A staff member at Madison East High School has been placed on leave while the school district investigates an allegation a student at the school was fed dog food.

The post Madison East staff member placed on leave after alleged dog food incident appeared first on WPR.

A parents’ advocacy group is giving mixed reviews to the latest developments in addressing the ongoing issue of lead contamination in Milwaukee Public Schools.

On the plus side, Lead Safe Schools MKE supports a new lead testing initiative at MPS that officials announced this week.

“We applaud the efforts at testing children and increasing testing penetration,” Kristen Payne of Lead Safe Schools MKE told the Wisconsin Examiner in an email message. “This will help to ascertain the extent to which children in Milwaukee suffer from elevated blood lead levels.”

Payne said the organization wants to see testing and evaluation expanded from elementary schools to the rest of the school system.

Caroline Reinwald, the public information officer for the Milwaukee Health Department, said that the MPS work started with elementary schools because younger children are at higher risk for lead exposure, which can lead to developmental problems. MPS is planning to evaluate other schools, she said in an email message, with the health department overseeing and guiding the process.

An MPS Lead Reports and Plan webpage outlines the district’s project for addressing potential lead exposure in the school system.

Payne said Lead Safe Schools MKE wants MPS to adopt a stronger standard for evaluating drinking water for the presence of lead than it currently uses — 15 parts per billion — noting that public health experts say that no level of lead in drinking water is safe for humans.

MPS media relations manager Stephen Davis said that the district tested drinking water from all fountains, faucets, dispensers and other fixtures in 2016, and that 94% of fountains “met EPA standards.” Fountains that did not were turned off and eventually replaced.

Davis said there are no lead service lines providing water to MPS school buildings. The district also has filtration systems on all water fountains.

Payne said that her group wants to see the district use a standard from the American Academy of Pediatrics of less than 1 ppb.

The organization also wants MPS to continue dust-wipe sampling in the buildings that the district has declared stabilized to ensure that they remain safe.

Reinwold said the health department “supports continued vigilance and will continue working with MPS to ensure stabilization work remains protective over time and that any new deterioration is addressed promptly.”

In addition, Lead Safe Schools MKE has sought more testing of soil on MPS school grounds, which Payne called “an overlooked pathway of potential exposure.”

Davis said the school district has evaluated areas where children may “come into contact with bare soil” including playgrounds, courtyards and unpaved outdoor spaces.

Payne said Lead Safe Schools MKE also has concerns about communication and transparency in the ongoing project to address lead exposure concerns in the school system.

“There are serious gaps in the data available to the public and no clear accountability processes in place to be sure information gets published,” she said.

A group of Wisconsin parents, students, teachers, school districts and education advocates are suing the Legislature over the current school funding formula, arguing that the system does not meet the state’s obligation to provide educational opportunities to all students as required by the state Constitution. 

The suit was filed Monday evening in Eau Claire County Circuit Court by Madison-based nonprofit Law Forward and the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state’s largest teachers union.

The plaintiffs in the suit are led by the Wisconsin Parent Teacher Association and include five school districts, including Adams-Friendship Area School District, School District of Beloit, Eau Claire Area School District, Green Bay Area Public School District, Necedah Area School District, the teachers union of each respective district, eight Wisconsinites including teachers, parents, students and community members, as well as the Wisconsin Public Education Network. 

The lawsuit names the state Legislature, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg), and the Joint Finance Committee and its Republican and Democratic members. 

Jeff Mandell, co-founder of Law Forward, told reporters during a press call Tuesday that schools have been doing their best to fully prepare students to be productive and active members of society but that the current funding system is making it almost impossible. 

“These folks are not magicians. They are not Rumpelstiltskin. They cannot turn straw into gold, and we do not have what we need for our schools to thrive,” Mandell said. 

Mandell noted that the Wisconsin Supreme Court has previously considered the way schools are funded in the 2000 case Vincent v. Voight. 

The Supreme Court found in the Vincent v. Voight case, which was initiated by a group of Wisconsin students, parents, teachers, school districts, school board members, citizens and the WEAC president, that the state’s funding formula was constitutional. 

