Wisconsin School Choice on the Chopping Block in the Protasiewicz Court

A far-left super PAC called “Minocqua Brewing Company” sent a strongly worded email to supporters earlier this month, urging them to write letters to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, in an attempt to destroy the state’s “parasitic private school voucher program.” The founder of the PAC was recently ordered to pay the largest defamation settlement for a libel case in state history and had previously sought to keep CDC guidelines and COVID-19 lockdown measures in place for local schools.

Why The Left Hates School Choice

Janet Protasiewicz’s election to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in April 2023 gave “progressives” a new 4–3 majority, the first “progressive” takeover of the Wisconsin judiciary in 15 years. Leftists have used their new control of the state’s high court to entertain key lawsuits involving future COVID mandates, ballot drop boxes, election disparities, abortion access, Voter ID, constitutional rights—and their latest goal is to axe Wisconsin’s school choice vouchers.

A leftist PAC has launched a lawsuit claiming school choice harms the state’s student, by taking away from the millions of dollars in public money used to fund government schools. Places that are controlled by the powerful, anti-choice teachers’ unions responsible for shuttering schools in 2020 and pushing Critical Race Theory.

It is almost cult-like the way logic is tossed out the window in favor of “progressive” groupthink when it comes to education. Instructors punish dissenters by lowering their grades or persecuting those who don’t go along with the insanity. School choice, a program that offers tax-sponsored vouchers to create more options for parents, interferes with their goals of radicalization and the indoctrination of students.

That’s why the Left is now gunning for these vouchers, state by state. They see it as a threat to their monopoly over young minds and as a financial blow to their foot soldiers within academia. Their newest target: Wisconsin.

The Group Leading the Charge Against Vouchers

The Underwood v. Vos case was filed on behalf of several individuals who included: the former dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education Julie Underwood, a former member of the Oregon School Board named Charles Uphoff, and a special-education liaison with the Milwaukee public school system, Angela Rappl. The case claims that vouchers would spell the end for public schools and create a “funding death spiral.”

The lawsuit seeks to prevent three state officials from continuing the choice programs. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly and Secretary of the Department of Administration Kathy Blumenfeld were all listed in the filing.

The Minocqua Brewing Company super PAC is funding this legal push in hopes of having school vouchers declared unconstitutional. They even sent out an email to supporters earlier this month, asking for direct involvement in the case:

I have a really important update on “Underwood v. Vos,” the lawsuit funded by our Super PAC that aims to rid Wisconsin of its parasitic private school voucher program that siphons almost $600M of our public tax dollars out of public schools and into unregulated (and mostly religious) private schools.

The PAC wants the state supreme court to fast track the issue and allow it to skip over lower courts. Something that can only happen if it’s proven that a vast number of residents are being harmed statewide.

The PAC’s leader, Kirk Bangstad, is a failed state assembly candidate who last month was ordered to pay $750,000 in the state’s largest libel judgement in history for defaming Lakeland Times publisher Gregg Walker on social media. Ironically, Bangstad claimed to be the voice of virtue in his email, suggesting that a conservative state supreme court would be “corrupted” and “fall back into the pockets of [former Education Secretary] Betsy Devos’ school choice lobby,” if the balance of power were to flip back to conservatives in 2025.

The brewery owner, who had the permit to operate his business revoked back in August, was also involved in a legal fight back in 2021 with the Waukesha School District after it lifted a mask mandate and other COVID-19 regulations. His PAC funded a lawsuit arguing for class action status, while seeking to require the district to comply with COVID-19 decrees laid out by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

In the voucher email, Bangstad asked the “approximately [160,000] of you who either get this email or read this post on social media to help convince the Supreme Court to take this case,” then requested they write petitions to the Justices. He even provided a “sample letter,” for each recipient, as if it was a matter of simply copying and pasting.

The Wisconsin Public Education Network has also been a major organization that has been vocally opposed to vouchers. Specifically, the state’s recent bipartisan education package signed into law by Democrat Gov. Tony Evers, due to its increase in funding for choice and charter schools.  

Ties to Wisconsin Supreme Court’s Newest Justice

Bangstad’s language about the state supreme court’s newest justice implied potential coordination and collusion, as if Protasiewicz was meant to serve as a rubber stamp for the PAC’s agenda. 

“Another reason why we need the Supreme Court to take this case up NOW, is that there’s a real possibility that the uncorrupted Supreme Court majority that we worked so hard achieve by electing Janet Protasiewicz last April won’t be around in 2025 after the next Supreme Court election takes place,” he wrote.

The PAC’s website showed hardcore support for Protasiewicz and claimed the group had raised money to install billboards in “the largest progressive population centers in Wisconsin,” during the election. It added that the end goal would be to install her on the bench to “end Republican gerrymandering and reverse Wisconsin’s 173-year-old abortion ban.”

Why School Choice Must be Protected

School choice provides flexibility to parents when it comes to their children’s education. Instead of sending your kids to a nearby public school—likely filled with indoctrination and union driven bias—parents are provided taxpayer funds to be spent on private, charter, or religious schools of their choosing.

Radicals use teacher unions to preach a hyper-sexualized curriculum, hatred of America, racial division, anti-religious sentiment, and a contempt for our Founding Fathers.

Examples are everywhere, even in red states with fully functioning voucher programs. This reporter witnessed it firsthand—not only in Catholic grammar school but in public high school. Teachers cared more about indoctrinating students and ranting about their personal points of view, than with preparing young people for the real world.

Axing school choice would go against the will of the people in Wisconsin as a growing number of residents have taken advantage of the program in recent years.

Over the last decade or so, enrollment has grown from around 25,000 in 2012 to nearly 55,000 in 2023. Eligibility for these vouchers is also limited to low-income and working families. According to the nonprofit, School Choice Wisconsin, students taking advantage of vouchers are three times more likely to be from a Hispanic or Black home, than students in the public system.

Numbers also reflect that 10 percent of school choice students have some type of disability, meaning options for parents who need accommodations for their child’s ailment would be severely diminished, if not entirely eradicated. Private school choice students from low-income and working-class background were found to, on average, outscore their public school counterparts from all income levels as well.

What Can Be Done?

Republican backed legal efforts to defend against these tactics must be increased, but specifically in swing states like Wisconsin that have split judiciaries and scores of left-wing activists filing lawsuits almost weekly.

Donors must put money and support into the upcoming 2025 Supreme Court race that will feature 73-year-old liberal Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, who is seeking a 10-year term for the fourth time. Opponents must point out her age, the bias of the court’s current majority, and highlight every controversial decision it renders when running ads for the conservative candidate.

The public must continue to tell success stories about school choice and champion those judges who reject efforts like the one in Wisconsin. Recently, a judge in New Hampshire dismissed a teachers’ union lawsuit aiming to stop public money from going to private schools.

Other states should take note that the New Hampshire case was dismissed, in large part, due to the legislature amending the state Constitution. Specifically, the “education trust fund statute.”

Finally, the real power in education lies with the parents on a local level. It may not seem so due to recent backlash from the federal government, but it’s the truth. Mirroring the actions of groups around the country that formed “parent unions,” seeking to flip school board seats, preserve school choice, and restore sanity in the public system is the main key to success.

Our children are the future. Their education is paramount. If they are taught to hate America and encouraged to live a Godless lifestyle, then the American experiment will fail. The populace will go from an educated force for good–rooted in humility and faith–to a band of “useful idiots” ready to hand over their freedom on a silver platter and be manipulated by a nefarious aristocracy.