Choice Stories

“Where character is celebrated”

Parents are hungry for schools where opportunity abounds — where kids are taught to lead lives of purpose for the good of their families, their communities and their futures.

Yet, it’s difficult to create that opportunity when Wisconsin students are so inequitably funded. Students attending choice schools are funded at 60% the value of their public-school counterparts, meaning schools must spend time and energy raising funds in order to provide the quality education that every child deserves.

So, instead of playing favorites, why not fund what should matter most to everybody in the Badger State? Students and the lives of purpose they choose to create.

This video tells the story of how Kingdom Prep Lutheran High School is instilling purpose and character in young men in Milwaukee.

Watch the video

Viewpoint

What parents need to save their sons

A school that’s making Milwaukee’s future men navigates harsh fiscal environment

By Patrick McIlheran

Milwaukeean Scott Stewart sounds urgent when he talks of his son Savion’s school.

“These kids need this. They need this kind of positive environment.” Otherwise, he said, “there’s no telling what these kids would be doing right now, especially in the city of Milwaukee.”

The least Wisconsin can do is listen to what Stewart and other fathers and mothers say they need.

That school, Kingdom Prep Lutheran High School, is far different than the Milwaukee Public Schools options near Stewart’s northwest side home, options he once attended. “I didn’t want my kid to get wrapped up in the wrong environment,” he said.

Read the entire piece

Free Exchange Podcast

Schoolhouse Rock: How a Budget Becomes Law in Wisconsin

Did you know that Wisconsin has a biennium budget? Or that a powerful joint committee makes most of the budget decisions in the Legislature? Or how a projected $7.1B budget surplus might factor in?

Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) and Rep. Evan Goyke (D-Milwaukee), both members of the Joint Finance Committee, join Badger Institute VP Michael Jahr for a Schoolhouse Rock look at how a budget becomes law in Wisconsin.

Listen to the podcast

Auditing Government

State fails to document billions in federal funds

DOA says it didn’t keep track of $4 billion in emergency spending decisions

By Mark Lisheron

The public is unlikely to ever know how the state Department of Administration came to decide how to allocate and spend nearly $4 billion from three federal pandemic emergency spending bills.

Questioned by a sometimes frustrated Joint Legislative Audit Committee Tuesday at the Capitol, DOA leaders acknowledged that many of the decisions about how to allocate money to state agencies and local governments were made in phone conversations and emails with Gov. Tony Evers and his staff that were not documented.

There is no documented rationale for how much agencies would be granted or why they were granted those amounts. How the money has been spent is also often impossible to decipher given the lack of tracking or records.

Read the full article

Analysis: Republicans approve audit to address state licensing delays

Thousands of Wisconsinites impacted by department backlog

By Michael Jahr

Dogged by a huge backlog for occupational licenses and complaints by applicants and lawmakers, Wisconsin’s Department of Safety and Professional Services must submit to an audit of its operations.

An all-Republican majority of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee voted Tuesday to direct the Legislative Audit Bureau to examine an agency that fields between 5,000 and 10,000 calls every week. The LAB website projects the expected release of the audit in fall 2023.

Dozens of applicants and leaders of trade associations representing licensed professions have been frustrated by months-long licensing delays, long lapses in communication and requests for materials that applicants had already submitted.

The delays force would-be workers to sit on the sidelines after they graduate or move to Wisconsin from another state, unable to work in their field, serve others with their skills or earn paychecks commensurate with their education and experience.

Read more

‘Attributable to fraud’

The latest estimate of how much in COVID unemployment payments have been misspent, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Badger in the News

Fox Business: Wisconsin to vote on work requirements for welfare amid workforce crisis

Center Square: School choice supporters optimistic over Wisconsin open enrollment

Press Release

Badger Institute Opens New Madison Office

“A regular presence in Madison will allow us to more effectively provide research and educational resources to Madison policymakers and others in the Capitol,” said Badger Institute President Mike Nichols. “Our work has informed the public debate in Wisconsin for 35 years, but it’s not enough to just generate good ideas. We need to make sure that lawmakers are familiar with proven reforms and the benefits they can produce for their constituents.”

Read the full release

Weekly Survey: Should the projected $7 billion budget surplus be returned to Wisconsin workers and small businesses in the form of a lower, flatter tax structure?

Previous Poll Results

What We’re Reading

• Politico: Estimate of misspent Covid unemployment payments leaps to $191B

• WPR: From 'serious' to 'dire:' DAs offices across Wisconsin and the country are struggling to hire prosecutors

• Heritage Foundation: America Is Hurtling Toward Financial Calamity. It’s Not Too Late To Change Course

• Jason Riley: Black Students Need Better Schools, Not Lower Standards (paywall)

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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.