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There’s no doubt that education is a flashpoint in Wisconsin’s gubernatorial race. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, a former public school teacher who served as the state superintendent of public instruction, has long criticized Republican lawmakers for not bumping up funding for public schools and used his executive power to send millions of federal dollars their way in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. His opponent, Republican Tim Michels — who favors school choice — has taken him to task for it, arguing Evers is throwing money at low test scores and other problems without seeing improvement. Evers’ camp has fired back. In an Oct. 6, 2022 email blast, the campaign wrote, Tim Michels wants to defund public education — calling it ‘the definition of insanity’ to continue to fund public schools. Is Evers right? Not exactly. Quote exaggerates, but Michels’ plans could mean cuts to public ed We’ll start with that quote. Did Michels say continuing to fund public schools was the definition of insanity? It’s a twist of what was really said. Here’s what Michels said during a July 24, 2022 debate leading up to the August primary election, hosted by WTMJ-TV: The problem ... is we’re already throwing so much money at education. That’s been the fix, if you will, for the last 10, or 20, or 30 years, more money on education, more money on education. And it’s not working — the definition of insanity. The key word there is more. Michels was calling it the definition of insanity to increase funding to public schools without better results — but the Evers campaign email makes it sound like he was saying it’s insane to continue funding them at all. So the quote is a stretch of Michels’ position. It would be as if saying someone who wanted to hold the line on spending for law enforcement was trying to defund the police. Indeed, critics have turned the phrase defund the police into a one-size-fits-all cudgel that ignores a variety of approaches. And using defund here invites leaders to make the same leap. That said, looking more broadly, Michels’ education proposals could result in funding cuts to public education. Michels wrote in an education policy blueprint that he supports universal school choice — that is, allowing all Wisconsin students to receive vouchers to attend a private or religious school if they choose. Wisconsin already has a handful of such voucher programs — including for Milwaukee, Racine, the rest of the state and students with disabilities — but there are income and other eligibility limits. Currently, when students enroll in private schools using a private school voucher, the district they live in loses state aid , which instead pays for the vouchers. Under that model — if Michels expands vouchers and does not otherwise increase funding to public schools as he has suggested he wouldn’t do — funding to public schools would be reduced. (To be sure, those districts would also have fewer students, and not face the cost of educating those who wound up in private schools.) Finally, we’ll also note that Michels could choose to fund voucher expansion differently, but he hasn’t said how he’ll pursue it. Our ruling Evers claimed that Tim Michels wants to defund public education — calling it ‘the definition of insanity’ to continue to fund public schools. The latter part of that statement misconstrues Michels’ quote, which criticized increased funding to public schools without getting better results, but did not imply he’d choke off funding altogether. Michels has not said he wants to completely defund public schools, and in using the loaded phrase Evers is aiming for a visceral response akin to the idea of defunding the police. But as a proponent of expanding school choice, Michels could oversee cuts to public schools as a result of a major expansion of the private-school voucher program, especially if the funding system stays the way it is now. Our definition of Mostly False is a statement that contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. That fits here.
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