Michael R. Ford, a professor of public administration at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, reports that 41% of private schools that received vouchers have closed their doors since the inception of the voucher program. Milwaukee has the nation’s oldest voucher program, and anyone looking for the miracle of school choice should look elsewhere. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, Milwaukee continues to be one of the nation’s lowest performing urban districts. Milwaukee has had charters and vouchers for 25 years–two generations of students. If charters and vouchers were the answer to the problems of students and schools in urban districts, Milwaukee should be a shining star of student success. It is not.

Ford writes:

Forty-one percent of all private schools that participated in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) between 1991 and 2015 failed. I do not mean failed as in they did not deliver academically, I mean failed as in they no longer exist. These 102 schools either closed after having their voucher revenue cut off by the Department of Public Instruction, or simply shut their doors. The failure rate for entrepreneurial start-up schools is even worse: 67.8 percent.

Fredrik Andersson and I discuss these data in a new article just published online in Policy Studies Journal entitled “Determinants of Organizational Failure in the Milwaukee School Voucher Program.” We frame the article in the context of public and educational entrepreneurship “with the goal of explaining the factors that put voucher schools specifically, and public entrepreneurial public polices in general, at greater failure risk.” The Milwaukee voucher case is particularly fertile ground for this line of inquiry due its long history, organizational churn, and relevance as the birthplace of the modern school voucher movement.

We test several hypotheses using a survival model and find:

Start-up voucher schools have a much higher failure rate. It takes almost ten years for a new voucher school to lower its failure risk to that of previously existing schools;

When new MPCP schools fail they tend to fail quickly, on average just 4.3 years into program participation;

Schools without a religious affiliation are more likely to fail;

Stricter program regulations led to more failure; and

Schools can reduce their failure risk by gaining market-share.

Read his research article for the full findings.