Opening Up the Public-School Gulag

IF PRESIDENT BUSH wanted a hint of just how powerful an issue he has in school choice, he did not have to look any farther than his audience at the White House ceremony where he unveiled his G.I. Bill for Children. He was joined by black parents who have pioneered school choice in Milwaukee’s inner city; Governor Tommy Thompson, who has once again made Wisconsin a “laboratory of democracy”; and Brother Bob Smith.

Brother Bob, who is black, is the principal of Milwaukee’s Messmer High School, an independent Catholic school with a predominantly poor, black, and non-Catholic student body. The 35-year-old Capuchin has become a powerful symbol of the political and educational promise of choice, but also of the lengths to which opponents will go to stop low-income parents from escaping the public-school gulag.

About the Author

Charles J. Sykes

Mr. Sykes was a longtime conservative talk-radio host in Wisconsin and is the author, most recently, of How the Right Lost Its Mind.

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IF PRESIDENT BUSH wanted a hint of just how powerful an issue he has in school choice, he did not have to look any farther than his audience at the White House ceremony where he unveiled his G.I. Bill for Children. He was joined by black parents who have pioneered school choice in Milwaukee’s inner city; Governor Tommy Thompson, who has once again made Wisconsin a “laboratory of democracy”; and Brother Bob Smith.

Brother Bob, who is black, is the principal of Milwaukee’s Messmer High School, an independent Catholic school with a predominantly poor, black, and non-Catholic student body. The 35-year-old Capuchin has become a powerful symbol of the political and educational promise of choice, but also of the lengths to which opponents will go to stop low-income parents from escaping the public-school gulag.