Up North News utilized the expertise of UW–Madison’s Michael Apple for a recent article that is titled, “Wisconsin GOP’s War on Public Schools Enters Primetime with Tuesday’s School Board Elections.”
Apple is a professor emeritus in the School of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction and Department of Educational Policy Studies.
The article highlights how school board elections, “once sleepy, nonpartisan affairs,” have become somewhat of a referendum on the role of public schools. From debates over teaching about racism to the rights of LGBTQ students, school boards, teachers, and administrators statewide — and across the country — have faced increased scrutiny due to a well-funded alliance of mostly right-wing politicians, donors, activists, and parents.
Proponents of these efforts argue they are merely fighting for “parents’ rights” and seek to prevent the indoctrination of children. However, the article explains, public education advocates believe the effort “represents just the latest step in a long-term conservative project to weaken public education” and divert essential funding to private schools.
“This is part of an agenda that is anti-public and as we see that there’s less money going to public schools and more money going to private schools, we’ll have a growth in private schooling, and again an increasing crisis in public schools,” said Apple.
The article also discusses recent bills proposed by Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature that would increase taxpayer-funded subsidies for private school tuition and expand charter schools. While these “school choice” measures are rhetorically appealing to many members of the public, Apple said, using public dollars to fund private schools eliminates the vision of public education as an institution that responds “to the needs in daily life of the vast majority of people here, not just the businesses.”
Apple said he believes these bills collectively represent an effort from conservative Republicans “to erode education as a public service, drain the public budget for the benefit of affluent private schools, and ultimately, to leave the very concept of education of children to the private market.”
“What we’re seeing is this vision of just turning to the market and forcing schools to compete with each other, forcing teachers to compete with each other, and do away with strong unions — and that’s been a horrible success for the right here,” he said.
The article notes that proponents of publicly funded charter schools often point to their growing support in Black and brown communities. But Apple explains that chronic underfunding of public schools has left families with little choice.
“We have among the highest rates of differential achievement in the entire nation between Black and white kids,” Apple said. “So for some members and movements within the African-American communities…they would say, ‘Look, it’s a risk, but we had no other choice. We’ve tried having great faith within public schools and unfortunately, the public schools in Wisconsin still have extraordinarily high rates of differential achievement.’ ”
“If this was simply part of saying that anyone who has a kid in schools or anyone who’s part of a community that has kids in schools have the right to go in and have a voice — who could argue with that?,” Apple added. “But we have to look at what’s the other stuff that they’re doing at exactly the same moment — cutting health care, cutting funding for public schools, cutting money for unhoused people… All of that is going on simultaneously.”
Apple says it’s important to ask why the conservative attacks have caught on and proven so politically potent. He believes that Wisconsin Republicans — and their peers in other states — have effectively exploited economic fears and real concerns parents have about their children’s futures for the benefit of the larger conservative political project.
According to Apple, Republicans have taken advantage of these fears to convince parents that the only curriculum that matters is one that “has an economic future” and prepares children to get jobs. Rather than address the costs of rising rents, foreclosures, and the general precarity of American life, Apple argues that “Republicans have exploited those issues and turned parents — many of whom are not racist or at least don’t think about these things — against schools and teachers who are teaching about racism and slavery and asking difficult questions about America’s history.”
“If you can turn the tables and say the real issue is not that people are losing their jobs because profits are more important and shareholders deserve more money than workers, but the real problem now is that look at what these schools are teaching… That responds to many of the fears,” Apple said. “It’s a brilliant strategy and it is often quite racist in and of itself.”
For additional insights on this important issue from Apple and other experts, check out the full article on the Up North News website.
Up North News also interviewed Apple to further understand the current debates over public education and where things stand following the April 5 election. Read the Q&A with Apple.