Gov. Tony Evers spent Saturday congratulating himself for keeping Wisconsin out of the country’s first federal scholarship tax credit. Meanwhile, parents and students stuck in Milwaukee Public Schools faced another year in a district where about three in four elementary and middle school students cannot read or do math at grade level.
Evers posted on X after the Treasury Department released the rules: “Told ya. And this is why I said ‘no’ to this boondoggle months ago. Public funds should go to public schools. Simple as that.” He linked a Washington Post story on the guidance and treated the fine print as vindication. He is either ignorant about the program or willfully misunderstanding it. A dollar-for-dollar credit for a private donation is not money pulled from a school district budget. Evers has been in education long enough to know the difference. The “public funds” line is a talking point straight from the teachers’ union, not a description of the law. A tax credit for a donation is not the same thing as raiding a district budget. Pell Grants already send public support to students outside the neighborhood school, and Evers has not called those a boondoggle.
Evers vetoed Assembly Bill 602 in March, which would have required Wisconsin to opt in for 2027. More than 30 states have already said yes. Wisconsin children are still out.
Under the Education Freedom Tax Credit, created in last year’s reconciliation law, taxpayers can claim a federal credit of up to $1,700, or $3,400 for a married couple, for cash gifts to nonprofit scholarship-granting organizations. These groups award money for K-12 expenses. Treasury and the IRS published the proposed rules on October 1 and set the credit to start January 1, 2027. Governors decide whether organizations in their state can participate. Treasury estimates the national pot at as much as $26 billion a year in private giving. The Washington Post noted the scholarships can also cover out-of-pocket costs for students who stay in public schools, which is the part Evers keeps skipping.
The Badger Institute summed up the Wisconsin consequence in one line. Evers’ refusal does not stop a Wisconsin taxpayer from claiming the credit. It stops that taxpayer from helping a Wisconsin child. Donations from here can fund scholarships in any other participating state. The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty said the governor is leaving hundreds of millions a year on the table at no cost to the state budget, for public and private students alike. WILL research director Will Flanders answered Evers directly: there is no public-school funding in the proposal, and opting out means forgoing money that could reach public schools without a state tax increase.
That is the record Evers is defending. Forward Exam results released October 1 showed Milwaukee Public Schools at 25.1 percent proficient in English language arts for grades 3 through 8, up 1.5 points from 23.6 percent. Math sat at about 20 percent. Roughly three-quarters of those students scored below grade level. High school English went the wrong way, from 21.4 percent to 20.2 percent. Statewide, fewer than half of students in grades 3 through 11 were proficient in reading or math. WILL called Milwaukee’s 20 percent range a decades-long failure, not a pandemic dip. Its apples-to-apples analysis found Milwaukee choice schools still ahead of traditional public schools after demographics, by 5.8 points in English and nearly 8 points in math, on less money per pupil.
Evers built his brand as the education governor. The new rules gave him a free option: let donors pay for scholarships, including help for kids who never leave a public school, and give families in the state’s worst-performing district another option. He called it simple. For the 75 percent of Milwaukee students still below grade level, the simple part is that their governor refuses to understand the program’s basics and chooses to hurt Wisconsin’s students.
