MADISON, Wis. – In Wisconsin, the ongoing school funding debate is pretty simple:

Should parents have the continued right to use a portion of state education dollars to enroll their children in the schools of their choice, regardless of whether the schools are private or have a religious affiliation?

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The state’s teacher unions and many public school advocates continue to say no. They believe all government education funding should be reserved for public schools, and students who can’t afford private school tuition should be forced to attend public schools.

If their political allies controlled state government – which will almost certainly happen again someday – the entire concept of school choice could be threatened.

But the results continue to say that school choice is effective and offers children the opportunity for a better education in many instances.

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction recently released a detailed analysis of how public school, private school voucher and independent charter school students performed on the recently completed Badger Exam for grades 3-8 and the ACT for high school juniors.

Students in private voucher schools and independent charter schools outperformed their public school counterparts in most categories. It should be noted that voucher schools and independent charter schools typically do not hire union teachers, while public schools do.

The most significant difference was in Badger Exam scores for Milwaukee students in independent charter schools versus students who attend Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS).

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In math, 27 percent of independent charter school students tested proficient, compared to only 15.8 percent of MPS students, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. In English language arts, 34 percent of independent charter school students were proficient, compared to 25.6 percent of MPS students.

Also in Milwaukee, 27 percent of private school voucher students were proficient in English language arts, compared to 25.6 percent of MPS students. In math, 16 percent of voucher students tested proficient, compared to 15.8 percent for MPS, according to the Journal Sentinel.

While those results were close, the difference between Milwaukee voucher students and economically disadvantaged MPS students was wider. Only 20.5 percent of disadvantaged public school students made the grade in English language arts and only 13 percent were proficient in math.

That may be a more accurate comparison, because voucher students must be economically disadvantaged to some degree to qualify for the voucher program.

In Racine, where the voucher program is relatively new, 27.3 percent of public school students were proficient in English language arts, compared to 22 percent of voucher students. But the voucher students, who again by definition are economically challenged, outperformed their lower-income public school peers. Only 18.5 percent of the latter group was proficient.

On the ACT test, students in each of Wisconsin’s three private school voucher programs did better than their public school counterparts. In Milwaukee, voucher students had a composite score of 17.2, versus 15.9 for MPS. In Racine, the voucher score was 20 while the public school score was 17.8. Statewide, voucher students scored 20.9 while public school students scored 20.

Some of the comparative scores listed above were pretty close. Others weren’t. Some might argue that the difference in test scores offers little conclusive evidence regarding the superiority of instruction offered in various types of schools.

But the test scores do demonstrate that voucher and independent charter schools are just as worthwhile as public schools, and deserve to be on the menu of options offered to Wisconsin parents.

That’s particularly true when other benefits of non-public schools are factored in.

“The test results show higher scores for students in the Parental Choice Programs,” Jim Bender, President of School Choice Wisconsin, told MacIverInstitute.com. “Previous research has showed higher test scores, higher graduation rates and college acceptance rates.”