Including religious schools in Milwaukee's private school choice program has resulted in more voluntarily integrated schools in the city, according to a study to be released today by two prominent supporters of school voucher programs.

Milwaukee's school choice program allows low-income students in Milwaukee to attend private and religious schools at taxpayer expense through a voucher system. Most students enrolled through school choice attend religious schools.

Former Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent Howard Fuller, now head of Marquette University's Institute for the Transformation of Learning, and consultant George Mitchell contend that while non-religious private schools that receive choice students tend to be less racially integrated than Milwaukee Public Schools, religious schools in the program have achieved more integration than MPS schools.

"A majority of these choice students have enrolled in schools where, previously, many students were from more affluent white families," Fuller and Mitchell wrote.

The report, using 1999-2000 enrollment data obtained from 86 of the 91 private schools in the choice program, expands on an earlier study that analyzed fewer schools.

The pair measured the percentage of students attending "intensely segregated" schools, as defined by Harvard University's Civil Rights Project. A student attends a racially isolated school, for purposes of the study, if 90% or more of the enrollment was white or minority.

Using those definitions, Fuller and Mitchell found that half of MPS students attended racially isolated schools in 1999-2000 compared with 30.1% of students at religious choice schools. About 85% of choice students are members of racial or ethnic minority groups.

Fuller's institute at Marquette is funded by prominent school choice supporters, including Milwaukee's Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

Gerald Bracey, a Virginia-based researcher working with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Center for Education Research, Analysis, and Innovation, said the study does not illustrate the impact of choice on integration because there are no comparisons to previous school years.

"The comparison between MPS and choice schools is not relevant for purposes of this argument because that doesn't note trends — it doesn't measure the real impact," Bracey said.

Bracey said the school-by-school data included in the study indicated that many of the religious choice schools already were dominated by minorities before school choice. Because it is only a one-year snapshot, it is difficult to determine what effect vouchers have had on the racial-balance, he said.

Bracey's UWM center is funded by the two national teachers unions, the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers, which are adamantly opposed to school choice.

Dennis Redovich, a retired Milwaukee Area Technical College official who observes local school issues, said the data shows that school choice neither hurts nor helps integration.

"Even if religious schools did significantly increase integration by ethnicity, which they don't, Milwaukee students are now obviously being separated by religion," Redovich said. "Is segregation by religion the miracle solution to Milwaukee's social and economic problems and improving academic achievement in schools?"