The results are more complicated than they are sometimes portrayed.
By John F. Witte and Patrick J. Wolf
Last Updated: May 29, 2011
The past few weeks have seen a lively debate surrounding the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program and Gov. Scott Walker's various proposals to expand it. It is time for researchers to weigh in.
For the past five years, as mandated by state law, we have led a national team in a comprehensive evaluation of the choice program. Our study has applied social science research methods to carefully matched sets of students in the choice program and in Milwaukee Public Schools. Whenever possible, we have used measures that are applied consistently in the public- and private-school sectors, generating true apples-to-apples comparisons.
This is what we have learned:
Competitive pressure from the voucher program has produced modest achievement gains in MPS.
The three-year achievement gains of choice students have been comparable to those of our matched sample of MPS students. The choice students are not showing achievement benefits beyond those of the students left behind in MPS.
High school students in the choice program both graduate and enroll in four-year colleges at a higher rate than do similar students in MPS. Being in the choice program in ninth grade increases by four to seven percentage points a student's prospects of both graduating from high school and enrolling in college. Students who remain in the choice program for their entire four years of high school graduate at a rate of 94%, compared with 75% for similar MPS students.
However, the choice students who stick with the program throughout high school are a somewhat selective group. As veteran researchers, we put greater stock in the finding that students who start high school in the voucher program graduate at somewhat higher rates, whether they remain in a choice school or later switch to MPS.
Our research has confirmed the previous findings of the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau that the operation of the choice program saves the state money. The maximum value of the voucher, $6,442, is well below the amount of state and local government aid provided to educate each student in MPS.
Research has determined that only 10% of low-income inner city students - the kind of students currently eligible for the choice program - would attend private schools in the absence of a voucher program. That means the program is providing a subsidy to those 10% but saving much more money on the other 90% of students who otherwise would be educated in the more expensive schools of MPS. As a result, Wisconsin saved an estimated $52 million due to the choice program in Fiscal Year 2011.
Several commentaries on our studies have claimed that the reason MPS schools are more expensive than the private choice schools is because nearly 20% of MPS students are classified as having exceptional educational needs while less than 1% of choice students similarly bear that label. This is a flawed comparison.
Public schools have both strong incentives to classify students as requiring exceptional education, because they receive extra funding to teach such students and well-established protocols for doing so. Private schools have neither. A student with the same educational needs often will be classified as exceptional education in MPS but not so classified in the choice program.
We surveyed parents to get a consistent measure of the percentage of choice students who have a learning disability. Nine percent of choice parents said their child has a learning disability, compared to 18% of the parents of the carefully matched public school students in our sample. The proportion of students with learning disabilities in the choice program is about half that of MPS, but it is certainly not less than 1%, as the state Department of Public Instruction recently reported.
Recently, our research team conducted site visits to high schools in Milwaukee to examine any innovative things they are doing to educate disadvantaged children. The private high schools of the choice program graciously opened their doors to us and allowed us full access to their schools. Although several MPS principals urged us to come see their schools as well, the central administration at MPS prohibited us having any further contact with those schools as they considered our request for visits. We have not heard from them in weeks.
Our report on the private schools we visited, which will offer a series of best practices regarding student dropout prevention, will be released this fall. Should MPS choose to open the doors of their high schools to us, we will be able to learn from their approaches as well.
John F. Witte is professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Patrick J. Wolf is professor of education and endowed chair in school choice at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville.
This column originally appeared in the May 29, 2011 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
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