Milwaukee Public School options gain share in education marketplace

Alan Borsuk:

If your definition of "public school" is the regular public school system, you are talking about a slice of Milwaukee's educational infrastructure in which the student population is getting smaller each year.

But if your definition means any school where public dollars pay for children's educations, you're talking about a bigger pie, with more ingredients - a pie unlike anything served elsewhere in the United States.

Voucher schools, charter schools, alternative schools, ways of sending kids to schools in other communities - parents, especially those with low income, continue to have a wide array of choices in Milwaukee, all of them funded by public dollars.

Thousands of parents are taking advantage of that. Enrollment statistics for this year show more than 30% of all Milwaukee kids whose educations are paid for with tax dollars attend schools outside the main roster of Milwaukee Public Schools. That appears to be the highest percentage on record.

While enrollment in MPS elementary, middle and high schools fell almost 4% to 81,681, the number of students using publicly funded vouchers to attend 122 private schools in the city rose 8% to 19,233.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at November 26, 2007 5:47 AM
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