Voucher Students Make Gains

A sample of students in Milwaukee’s private voucher schools made gains in reading in 2010-’11 that were significantly higher than those of a matched sample of peers in Milwaukee Public Schools, but math achievement remained the same last school year, according to the results of a multiyear study tracking students in both sectors.

The results of the study are being released Monday in Milwaukee as the final installment of an examination of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, or voucher program.

The longitudinal study – meaning it tracked the same set of students over the testing period – was conducted by the School Choice Demonstration Project, a nonpartisan research center at the University of Arkansas. The group was selected by the state to conduct a long-term study of the voucher program and its impact on Milwaukee.

Rather than looking at scores of all students, the study matched a sample of 2,727 voucher students in third through ninth grades in 2006 with an equal number of similar MPS students. The study used a complex statistical methodology based on growth models.

The study matched the random sample of students and found their achievement growth on the state’s annual standardized test to be about the same in math over the next four years, and about the same in reading for three of those four years.

The latest year of data shows the reading bump for the voucher students and represents the first time an achievement growth advantage has been observed for either the public school sample or the voucher school sample over the four-year period, according to the study. That finding casts the program in a slightly more favorable light than when the state released the fall 2010 results of the standardized test, known as Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination, for all students, which showed voucher students scored worse than or about the same as MPS students in math and reading on the point-in-time test.The study suggests exposure to voucher schools marginally increases the likelihood that students graduate from high school, especially on time, as well as enroll in college.

The latest study also researches special education and estimates that between 7.5% and 14.6% of voucher students have disabilities. That’s lower than MPS’ 19% but higher than the 1.6% disability rate the state had previously reported for the voucher schools, based on information from the private schools.

The findings this year prompted optimism among voucher school advocates who were given advance access to the report’s findings. But Bob Peterson, president of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association, said the report had inconsistencies and lacked transparency. He also said he was “flabbergasted” the researchers hadn’t given an advance copy of the report to the state Department of Public Instruction, which oversees the voucher program, so officials could respond to the findings.

“I think this is a very positive precursor to what’s coming,” said Jim Bender, president of School Choice Wisconsin, a group that advocates for school vouchers. He indicated that the study has provided a solid analysis, and that it’s now time to research what’s working well in individual schools that could be replicated.

The conclusion of the group’s exhaustive study of the nation’s oldest and largest urban school voucher program comes at a pivotal time. The program offers qualifying students the opportunity to use a taxpayer-funded subsidy worth up to $6,442 per year to attend one of a selection of private, mostly religious schools, but it looks much different this year than it did last year.

That’s because the Republican-controlled Legislature raised income eligibility limits for participants, lifted the cap on enrollment, allowed private schools outside of Milwaukee to participate in the program and launched a new voucher program in Racine.

Wisconsin wasn’t alone in changing the private school voucher landscape dramatically in the past year: seven new school voucher programs were enacted across the country in 2011 and 11 existing programs (including Wisconsin’s) were expanded.

Milwaukee’s program enrolls more than 23,000 students to attend one of 106 private schools on a voucher, and the new voucher program in Racine has enrolled 228 students in its inaugural year, according to a summary from the report.

No conclusive winner

Patrick J. Wolf, the study’s lead author and a professor of education reform at the University of Arkansas, said there was no clear overall “winner” between the voucher program and MPS.

But he said that for low-income families in Milwaukee, the voucher program has had a positive effect on students on some measures and no difference on other measures from what students would have experienced in the public schools.

The study started with data from the 2006-’07 year from a sample of students in the voucher schools, and for a similar sample of students in MPS. They were required to take the state standardized achievement test so those results could be compared to the public school students’ test results in reading and math.

The study did not reveal the names of the schools participating in the study, but by fall 2010, all the voucher schools were required by state law to administer the state’s standardized achievement test.

The DPI released the scores of the voucher schools, broken down by school, in spring 2011, the same time they released the scores of the state’s public-school students. That comparison of scores of all schools indicated that MPS students scored better than students in the voucher program in math and about the same in reading.

But within the smaller sample of low-income students in the study, voucher students pulled ahead of the public-school students in reading growth last year.

Peterson questioned one of the study’s main conclusions, that enrolling in a private voucher high school increased the likelihood of a student graduating from high school and enrolling in a four-year college by four to seven percentage points. That’s because the report also notes that about three out of four students enrolled in voucher schools in ninth grade were no longer enrolled in a voucher school by the time they reached 12th grade, and it says there’s evidence that the students who leave voucher schools for public schools are among the lowest-performing private-school students.

Peterson said although the information was buried in the stack of reports, it shows that students who leave voucher schools are those who are the most difficult to educate, while those who remain started out as higher achievers.

“If we believe in educating all children, that shouldn’t be a source of pride,” he said. “Given such internal inconsistencies in the report, it’s difficult to have confidence in the report’s conclusions.”