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Get the latest news and updates from Badger Institute.
- Milwaukee’s list of half-used school buildings rises to 21
- Badger Institute urges “no” vote on MPS referendum
- Voters will decide if legislators get say over federal spending
- Number of half-used MPS buildings up to at least 20
- Many MPS students are chronically absent
- Where the hell is Yuba?
- Former MPS superintendent critical of $252 million referendum
- UW skirting law and undermining racial equality
Browsing: News
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.
Separate constitutional amendment on veto power also advances Wisconsin voters will decide on primary day, Aug. 9, whether the state…
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.
Wisconsin’s smallest incorporated village is on a hill, and in a valley, too.
“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’?”
The law does not allow Wisconsin to give anyone a free ride based on racial identity such as being Native American. So instead, UW-Madison is basing the cost waiver on membership in one of 11 federally recognized Wisconsin tribes.
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.
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.
“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.
When Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state’s business chamber, last month put out the results of its semiannual survey of CEOs’ sentiments, the outlook was grim: 22% rated the Wisconsin economy as “strong.” Only 10% said the same of the national economy, with 28% calling it “weak.” That’s a gloomier number than the WMC found in summer 2020, amid lockdowns.
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.
A new bill, SB275, would allow for the creation of specialized business courts. Judges with business expertise or interest could volunteer to hear those sorts of cases while still handling some other types of litigation. Complex civil cases would move along more quickly, freeing time for criminal cases and other matters.
“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.