Celebrating 35 years of advancing freedom in Wisconsin

Cops and MPS

Police banned, crime a daily occurrence in MPS schools

By Mark Lisheron

The Milwaukee Police Department responded to 1,310 calls for service at 34 MPS-controlled high schools in the 2021-’22 school year, an average of 7.2 calls every school day that raises anew questions about the school board’s decisions to stiff-arm police.

The Milwaukee Public Schools Board of Directors pulled officers out of schools in 2016 after parents and activists complained that police too often arrested and ticketed students rather than allowing the schools to discipline them.

In the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, the School Board then voted unanimously in June 2020 to dissolve its contract for resource officers outside of school buildings as well.

Presented with the numbers, a spokesman for Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said the mayor hasn’t wavered in thinking “police inside schools is a matter that MPD and for MPS need to work out together.”

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VIEWPOINT

For the Sake of Milwaukee’s Children, Get Cops Back in MPS Schools

By Mike Nichols

Students in Milwaukee’s public high schools who want a better life and know that school is their only way up are being battered, assaulted and exposed to gunfire or other reckless conduct on a daily basis.

Simply put: It is an absolute moral imperative to get police officers back into Milwaukee public schools immediately.

Smart, young kids striving to escape chaos can’t do it alone, surely can’t compete for spots in the best schools or even stay focused on a book or test when they’re fearful of miscreants carrying guns and shooting at each other.

Read the full Viewpoint

Mandate for Madison: New Report

“Ban the Box” policies may hurt the job-seekers they aim to help

So-called Ban the Box policies were well-intended, prohibiting employers from asking on an initial job application whether an individual has been convicted of a crime. This, the theory went, gives qualified applicants with criminal records an opportunity to convey their value to employers rather than seeing their résumés preemptively thrown out.

Do the policies work? This can be tested since 37 states have such laws, with some places even applying them to the private sector. Wisconsin has applied a Ban the Box law to state government hiring since 2016, and Milwaukee and Racine followed for municipal jobs. Has it made a difference?

Recent and rigorous academic evaluations suggest that such policies aren’t effective at increasing employment among the formerly incarcerated. Some research links the policies with worsened employment prospects for men without criminal records or for Black men. In short, Ban the Box policies are ripe for re-evaluation and Wisconsin should avoid them.

Read the report.

Free Exchange

The moral ecology of learning: How school choice helps Milwaukeeans

Earlier research already showed that children who went to schools in Milwaukee’s Parental Choice Program were less likely to get in trouble as young adults. Marilyn Anderson Rhames, an education scholar, found that these happier life outcomes were specifically linked to the religious content so prevalent in Milwaukee’s choice schools.

Rhames, who spent 14 years as a teacher in Chicago’s public schools before studying for her doctorate, talks about how schools form character and how school choice helps them do it.

Listen to the podcast

Registration Now Open:

Badger Institute Annual Dinner

Join the Badger Institute on Tuesday, October 11, 2022 to celebrate 35 years of advancing freedom in Wisconsin at our Annual Dinner. The evening will feature keynote speaker Ed Feulner, co-founder and longtime president of The Heritage Foundation, one of the world's most influential think tanks.

Feulner will share remarks on vision and leadership, drawing on his experience at the helm of Heritage as the Foundation crafted many of President Reagan’s influential policies as well as those of subsequent executive administrations. He will also speak about the Institute's Mandate for Madison, our roadmap for Wisconsin citizens and leaders toward a freer and more prosperous future. 

The dinner will be hosted at the Wisconsin Club. Registration is now open and sponsorships are available (email Vice President Angela Smith). 

Ensuring Opportunity

New Report: Altering Wisconsin’s Safety Net to Encourage Upward Mobility

New Report: Altering Wisconsin’s Safety Net to Encourage Upward Mobility

Even before the pandemic, U.S. entitlement spending was on an unsustainable path, the growth in means-tested safety net programs far outstripping inflation. The inevitable federal cuts or higher taxes that result will hinder Wisconsin’s aim of helping the poor and vulnerable.

But it creates an opportunity for Wisconsin to demand more authority over federal safety net programs, including a willingness to take a larger funding role while assuming more responsibility.

Poverty scholar Angela Rachidi — an American Enterprise Institute senior fellow and Wisconsin resident who once led policy research at the New York City Department of Social Services — has outlined for the Badger Institute what Wisconsin can do with that added authority.

Read the full report

Wisconsin Troubling Tax Facts

Wisconsin Troubling Tax Fact #4: High individual income tax rates affect 95% of Wisconsin businesses including sole proprietorships, partnerships, LLCs and S corps.

(Watch next week’s Top Picks for more Troubling Tax Facts.)

Learn more here.

Weekly Survey: Would a police presence alleviate crime in Milwaukee public schools?

Last Week's Results

What We're Reading

• National Review (paywall): The States Move Forward with the Flat Tax
• WiscNews: 'Year of the Parent' gears up for another school year
• The 74: Despite Progress, a Third of Students Finished Year Below Grade Level
• Americans for Prosperity: How the Inflation Reduction Act would raise taxes while failing to reduce inflation
• Daily Signal: Back-to-School Blues: Droves of Americans Ditching Public School
• Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty: From the Top

Invest in the Badger Institute

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The Badger Institute is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organization funded solely by the generosity of foundations, companies and individuals.