no good reasons to stop them. School choice equals freedom, and that freedom should not be dependent on the poor performance of neighborhood schools.

The state has never told rich kids that they can’t attend a private school because their local public school does a great job. Why should poor kids be limited in such a way?

Excellent public schools will always keep most of their students and the state money attached to them. But a few will always want to leave and enroll in private schools, and they should always have that right.

Finally, the state report cards reiterated that many public schools in urban areas continue to struggle academically. Union officials say that’s proof that those schools need a lot more money, not competition from private schools.

But the state and federal governments have been throwing big bucks at districts like MPS and  Racine for years, and little has improved. Parents and students should not have to wait around for these districts to get their act together. Students need quality instruction now, and if they can get it at a private school down the road, there’s no reason they should be prevented from doing so.

The main people who want to keep students stuck in local public schools are teachers union officials. They want to prevent the loss of per-pupil state dollars, which might lead to the loss of a few teaching positions. The fewer the public school teaching positions, the less dues money the unions collect.

But the financial health of teachers unions are not the concern of the state. Maximizing the chance that children will receive strong instruction definitely is.

That chance increases when families have win-win options, like choosing between great public and private schools. It’s a simple matter of shaping policy to serve the best interests of students, and only students.