Do School Vouchers Work? Milwaukees Experiment Suggests an Answer (depends..)

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Did students in the program get a better education? That depends on how participating schools handled a critical issue: how many voucher students to let in.

A Wall Street Journal analysis of the data suggests vouchers worked best when enrollment from voucher students was kept low. As the percentage of voucher students rises, the returns diminish until the point when there is little difference between the performance of public and private institutions. The vast majority of private schools participating in the program today have high percentages of publicly funded students.

The city’s nearly 29,000 voucher students, on average, have performed about the same as their peers in public schools on state exams, the analysis shows. The successful voucher students, who often performed better than their public-school peers, were mainly found at private schools that worked to balance numbers of voucher students and paying ones.

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Some educators suggest the voucher students who score well do so precisely because they attend private schools with lower proportions of their peers. They benefit from superior resources and support services funded by wealthier families who pay hefty fees to attend and are often more connected to the institution.

Better performing private schools often restrict the number of voucher-paying students because they can afford to subsidize only a certain number.

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Private schools receive less money per student under the Milwaukee voucher program—from $7,323 to $7,969 per student in the last school year—compared with an average of $10,122 for public-school students. The amount, which has increased over the years, was initially set low to help pass the voucher bill in a split legislature.

Public-school officials say they have greater expenses, such as for transportation and for providing services to special-needs students, although they say they haven’t done any comprehensive cost comparisons between public and voucher schools.

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/do-school-vouchers-work-milwaukees-experiment-suggests-an-answer-1517162799