The majority opinion indicated that the Legislature had articulated that an equal opportunity for a sound basic education is “the opportunity for students to be proficient in mathematics, science, reading and writing, geography and history, and for them to receive instruction in the arts and music, vocational training, social sciences, health, physical education and foreign language, in accordance with their age and aptitude.” The opinion also concluded that as long as “the Legislature is providing sufficient resources so that school districts offer students the equal opportunity for a sound basic education as required by the constitution, the state school finance system will pass constitutional muster.”

Mandell said that in the 25 years since the ruling “things have gotten considerably worse, and we are at a point where, for many districts … they are on the verge of crisis.” 

The lawsuit lays out the difference between how Wisconsin schools were funded in the  1999-2000 school year versus the 2023-2024 school year. School funding 25 years ago was comprised of 53.7% state funds, 41.6% local funds and 4.7% federal funding; in 2023-24, the mix had changed to about 45% state, 43% local and 12% federal funding.

“The fault for this crisis lies not at the feet of students, parents, families, teachers, staff, administrators, school districts, or elected board members,” the lawsuit states. “The shortcomings of our public schools are directly traceable to the Legislature’s consistent failures to ensure adequate state funding of public schools and to legislate a rational school finance system that meets constitutional mandates.”

The lawsuit states that school districts across the state are “facing financial crisis” because of expiring federal funding and stagnating state dollars. 

The suit also details the state’s history of funding schools and the increasing reliance on property taxes through school referendums to try to keep up with costs. It also details the ways that the state’s school choice program, which was launched in the 1990s and has grown exponentially over the years, has reduced funding for public schools. 

Law Forward was at the helm of the 2024 lawsuit that ended with the Wisconsin Supreme Court declaring the state’s legislative maps an unconstitutional gerrymander and is in the process of challenging the state’s Congressional maps. 

Mandell said the plaintiffs in the suit include a geographically diverse group to highlight how this is a statewide problem. He said it is possible that other districts will reach out about joining the case and they will “figure that out as we go.”

Joshua Miller, an Eau Claire Area School District parent, told reporters that “the dire need for adequate funding has been made clear to the lawmakers, but they have refused to hear our pleas” 

“The situation is sad, absurd, and it’s infuriating,” he said. “Wisconsin’s current school finance system is broken and this lawsuit, which I am proud to join, would be a way for the courts to force legislators to make a new system that works and actually meets the needs of the students of Wisconsin.” 

Tanya Kotlowski, a plaintiff in the case and superintendent for the Necedah Area School District, said her district is going to referendum for a third time this spring to help fund its operations. In April, the school district plans to ask voters to approve a four-year operational referendum that would provide a total of $5.8 million in order to maintain the district’s current level of educational programming as well as operate and maintain the district. 

Kotolowski noted that she and other school leaders have spent a lot of time advocating on behalf of their schools to lawmakers for additional funding. During the recent state budget cycle, school funding was one of the top issues brought up by members of the public at listening sessions held by the budget committee.

“Despite all of those efforts, the funding system has not kept up with the needs of our children and the needs of our current realities,” she said. “Our local referendum, some would argue or could argue, has been 100% funding that mandated legal, constitutional obligation.”

According to the lawsuit, the Necedah Area School District has directed over $6.6 million — all of its operational referendum revenue — to its special education fund over the past eight years.

Kotlowski said her district has been underfunded by $13 million for special education costs over the last decade, and that if funding had kept pace with inflation, the district wouldn’t need to go to referendum this year.

Mandell said that referendum requests used to be fairly rare and used when a school district had large projects.

“What we’re seeing now is a system where school districts have no choice but to go to referendum regularly to try to fund basic operations to keep the lights on and to keep payroll flowing, and it’s really a tremendous problem,” Mandell said. 

Referendum requests that allow schools to exceed state-imposed revenue caps through approval from voters became a part of Wisconsin’s school funding equation in the 1990s. Lawmakers implemented school revenue limit caps as part of an effort to control local property taxes. 

The revenue limits used to be tied to inflation, but that was ended in the 2009-11 state budget, leaving increases up to the decisions of state lawmakers and the governor, who have not provided predictable increases budget to budget.

