INSPIRATIONAL slogans adorn every wall along corridors at Messmer High School as students move with a mix of friendly enthusiasm and quiet purpose to their classes.

Teenagers at this private school know they are here to learn and to succeed: 90 per cent go on to college or university, nearly twice the average of local state schools.

Yet Messmer is no bastion of privilege. It stands in the most deprived neighbourhood of Milwaukee in the United States, and virtually all of its 560 pupils come from lowincome families.

It is part of a voucher scheme that empowers poor parents to buy places for their children in private schools if they are unhappy with standards in the city’s public schools.

The Milwaukee Parental Choice Programme is America’s oldest and largest, and its experiences may soon transform the education debate in Britain’s inner cities.

On the night before The Times visited, three men had been shot dead outside a bar a few blocks away. But the school was an oasis of calm, the students smartly dressed, and the buildings free of graffiti or vandalism.

“There are no gangs here; we are a community of peace and respect. We operate zero tolerance of abuse and the parents and the kids all know that.

“If you hit somebody you are gone,” said Brother Bob Smith, president of Messmer’s school board.

Advocates of vouchers argue that parental choice is the magic bullet for improving education standards in urban areas, where the poor are left behind in schools abandoned by the middle class who have fled to the suburbs or gone private.

“We see vouchers as an issue of parental empowerment. It’s giving them the opportunity to choose schools that are best for their kids and not tied to their income,” Jeff Monday, Messmer’s principal, said.

Brother Bob, a lay friar of the Capuchin Franciscan monks, said: “For many families, the voucher programme represents salvation. If you want to talk about what gets people out of poverty, it’s hope.”

The issue is fast becoming the new political battleground in Britain. Tony Blair challenged delegates at Labour’s conference this week to explain why it was fair that well-off parents who failed to get their children into a decent state school could “choose to buy a good education, but poor parents can’t”.

The Prime Minister offered no answer, though some within his circle favour radical action to deliver on Labour’s promise of “personalised learning” for every child.

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