Editorials

A national debate on the question of whether school vouchers can benefit public education has been simmering, but it could regain momentum from results of a new study.

Little evidence has been available for voucher supporters to make a strong case for their use, but a study of Milwaukee’s pioneering voucher program provides positive information to consider.

The Milwaukee program is the nation’s oldest and largest city-specific program. The study concludes it has had a positive effect on the city’s public schools and will become even more influential in the near future.

The study, “Can Vouchers Reform Public Schools,? Lessons from the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program,” was released by the Heartland Institute, a national nonprofit research organization.

Most voucher programs are not universal programs but simply “rescue” efforts that offer a life-line to poor parents in struggling school systems, the study found.

“Since existing voucher programs are limited largely to charity vouchers, or rescue efforts, it is not surprising they have produced no dramatic improvement in the public schools,” wrote author George Clowes, a senior fellow for educational studies at Heartland. “Before writing off universal vouchers, it would seem prudent first to actually try them.”

The study shows how competition from voucher schools in Milwaukee ­— despite being hobbled by legal challenges, a voucher amount less than half the public school per-pupil spending and enrollment caps — has prompted a long list of reforms in the schools.

Before and after school programs have been added, along with more Montessori schools, improved teacher selection procedures, decentralization of budgeting authority to local schools and greater influence of parents in local school councils.

Clowes said the voucher program gave school reformers, including public school officials, considerable clout in their negotiations with public school system interest groups. The results include a high school graduation rate that improved from 49 percent in 2002-03 to 58 percent in 2006-07.

Black and Hispanic graduation rates during this period increased more than the white graduation rate. This was accomplished despite rising minority and low-income enrollments as a share of total public school enrollment.

Critics of the city’s parental choice plan, Clowes said, overlook the fact that steadily increasing voucher school enrollment has little apparent effect on MPS because of growing K-12 enrollment during most of the program’s history. Since 2003-04, however, MPS enrollment has been falling while voucher school enrollment continued to rise an average of 1,500 students a year.

Public schools finally are being exposed to serious competition for students, he noted.

It is predicted the next five years are likely to reveal the reforming power of the Milwaukee choice program on the city’s public schools, since the success of voucher schools has just begun to pose a competitive threat to existing public schools.

Another positive anticipation is that the city’s public schools may begin to improve more rapidly in response to the enhanced competitive environment.

A lot of other cities with troubled public school systems that notice the Milwaukee results should be especially interested to see if further studies confirm these findings.

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