Inside our newsroom, we often talk about filling information gaps — providing Wisconsinites with information they need but struggle to find elsewhere.
We’ve filled a range of gaps, whether related to accessing FoodShare benefits, applying for college financial aid or preventing the spread of infectious diseases like measles. It’s all part of our effort to “complete rather than compete” with other sources of quality information.
We’re also identifying gaps in our own work. That means asking whether everyone we aim to serve can access our reporting.
For the past several weeks we’ve discussed how to improve the experience of one particular demographic of readers: those who are blind or visually impaired.
In partnership with the nonprofit Hacks/Hackers, a convener of technologists and journalists to improve the information ecosystem, we’re experimenting ways to improve the audio descriptions of photos for those who use screen readers, known as alt text. That includes formalizing internal standards for higher-quality alt text and testing artificial intelligence tools — always checked by a human editor — to efficiently generate alt text that adheres to our new standards.
The result, we hope, will be a better experience for visually impaired readers.
Our next step will be to explore offering more audio versions of our reporting. While we currently partner with WPR to produce audio versions of Addie Costello’s stories and have begun airing audio versions of fact briefs through Civic Media radio stations, much of our reporting still exists only as text. Expanding audio serves a variety of audiences, not just people with visual impairments.
As we’re having these conversations, we want to hear from you. If you use a screen reader or have other accessibility needs, tell us how we’re doing and what we can improve. You can email me directly at jmalewitz@wisconsinwatch.org.
How can we make news more accessible? We want to hear from you. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
About 13,000 disabled workers previously declared ineligible for unemployment insurance are being sent mailed notices from the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development notifying them they might be eligible for past benefits, worth potentially hundreds to thousands of dollars per person.
The DWD began processing nearly 10 years worth of unemployment claims from individuals who, under a 2013 state law, were previously declared ineligible for those benefits due to simultaneously receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). But last year a court struck down that law.
That means thousands of people could receive financial compensation if they were either denied unemployment benefits or ordered to repay benefits they received between Sept. 8, 2015, and July 29, 2025, because the person collected SSDI.
A spokesperson for DWD said the total cost of the claims the agency may have to pay out is unclear right now. Individuals who receive unemployment insurance can receive a maximum of $370 per week for at most 26 weeks, which would be $9,620. But not every person files for the entire 26-week period. The current average is 13 weeks, the spokesperson said.
A federal judge in 2024 struck down the law that previously blocked individuals from receiving both SSDI benefits and unemployment insurance.
While the judge ruled the law was discriminatory, the DWD continued to deny unemployment claims until July when the process was ordered to stop. The same federal judge then in August ordered DWD to compensate people who were previously denied or forced to repay unemployment benefits while receiving SSDI between 2015 and 2025.
A spokesperson for DWD said it is mailing notices to individuals who may be eligible for past benefits, but warned that it will take time to process the claims from the designated time period.
While DWD is mailing about 13,000 notices, the agency doesn’t know how many people will actually reach out about filing a claim to receive the past benefits. Individuals must call DWD about their claim within 90 days of receiving a notice from the agency.
The DWD has a web page with guidance and answers to questions about the court order and individuals who may be eligible for past unemployment benefits.
People with questions can also contact a DWD Help Center phone number at 414-435-7069 or toll free at 844-910-3661 during business hours.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
After court ruling, some 13,000 disabled Wisconsin workers notified they may be eligible for backpay is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
By Keshav Srikant at Econofact
Unemployment among young U.S. workers is the highest it’s been in nearly four years.
Unemployment among young U.S. workers (those aged 16-24) was 10.5% in August 2025. That is the highest rate since February 2021 when it was 10.9%.
The World Health Organization ended the COVID-19 pandemic’s “global health emergency” status on May 5, 2023. However, prior to the pandemic, youth unemployment was higher than current levels from August 2007 to January 2016.
The reason for the recent rise in youth unemployment is unclear. Some economists point to displacement of recent college graduates by artificial intelligence, while others point to a broadly softening labor market.
The overall unemployment rate was 4.3% in August 2025.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Is unemployment for young US workers the highest since the pandemic? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
It took Allison Beining and Kaitlyn Weyenberg almost three years to get accepted into Fox Valley Technical College’s dental hygiene program. While they inched up the waiting list for one of the coveted 15 spots, they completed dental assisting training, which taught them to operate radiographic equipment and sterilize medical instruments, among other skills.
