Following the state’s release of a report regarding Wisconsin’s newly expanded school voucher program, a pro-voucher organization accused them of tailoring data against the program.
According to data released Thursday by the Department of Public Instruction, 1,013 students received vouchers to attend 31 private schools across the state in the 2014-2015 school year.
Nineteen percent students receiving vouchers had attended public schools in the past, while the remainder of students were either home schooled or already attended private schools. The majority of the students in the voucher program attended Catholic or other religious schools.
School Choice Wisconsin, a voucher advocacy group, took issue with the report.
“As opponents of the voucher program, DPI typically highlights data that puts the school choice programs in a negative light,” Student Choice spokesperson Jim Bender said in a statement.
“Not found in the DPI release is that most of the students that were previously enrolled in private schools were on scholarship and not paying tuition,” Bender said. “Those scholarships are now being made available to other students, many of them coming from public schools.”
The state Legislature voted in June to expand the voucher program, previously confined to Milwaukee and Racine, statewide. The program provides private schools with state money for each voucher student who attends.
