WKCE Results for Voucher Students Lower than Racine Unified Peers

Kids who enroll in area private schools through school choice on average scored lower than their peers in the Racine Unified School District.

The state Department of Public Instruction released the test results Tuesday. You can explore the data yourself at the Department of Public Instruction website.

According to a story from The Journal Times, 60 of 62 students in grades three through 10 were tested using the same Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Exam as students in Unified. Overall, choice students scored 50.8 proficient or advanced in math while Unified's average is 61.5 percent. This is below both the state average and the state average for economically disadvantaged students.

In reading, choice students scored 55.7 percent compared to 69.2 percent in Racine Unified, both of which are below the state averages for students overall and for economically disadvantaged students.

Superintendent Ann Laing is quoted in the story as saying the results are fair because if private schools are using public funds to accept students, then they need to be held accountable to the same standards.

Rep. Robin Vos (R-Rochester) has been a strong supporter of the voucher program in Racine Unified. He said the results prove that Unified has failed its students and it could be up to a decade before test results start turning around.

But Stacy Tapp, communications director for Unified, said the results don't indicate which 60 students were tested; meaning, were these students already enrolled at the private school and now they qualify for vouchers?

"With the income limit so high (at) $67,000, many families who were previously paying for private school now qualify for vouchers," she told Patch via email. "Since DPI will not share information on voucher students, we don't know where those students were last year."

Jim Bender of School Choice Wisconsin disputes Unified's take. He says the students who were tested in the choice schools using WKCE could have only been from the district.

"The students who took the WKCE in Racine were only students who transferred from RUSD," he told Patch on Wednesday. "But we can't really use these results because they are a snapshot in time, and we would need at least three years of test results to make any determination of whether or not choice is working in Racine."

All we know for sure, he added, is that this "subset of students was only educated in RUSD" with only a few weeks in their new school.

The 2011-2012 school year is the first year the voucher program was implemented with a limit of 250 students whose families meet certain financial criteria. The 2012-2013 school year caps out at 500 students and in the 2013-2014 school the caps are removed.