Selection numbers up 23%; 4-year-old kindergarten up 8%
Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent Spence Korte smiled like a business executive whose sales are soaring.

"More parents have chosen Milwaukee Public Schools than ever before," Korte said. Participation in the district's annual school selection process is running more than 20% ahead of last year's pace, MPS officials say.

The process - mandatory for kids new to MPS or finishing elementary or middle school, and optional for others – lets students list their top three choices of schools to attend. The current round of the process ends today.

Higher participation could mean more children are moving into the city or from private schools to MPS. It could also mean more simply want to change schools within MPS, but officials suggested that was less likely.

A district spokesman also said that MPS has 8% more children in its 4-year-old kindergartens this year - a sign of progress in the system's campaign to get youngsters out of day care centers.

The gain came despite decreases in Milwaukee's 4-year-old population, and Korte said it could be one reason why registrations are up so much this winter.

"Parents are deciding that the best place for the youngest of their children is at MPS, and our goal then is to continue gaining their respect and their confidence and to keep them within our system until they graduate," MPS spokesman Don Hoffman said.

Sasha Gulley, one of a stream of parents registering their kids at MPS headquarters this week, wanted her daughter to attend kindergarten at Sixty-eighth Street Early Childhood Center next fall.

"She's never been to day care," she said. "I don't really trust day care that much."

Hoffman released the kindergarten figures in response to a reporter's questions after the Public Policy Forum issued a study Wednesday that showed declining 4-year-old kindergarten enrollment in the city's private school voucher program.

Emily Van Dunk, senior researcher at the non-profit civic research group, said the cause for the decline in 4-year-olds' vouchers was not clear.

"You can look at it two different ways," she said. "One is MPS, by adding 4-year-old kindergarten all day in so many buildings this year, they're competing in a way they weren't before. The other is there are fewer 4-year-olds to compete for."

Expanded kindergarten options are a big focus of MPS' new neighborhood schools plan. Last year, 32 MPS elementary schools had all-day kindergartens for 4-year-olds; this year, more than 100 do.

All-day kindergartens are popular among working parents who can't pick their kids up at midday, district surveys show.

MPS had 5,543 students in 4-year-old kindergarten this fall, up from 5,123 a year earlier.

The private school choice program had 1,038 children in 4-year-old kindergarten this fall, down from 1,119 a year earlier, state records show. That 7% decrease compares with a 6% slide in Milwaukee's 4-year-old population from 2000 to 2001, as measured in an annual MPS census.

George Mitchell, a Milwaukee consultant and choice supporter, said the shifts show that choice is doing what it should: forcing schools to compete for children by meeting parents' needs.

"The overall response of MPS in the last few years suggests that their actions are starting to match their words," he said.

Total enrollment in the voucher program surpassed 10,000 students for the first time this year. It lets low-income children attend private and religious schools with taxpayers' money.

As of Wednesday, two days before this month's round of MPS registration was to end, 6,331 students had turned in their forms. That is up 23.4% from about 5,130 at the same point last year, said Ken Holt, acting director of student services.

"We have broken many records, but this is the most exciting record we have," School Board member Charlene Hardin said.

Korte said the district has not yet analyzed why registrations increased.

Holt declined to predict any net increase in MPS' enrollment.

Children who don't register in January get second and third chances in March and over the summer.

Milwaukee parents who want to register their children should go to the nearest public school or to MPS headquarters, 5225 W. Vliet St. today.