School Choice in Milwaukee
by Emily Van Dunk
Research Director, Public Policy Forum
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Part of the Web companion guide to Our Calling in Education: A Lutheran Study

It has primarily been the lack of satisfaction with student achievement that has played a large role in the growing movement to allow parents more freedom in selecting a school for their children and the belief that this will improve education. Traditionally, children were assigned a public school based solely on residence. Many believe that this system is archaic and traps students, primarily low-income and minority, into attending poor performing schools. This has led a number of states in passing various forms of what are called parental choice legislation These efforts include open enrollment, charter schools, and private school choice. Briefly described as follows:

• Open Enrollment: allows students to transfer out of their resident district to another public school district in the state.

• Charter Schools: public schools that, in exchange for exemption from many of the rules and regulations that govern traditional public schools, operate under an independent contract for managing a school.

• Private School Choice: The idea behind vouchers is that parents, rather than the government, are in the best position for deciding on schooling options for children; if parents select non-public schools, the dollars, or voucher, should follow the child.

Of the three choice programs open enrollment is now widely accepted with little contro­versy. Teacher’s unions, National Republican Party, Democratic National Party, and most statewide parties now support public school choice programs like open enrollment.

When charter school legislation was first debated and passed in most states, it was fraught with controversy. Even today the creation of charter schools can be quite contentious. However, the battle against charter schools is softening. In fact, both the Republican Na­tional Party (RNC) and the Democratic National Party (DNC) call for increasing the num­ber of charter schools across the country. Teacher’s unions are supportive only if the per­sonnel of the charter schools remain apart of the bargaining group. One limitation of charter schools for some supporters is the universal ban on allowing religious schools to become charter schools.

Publicly funded private school voucher programs get around this ban. The Supreme Court in June 2002 settled this controversial issue over whether vouchers could constitutionally be used in religious schools. Still vouchers are controversial for a number of reasons but primarily because-unlike other education reforms where public money remains within the public school system-vouchers are perceived as redirecting money from public to private schools. The essence of today’s voucher controversy is over sharing public dollars with pri­vate schools. Voucher programs are operating in the state of Florida; Cleveland, OH; and Milwaukee, WI. Colorado recently passed voucher legislation, but the court has instituted an injunction against the program. Milwaukee’s program is the oldest and largest voucher program and receives the most national attention. For this reason, people often look to Milwaukee for understanding of the impacts of vouchers.

Since I am most familiar with the Milwaukee voucher program I will finish this essay with some thoughts and comments about vouchers. Milwaukee’s program is a targeted voucher system. Eligibility is based on household income. For example, a family of four with a household income below $37,000 would be eligible for a voucher. The targeted nature is important. Universal vouchers would allow all families to be eligible regardless of income. This type of program was attempted in both California and Michigan and resoundingly de­feated by the voters.

Milwaukee is in its 14^th year of providing taxpayer-funded vouchers to low-income parents to send their children to participating private schools. In its first year of existence, 341 stu­dents participated in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP). The program reached 1,657 in 1996-1997, and enrollment increased sharply in 1998-1999 due to the addi­tion of sectarian schools to the program. Until 1998-99 religious schools were prevented from participating in the program. Today over 13,000 students attend 106 different private schools. Each voucher is currently worth $6,000. The state of Wisconsin will spend ap­proximately $75 million for the voucher program in 2003-04.  Over the life of the program Wisconsin has spent approximately $300 million for the voucher program.

There are 72 religious schools participating this year (Figure 4). Half of these are Catholic schools and another 18 are Lutheran. The Lutheran schools are al­most evenly divided between LCMS and WELS. The most recent data indicates that there are 1,558 voucher students enrolled in Lutheran Schools, 4,421 in Catholic, 1,692 in other Christian Reli­gious Schools, 611 in other religious schools, and 4,986 in secular schools.

According to the voucher school admin­istrators I have interviewed, often the very survival of the school is dependent on the voucher. Put simply, without the voucher the school would close. A story of a WELS school highlights this fact. In 1997-98 before the school participated in the voucher program enrollment was approximately 56 students at an old and dilapidated building. Six years later, the school was able to use the voucher money to take on a loan to build a new school. It opened this fall with over 189 students. This school like so many others has thrived under the voucher program. Anecdo­tally, I have spoken with over a dozen children and their parents that attend this school un­der the voucher program. For the most part they are pleased with the education they are receiving. Unfortunately, two siblings of the current attendees have been expelled from the school and sent back to the public school system. In fact, each year thousands of students move between public and voucher schools.

Interestingly, there is no data in Wisconsin to tell us how well students are performing in voucher schools. The best we can determine is that there are probably some exemplary voucher schools and some really horrible voucher schools. This past fall two voucher schools came under fire for poor management of funds and lack of background checks for teachers. One school hired a convicted rapist as an administrator. The other school had failed to pay the lease on its building or transportation.

