Williams is among 6,000 Milwaukee youngsters in the city's controversial voucher plan this year. The program started slowly eight years ago, when Wisconsin lawmakers passed a bill letting 300 students leave the struggling public school system to attend private, nonreligious schools on the state taxpayers' dime. Then in 1995, at the urging of Gov. Tommy Thompson, the Legislature expanded the idea to parochial schools. This is the first year for the extended program, which state law will limit in future years to 15,000 students, about 15 percent of the 100,000-student public system. Different views eviews of Milwaukee's choice program have been mixed.
Anecdotal evidence shows dropout rates are lower at the voucher schools.
But two studies that have looked at state test scores come to conflicting conclusions. A report from the University of Wisconsin in 1995 held that students in choice schools weren't doing any better or worse than their counterparts in the public schools. A later study using the same data by professors at Harvard University and the University of Houston found significant improvements in math and reading scores. Parents who send their kids to private voucher schools don't care what the academics say. They're convinced their children are better off.