In her recent essay for the forum “What Can We Learn from the Nation’s Oldest Voucher Program?”, Ashley Jochim looks to the early history of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) to draw lessons for regulating new education choice initiatives. She’s correct that a hands-off approach in the program’s earliest days created some challenges that were subsequently addressed by regulations backed by choice advocates.

But, in concluding that MPCP “has not delivered on promises to Milwaukee families,” she makes errors of omission that will lead readers to conclusions that are inconsistent with publicly available data and scholarly research. Jochim does not address the comparative effectiveness of students at participating private schools.

Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction (DPI) is an agency that is hostile to school choice. Its superintendent has called for the repeal of the MPCP, which makes data sourced solely to the DPI noteworthy for lacking any pro-school choice bias.

DPI’s report cards rate both traditional public schools and the more than 400 schools that participate in one of the state’s four choice programs.

Scores for Milwaukee show a distinct advantage for students attending private choice schools. Graded on a scale of 0–100, choice schools had an average score of 70.8 in the most recent year available (2023–24), while the score for Milwaukee Public Schools was 55.7. The report card component involving standardized tests showed choice schools with an advantage on raw scores (40.6 vs. 22.3) and growth (75.9 vs. 64.4).

When it comes to cost-effectiveness, the comparison is more striking. As a forthcoming report from School Choice Wisconsin will show, using conservative assumptions, choice schools are notably more productive. They operate at a fraction of the spending of MPS yet produce higher results.

Scholarly research not mentioned by Jochim shows benefits that go beyond school performance factors measured by the DPI report cards.

According to a study published by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, “As of 2018, [Milwaukee choice] students have spent more total years in a four-year college than their MPS peers. The MPCP students in the grade three through eight sample attained college degrees at rates that are statistically significantly higher than those of their matched MPS peers.”

A separate study in the Journal of Private Enterprise examined “the effects of Milwaukee’s school voucher program on adult criminal activity and paternity suits. . . . We find that exposure to the program . . . is associated with a reduction of around 53 percent in drug convictions, 86 percent in property damage convictions, and 38 percent in paternity suits. The program effects tend to be largest for males and students with lower levels of academic achievement at baseline.”

Jochim relies heavily on reporting that is two decades old. While she accurately cites problems associated with some MPCP schools, they are ones that either have long since left the program or were expelled thanks in part to regulations advanced by school choice advocates. Her omissions leave readers with no knowledge of the program’s current success in helping families gain access to schools that outperform traditional public schools at a fraction of the cost.

George Mitchell is a retired public policy consultant who was active in the legislative advancement of Wisconsin’s school choice programs.