Now, as the two students prepare to graduate and begin working as hygienists, the Appleton-based college is debuting a $2.1 million expansion to oral health training — so future students won’t have to wait as long to enroll. Across the state, 13 more campuses are unveiling similar projects.
Following a $20 million investment from the Legislature, Wisconsin’s technical colleges are trying to solve the state’s dental worker shortage by revamping their oral health programs, constructing upgraded labs and enrolling hundreds more students.
“We know that this is a need, and this expansion allows us to serve more students in these programs than we had previously, which means more hygienists, more assistants into the community and into the workforce quicker,” FVTC Chief Academic Officer Jennifer Lanter said.
Wisconsin’s dearth of dental workers has been well documented in recent years. Forty-two of Wisconsin’s 72 counties are impacted by the scarcity, according to the Rural Health Information Hub.
Dentists are poorly distributed across the state, with an uneven share practicing in metropolitan areas and too few in rural regions. Too few dental hygienists and assistants — largely trained by technical schools — have entered the field to replace those who have retired in recent years.
Officials at nearly every Wisconsin technical college are looking to respond by expanding their training capacity. The technical college system trains about 2,200 students in oral health professions each year, and the new state funding will allow colleges to increase enrollment by about 10%, System President Layla Merrifield said.
An influx of students graduating and entering the workforce should make booking oral health care appointments easier, industry officials say.
“Not only was it a workforce issue for our dentist offices, but it was starting to impact patient care — access to care — where patients weren’t able to get their cleanings and their routine work done,” said Wisconsin Dental Association Executive Director Mark Paget. “It became a health issue for us, and thankfully, the Legislature understood the problem.”
Industry leaders began staring down the barrel of a dental worker shortage roughly seven years ago. Then, an influx of hygienists retired during the COVID-19 pandemic, “throwing gasoline on the fire,” Paget said.
The dental association created a task force with the state’s technical college system, the Office of Rural Health and the Workforce Development Association to discuss solutions.
It quickly identified a major snag keeping new workers from entering the profession: The state’s eight dental hygiene training programs were all at capacity, with students stuck on waiting lists to participate.
“We met with the technical colleges several times and said, ‘OK, what would it take to increase your class sizes?’ Because that’s obviously where the problem is. There’s just not enough capacity for the schools to teach the classes,” Paget said. “The technical college said the magic words. It’s always money, right? It always boils down to money.”
Merrifield said the steep cost of installing equipment, such as chairs and tools, was a major barrier to colleges educating more students.
In FVTC’s case, that meant some of the dental lab spaces were physically cramped, which allowed room for fewer learners and sometimes led to errors.
“The sterilization room … it was so small,” Beining, the student, recalled. “Things would get lost, people would get frustrated.”
In 2023, the dental association’s advocacy team lobbied the Legislature for more money to increase training capacity. Lawmakers allocated $20 million in that year’s budget to expand the oral health care workforce, such as increased class sizes, new programs and investments in equipment.
The funds flowed to the technical college system, which dispersed portions to schools as grants. Fourteen out of 16 colleges received a share, Merrifield said.
While roughly half of the colleges offer dental hygiene programs, some funding went to assistant training and creating Expanded Function Dental Auxiliary certificate programs, which give advanced training to dental assistants. FVTC used grant funds to introduce an EFDA certificate this year.
Inside Lakeshore Technical College’s dental lab, it might be easy to forget you’re on a college campus and not inside a dentist’s office. The space is outfitted with a reception desk and waiting room, 11 sleek dental chairs and a locker room for students to dress in their scrubs.
The college, based in Cleveland, Wisconsin, used its $1.2 million in grant funds to renovate its dental lab, upgrade equipment and introduce a dental hygiene associate degree.
Previously, Lakeshore Tech offered only a semester-long dental assistant certificate. Now, the college will increase to training 15 assistant students each semester and enroll 10 more in the hygiene program.
“There’s definitely a need in this area,” said Christina McGinnis, Lakeshore’s dental program coordinator. “Often when you call the dentist, it takes a long time to get in. So having more chairs, more students can definitely help fill that void in the local community.”
