Dr. Michael Lindsay is a UW-Eau Claire emeritus professor of teacher education. He was an educator in Milwaukee before earning his Ph.D. at Stanford and then returning to his home state of Wisconsin. In his retirement, he has taken a particular interest in informing people about Wisconsin’s so-called “parental choice programs” in which property tax-derived funds are diverted from public school districts to participating private schools through vouchers. One of the issues that especially concerns Dr. Lindsay is the legislative failure to inform taxpayers about the dollar amounts that are reduced from their public schools and diverted to private schools.
Dr. Lindsay has long volunteered for the Wisconsin Public Education Network by providing up-to-date data about the impact of vouchers on local school districts. He also shines a light on vouchers using letters to the editor in a variety of newspapers across Wisconsin. He researched and created some materials on the topic for our 2022 Summer Summit in Eau Claire:
- Eau Claire Example: A spreadsheet showing the cost of voucher programs to local public schools in the Eau Claire vicinity. Page 2 includes a pathway for finding data in your own region.
- Letters to the Editor: Three (300-, 250-, and 200-word) LTEs about the voucher program and its effect on local public schools.
- Voucher Data Toolkit: A 2020 toolkit created in consultation with Dr. Lindsay about the impacts of vouchers statewide!