This longevity has allowed researchers to conduct longitudinal studies examining whether parental choice benefits children over the long run and, if so, what those benefits are.
A new study, The Comprehensive Longitudinal Evaluation of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program: Summary of Final Reports---examining MPCP students and public schools students not enrolled in MPCP---indicates that the former demonstrate higher rates of graduation and attendance at four-year colleges. A press release notes:
Students enrolled in the Milwaukee voucher program are more likely to graduate from high school and go to college than their public school counterparts, boast significantly improved reading scores, represent a more diverse cross-section of the city, and are improving the results of traditional public school students.
Among the new findings are that students enrolled in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP)—the nation's oldest private school choice program currently in operation—not only graduate from high school on time by seven percentage points more than students enrolled in Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS), but they are also more likely to enroll in a four-year college and persist in college.
The study did detect one weakness: Although MPCP students scored better in reading, non-MPCP public school scored higher in math.
What appears to explain the overall difference and success of MPCP students is school culture, that is, schools accepting MPCP students emphasize graduation and educational attainment. A summary of the report's findings notes:
Each school employs strategies to try to catch students up to grade-level that vary from extra instructional times to a no-excuses approach to discipline and homework to integrating the artistic and the academic to counseling students with troubled home lives.
Every high school and many of the elementary schools we visited emphasize high school graduation and college enrollment...High school teachers, administrators, and guidance counselors at the high schools we visited reported using interest inventories, career websites, career nights, and assistance with college applications as strategies to keep students focused on college and career preparedness.
If these findings are accurate and students who live in poverty actually do perform better in schools with cultures that emphasize graduation and educational attainment, wouldn't the simplest and easiest solution be to ensure that public schools that all of those non-MPCP attend have the same culture?
The Motley Monk thinks not.
As demonstrated by their motivation to get a voucher for their children, parents of MPCP children desperately want them to attend school, to achieve in school, and to graduate from school. And, where these parental expectations match a school's culture, that is, where teachers support parents in their role as the primary educators of their children and hold students accountable in school for meeting those parental expectations, it would only make sense that these children stand a much better chance of achieving academically and breaking free of the straightjacket of poverty.
The worst of all situations is where parents of children who live in poverty don't have those high expectations and whose children must attend schools whose cultures live down to those expectations. More money for these schools won't improve their cultures, while the children end up paying for it having a lesser chance of achieving academically or of breaking free of the straightjacket of poverty. That's the high cost of tuition for attending one of these schools!
The Motley Monk would note: There's no such thing as a "free public education."
Let the discussion begin...
To read the report concerning MPCP, click on the following link:
http://www.uaedreform.org/SCDP/Milwaukee_Eval/Report_36.pdf
To read the press release about MPCP, click on the following link:
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-study-shows-higher-graduation-achievement-rates-for-milwaukee-voucher-students-140565073.html
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