Inside a newly constructed classroom, three stations are equipped with mannequin heads with wide-open mouths. The students will practice using their suction and cleaning instruments on the dummies before they work on real people. The simulators are just one of the technology upgrades the college was able to purchase with the grant funds, and they will help students become familiar with the tools they’ll use in the industry.
“(We’re) trying to stay on top of what’s out there, for what our students are going to be seeing when they go out to the community, working as assistants or hygienists,” McGinnis said. “They know what they’re going to be exposed to here, and then they’ll also see that in the dental world.”
Almost all Lakeshore Tech dental assisting students have a full-time job lined up when they graduate, McGinnis said, and it’s typical for students to enter the field earning $20 per hour. The college is waiting for a dental program accreditor to approve the hygienist degree. Officials hope it will launch in the fall of 2026.
Other Wisconsin technical colleges are starting programs tailored to needs in their service areas. For example, Madison Area Technical College recently renovated its lab and added an EFDA certificate program. Northcentral Technical College in Wausau, surrounded by rural counties with severe shortages, is introducing the state’s first dental therapist training.
“If you’re growing up as a kid on Medicaid in the Northwoods, you almost never see a dentist. It’s very, very difficult to even see a hygienist,” Merrifield said. “So the idea with that particular program is to produce these professionals — not that they’re gonna compete with dentists because they can’t do everything that a dentist can do — but they can expand that access and make it a little bit easier.”
In the meantime, the industry just has to get through the next year or two before the additional students start graduating from the programs and filling the many empty jobs, Paget said.
“The system works exactly how the system was supposed to work,” he said. “The technical colleges, the Legislature, the governor, everybody came together to solve a problem.”
Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus.
Long wait for a dental appointment? Wisconsin tech colleges are working to fix that is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
Wisconsin TV news manager Julie Moravchik McAllister has been covering and assigning stories about Breast Cancer Awareness Month for years. Now, she has found herself among those diagnosed with the disease.
The post Longtime Northern Wisconsin news leader faces her toughest assignment: breast cancer appeared first on WPR.
As the weather grows colder, Wisconsin health officials are urging residents to get vaccinated for several respiratory illnesses, including COVID-19. The plea comes as people are facing more confusion and hurdles over getting a COVID shot.
The post Wisconsin health officials urge people to get vaccinated for respiratory illnesses appeared first on WPR.
“When I look into a baby's eyes and ‘goo go ga ga,’ and the baby makes those sounds back, that child is learning how to make that hard G sound with me,” Sauk Prairie School District Superintendent Jeff Wright said. “But you can't learn that through a screen. And you also can't learn that if you see the foreheads of adults more than you see their full faces.”
The post Educators worry excessive screen time is causing speech delays in early childhood appeared first on WPR.
Construction is set to begin soon for a project in Milwaukee aimed at getting homeless veterans off the street and into housing.
The post Tiny home project in Milwaukee will provide temporary housing for homeless veterans appeared first on WPR.
Republican authors of a bill directing schools to create a process telling parents how to opt their kids out of vaccine requirements said at a public hearing Wednesday the measure isn't "anti-vax." But Democratic lawmakers alleged it was aimed at shaking the public's confidence in vaccines.
The post GOP bill requiring more notice for vaccine waivers gets public hearing appeared first on WPR.
The U.S. Department of Energy is reportedly considering terminating more than 600 Biden-era funding awards across the country that total almost $24 billion.
The post Gov. Tony Evers calls on Trump’s energy department to preserve $1.5B in funding appeared first on WPR.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison saw a sharp drop in the number of new students attending from overseas this fall, the decline coming after college officials voiced concerns about the impact of Trump administration policies on international enrollment.
The post UW-Madison sees more than 30 percent decline in international freshman students appeared first on WPR.
Special education advocates in Wisconsin are concerned about the potential impact of layoffs in the U.S. Department of Education offices that oversee special education programs.
The post Federal layoffs in special education leave Wisconsin advocates concerned for students with disabilities appeared first on WPR.
