Milwaukee Longitudinal School Choice Evaluation: Annual School Testing Summary Report. SCDP Milwaukee Evaluation Report #4
Author: Gray, Nathan L.
Date: 2008-02-00
Type: Numerical/Quantitative Data
Subjects: Private Schools,Grades (Scholastic),School Choice,Achievement Gains,Standardized Tests,Demonstration Programs,Norm Referenced Tests,Longitudinal Studies,Annual Reports,Program Evaluation,Mathematics Achievement,Science Achievement,Reading Achievement,Criterion Referenced Tests

With the passage of 2005 Wisconsin Act 125, private schools participating in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) are now required to administer a nationally normed standardized test annually in reading, mathematics, and science to their MPCP (a.k.a. &quot;Choice&quot;) students enrolled in the 4th, 8th, and 10th grades. The law further directs Choice schools to submit copies of the scores from those tests to the School Choice Demonstration Project (SCDP) for processing and reporting to the Legislative Audit Bureau. During the 2006-07 school year, MPCP schools administered either nationally normed tests, such as the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, or the criterion referenced Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examinations (WKCE). The School Choice Demonstration Project received 5,194 nationally normed scores from 66 schools and 1,231 WKCE scores from 40 schools. This report provides descriptive data regarding the test scores of Milwaukee Parental Choice Program students in grades 4, 8 and 10 in reading, math and science, as reported to the School Choice Demonstration Project 2006-2007. The tables, graphs, and histograms presented in this report provide a snapshot of these students' percentile scores or scale scores relative to overall national norms or MPS students. Because national norms are based on students with &quot;average&quot; educational circumstances, and the MPCP exclusively serves low-income inner-city students, the fact that their average levels of performance on norm referenced tests cluster around the lower one-third of the distribution is not surprising and should not be interpreted to indicate that the MPCP in general or MPCP schools in particular are doing a poor job of educating students. The comparison of the scale scores of the Choice students and schools that took the WKCE with the scores of income-disadvantaged MPS students and schools similarly is presented descriptively with no claim that the schools themselves were independently responsible for the various results. Any reliable determination of the effectiveness of a school choice program like the MPCP can only come from a rigorous longitudinal study that follows a representative group of choice students over time and compares their achievement gains to those of a comparable set of public school students. The MPCP Longitudinal Education Growth Study (LEGS) will serve as the proper source for such a determination. A list of schools with MPCP students in tested grades operating through May 2007 is appended. (Contains 6 tables, 2 figures and 13 footnotes.) [Funding for this report was provided by the Kern Family Foundation, Robertson Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation. For &quot;The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program: Baseline Descriptive Report on Participating Schools. SCDP Milwaukee Evaluation Report #3&quot; see, ED508633.]