Townhall.com: Bill Steigerwald: John Norquist and the Lessons of School Choice

Townhall.com: Bill Steigerwald: John Norquist and the Lessons of School Choice

Why a Democratic former mayor of Milwaukee and head of the Congress on the New Urbanism supports vouchers and school choice: "I was for vouchers before we established them in Milwaukee. The reason it appeals to me is that it's good for the city, the parents and the kids to have more choices available. Under the old system, before the vouchers, people would shop for school districts. If they had resources, they would tend to move to the school district that was most likely to have the best situation for their kid, which unfortunately often meant moving away from people that were low income.

"When I was mayor of Milwaukee, I wanted people to live in the city -- to want to be in the city -- so the city would be prosperous. I didn't want people to feel sorry for Milwaukee or to look at it as some sort of pathological social problem. I wanted them to look at it as a place where they could get what they wanted in life. So changing the schools was really important and just trying harder under the monopoly system didn't work."