Milwaukee property values rise again

Property values continue to rise within the city of Milwaukee, apparently at a higher rate than those in the suburbs. It appears that city schools have lost much of their depressing effect on property values. This does not mean that all the schools are in good shape, just that parents have so many choices they need not avoid a neighborhood because they don't like the school.

I continue to feel that a study of the relationship between schools and property values would be valuable. One complicating factor in such a study, however, is that there is unlikely to be a direct relationship between schools and property values in the immediate area of the schools, again because of the wealth of choices parents have.

It is also very likely that property values in the city still lag between those of similar property outside despite recent percentage gains, simply because city values have fallen so far behind.

Accrediting Choice schools

The recent law raising the enrollment caps for the voucher program also requires that the schools be accredited. Clearly there was a need to have someone looking over the schools' shoulder and making sure they have the basics in place. Yet I had some skepticism about the accreditation approach. Based on my experience with university accreditation, I am not convinced that, as practiced, accreditation has much value to students. Typically the accreditation process involves a lot of effort and money for the institution and tends to push colleges towards a single dominant model.

I was pleased, then, to find that the legislation offers the schools a choice of accrediting agencies, from the conventional ones to two Milwaukee-based organizations, PAVE and Marquette's Institute for the Transformation of Learning, both experienced with both good and bad choice schools. A recent article quotes Howard Fuller of the ITL as saying that the emphasis will be on student achievement. A particular challenge will be how to evaluate start up schools with no record to judge achievement.

I think the legislation sets a nice balance between the need to weed out the schools born to fail and the desirability to avoid a single gatekeeper.

More for our school

An article in the Journal-Sentinel last Tuesday described the effort of some parents at the Milwaukee High School of the Arts to convince the school board and the administration to give their school more money. The trouble is that this group's idea of where the money would come from did not go beyond taking it from other schools.

In the past, MPS gave different schools different amount of funds per student. There seemed to be no logical explanation for the difference other than history and politics. It appeared that certain schools had particular clout at one time or another.

There are several reasons why the school board may be reluctant to return to this earlier practice, including equity and opening the door to being lobbied by every school in the district. In addition, varying the payments makes opening new schools much harder, since the payment itself becomes an issue for negotiations.

I would hope that the parents and staff members lobbying for taking money from other schools for Arts would instead turn their energy and talent towards exploring other options. These might include looking at other buildings, finding out what happened with a recent fund-raising effort, and helping the principal learn to live within a budget.

Graduation Rates in MPS

A Journal Sentinel article puts the MPS high school graduation rate at 45%, one of the lowest in the U.S. Graduation rates for urban school districts are devilishly difficult to calculate. These claims are based on calculations by Jay Green and his associates at the Manhattan Institute. The Green methodology compares the number of high school graduates with an average of the eighth, ninth, and tenth grade students five, four, and three years earlier, respectively, adjusted for the growth or shrinkage in overall high school population.

This approach probably underestimates the graduation rate in MPS, but it is unclear how much. A significant number of students repeat ninth grade; essentially they are counted in the base as two students, although Green reduces this effect by averaging three grades. If, as I suspect, there is a significant number of students who start high school in MPS but graduate from other schools this would also reduce the calculated graduation rate.

The implication that 55% of the students are out of school with no degree may overstate the situation, but the true number is still too large.

Calculations that depend on following individual students also suffer from problems, but ones that may push the error in the opposite direction. Some number of students stop attending and eventually removed from the school count. But unless they tell MPS, it may be hard to determine whether they dropped out or moved to another school, perhaps in another country. Students who are recorded as transferring to other schools are removed from the count, but in some cases their moving likely reflects that they were doing poorly in MPS; thus the move itself may represent the last step before dropping out.

Finally none of these studies address the issue of the quality of education the graduates received. Did it prepare them for college or the job market?

Update 4/30: a reader points out a hanging sentence in the original post, which was removed.

The cost of choice

In the May issue of Milwaukee Magazine (not available on-line), editor Bruce Murphy has an article criticizing the Milwaukee choice program. It is not clear whether Murphy thinks the program is a bad idea that should be repealed or simply intends to point out some issues that need addressing. In support of the former theory, he throws in a kitchen sink of standard points made by choice opponents: questioning whether parents make good educational decisions, comparing MPS per student spending to that of Nicolet (a high school versus a K-8 system), and blaming MPS financial problems on the choice program (ignoring the devastating impact of health insurance costs).

The substantive issues Murphy raises are largely financial and can be grouped in three categories:

1. Milwaukee taxpayers pick up a disproportionate share of the cost of choice tuition.
2. The proportion of special education students rises in MPS as other students switch to choice.
3. The voucher payment is too low, depressing overall educational spending in Milwaukee.

Murphy's first point has received the most discussion. The best solution is straightforward: count choice students in the formula used to calculate the percentage of educational expenses picked up by the state. In fact, a measure to do this was introduced several years ago but died due to lack of support from any Democratic legislator on the Joint Finance Committee (including two from Milwaukee). My guess is that with the right political support, particularly if Mayor Barrett puts pressure on the Democrats, this problem can be solved as part of the next state budget.

There has been very little discussion so far of Murphy's second two points, particularly the unusual criticism that the voucher payment is too low. I am not aware of any proposals to address them. One possible approach that would address both points is a "weighted student formula." This idea was pioneered in Edmonton and, according to a recent article in Reason magazine, has spread to a number of American school districts. Using a weighted student formula, schools receive funds based on the number of students in various categories times a factor based on the estimated cost of educating students in those categories. Thus schools might receive a bit extra for English learners and more still for various levels of special education needs. (MPS funds schools based on enrollment but special needs are handled as a service rather than extra funding for the schools.)

Using this model, the overall education budget for Milwaukee would be the MPS per student spending times the total number of Milwaukee students, whether in MPS, charters, or voucher schools. But this total amount would be reallocated to the schools based on a weighted student formula. Thus, unlike now, a choice school with children needing special education would receive extra funding. If, however, most such students stayed in MPS, MPS would receive extra funding generated by the choice enrollment.