By Mark Alan Hughes, Ph.D. In this report, we present new findings from the 1990 Census to document changes during the last twenty years in the demographic and economic conditions of metropolitan Milwaukee. In particular, we present the striking divergence of conditions in the city and the surrounding suburbs. Among our findings:  Suburbanization is a

Public funds for private schools, early childhood through post-secondary

Dale Belman, Ph.D. & John Heywood, Ph.D. The setting of public sector compensation should command the attention of all citizens. The level of such compensation helps determine both the competence and efficiency of government services. Too high a level wastes the resources of state and local governments, depriving them of the opportunity to address other

The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program is one of the most talked about issues in Wisconsin and the nation, and the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction is trying to kill it.

Every day in the state of Wisconsin, there are approximately 45,000 convicted criminals who are still under sentence and are living in our neighborhoods and communities

On any given day, 83% of the offenders who have been convicted of a serious crime in Wisconsin are not in prison: they are on the streets, while 17% of criminals are in Wisconsin prisons

By John Wagner The State of Wisconsin has approved a significant expansion of…

How effective is the Department of Public Instruction?

A regional high school of excellence

By Simon Fass, Ph.D. – April 1991 The end of the United States’ military involvement in Indochina marked the beginning of a tide of refugee immigration from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos that would accumulate to almost one million individuals between 1975 and 1990. Tucked away in this flow of immigrants was a people from Laos

A survey of prisoners and an analysis of the net benefit of imprisonment in Wisconsin

By Tonia Devon, Ph.D., Rustum Roy, Ph.D. State programs in science and technology in the late seventies and eighties were largely responses by governors to the steady downturn in the manufacturing sector of the economy, which in the northeast had become a serious problem.  They were also responding to international competition and the perception that

Where does the money go?

By Roger Parks, Ph.D., Ronald Oakerson, Ph.D. Throughout the 1980s and into 1990, Wisconsin has labored over the twin issues of property tax relief and the control of state/local spending. The two concerns are interrelated, but differently focused. Effective property tax relief requires local tax restraint; otherwise tax dollars spent for relief may instead finance increases in

By Daniel Alesch, Ph.D. This is a case study of privatized general relief…

It can be done

By Richard Cebula, Ph.D. The purpose of this study is to estimate the…

The Internal “Brain Drain” Reexamined

This study reviews the state-financed program of racial integration in metropolitan Milwaukee public schools. It addresses the cost of the program, the manner in which it has been implemented, and academic results

A survey of how 3,000 Wisconsin residents view public education in Wisconsin

Answers to the most frequently asked questions about mediocrity in American education and what can be done about it