Students in 4-year-old kindergarten play a game Friday at HOPE Prima school in Milwaukee. HOPE is a growing network of private voucher schools, with five in Milwaukee and plans for a sixth in Racine. The growth reflects the rise of voucher schools in Wisconsin. Credit: Mark Hoffman

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The total number of students receiving private-school tuition vouchers in Wisconsin is about to cross the 30,000 threshold.

The three voucher programs in Milwaukee, Racine and statewide enroll 29,683 students, according to results of the official state headcount in September.

That makes Wisconsin a leading state when it comes to the number of students attending private, mostly religious schools with the help of taxpayer-funded tuition subsidies.

To put it in local terms: If those private schools were a public school system, it would be the second largest in Wisconsin after Milwaukee Public Schools, topping the Madison Metropolitan School District, which enrolls just over 27,000 students this year.

Voucher program enrollment has grown rapidly under Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-controlled Legislature. Walker and other lawmakers have already signaled that further expanding voucher programs — in which qualifying students receive a taxpayer-paid tuition voucher to attend private schools — will be a priority in the next legislative session that starts Jan. 5.

Before that happens, let's take stock of where the voucher programs are now:

How many schools are involved?

A total of 159 as of this fall: 113 in Milwaukee serving 26,930 students, 15 in Racine serving 1,740 students, and 31 statewide serving 1,013 students. Almost all of them are religious. The majority are Catholic, Lutheran and Christian schools.

How much do the programs cost taxpayers?

About $211 million, according to state estimates for 2014-'15. The programs in Racine and statewide are fully funded by state funds. But Milwaukee is a different animal. The state only pays for about two-thirds of the cost of that program. The other third is paid, essentially, by local taxpayers.

What's a voucher worth?

Participating private schools can receive a voucher worth up to $7,210 annually for each qualifying K-8 student. The voucher for qualifying high school students maxes out at $7,856 annually. Those amounts are an increase over the previous $6,442 maximum voucher payment per pupil.

What private schools have the most voucher students?

St. Anthony School in Milwaukee is No. 1, with 1,960 voucher students in K-12. An additional 15 students are not using vouchers, for a total enrollment of 1,975 this fall. That makes St. Anthony the largest K-12 Catholic school in the nation.

Messmer Catholic Schools, also a K-12 network, enrolled 1,595 voucher students this fall. Total enrollment was 1,621 at Messmer thanks to 26 more students not using vouchers.

HOPE Christian Schools, a rapidly expanding network, has five schools in Milwaukee, including a new one it launched this fall: HOPE Caritas, at 8920 W. Brown Deer Road. Its total enrollment included 1,620 voucher students.

What's going on in Racine?

Lots. There's no cap on voucher enrollment there anymore, which means there's more room for expansion even if nothing changes for voucher schools in the next legislative session. Remember HOPE? The network intends to launch its sixth school in Racine in fall 2015.

Others are reaching south as well. The Lutheran Urban Mission Initiative, or LUMIN, a Milwaukee nonprofit that operates or provides assistance to a handful of Christian schools, has a contract to support Renaissance School, a K-8 voucher school in Racine with 367 voucher students.

And Milwaukee?

Wisconsin's flagship program is now 25 years old. It's the oldest and largest urban school voucher program of its kind in the country.

Some of the new private schools joining the program this year are from the Milwaukee-area suburbs, which is allowed under recent state law changes that also raised the income limits for participation and dropped the enrollment cap.

Elm Grove Lutheran School in Elm Grove and Martin Luther High School in Greendale are newcomers to the program this year.

Then there are newcomers that aren't well-established, such as Shining Star Christian Schools, which has 92 students in two formerly shuttered church school sites.

John Mattek, the principal of the schools serving about 70 students in one location and 20 in another, has no experience running a school and said he is a Lutheran pastor by training. He said the vision is to re-populate empty church school buildings in Milwaukee.

What's happening statewide?

The statewide program is the newest voucher program, created in the last state budget and capped at 1,000 students this year.

But the majority of students using vouchers in the statewide program were already attending the private schools by paying privately or using financial assistance. If they met the income limits of the program, they could potentially receive a voucher and continue to attend the school with the help of taxpayer dollars.

To be eligible for a voucher in the statewide program, the maximum yearly income for a family of four could not exceed $44,177.

Private schools in the statewide voucher program had between 3% and 29% of their students on vouchers this fall. The average was 7%. That's far different from the Milwaukee program where, on average, participating schools have 80% of students on vouchers.