Twenty years later, “Voodoo” stands as an epoch in music and pop history. Filmmaker and writer Faith A. Pennick has penned the 33 1/3 series book on D’Angelo’s masterpiece called, “D’Angelo’s Voodoo.”
She writes that “Voodoo” was “a gumbo of rock, soul, gospel, hip-hop, jazz, and indigenous African and Caribbean music, exploring the pitfalls of fame, love found and lost, carnal desires, and the blessing of a child.”
The post 25 years later, D’Angelo’s ‘Voodoo’ still casts a spell appeared first on WPR.
The heart of many Wisconsin communities is the local school district, and that is certainly true in Amherst. When Amherst High School decided to install a rooftop solar array, it was not just about saving money on energy. It was about helping students see renewable energy in action every day. Through the Solar on Schools program, supported by the Couillard Solar Foundation and administered by the Midwest Renewable Energy Association (MREA), the district added a solar system that both powers the school and offers hands-on educational value.
To see how this project came together, I joined Isaiah “Zay” Miller, Commercial Project Manager at Northwind Solar, a worker-owned cooperative based in Amherst, WI.
Zay’s path into solar started with curiosity and a willingness to learn. He got his start in 2018, doing mostly residential rooftop installations with almost no construction experience under his belt.
He quickly found his footing at Northwind. Within a few months, he was leading the DC side on commercial projects, later moving into Field Manager and Project Manager roles. Today, he oversees commercial systems and handles much of the design work.
Having worked in nearly every position in the company, Zay brings a deep understanding of what it takes to install systems safely and efficiently.
Before joining Northwind, Zay studied ecological engineering at Oregon State University. His background in water systems gave him a useful way to think about energy. “It’s all systems thinking,” he said. “How water moves, how power moves, it’s just a different medium.”
At around 7 years with Northwind, Zay is now a member-owner of the company. Northwind operates as a worker-owned cooperative, which shapes how the company approaches its projects.
“You have to work here for two years before you can buy in,” Zay said. “The cooperative model means we make decisions together. It’s a shared responsibility.”
The Amherst High School system was designed to match how the building actually uses power. The panels sit above the cafeteria because that section of the roof is closest to the cafeteria’s service connection and where the school’s electricity demand peaks.
Zay explained that the cafeteria experiences the highest energy demand during the day, especially around lunchtime when kitchen equipment, lighting, and ventilation are all running. The system was designed and sized to offset that exact peak. “That’s what makes the system efficient. It’s tied to real usage, not just open roof space,” he said.
On top of the school, the array sits on a weighted mounting system designed to rest securely on the roof without drilling into it.
“Flat roofs are never truly flat,” Zay said. “There’s always a slope for drainage, so we adjusted the racking to make sure everything sat evenly.”
Zay explained that the layout was built with flexibility in mind, allowing the district to expand the system later or connect to another service point if they decide to increase their solar capacity.
For Zay, the Amherst project shows how clean energy can fit naturally into community spaces. “This work builds community,” he said. “It’s local jobs, local power, and you can see what you’ve built every time you drive by.”
He also emphasizes that success in solar depends on strong trade skills and an eye for detail. Carpentry, measurement, and problem-solving often matter more than electrical training at first. Many of the best installers, he noted, come from farming, construction, or mechanical backgrounds where those instincts are second nature.
Zay sees solar installation as a skilled trade that blends craftsmanship, teamwork, and purpose. Many of the people he works with come from different backgrounds and discover the field by chance, but stay because the work is meaningful. As he put it, “Being able to think ahead and problem-solve is what separates a good installer from a great one.”
Zay sees a future where solar projects continue to connect people to both energy and place. He is particularly interested in the potential of agrivoltaics, an approach that allows land to be used for both solar generation and agriculture. By combining the two, solar arrays can produce clean energy while also supporting crop growth and improving soil health. To Zay, this kind of dual-purpose design shows how renewable energy can work in harmony with Wisconsin’s agricultural roots rather than compete with them.
He also sees value in bringing policymakers and educators closer to the field. “It’s great when people from the policy side come out here,” he said. “A lot of the challenges we deal with, like permitting delays or utility rules, aren’t visible from an office.”
As Amherst High School’s system begins generating power, it reflects the kind of thoughtful design and craftsmanship that defines Northwind’s approach. For Zay, it is another example of what good planning and teamwork can accomplish.
