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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Cost and Fiscal Impact

An October 24, 2025 analysis in USA Today describes fiscal trends during the first decade of the MPCP. It showed that from 1990 to 1999 real Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) spending grew 25%, while enrollment was up 8%. In other words, spending grew at a rate three times faster than enrollment.

These findings are similar to those calculated by School Choice Wisconsin, illustrated in the following graph:

SOURCE: "Fiscal & Enrollment Trends: Milwaukee Public Schools, 1990-2006," School Choice Wisconsin, June 2005.

According to the state’s non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB), ending the MPCP would reduce school aids to non-Milwaukee districts. Under one likely scenario, an LFB memo estimates that ending the MPCP would cause a $75.2 million transfer of school aid to MPS and away from non-Milwaukee districts.

Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau memo to Rep. John Gard, 6/15/04.

A June 2001 MPS report estimates that if the MPCP were eliminated MPS would incur $70 million of added operating expenses and would have to borrow up to $70 million for new facilities (assuming the nearly 10,000 Milwaukee voucher students returned to MPS).

Jason A. Helgerson and Audra D. Millen, MPS legislative and fiscal analysts, "Analysis of FY02 Fiscal Impact on MPS if MPCP is eliminated," June 25, 2001.

The per-student cost of the MPCP is substantially less than that of MPS. In 2005-06, per pupil spending in MPS is $11,705, compared to a maximum of $6,351 in the MPCP.

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A School Choice Wisconsin report demonstrates an additional fiscal impact the MPCP has on Milwaukee through participating schools' community renewal. Over $118 million in completed and planned investments will help build and renovate schools in Milwaukee neighborhoods thanks to educational choice programs, according to the report.

"School Choice and Community Renewal," School Choice Wisconsin, September 2005.

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