The recent state budget did not invest any additional state dollars into school general aid, in part because lawmakers were upset with Evers’ 400-year partial veto in the prior state budget. The partial veto extended a $325 per pupil school revenue limit increase from two years to four centuries, giving, schools the authority to bring in additional dollars from state funds or property tax hikes. Without the state providing additional funding, many schools have turned to raising property taxes using the school revenue authority to help support their operational costs. 

“I understand there’s a big political debate about that veto, and about that mechanism, we don’t have a position on this. What we’re saying is that the school funding mechanism is not sufficient and is unconstitutional, even with that,” Mandell said.

The state budget did provide additional funding for special education reimbursement, but recent estimates show that the amount of funding will not be enough to provide reimbursement at the promised rates of 42% and 45%. Increasing special ed funding is part of ongoing negotiations between legislative leaders and Evers. 

The lawsuit comes as the legislative session is coming to a close. 

The state Assembly adjourned for the session last week and the Senate will wrap up next month, but the only bills with a chance of becoming law are those that have already passed the Assembly. 

Even if a deal arises out of the current negotiations on property taxes and school funding, Mandell said the problem identified in the lawsuit will still exist. He noted that a proposal from Evers included $450 million towards school general aids — an amount that is $2 billion less than what schools would get if inflationary increases had continued in 2009. Mandell said Evers is not named in the suit because it is the Legislature that is chiefly responsible for appropriating funds. 

“This is not a problem that arose overnight. It has developed over decades, and it’s not a problem that will be solved overnight,” Mandell said. “Any deal that the Legislature and the governor might reach… is not going to solve the problem.”

Mandell said that the plaintiffs in the lawsuit  are not looking for the court to decide on a specific amount of money that the state should provide to schools, but instead want the court to “fully explain and delve into how the finance system works, what the needs are, and to make some of those decisions.”

The lawsuit asks the court for a judgement that declares the Legislature hasn’t fulfilled and cannot “shirk” its constitutional obligation to fund schools at a sufficiently high level to “ensure that every Wisconsin student has an equal opportunity to obtain a sound basic education that equips them for their roles as citizens and enables them to succeed economically and personally in a tuition free public school where the character of instruction is as uniform as practicable.” It calls for the current funding system to be ruled invalid. 

The lawsuit calls for relief that will “establish a schedule that will enable the Court — in the absence of a superseding state law, adopted by the Legislature and signed by the governor in a timely fashion — to adopt and implement a new school finance system that meets all relevant state constitutional guarantees.” 

Mandell said, however, that it likely won’t be up to the court to decide exactly how the state should fund schools. 

“There are almost an infinite number of options for how the Legislature could do this, but what we’re asking the court to do is to look at it and say to the Legislature, not good enough…. then we do expect that the Legislature and the governor will do their jobs,” Mandell said. 

Mandell said that ideally a ruling would give lawmakers the opportunity to make changes in the next budget cycle. The budget process will kick off again in January 2027, after the state’s fall elections which will determine the make-up of the Senate and Assembly as well as choosing a new governor. 

If the Legislature and the governor don’t fix the problem, Mandell said, the court should step in again.

A group of parents and educators from across Wisconsin filed a lawsuit Monday against the state Legislature, alleging lawmakers have failed to adequately fund public schools. 

The post Parents, educators file lawsuit against Wisconsin lawmakers over school funding appeared first on WPR.

UW-Madison’s Sébastien Philippe is an expert in modeling nuclear war. He’s now working with the United Nations to research and reduce the risk of that happening, but he told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that an arms race may already be underway.

The post Wisconsin lies in the path of nuclear fallout, UW-Madison researcher’s modeling shows appeared first on WPR.

The Milwaukee Health Department and the Milwaukee Public Schools will spend the next year testing district schoolchildren for lead contamination.

On Tuesday, officials from the health department, the school district, City Hall and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention met to review the ongoing program to address lead contamination in the school district.

The CDC has granted the health department $400,000 to expand its school lead-screening program at MPS. The grant will cover screening for up to 8,000 MPS students, the health department reported.

The school district is contracting with NOVIR to carry out screening clinics on the premises of district schools. Funds will also go to the Coalition on Lead Emergency (COLE) to inform school district families about the screening program.

