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Get the latest news and research from Badger Institute
- Data centers could be a godsend — if communities let them
- Economic freedom is worth defending — even when political parties forget it
- Wisconsin is missing its Medicaid accountability moment
- Lawmakers agree suspended drivers on Wisconsin roads remain a problem
- Wisconsin should choose the right side of the income tax divide
- Data centers often bring faster connections to world
- Facts to help you decide whether Wisconsin children should be eligible for donor-funded education scholarships
- Food co-op seen as viable, more likely option than government-funded grocery store in Milwaukee
Browsing: Featured
A growing number of Wisconsin communities are choosing to act against considerable economic interest and sit out the data center revolution.
Economic freedom is a fundamental animating idea of the republic that people should be free to work, build, hire, save, invest, trade and make their own economic choices without unnecessary interference from government.
At a time when Medicaid fraud is making national news, Wisconsin ought to impose greater discipline on a program that now costs taxpayers $36.4 billion over the 2025-27 budget cycle.
While state law prohibits drivers from driving with a suspended license, it’s not a crime unless alcohol is involved.
The choice Wisconsin leaders make about income tax policy will have important implications for the state’s future competitiveness and prosperity.
Geography matters for what’s called “latency,” the small but often important amount of time it takes signals to travel from a user to whatever data center holds the information he’s using.
What Wisconsinites need to know about how the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program works.
Good teachers are essential to school effectiveness and student achievement. What role does character formation play in keeping such educators in the classroom?
If Brittany Kinser wins Wisconsin’s race for state school superintendent, it would be the first victory over union-backed candidates since 1981.
Wisconsin’s governor talks of new 9.8% top tax rate — one that would wallop businesses that don’t flee.
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What made it possible for Jaime’s family and for 90% of St. Thomas’ students is Wisconsin’s parental choice program, which lets some families direct their children’s state education aid to a school they choose.
Robin Vos, fresh off a victory that seals his role as Speaker of the Assembly and now coming on 30 years in local and state politics, threw out a couple olive branches at Gov. Tony Evers Thursday that cynics might say are just the post-election niceties that invariably morph into barbs and stiff-arms in the Capitol hallways.
Twenty months after Congress passed a bill that rained $2.53 billion down on Wisconsin, the governor’s office in sole charge of administering the funding, as well as legislative audit and budget officials, have almost no idea of how all that money is being spent.
Do the state education bureaucrats, the schools of education, the consultants, the unions and the central offices know the one right way to teach math? That big test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, found that not once in the past two decades have Wisconsin’s public schools managed to make more than 41% of 8th-graders proficient in math.
Right after scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, came out, Wisconsin’s chief public school regulator, state Superintendent Jill Underly, issued a press release headlined, “Wisconsin elementary school students buck national trends in ‘National Report Card’ release.”
This is not true: Wisconsin’s scores fell by every measure since the last time children took the test, in 2019, just as scores fell for every other state.
Raising children, as can be fully appreciated only after you’ve done it, takes place in real time. They eat, sleep and grow whether you’re ready or not. So as parents supply children with the most crucial material treasure they ever will receive — a stable, loving home — many rely on some outside help in caring for their children while earning a living.
The surest way to improve the healthcare that Wisconsinites receive is to enable people to get the greatest satisfaction at the most favorable price via a free and transparent market.
As we move through 2022, the national economy is in what might best be described as a strange state.
Some people earn a lot of money. Some earn a little.

