University of Arkansas, Education Working Paper Archive, Witte, John F., Wolf, Patrick J., Cowen, Joshua M., Fleming, David J., and Lucas-McLean, Juanita
This report focuses on the initial design, implementation and baseline results of the five-year Longitudinal Educational Growth Study (LEGS) of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) being conducted by the School Choice Demonstration Project (SCDP). The LEGS will be the first evaluation of the participant effects of the MPCP using student-level data to be implemented since the initial pilot program expanded dramatically in 1995. Included this initial report are baseline descriptions of achievement tests for a representative sample of MPCP students in grades 3 through 9, as well as outcomes for comparable samples of students in Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS). Also included are a descriptive analysis of survey results of MPCP parents and a carefully matched sample of MPS parents as well as a brief description of the results of student surveys for both samples. The first section of the baseline report discusses the construction of a sample of 2,727 MPCP students in grades 3-9. The report also discusses the selection of 2,727 similar Milwaukee Public School students. For both samples the core of this longitudinal study will be to track the educational progress across the two samples through school year 2011-12. We demonstrate that the sample of MPS students constructed by the SCDP is more similar to the representative MPCP sample along demographic and initial achievement criteria than other potential comparison groups of MPS students. The baseline results indicate that MPCP students in grades 3 to 5 are currently scoring slightly lower on the math and reading portions of the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examinations (WKCE) than their MPS counterparts. However, no such difference exists for students in grades 6 to 8. Benchmark Test results for 9th graders are also similar between the two groups. The differences in grades 3 to 5 are almost exclusively due to lower MPCP math scores that disappear in grades 6 to 8. According to our surveys of parents and students, MPCP parents had lower incomes, but higher levels of education than MPS parents. The two groups were also quite similar on how they learned of their child's school and the qualities they sought in schools. A key difference was that MPCP parents got more information from churches and valued religious instruction more than MPS parents. In both groups, over 70 percent of students were attending their parents' first choice of schools. Both MPCP and MPS parents and students showed high levels of satisfaction with their schools--in some cases higher than national averages. However, MPCP parents and students were generally more positive about their schooling experience than their counterparts in MPS. MPCP parents were less likely to report problems at school such as school violence, and had slightly higher educational expectations for their children, than comparable MPS parents. Students were also very positive about their schools, differing only slightly in their evaluation of their school climate depending on whether they were in the MPCP or MPS. Five appendices are included: (1) Description of the Study Mandate; (2) Constructing the Sample for Study; (3) Data Collection Procedures and Protocols; (4) Parental Survey Tables; and (5) Student Survey Tables. (Contains 2 figures, 6 tables and 16 footnotes.)