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Get the latest news and research from Badger Institute
- Do Madison’s schools underperform Milwaukee’s? Let’s talk about it.
- Milwaukee-Racine-Kenosha rail idea back on radar, despite costs, existing options
- Three policy avenues to help public schools flourish
- Data center boom means good times for old-line manufacturing, 50 or 500 hires at a time
- Strong foundations, untapped potential: Wisconsin’s economy
- Want to help families, Wisconsin? Stop raising childcare costs
- Wisconsin’s childcare subsidies, regulations fail for families
- How a development tool can increase property taxes
Browsing: Education
Truth be told: Madison Metropolitan School District is as troubled as Milwaukee Public Schools is.
If Wisconsin children receive poor instruction, attend chaotic schools, and learn through weak, incoherent curricula, then industry and civil society will struggle accordingly.
Why do Wisconsin politicians want to close schools providing measurably great education for working-class kids?
Wisconsin’s own economics standards consistently teach the importance of prices, profits, competition, incentives and property rights, while one of the state’s leading candidates for governor campaigns without admitting or even seeming to understand their value.
Florida’s politics, suggests Owens, which are more confidently conservative than in Wisconsin.
What Wisconsinites need to know about how the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program works.
Public school district leaders are thinking about what scholarships from private donations through a new federal tax credit program the will do for their students.
“There’s never been a federal program that’s been as generous as this that the state didn’t opt in,” said Kooyenga.
A Wisconsin law requiring schools to inform parents when their students are struggling with reading is going unenforced in far too many districts.
Think of the failure of the $1.8 billion tax-and-spending deal between Gov. Tony Evers and the Legislature as a second chance at better policy.
Wisconsin’s state spending to help school districts pay for special education has been surging in recent years.
Milwaukee Public Schools, amid a fiscal crisis, should close 25 underutilized school buildings to free up wasted resources, says City Forward Collective.
Students learn less and earn less when they have less incentive to actually study in order to get top grades.
In 1969, nearly nine out of 10 American children lived in households with two married parents. By 2023, that figure had fallen to roughly six in 10.
There is new evidence that some students hurt themselves economically by going to college — a fact Republicans are using to limit student loans.
The University of Wisconsin System this month opened the door for its campuses to begin offering faster, cheaper three-year degrees.
Nine policy recommendations for Wisconsin schools to keep teaching talent by correcting the conditions that lead to teacher loss.
Facing a difficult market for hiring teaching talent, leaders of Wisconsin independent schools are developing useful strategies even as they look to the state for fundamental policy and financial reforms.
Wisconsin’s public school teachers are leaving their classrooms at higher rates than they have in more than 25 years. Here, we present their voices.
The average GPA for undergraduate students at Wisconsin’s flagship university increased to 3.48 in the recently completed fall semester — up from 3.28 just 10 years ago.

