Opponents of the program have used his earlier work to argue it has failed

The official evaluator, of the original school choice program in Milwaukee, whose reports have been used by choice opponents to suggest that the program was a failure, is endorsing the program here in a new book set to be released later this month.

In the book "The Market Approach to Education: An Analysis of America's First Voucher Program," John Witte said his primary message is that "choice can be a useful tool to aid families and educators in inner city and poor communities where education has been a struggle for several generations."

"If programs are devised correctly, they can provide meaningful educational choices to families that now do not have such choices," Witte writes. "And it is not trivial that most people in America, and surely most reading this book, already have those choices."

But he warns that school choice alone cannot be expected to dramatically change test scores for a majority of inner-city students.

"Can choice provide alternatives for some students who would not otherwise have them? Can choice support existing private schools with long traditions, but no further sources of financial support? Yes. Can it provide different educational alternatives that may be the answer for some children? Yes. Will it, or could it, transform the overall status of inner-city education in the next generation? Probably not."

The book, which includes much of his previous academic in the area, is published by Princeton University Press.

In an interview, Witte said many people are surprised that he endorsed Milwaukee's choice program because many choice opponents have used his reports to discredit the concept. In addition, some high-profile academic fights with Harvard researcher Paul Peterson, who argued that Witte's work ignored or downplayed positive results from the program, led many observers to believe he is against choice, he said.

"I always tell people, you've got to go back and read what I've written," said Witte.

Milwaukee's choice program, the first of its kind in the country, allows low-income students to attend private and religious schools at taxpayer expense.

Witte, who found himself caught up in one of the hottest national debates in the past decade, said he has been "bewildered" by the actions and arguments of choice supporters and opponents alike.

Supporters have been naive about the difficulties of family life in the central city and their effects on a child's education, leading to over-optimistic ideas about test scores for choice students, he wrote. Choice opponents have overstated the possibility of school choice killing public education, but it won't, he wrote.

Witte was appointed by the state school superintendent Bert Grover to evaluate the choice program in 1990. He studied the first five years of the program, before it was expanded to include religious schools. The current choice legislation does not call for an official evaluator.

Using test scores, he found in 1995 that students in the choice program scored no better or worse than public school students. His support for choice goes beyond mere test scores and tends to deal more with opportunities created for both students and schools.