- Home
- Issues
- Mandate for Madison 2026-27
- Research
- News & Analysis
- Media
- Events
- About
- Top Picks
- Donate
- Contact Us
Subscribe to Top Picks
Get the latest news and research from Badger Institute
- How Wisconsin can reverse its drift toward unaffordable homes
- The only remedy for government discrimination is to make it stop discriminating
- How to overcome Wisconsin’s income tax competitiveness problem
- Billions in private donor support for students could be ‘largest investment in education ever’ in America
- Is 5.9 million acres of government-owned land enough?
- On Janesville’s November ballot: an ‘anti-development’ question
- Wisconsin kids, teachers in public schools deserve restored standards
- Transportation policy for the way Wisconsinites actually want to travel
Browsing: News & Analysis
The bad news is that most Americans have lost faith in our national leaders. Only 32%, according to a 2022 Pew Research survey, have a favorable opinion of the “federal government in Washington.”
For the people who need it most — poor residents of Milwaukee, families and victims of particularly violent crimes like homicide and aggravated assault throughout the state, children in schools where politicians won’t allow police, and almost anyone awaiting a verdict — Wisconsin’s criminal justice system is failing.
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.
It’s campaign season, so the only numbers that seem to matter to the mainstream media are the ones in polls.
Reducing Milwaukeeans’ suffering from crime starts young, and research suggests a means. Between the time these words are written and your reading them, the odds are better than even that someone will be murdered in Milwaukee.
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.
The Milwaukee Police Department responded to 1,310 calls for service at 34 MPS-controlled high schools in the 2021-’22 school year,
Like all government programs, the criminal justice system must be evaluated on the basis of cost-effectiveness and outcomes. Wisconsin’s current…
Awash in federal bailout cash, some Wisconsin cities ask for a property tax hike
If schools want to impose belief systems on students, parents should have the right to choose their schools.
Parents’ power to choose the best education for their children ought not be hindered when the default is failing them…
Milwaukee’s school choice program shows that letting parents choose a moral ecology is how differing beliefs can coexist.
WEA Trust just announced it is terminating its health insurance business
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.
As you fill up with gas that as of Thursday averages $4.84 a gallon in metro Milwaukee, remember that the progressive movement in Washington, D.C., long has wanted fuel to be priced as a luxury good.
Policymakers should advance reforms that prioritize GSP, personal income growth
By now, the health emergency has little to do with it

