Michael Ford of the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and Fredrik Andersson of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee studied the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program to see what causes schools that participate in the program to close. Between 1991 and 2015, 41 percent of private voucher schools in Milwaukee failed. In an interview, Ford explains what the study found and the implications for policy makers and parents.
Q: Tell me about this study that you did on why choice schools fail.
DR. MICHAEL FORD: “Catholic, Lutheran and independent Christian schools all have a much lower failure rate compared to non-sectarian schools.”
A: Yes, what we were looking at was through the context of educational entrepreneurship. So in looking over the entire history of the parental choice program, just determining how many schools have ever participated, how many of them were startups, and how many of them are still in existence. If they’re not in existence, especially if they’re not in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, why is that? We’ve had schools that converted to charters, we’ve had some that have merged with other schools, but we really tried to focus on the schools that are no longer in existence.
Q: Your study found that schools that were affiliated with larger institutions tended to do better than those schools that were basically startups.
A: Yes, much more stable. The number one kind of risk characteristic for a school failing was being a start up school. Which is not surprising. It is pretty consistent with the entrepreneurial literature both in the private sector and in the non-profit sector. It is very difficult to overcome that liability of newness.
Q: Very typical of startups in other industries as well.
A: Oh, absolutely. Certainly our analysis, the method we used is called survival analysis, and it has its origins in medical research. So basically let’s say there’s an event like a heart attack. What are the risk factors over time? So it’s a quantitative model that takes into account of the cumulative risk of an event happening.
In this case, our model was school failure. And one of the things we looked at is religious affiliation. And we found that one of the stronger attributes that reduced your level of risk of failing was religious affiliation. So Catholic, Lutheran and independent Christian schools all have a much lower failure rate compared to non-sectarian schools.
Q: What about affiliation with other large entities that weren’t religious in nature? Were you able to study those?
A; We were not able to take an in-depth look at that. Part of that is the absence of those types of schools over the history of the school choice program. Now we’re looking at an entire population from 1990 until today. Certainly in recent years there have been more of those types of affiliated organizations popping up. That’s something we need to revisit to see if, for example, there are certain accreditation agencies that you’re tied to [that make you] more stable than others. But given the history, the stand-in for affiliation was religion.
Q: Was there a particular religion that did any better than the others?
A: It was the Lutherans that did better. I can’t claim to have any knowledge as to why that is, but the Lutheran schools did tend to be the most stable. I think that part of what might be showing up in our models is we had a lot of mergers in the Catholic schools in Milwaukee. So at the very least, when we’re predicting whether a school is going to be no longer part of the choice program, I think that’s probably something that’s going on there. But certainly the Catholic and Lutheran affiliated schools were more stable than the independent Christians. But the effect of the independent Christians was still pretty sizable.
Q: That ought to make Garrison Keillor happy.
A: Yes, definitely.
Q: So what are the policy implications of all this?
A: I think the largest takeaway is that if you’re going to have an entrepreneurial or a school choice program or any public policy that encourages new entrepreneurs to enter the marketplace, there is going to be a lot that don’t make it. And that’s not unique to the education sector, that’s not unique to the Milwaukee voucher experience. But I think it is unique to have a program with the level of entrepreneurial activity and longevity of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program to serve as an example of what can happen when you encourage entrepreneurs into a field like this.
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There are two ways of looking at it, and in the paper we don’t take a stand if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. Obviously, you could take a look at this and say, hey, schools that weren’t ready for prime time tended to fail and tended to fail quickly. And we’ve heard that argument. It’s better to have a low-performing school go out of business quickly than continue to be low-performing.
At the same time, we’ve had people react to it say, this is evidence that choice is not a smart policy because we don’t want to invest in impermanence. That’s not the point of the education sector.
So I guess it comes down to where you stand ideologically if you find these to be good or bad results.
Q: Is there an implication in the study for the parents that are trying to decide which schools they’re going to send their kids to?
A: If you look at the timeline of failure, especially if you’re a parent looking at a startup school, you might want to take a look at how long it’s been in existence. If you’ve gotten over those first three or four years, there’s a good chance that they’ve started to overcome that liability of newness. And if you look at the other factors that lead to failure and, some of it is what is there market share, what is the size here, are they growing? I don’t think the approach would be any different than you would want the parent to do when you’re choosing a school. You’re looking for a sign of stability, signs that they’re going to be around for a while.
I think it’s important to note, too, when we look at the history of the program from 1991 to 2015, the program has changed a lot over this time period. So certainly some of the barriers to entry that have been created, often times with the support of the choice movement, are likely going to reduce the level of failure going forward. If you look at the paper, we have a comprehensive look at when there were the most failures, when there were the least amount of failures. It’s pretty obvious that the level of failures has started to decline.