Browsing: K-12 Education

At the start of the pandemic in 2020, Wishkub Kinepoway faced two family crises with some crying, prayer and a lot of determination. A member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians and a Shawano County transplant to Milwaukee, Kinepoway knew she needed to make a change for her children. She also knew that change wouldn’t come without school choice.

Do the state education bureaucrats, the schools of education, the consultants, the unions and the central offices know the one right way to teach math? That big test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, found that not once in the past two decades have Wisconsin’s public schools managed to make more than 41% of 8th-graders proficient in math.

Right after scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, came out, Wisconsin’s chief public school regulator, state Superintendent Jill Underly, issued a press release headlined, “Wisconsin elementary school students buck national trends in ‘National Report Card’ release.”

This is not true: Wisconsin’s scores fell by every measure since the last time children took the test, in 2019, just as scores fell for every other state.

Milwaukee, mired in serious, often violent crime unlike anywhere else in Wisconsin, doesn’t have enough cops. That is the irrefutable takeaway from two chapters in the Crime section of this book.

One of the few things that all Americans agree on about education is that it must improve. How, specifically? There we differ.

Newsmakers Host Lisa Pugh sits down with Wisconsin Association of School Boards Director of Government Relations Dan Rossmiller and Badger Institute consultant and member of the Wisconsin Coalition for Education Freedom, Jim Bender, for a discussion on the state of schools.

Chershanta Smith can’t imagine her daughter, Gabrielle, attending school anywhere other than St. Marcus Lutheran School in Milwaukee’s Brewer’s Hill neighborhood. And that’s not only because she believes her daughter is receiving an excellent education at St. Marcus through the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, but because the school’s community has embraced and supported her entire family.

At the start of the pandemic in 2020, Wishkub Kinepoway faced two family crises with some crying, some praying and a lot of determination. A member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians and a Shawano County transplant, Kinepoway knew she needed to make a change for her children. She also knew that change wouldn’t come without school choice.

The Badger Institute has been a champion of school choice since our inception as the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute in the late 1980s.

Elita Williams is grateful for the opportunity to select the best schools for her kids.

A Milwaukee mom’s take on why more parents need educational choice.

Students in Milwaukee’s public high schools who want a better life and know that school is their only way up are being battered, assaulted and exposed to gunfire or other reckless conduct on a daily basis.

If schools want to impose belief systems on students, parents should have the right to choose their schools.

Milwaukee’s school choice program shows that letting parents choose a moral ecology is how differing beliefs can coexist.

Scarlett Johnson explains what drove her to act on behalf of her local schools, and why more parents should do so.

In response to falling standards, former Mequon-Thiensville school board member launches charter school

Scarlett Johnson sat down with Badger Institute Policy Director Patrick McIlheran this week to explain what drove her to act on behalf of her local schools, and why more parents should do so.

In response to falling standards, former Mequon-Thiensville school board member launches charter school

Kids are reaping the consequences of school shutdowns

There is never one cure-all for complex societal problems like poverty or morally, economically and emotionally untethered children. The first thing is to recognize the problem for what it is. The numbers make that easy.