In February, Wisconsin’s Legislative Audit Bureau released a new 174-page audit of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, detailing the history of the program, its annual cost, annual enrollment, current enrollment by grade, and ethnic composition of voucher students compared to Milwaukee Public School students. The report also summarizes the characteristics of the 86 schools participating in the program and provides a profile of each school.
While researcher John F. Witte has expressed concern over the 30 percent attrition rate experienced during the first four years of the voucher program, the audit provides more encouraging up-to-date data on mobility. According to the report, “most participating schools experienced relatively few pupil departures during the year.”
Between September 1998 and January 1999, three schools lost more than one-quarter of their choice pupils, with an average 5.5 percent loss among the 83 remaining schools. Twenty-three schools lost no students.
For more information …
The full text of the 174-page report is available on the State of Wisconsin’s Web site in PDF format at http://www.legis.state.wi.us/lab/00-2full.pdf
