We lost a giant in economic and financial education — and in education reform — this week with the passing of Dr. Mark Schug.
Interestingly, I first met Mark in the offices of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI), the predecessor to the Badger Institute. At the time, I was an economics doctoral student, and Mark was a professor of education at UW-Milwaukee. That chance meeting changed both of our lives, but especially mine. Over the years, we went on to publish three books, more than 20 peer-reviewed journal articles, countless op-eds, a few economics curricular materials, and six Badger Institute reports (and Mark co-authored another five studies for the Institute as well). More importantly, I found a mentor and one of my closest friends.
Mark was an absolute giant in the field of economic education. He authored or co-authored much of the core curriculum developed by the Council for Economic Education that K-12 teachers continue to use today. His curriculum vitae was among the most impressive you will ever see, with more than 200 peer-reviewed publications.
Mark was also a unicorn — the rare professor in a major school of education who championed free markets and school choice. He advocated for phonics-based reading instruction, a reduced role for Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction in teacher licensing, market-oriented economic education for all Wisconsin students, and expanded educational choice.
But Mark didn’t just sit behind a desk in the ivory tower. Frustrated by the number of children being failed by Milwaukee Public Schools, he helped found the Business and Economics Academy of Milwaukeev, a charter school dedicated to preparing students for success. He also launched the Youth Enterprise Academy, a summer program that gave MPS students the opportunity to earn money, invest it, and save for higher education. Throughout his career, he led educational programs that helped teachers, journalists, elected officials, school board members, and Native American leaders better understand economics and the principles of a free society.
Mark’s commitment to reaching new audiences took him far beyond the university. Working with Bob Woodson’s Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, he developed an economics curriculum for underserved adults and carried it himself to places economic education had never been — first to the Bougahoma Missionary Baptist Church in rural Alabama, then to public housing communities in Southeast Washington, D.C.
Perhaps most importantly, Mark was an extraordinary man. He was a happy warrior — someone who relished debating ideas with those who disagreed with him, often over a Maker’s Mark Manhattan at the hotel bar. He believed that people could leave a spirited discussion without reaching full agreement and still part as friends (often with a hug). That outlook is all too rare today.
Mark was devoted to his wife, Io, to whom he was married for 57 years. We spent hundreds of nights together in hotels around the world while running economic education programs, and I can’t remember a single evening when he didn’t step away for a few minutes to call Io, the love of his life, just to check in.
Mark died doing what he loved. Just a month before his passing, at the America 250 workshop we ran together at Lambeau Field, he stood before educators from across the Midwest presenting new lessons he had written on the colonial economy and Adam Smith’s influence on the American Founding. He was an author and presenter for that program to the very end — still doing what he had done for decades, helping teachers do a better job teaching economics.
Wisconsin is a better place because of Mark’s scholarship, his advocacy, his teaching, and, above all, his kindness. His influence can be seen in the countless students, teachers, policymakers, and colleagues whose lives he touched. I know he made an immeasurable impact on so many, just as he did on me.
I will miss my friend.
Scott Niederjohn is dean of the Batterman School of Business and the director of the Free Enterprise Center, both at Concordia University Wisconsin, and he is a visiting fellow of the Badger Institute.
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