That's a rhetorical question in the headline, of course. We all know why Francesca Hong and her socialist comrades oppose school choice. But let's take apart that argument for a moment.
Hong is very careful about framing her plans for Wisconsin as "public safety." That's a blanket term, much like "climate change" to justify massive taxation and spending on social programs. Hong believes, wrongly, that wasting billions on housing, childcare, and public education ends crime.
As proof of this, Hong cites the "data" as showing welfare makes people stop raping, robbing, and murdering their neighbors. It doesn't, with limited exceptions. One of those exceptions is school choice, which Hong opposes. She said ending Milwaukee's voucher program is a matter of equity. What it would do is force tens of thousands of children, most of them black, back into the failing Milwaukee Public School (MPS) system, which may not even have the room or staffing to accommodate such an influx.
But we digress. Data actually shows that school choice helps lower crime, yet Hong opposes it.
Francesca Hong keeps saying she wants to fund the "causes" and she doesn't want to abolish the police.
— Megan Novak (@meganjnovak) August 3, 2026
But at the same time, she advocates for eliminating one the state programs with the strongest data for lowering crime rates: school choice.
So, which is it?…
The School Choice Demonstration Project at the University of Arkansas tracked more than 2,000 Milwaukee Parental Choice Program students into their mid-to-late twenties and matched them against public school peers with similar backgrounds. The results: students who stayed in the choice program through 12th grade were 13 percent less likely to be accused of any crime as young adults. They committed 60 percent fewer property damage crimes, 41 percent fewer drug offenses, and had 31 percent fewer paternity suits. Felony rates dropped. Theft convictions dropped.
Francesca Hong wants to end the School Choice Program even though the evidence proves School Choice LOWERS crime. What Hong refuses to talk about is that kids who stay in the SC program:
- Are 13% less likely to be accused of any crime
- Committed 60% fewer property damage crimes
- Committed 41% fewer drug offenses
That’s not a talking point from a think tank press release. That’s a peer-reviewed, university-conducted longitudinal study that follows real kids into adulthood. It is one of the more rigorous pieces of evidence in the entire school choice literature, precisely because it measures the thing everyone claims to care about: what happens to kids after graduation, not just their test scores.
Hong claims she wants to invest in what “the evidence shows prevents crime.” If that’s true, she should look at the evidence on the program she’s trying to eliminate. School choice isn’t competing with her public safety agenda. It’s part of it.
You can't indoctrinate kids who aren't in public schools. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), of which Hong is a member, are doing that in New York City public schools and they'll do it in Wisconsin, too.
For Hong, the answer is always, always, always the DSA politics of the situation. For school choice, the teachers unions want it axed along with act 10, so that’s what they’ll get in return for a Hong vote. This swamps data that suggests school choice reduces crime.
— Brandon Hasz (@Brandon_Hasz01) August 3, 2026
They have no interest in reducing crime.
Students in MPS, specifically black students, test at the bottom nationally on reading and math. Literacy rates are roughly nine percent in fourth grade and 15 percent in eighth grade. Math isn't much better.