“By bringing screening directly into schools, we’re making it easier for families to access testing and ensuring we stay focused on prevention, transparency, and long-term safety,” Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said in a health department press release.

Members of the CDC’s lead poisoning and prevention team are reviewing the work done in the last year by the city, the health department and the school district, as well as their plans for screening children in the coming year.

After children at two MPS schools were found to have elevated levels of lead in their blood, the health department inspected the schools and found high levels of lead dust in the buildings. The schools were temporarily closed, and more testing found additional schools with contamination.

Early in the unfolding crisis, promised assistance from the CDC’s lead-prevention team was abruptly canceled, among numerous reversals that the Trump administration made in federal programs and funding. The CDC team was reinstated several weeks later and resumed working with the state and local health departments.

A city health department screening program found scores more children with elevated blood levels. According to the health department, the district’s subsequent cleanup program stabilized lead paint in 99 elementary schools by the end of 2025.

States are scrambling to meet rising demand for newly expanded school choice initiatives, pouring more money into the programs as waiting lists — and budget concerns — grow.

A further boost is expected next year, when the federal government rolls out a new policy allowing taxpayers to claim a tax credit for up to $1,700 in donations to nonprofits that award private school scholarships to K-12 students.

Supporters tout such programs as a lifeline for parents desperate to get their kids out of failing public schools, while opponents have long warned that they drain resources from public education as students move from public schools to private ones.

For years, voucher and scholarship programs providing taxpayer dollars for private school tuition were limited to low-income or special needs students. In 2022, however, Arizona became the first state to allow all students to use public money for private school tuition. By next school year, at least 17 states are expected to have universal programs — making roughly half of U.S. students eligible to receive money, according to FutureEd, a think tank at Georgetown University.

As both universal and limited programs spread across the country, many families are eager to participate.

In Alabama, more than 36,000 students last spring applied for 14,000 spots in the state’s new program, prompting Republican Gov. Kay Ivey to propose increasing its funding from $180 million to $250 million for the 2027-28 school year, when income limits will be eliminated.

In Oklahoma, Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt has proposed removing the budget cap on a scholarship program that turned away 5,600 students a couple of years ago because it ran out of money. And in Tennessee, Republican Gov. Bill Lee has proposed doubling the funding for a scholarship program that has a waitlist of about 34,000 students.

“Last year, we gave families school choice with the Education Freedom Scholarship program, because parents know best,” Lee said in his State of the State address last month. “Growing the program would open the doors of opportunity for thousands more children statewide.”

South Carolina Republican Gov. Henry McMaster and Missouri Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe also are seeking more money for school choice programs.

“So far what we’ve really seen is legislatures looking to expand the programs,” said Andrew Handel, director of education and workforce development at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a membership group for conservative state lawmakers that has pushed for choice programs nationwide.

“The ESA [education savings account] is the gold standard. It’s the one that gives parents the most flexibility,” he said, referring to programs that allow parents to use the money for other education-related expenses in addition to tuition. “The best states are where the funding for those school choice programs is tied directly to their state education formula. That ensures that no matter how many families apply, you’re always going to have the money there.”

But in Arizona, the first state with a universal program, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs has become an outspoken critic.

Hobbs last month criticized the program, approved under her Republican predecessor, as an “entitlement program” that “continues to operate unchecked, squandering taxpayer dollars with no accountability.” She has proposed scaling back the program to its original scope, when it was limited to children with disabilities and military families.

The program serves more than 100,000 students — about 1 in 10 K-12 students — and cost the state about $872 million in fiscal 2025, according to the Grand Canyon Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. In addition to offering vouchers to pay private school tuition, it allows money to be spent on certain school supplies.

A recent audit by the Arizona Department of Education found that about 20% of Empowerment Scholarship Account dollars were used for unauthorized purchases, including iPhones, lingerie, jewelry and other luxury items, according to documents obtained earlier this month by the television station 12News in Arizona.

At least 45% of the kids receiving aid in Arizona were never enrolled in public schools, 12News recently reported. In some states, the percentage is even higher: In the 2023-24 school year, about two-thirds of the students participating in scholarship programs in Arkansas and Iowa were already attending private schools.

