School Choice Wisconsin recently published a report on school safety in Milwaukee Public Schools, Milwaukee Parental Choice Program schools, and 24 charter schools in the city. The majority of the report focuses on one main factor by which to gauge school safety: police calls. By taking this approach, we acknowledge the narrow definition, while heralding the attempt to get a better view of school safety at this granular level.
What we find in the report affirms what we know based on the detailed evidence provided ─ that charter schools in Milwaukee are very safe places. As we look across the subsets of statistics in the study such as number of police calls made per school, number of calls per 100 students, or the nature of the calls (violence, theft, trouble with a juvenile, etc.), the fact remains that 2R charter schools have a very low incidence of such calls. See Table 1.
Table 1. Calls for Police Service per 100 Students
The bottom line is that when we talk with parents they clearly care about academics but they also want the safest learning environment possible. Charter schools are responsive to families’ needs and they provide a safe, productive learning environment.
You can download the full report here:
http://www.schoolchoicewi.org/index.php/research/scw-research/milwaukee-school-safety-2014/
You can read an article about the report here:
http://www.jsonline.com/news/report-cites-more-911-calls-to-mps-buildings-than-voucher-schools-b99357605z1-277077501.html