UNUSUAL ALLIES - ELITE AND GRASS-ROOTS ORIGINS OF PARENTAL CHOICE IN MILWAUKEE

This article outlines the development of the 1990 Milwaukee Parental C hoice Program, for several years the only publicly funded K-12 voucher program in the United States. The program comprised an alliance of ne oliberal reformers who sought to extend competitive markets to; public education and Milwaukee-based supporters of a handful of inner-city ' 'independent community schools'' enrolling black and Latino students. Five factors generated this conditional alliance: dissatisfaction amon g many black Milwaukeeans with the Milwaukee Public Schools; the effor ts of multicultural supporters of community schools who had sought pub lic funding for two decades; the growth of black political power in Mi lwaukee during an era of rightward-tilting state policies, as personif ied by state representative Polly Williams; the actions of Governor To mmy Thompson to craft neoliberal and neoconservative social policy; an d the rise of Milwaukee's Bradley Foundation as the nation's premier c onservative grantmaker. This article suggests that, even given the ser endipitous alignment of forces necessary for Milwaukee parental choice , the establishment of voucher programs in other large cities remains a distinct possibility.