School Choice Facts

Impact on Public Schools

Legislative History

Legal Action

Enrollment Growth

Demographics and Racial Balance

Cost and Fiscal Impact

Evaluations and Research

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Demographics and Racial Balance

A February 2000 evaluation by Wisconsin’s non-partisan Legislative Audit Bureau stated:

“As intended, the [MPCP] appears to be serving children who meet statutory requirements related to low income … In addition, the program serves pupils whose overall ethnic composition is similar to that of Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) pupils. In the 1998-99 school year, 62.4% of Choice pupils were African-American, and 61.4% of MPS pupils were African-American.”

Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB), “An Evaluation—Milwaukee Parental Choice Program,” February 2000.

Describing participating students, MPCP evaluator John Witte said:

“The demographic profile [of Milwaukee’s program] was quite consistent over each of the [first] five years … [S]tudents who ultimately enrolled … were from very low-income families, considerably below the average [MPS] family and about $500 below the low-income (free-lunch eligible) MPS family … Blacks and Hispanics were the primary applicants … both being over represented compared with [MPS] … Choice students were considerably less likely to come from a household in which parents were married … Prior test scores of Choice students [showed they] were achieving considerably less than MPS students and somewhat less than low-income MPS students.”

Witte, et al., “Fifth Year Report: Milwaukee Parental Choice Program,” Department of Political Science and Robert M. La Follette Institute of Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Madison. 1995.

While approximately 80% of MPCP students are from racial or ethnic minority groups, historically most students in private religious Milwaukee schools have been white. By enabling a large number of students of color to enroll in private religious schools, the MPCP has thus reduced racial isolation in those private Milwaukee schools.

While private religious schools have become more integrated, non-religious MPCP schools have reduced racial isolation only slightly. According to Mikel Holt, author of Not Yet Free At Last, several independent non-religious schools now participating in the MPCP were created decades ago by black and Hispanic community members to improve the low academic achievement among students of color. To achieve this goal, schools such as Harambee Community School and Urban Day School offer an Afro-centric curriculum and enroll mostly inner-city, black families.

Fuller and Greiveldinger compared racial isolation in public and private schools in Milwaukee. They define a racially isolated school as one where 90% or more of the enrollment is minority or white, a standard set by Harvard’s Civil Rights Project. The following table summarizes their findings:

An August 2006 report by Dr. Greg Forster of the Friedman Foundation found lower levels of segregration in the MPCP than the Milwaukee Public Schools. Click here for more information.

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