Browsing: News & Analysis

“We could do so much better but we’re not right now because the universities are one-sided and need to have more people to engage in a robust dialogue over what it is that we should be doing. We just don’t have that right now, and I think, as a consequence, we’re suffering, our students are suffering, the taxpayers are suffering, and the long-term success of universities is suffering.”

Sociologist Brad Wilcox is telling young people to marry because it will make them happier. “People who embrace the core values and virtues associated with marriage are more likely to flourish both in marriage and in life.”

Wisconsin is handing out almost $79 million in federal funds to private businesses to build charging stations for electric vehicles at a make-or-break moment for both the EV and charging station industries.

The Social Development Commission, Wisconsin’s largest anti-poverty social services agency, abruptly closed its doors in late April after the latest in a series of scandals stretching back over more than 30 years.

If voters approve two constitutional amendment questions this coming August, Wisconsin would join 34 other states whose governors and legislators have authority over major federal funding allocations.

In both of the two most recent legislative sessions, Wisconsin legislators introduced just over 2,300 bills and saw less than 12% enacted.

Slightly more than 60% of school district requests to levy higher property taxes were approved by voters on last Tuesday’s ballots throughout the state — a lower percentage than in recent years but around the historic norm.

At the national level, recent studies show that small businesses are not contracting with the federal government as frequently as in the past. And those that do are becoming more concentrated in a handful of congressional districts around Washington, where rent seeking is the norm.

Years after the pandemic, chronic student absenteeism rates remain distressingly high across much of Wisconsin in both large urban districts and smaller places, according to figures for 2022-23 released by the Department of Public Instruction.

State Rep. Bob Donovan is seeking a state audit of the Milwaukee Public Schools.

Enrollment in schools run by Milwaukee Public Schools district is now down to 59,200 — a dramatic and larger decline than is often acknowledged in a district that is asking its voters for $252 million more a year in funding in an April 2 referendum.

The number of school buildings controlled by Milwaukee Public Schools that are most dramatically underutilized totals 21, a look at the district’s complete filing with the state confirms.

Separate constitutional amendment on veto power also advances Wisconsin voters will decide on primary day, Aug. 13, whether the state…

Wisconsin’s smallest incorporated village is on a hill, and in a valley, too.

The news of a $100 million investment in a new school on metro Milwaukee’s north side by St. Augustine Preparatory Academy, a school participating in Wisconsin’s pioneering school choice program, puts a number on a development predicted last summer.

“I have seen my fair share of ridiculous ideas, but this one might be near the top,” said State Sen. Duey Stroebel. “The notion that it is government’s job to subsidize and prop up a dying industry like journalism is preposterous.”

Healthcare spending continues to grow. Fortunately, a bill being considered in the Wisconsin Legislature, SB905, provides a solution that could make it both cheaper and more accessible via direct primary care. 

Two state Assembly members have proposed giving a $25 starter for a state-administered educational savings account to every child born or adopted in Wisconsin.

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.