Browsing: Education

Wisconsin’s largest school district is planning to ask its voters to approve a $252 million annual increase in its revenue — and, consequently, spending — in an upcoming referendum. That district, Milwaukee Public Schools, has seen a sharp increase in spending in the two most recent years of state data after nearly a decade of spending that mostly kept up with but did not exceed inflation.

A new bill in Madison could, if enacted, result in substantial property tax cuts in many school districts. It would also result in significantly higher state aid for many traditional public school districts where large numbers of children choose to attend independent charter schools or private schools in one of Wisconsin’s parental choice programs.

To bring about change, parents need to know what a school is teaching. They also need the leverage to object. School choice is not the only tool, but it is a necessary first tool, because parents’ power to change schools comes from their power to leave schools for better ones.

Over 70,000 Wisconsin students could be impacted If successful, a lawsuit claiming Wisconsin’s private-school parental choice program and public independent…

In the lawsuit bankrolled by the Minocqua beer marketer, Kirk Bangstad, who’s trying to kill school choice in Wisconsin, his lawyers make an icy admission: They know it will “impact tens of thousands of children” to throw them out of their schools. They’re asking the state Supreme Court to hurt those kids anyway.

More than 5,000 students with disabilities participate in one of four Wisconsin school choice programs. In 2022 alone, more than 150 schools in the state’s choice programs accepted 2,217 students with special needs scholarships.

Saying they “have not given up on a colorblind society,” Wisconsin Republicans have filed a bill to remove race-based considerations from an array of UW System and technical college financial aid programs.

Since 2009, Wisconsin district school enrollment is down 8.3%, or 72,032 students. Independent charter school enrollment is up 81%, or 5,185 students. Choice school enrollment is up 163%, or 34,021 students.

Parents have changed America’s mind on education, parents who correctly see their children’s futures as more important than some abstract idea about there being one proper shape for schooling.

Wisconsin’s Forward Exam, used since 2015-16, tests all students in grades 3 through 8 on reading and math every year, though the 2019-20 school year was skipped.

Students’ performance is ranked as “advanced,” “proficient,” “basic” or “below basic.”

Wisconsin’s independent choice and public charter schools have drawn about 70,000 children, two-thirds of them non-white, and the programs are old enough to have piled up an undeniable record of better outcomes. Why do so many speakers in the DPI’s equity series oppose this? 

As part of a training program, an initiative of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction is bringing in high-profile left-wing speakers, including Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo, to speak to potentially thousands of Wisconsin teachers about “educational equity.” 

Now that choice and independent charter schools are going to be less disadvantaged compared to district schools and to the prevailing cost of educating a kid, donors’ investments can go toward expanding capacity.

Examine your monthly cash flow and discretionary spending to prepare for new monthly loan expense. According to a report by Wells Fargo, the typical student loan repayment will be between $210 and $314 per month. It’s time to determine where that money will come from.

Pushing back on a Gov. Tony Evers veto protecting the University of Wisconsin System’s extensive diversity, equity and inclusion infrastructure, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos is asking for legislative committee approval to again remove $32 million from the system’s budget unless it dismantles its DEI programs.

Wisconsinites clearly got some wins in the 2023-2025 biennel budget. Now the task at hand is consolidate and expand those moving forward.

If the vast UW System Diversity, Equity and Inclusion effort — which costs approximately $32 million biennially — is so necessary, why is it such a failure?

Seeing how often Wisconsinites have been told that public school districts are starving, it isn’t surprising that when asked to guess how much tax money districts spent per student, they whiffed. And not by a little. The most common guess was about one-third to one-half of what the Department of Public Instruction says is the real figure.

Badger Institute education consultant Jim Bender, testifying in favor of Assembly Bill 305, answers a question on choice and charter school accountability measures from Representative Kristina Shelton (D-Green Bay).

The bargain struck Thursday between legislative leaders and the governor ensures the financial sustainability of the school choice and charter school programs but that also increases the low revenue ceiling for public school districts that are on the bottom of the revenue spectrum.

“This is good day for Wisconsin, and for anyone who cares about our children – parents who want more power over their kids’ education, teachers who work so hard, and school administrators who have long worried about sustainability,” said Badger Institute President Mike Nichols.