The goal of PAVE's Educational Facilities Development Fund is to expand seats in participating schools to the 15,000-student mark, McKinley said. We're now moving from the demand side to the supply side and making sure there is a good supply of education options for students. Last year, Milwaukee Public Schools officials conducted a survey of private and religious schools to determine how much space they had. They found that there was room for only an additional 5,620 students. If all of those slots would someday be used by voucher students, it would bring to about 12,000 the number of seats available for the program.
Schools participating in the choice program say the demand is there for more seats.
Early View more than doubled its enrollment this school year, from 109 to 229 students in kindergarten through sixth grade. Oliver said the school was looking in the short term for space to expand to seventh and eighth grade. Ultimately, she said, the school would like to be in a new building. N. 25th St., has a waiting list of more than 100 students, PAVE officials said. We not only were always just trying to survive, we often were just trying to get above ground.