A critical limitation of our nation’s largest voucher program is the lack of accountability. Because of the desire to allow independently operating schools autonomy from government regulations Milwaukee’s voucher program includes no requirements for data collection and scrutiny. This is not unusual. In both Cleveland, OH; and Florida, accountability mecha­nisms are being developed incrementally and often after a scandalous event.

Some Concluding Thoughts….

It is my opinion, that without adequate accountability mechanisms voucher schools can never live up to their promise. Like any big ticket item, shoppers must be discerning. In the market place the most obvious measure of quality is price. In voucher systems price is eliminated since each voucher is worth the same amount and schools are not allowed to charge more than the voucher. For this reason, parents must use other cues for determining school quality. These cues usually focus on the areas of teacher quality, student perform­ance, safety and discipline, and curriculum. Unfortunately, these cues are rarely available in voucher systems. Often the mere collection of the data is viewed as intrusive and inhibits the functioning of the market system.

The Lutheran church has an important question to decide regarding vouchers. Does the ELCA support vouchers? If so, does the church only support targeted vouchers for low-income households; or is the support for universal vouchers. The LCMS, WELS, and Catholic churches support vouchers for a number of reasons, but significantly because they directly benefit from the provision of voucher money. In Milwaukee alone, almost $37 mil­lion in public funds will be directed toward LCMS, WELS, and Catholic church schools in the 2003-04 school year.  The ELCA will not receive a direct benefit. Thus, support for vouchers must rest on the belief that vouchers will improve the educational outcomes of the children who receive them. To date, there is no credible evidence that this is happen­ing.

Survey after survey has demonstrated that both the concept of choice and vouchers are popular. If publicly funded private school vouchers are meant only to provide low-income parents with more choices for their children, then the lack of accountability would be of little concern. However, if choice is about improving education by empowering parents to select a school rather than having it assigned to them by a public school bureaucracy then school choice will not improve education unless some structured accountability is included in choice policies.

If parents are given no choice in selecting a school, then some parents will be lucky enough to have their children attend high-performing schools and others will be forced to have their children attend low-performing schools.  Vouchers are supposed to turn this system upside down by empowering parents. Through their vouchers, parents not elected officials or bureaucrats, will decide the fate of schools. High performing schools will succeed by capturing enough of the market to remain open. Poor performing schools will not be cho­sen and will close. After seven years of research on school choice in Milwaukee I have found that without adequate accountability, parental choices alone cannot ensure that we do not substitute faltering public schools where no choice is available with faltering private schools that are chosen. Hopefully, if our taskforce addresses vouchers it will do so with an eye toward accountability.

A closing story:

Michael is an eight year old who I have known since birth. He comes from a single-parent household and is the youngest of four siblings. Michael’s Mom, Linda, has struggled to keep a job, an apartment, and to raise four kids on her own. When Michael was five his Mom sent him to her neighborhood public school. Put mildly, Michael was a challenge. For innumerable reasons Michael could not sit still, could not keep quiet, and could not be respectful of his teachers. On a particularly bad day Michael decided to throw his chair at his teacher rather than participate in a class activity. At five he was regularly being given out-of-school suspensions.

His Mom was frustrated, but seemingly unable to comprehend how her life choices were affecting Michael’s behavior. After a particularly bad episode, I spoke with Linda about taking Michael out of public school and enrolling him in a voucher school. Linda was excited about this option. After explaining to her that she would not pay tuition-she checked out a neighborhood school.  The next year she decided to remove all four children from public school and send them to a Lutheran private school. The most immediate charac­teristic was the change from casual school dress to uniforms—jackets and ties for the boys-dresses and blazers for the girls. Michael’s Mom was immediately pleased.

Unfortunately, Michael’s behavior did not improve. In first grade at St. John’s he repeated all of the anti­social behaviors that caused such turmoil in the public school. When I spoke with Linda she told me that the private school had let her know that Michael did not exhibit the kind of behavior that was appropriate for St. John’s. He was being expelled from the school.

While the jury is out regarding Michael’s future, at eight he is back at the public school where he began. I wish there was a happy ending to this story. I wish the mere ability for Linda to choose a school rather than remain trapped in a public school would improve the likelihood of Michael becoming a productive adult. Yet choice couldn’t do that. A school can rarely be a substitute for lack of stability, love, security, and discipline at home. Schools have six and one- half hours a day over 180 days to counter the effects of a negative home environment. The move from a public school to a private religious school didn't work for Michael and unfortunately, one of his older sibling’s has also been removed from St. John’s and returned to public school. Michael’s future is grim. As a young, African American male who lacks self control and exhibits anti-social behaviors at an early age his chances of heading to jail are more likely than his chance of finishing high school. As a church I believe the ELCA should recognize that vouchers will not solve the social ills that plague so many households. The role of the church is a much more demanding one. The fact that St. John’s didn’t recognize that is indeed a failing for a religious school; however, not having walked in their shoes I would be naïve to think they took such a decision to expel Michael, and later his brother ,lightly.