Browsing: MPS

Among 85 Wisconsin school districts seeking tax hikes Tuesday, Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) is making far and away the biggest ask.

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.

The lasting damage to children from shutting down schools for month after uselessly virtual month during the pandemic is now so obvious that even the New York Times admits it.

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.

The children in MPS deserve better. The city deserves better. There is no realistic argument that more money is the solution. To the extent a big influx of cash allows further complacency, it is more likely to hurt.

According to the Milwaukee Public Schools’ own figures filed with the state, at least 20 of the district’s schools had enrollments last school year that were less than half the building’s capacity.

Many — if not most — kids counted as enrolled in the Milwaukee Public Schools miss at least three weeks of class throughout the year. In some schools, nearly all kids are chronically absent — that is, absent on more than 10% of possible attendance days.

“It’s like they said ‘Let’s just shoot for the moon’ with this referendum, Andrekopoulos told the Badger Institute. “At some point, don’t you have to say ’No’?”

For too long to remember, MPS has been mired in mediocrity, unable to move forward on anything with any sort of urgency. There’s abundant evidence that more money will not produce better outcomes, but even more evidence that MPS typically moves slightly slower than the speed of your average hermit crab race.

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.