No evidence that eliminating school choice is on Susan Crawford’s agenda

With less than a month until Election Day, the race that will determine the ideological control of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court is full speed ahead. 

Liberal Dane County Judge Susan Crawford and conservative Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel, who also served as state attorney general under former Gov. Scott Walker, are blasting each other on issues that are sure to ignite their bases, even though the contest is technically non-partisan. Crawford’s allies have dogged Schimel on abortion, while Schimel’s have sought to paint Crawford as soft on crime. 

As of late, the accusations have also included the topic of school choice. 

In a Feb. 6, 2025 post on X, "Eliminate School Choice" was one item on a bulleted list of what the Schimel campaign described as Crawford’s "radical and dangerous" agenda.

This wasn’t the only time it’s come up. Schimel’s campaign Facebook page posted Jan. 26, "If Susan Crawford wins, school choice doesn’t stand a chance." 

Proponents of school choice generally support making public funds available for students to attend private schools. Wisconsin has four school voucher programs — in Milwaukee, in Racine, a statewide program and a program for students with disabilities — which use tax-funded vouchers to cover the cost of tuition for students at private schools. The students are typically from lower- and middle-income families. 

The number of Wisconsin students who are enrolled in voucher programs has been on the rise for years. Close to 55,000 were enrolled during the 2023-’24 school year, according to the state Department of Public Instruction. 

Public opinion polling on school choice is limited, but in a June 2024 Marquette University Law School poll, 42% of respondents nationwide said school choice as an education policy has been a complete success or mostly a success, while 25% said it was a complete failure or mostly a failure. 

Although school choice has historically been a thorny issue in Wisconsin, it hasn’t been a key point in this race, and there’s also not a case about it before the Supreme Court right now. That made us at PolitiFact Wisconsin wonder where the Schimel claim was coming from. 

Is eliminating school choice on Crawford’s agenda if she’s elected to the state’s highest court? Let’s take a look at the facts. 

Schimel’s campaign pointed us to three pieces of evidence for the claim: 

First, that Crawford is endorsed by the Wisconsin Education Association Council, which represents the state’s public school teachers — and subsequently that WEAC supported a 2023 lawsuit funded by the liberal Minocqua Brewing Super PAC seeking to eliminate funding for Wisconsin’s taxpayer-funded school voucher programs and independent charter schools. 

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Second, that she won a lawsuit in 2016 that protected the powers of the state superintendent of public instruction (which at the time was Tony Evers, who, of course, is now governor) and blocked then-Gov. Walker and the Legislature from having more of a say in education policy. Crawford was working as an attorney for Madison-based law firm Pines Bach at the time. 

And third, that Crawford has called current Supreme Court Justice Jill Karofsky a mentor, and Karofsky dissented on a 2020 court ruling that found Dane County health officials could not prohibit private schools from holding in-person classes during the pandemic. 

The third point is a stretch no matter how you slice it. It doesn’t include any actions or words from Crawford on schools. So we’ll set that aside. 

The other two are certainly indicators that Crawford is a supporter of public schools. 

It’d be hard to earn the WEAC endorsement without being one. (A WEAC spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment about whether the decision to endorse Crawford involved her personal views on school choice.)

And in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story covering her successful 2016 lawsuit, Crawford is quoted as saying, "This is an important victory for public education … this (Walker) administration has clearly had a goal of privatizing education to a large degree and that’s certainly run counter to the superintendent’s (Evers) mission." 

She also was among the attorneys who sued seeking to overturn the Walker-led Act 10, which effectively ended collective bargaining for Wisconsin public employee unions, including those of public school teachers. 

But litigating on behalf of public schools is not proof that Crawford plans to attack Wisconsin’s school choice program from the bench, nor that she has specified it as part of an agenda. The evidence Schimel’s team provided does not include any personal opinions Crawford has expressed or rulings she has made from the bench specifically about school choice. 

Searches of Crawford’s past public statements and work in private practice and as a circuit court judge did not unearth anything specifically related to school choice. 

Crawford spokesperson Derrick Honeyman confirmed as much in a statement to PolitiFact Wisconsin: "In her career, Judge Crawford has never taken any position on this issue or suggested the elimination of school choice programs." 

For what it’s worth, it’s not clear that Crawford would get the chance to weigh in on school choice if elected. In December 2023, the Supreme Court — already liberal-controlled at the time — unanimously declined to hear the Minocqua Brewing Super PAC lawsuit that sought to eliminate funding for voucher programs and charter schools. The suit could still be introduced in a lower court, but it hasn’t been. 

Schimel’s campaign said "eliminate school choice" is on Crawford’s agenda. 

At PolitiFact, the burden is on the speaker to prove that a claim is accurate. The evidence offered here does not do so, and outside evidence to support the claim was not found. 

We rate this claim False.