Mixed Results For Milwaukee Voucher Plan

The Milwaukee, Wis., private school voucher program, the nation's largest, is saving the state's taxpayers $25 million a year in school costs, but it is pushing property taxes higher for that city's residents, a new study of the program released yesterday concludes.

Although it came to no bottom-line consensus on the program's educational impact, the report did unearth some new details about the Milwaukee program, which uses taxpayer dollars to send more than 18,000 low-income students to a group of more than 120 participating private schools, including many religious schools.

Even though teachers at participating private schools are less likely than teachers at public schools to have advanced degrees, on average they have more experience, the study found. Voucher students' test scores in the year the study covered were roughly the same as public school students'; the study also found voucher students scored below the national average, between the 28th and 39th percentile, on national reading, math, and science tests.

The study has been hotly anticipated in Milwaukee, especially because of an aspect that has not yet borne fruit: Unlike any report ever done on the 17-year-old program, this study is to be longitudinal, following students as they progress over five years, with a predicted 36 reports. It is also unique because it joins researchers who have clashed in the past, with a University of Wisconsin professor, John Witte, whose research has been heralded by voucher critics, joining the University of Arkansas professor Jay Greene, a strong voucher supporter, as investigators.

The Milwaukee teachers union has strongly opposed the voucher program, arguing it undercuts accountability by funneling taxpayer dollars to private schools and draining the public system's budget, leading to program cuts for public school students. They also point to a 2007 study that found the voucher program had no positive effect on Milwaukee public schools.

Supporters, including a former Milwaukee school superintendent, Howard Fuller, hail the program as a matter of civil rights. "At the end of the day to me the central question is, 'Should there be an America where only those people with money have the ability to choose?'" he said yesterday.