- Home
- Issues
- Mandate for Madison
- Research
- News & Analysis
- Media
- Events
- About
- Top Picks
- Donate
- Contact Us
Subscribe to Top Picks
Get the latest news and research from Badger Institute
- Data center naysayers should consider what the future would have brought to Port Washington
- Game over: How a professor bungled the facts of Wisconsin school choice
- Superior coal terminal is latest victim of declining Great Lakes shipments
- Lead paint: The 50-year saga continues
- U.S. House defangs federal protection of gray wolves in Wisconsin
- Marquette poll finds 80 percent of Americans trust government ‘only some of the time’ or ‘never’
- Legislature balks as Evers demands millions for more food aid bureaucrats
- Two-thirds of Americans under 30 say people can’t be trusted, Marquette poll finds
Browsing: Media
State Rep. Bob Donovan is seeking a state audit of the Milwaukee Public Schools.
The status quo is on the ballot come April 2. Milwaukee simply cannot afford more mismanagement from MPS.
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.
Legalizing all adult use is likely to increase the uncontrolled and harmful use of cannabis — that is, “cannabis use disorder” — in Wisconsin. Researchers are more divided on whether legalizing only the medical use of marijuana has similar effects.
“Kudos to the governor and legislators on both sides of the aisle who worked together to make this state a better place for kids and others badly in need of better dental care,” said Badger Institute President Mike Nichols. “This is a long-awaited, great day for potentially hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites, including a lot of poor kids who suffer from toothaches and cavities and poor health.”
Only a certain kind of person or family wants to be in Millville, Wisconsin. And no one grandfathered into residency is clamoring for some kind of economic revival.
The Jones Act, protecting the American maritime industry and driving free trade champions crazy for more than 100 years, is both a boon and a bane to Wisconsin businesses, workers and consumers.
“This is a long-awaited, great day for potentially hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites, including a lot of poor kids, who suffer from toothaches and cavities and poor health,” said Badger Institute President Mike Nichols.
Wisconsinites who bake food at home for sale in their communities could find their incomes dramatically curtailed under legislation recently introduced in the Wisconsin Legislature.
The Badger Institute summarizes relevant findings related to medical marijuana given the arrival of legislation that would allow its use in Wisconsin.
Cannabis legalization might be a policy that many would assume is a negative for a state’s workforce, but Badger Institute analysis of the limited available research paints a much more complex and positive picture.

