By Ola Lisowski – No amount of state aid will ever be enough to prop up such cost drivers and an establishment that is more focused on employment than students. Read More The Real Controversy Surrounding the MPS Budget Debate
By M.D. Kittle – The idea that nothing is simply handed to you definitely is how Tommy Thompson approached ground-breaking welfare reform. More than 20 years ago Thompson signed into law a sweeping package of initiatives that set the pace for the national welfare reform that followed. Read More Tommy Thompson Reformed Welfare Through The Power Of Work
Budget Blog – The Joint Committee on Finance released its budget procedures memo on Thursday outlining what items they will consider from the governor’s budget and what items they are rejecting. JFC is starting from scratch for the Department of Transportation portion of the state budget, choosing to ignore the agency request and the governor’s proposal. Read More Budget Blog – JFC Dumps Governor’s DOT Budget, UW Reforms, and Prevailing Wage Repeal
By MacIver Institute President Brett Healy – Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent Darienne Driver recently announced that the district could face significant financial challenges, once again, as she begins her work preparing for the upcoming 2017-2018 budget deliberations. During an interview with Mike Gousha at a Marquette Law School program, Driver discussed the $1.2 billion dollar budget she will present in May and a potential $50 million dollar shortfall facing MPS. Read More No Surprise Here: MPS Blames $12 Million Less In Federal Title I Funding On School Choice
MacIver News Service -The vast majority of Obamacare could be swept away by the same bureaucratic rule-making process that the Obama administration used to create it, former governor Tommy Thompson told a crowd in Madison on Tuesday. Read More Former Gov. Thompson: Most of Obamacare Can be Undone by New HHS Secretary
New Hampshire has the highest level of economic freedom among all U.S. states for the second year in a row, while Wisconsin is tied for 32nd place, finds a new report released Tuesday by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank. Read More Report: Wisconsin Ranks 32nd in Economic Freedom; New York Still the Least-Free; New Hampshire Leads Nation
By Ola Lisowski – I once heard someone say that the plural of anecdotes is not data. Wisconsinites would be wise to heed that advice. Excel spreadsheets are less interesting than compelling quotes from public officials, but when everyone’s saying different things, the only thing you can really trust is the data itself. Read More Hallelujah – MPS Is Successful Despite the Data and All The Failing Schools?
By Ola Lisowski – Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction released new report cards for the state’s public schools, and some of the results have the public puzzled. The big news of the release was, as most expected, that Milwaukee Public Schools fell off the list of failing school districts while five others took its place. Read More New Report Card Standards Allow MPS to Escape “Failing” List, Racine Unified Added
Are Milwaukee Public Schools on the rebound after the state Department of Public Instruction took the district out of the “failing” category? Or did DPI simply move the goalposts? Read two competing op-eds. Read More A Difference of Opinion: Is MPS Failing Its Students?
By Research Associate Ola Lisowski – I’m happy that the state is more diligently measuring progress. When students do better year over year, it’s cause for celebration. But before we all declare MPS a success and the problem solved, let’s wait for the report cards to to be published in November. Read More Call it Whatever You Like, MPS is Still Failing its Students