School Choice: What Parents Want

Jason Richwine / May 05, 2010

The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) is a comprehensive school choice program that serves some of the lowest performing students in the nation.  Now two decades old, MPCP has allowed mostly poor and black parents to choose any school—public or private, religious or secular—for their children to attend.

The most recent evaluation report of MPCP shows parents of voucher students continue to report high levels of satisfaction with their children’s education, a common finding in the school choice literature.  MPCP has had minimal effect, however, on test scores.  When researchers followed the progress of elementary and middle school students over a three year period, they found that voucher students perform at about the same level on academic tests as non-voucher students in Milwaukee. (more…)