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University of Wisconsin–Madison
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty

Milwaukee Parental Choice Program

High turnover complicates study of choice schools’ progress, By Jason Stein, August 12, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “A long-range study evaluating voucher schools in Milwaukee is finding little difference in academic achievement between their students and those in public schools, state auditors said Thursday. But the study is complicated by the fact that three years into the research, most of the private school students selected for it are no longer attending schools in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program. Only 1,097, or 40.2%, of the 2,727 voucher school students selected for the study in the 2006-’07 school year were still part of the choice program by the 2008-’09 school year, according to the report by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau. ‘It’s a very mobile population,’ state Auditor Jan Mueller said of Milwaukee students. The report analyzed data and results gathered by academics at the University of Arkansas to compare math and reading test scores of choice program students with those of similar students in Milwaukee Public Schools. The report looked at a representative sample of voucher students attending third through eighth grades during the 2006-’07 school year, as well as all ninth-graders…”