“At the end of the day, we’re just trying to build good systems and do right by our customers and our team,” he said.
If you are part of this work and would be willing to share your story, I would love to join you for a day. Feel free to reach out to me at ben@renewwisconsin.org.
The post Clean Energy Works: On Schools appeared first on RENEW Wisconsin.
Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.
Standard driver’s licenses are not proof of U.S. citizenship.
Enhanced driver’s licenses, which require documents such as a birth certificate or passport, provide proof. Intended for use in U.S. border crossing by vehicle, they are available in Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont and Washington.
Citizenship is required to vote in federal, state and the vast majority of local elections.
To register to vote, people in Wisconsin and most states must declare citizenship, under penalty of perjury. Proof isn’t required.
A 2024 lawsuit sought to require the Wisconsin Elections Commission to verify citizenship for voting. The commission argued that no state law requires citizenship proof.
A judge Oct. 3 ordered the commission to determine whether any noncitizens are registered to vote and to stop accepting voter registrations without verifying citizenship. The state is challenging the order.
Audits have found that very few registered voters are noncitizens.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Do standard driver’s licenses prove US citizenship? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
This story was originally published by ProPublica.
Following public outcry, the U.S. Department of Education has restored funding for students who have both hearing and vision loss, about a month after cutting it.
But rather than sending the money directly to the four programs that are part of a national network helping students who are deaf and blind, a condition known as deafblindness, the department has instead rerouted the grants to a different organization that will provide funding for those vulnerable students.
The Trump administration targeted the programs in its attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion; a department spokesperson had cited concerns about “divisive concepts” and “fairness” in explaining the decision to withhold the funding.
ProPublica and other news organizations reported last month on the canceled grants to agencies that serve these students in Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin, as well as in five states that are part of a New England consortium.
Programs then appealed to the Education Department to retain their funding, but the appeals were denied. Last week, the National Center on Deafblindness, the parent organization of the agencies that were denied, told the four programs that the Education Department had provided it with additional grant money and the center was passing it on to them.
“This will enable families, schools, and early intervention programs to continue to … meet the unique needs of children who are deafblind,” according to the letter from the organization to the agencies, which was provided to ProPublica. Education Department officials did not respond to questions from ProPublica; automatic email replies cited the government shutdown.
When the funding was canceled, the programs were in the middle of a five-year grant that was expected to continue through September 2028. The funding from the center is only for one year.
“We don’t know what will happen” in future years, said Lisa McConachie of the Oregon DeafBlind Project, which serves 114 students in the state. McConachie said that with uncertain funding, her agency had to cancel a retreat this fall that had been organized for parents to swap medical equipment, share resources and learn about services to help students when they get older. She hopes to reschedule it for the spring.
“It is still a disruption to families,’’ she said. “It creates this mistrust, that you are gone and back and gone and back.”
Oregon’s grant application for its deafblind program, submitted in 2023, included a statement about its commitment to address “inequities, racism, bias” and the marginalization of disability groups, language that was encouraged by the Biden administration. It also attached the strategic plan for Portland Public Schools, where the Oregon DeafBlind Project is headquartered, that mentioned the establishment of a Center for Black Student Excellence — which is unrelated to the deafblind project. The Education Department’s letter said that those initiatives were “in conflict with agency policy and priorities.”
An advocate for deafblind students said he was happy to see the funding restored but called the department’s decision-making “amateurish” and disruptive to students and families. “It is mean-spirited to do this to families and kids and school systems at the beginning of the year when all of these things should be so smooth,” said Maurice Belote, co-chair of the National DeafBlind Coalition, which advocates for legislation that supports deafblind children and young adults.
Grants to the four agencies total about $1 million a year. The department started funding state-level programs to help deafblind students more than 40 years ago in response to the rubella epidemic in the late 1960s. Nationally, there are about 10,000 children and young adults, from infants to 21-year-olds, who are deafblind and more than 1,000 in the eight affected states, according to the National Center on Deafblindness.
While the population is small, it is among the most complex to serve; educators rely on the deafblindness programs for support and training.
ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
Students with hearing and vision loss get funding back despite Trump’s anti-DEI campaign is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
Login