Those numbers have handed ammunition to critics who argue that universal programs are creating two parallel education systems, both funded by taxpayers.

“Every state that’s passed a voucher system has had to slow down its per-pupil funding for public schools,” said Joshua Cowen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University. “Whether they take it directly out of school aid or fund it from another pot, it’s all the same budget.

“States can’t afford to run two systems.”

The waiting lists prove that many families would like to send their children to private schools, but it’s difficult to determine whether they get a better education there: Unlike public schools, private schools can turn away students, and in many states private school students don’t take the same standardized tests, so comparing academic performance is difficult.

Patrick Wolf, a professor at the University of Arkansas who studies school choice programs, noted that in his state, students with disabilities made up 48% of first-year participants. The percentage declined to 36% the second year, but that was still nearly three times the rate of disability in the general population.

Wolf argued that choice programs can help public schools by providing competition, forcing them to adapt.

“The traditional public schools can lose students who didn’t really want to be there, and that can be a pressure release valve,” he said. “What we’ve seen when private school choice programs launch is that public school test scores often go up slightly.

“The competitive effects are either neutral or positive,” he said. “They communicate more effectively with parents. They offer new programs targeted to the kinds of students they’re afraid might leave.”

Going big in Texas

Earlier this month, Texas launched what is likely to be the nation’s largest school choice program.

The new pre-K to 12th grade scholarship program is open to any U.S. citizen or immigrant in the country legally (public schools are open to everybody), but funding will be capped at $1 billion for the 2026-2027 school year. If state lawmakers choose to spend more in future years, the cost could rise to nearly $5 billion by 2030, according to a legislative fiscal note. The state’s current biennial budget is close to $340 billion.

Most participating students who want to attend a private school will be eligible for about $10,470 per year, while students with disabilities can receive up to $30,000. Families who want to homeschool their child can get $2,000.

This year, Texas will give priority to students with disabilities, families with lower incomes, and children enrolled in public and charter schools. Starting next year, the guidelines will be adjusted to favor the siblings of current students and new applicants.

Strongly backed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, the program drew more than 42,000 applications when it opened on Feb. 4, according to state officials. As of Feb. 18, the state had received a total of 111,000 applications. Texans can apply through March 17.

Travis Pillow, a senior official overseeing implementation, said the state partnered with Odyssey, a vendor that has administered similar programs in other states, to automate eligibility verification using state IDs and federal tax returns, since Texas does not have a state income tax.

Officials say more than three-quarters of applicants were verified the same day they applied, a benchmark they argue is critical to maintaining momentum and public confidence.

Pillow said Texas lawmakers are required to consider waitlist numbers in future appropriations decisions, and early demand could shape whether the program expands beyond its initial $1 billion allocation.

Federal tax credit

Meanwhile, a provision of the broad tax and spending measure President Donald Trump signed in July could create a significant new source of funding for families who want to send their kids to private school — but only in states that choose to participate.

The measure creates a new federal tax credit for people who contribute to nonprofits that award private school scholarships to K-12 students. Taxpayers in any state can get the tax credits, but only by donating to organizations in participating states.

Last month, federal officials announced that 23 states had opted in to the program; all of them, except for Virginia, are led by Republicans. However, the federal list did not include Colorado, where Democratic Gov. Jared Polis said in December that his state also would participate. North Carolina Democratic Gov. Josh Stein also has said he will opt in. The Democratic governors of New Mexico, Oregon and Wisconsin have said their states will not participate.

In Pennsylvania, where one of the nation’s largest state-level tax credit scholarship programs already operates, scholarship granting organizations say that the state needs to opt in to the federal program to meet the growing demand. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has been a supporter of vouchers generally, but he has not said whether Pennsylvania will opt into the program.

Keisha Jordan, president and CEO of the Children’s Scholarship Fund Philadelphia, said that more than 200,000 Pennsylvania children live in neighborhoods where the local public schools are low performing.

Despite serving thousands of students, she said, “every year scholarship organizations like Children’s Scholarship Fund Philadelphia still have to turn students down because we don’t have enough funding to meet the demand.”

Jordan argues the new federal tax credit could help close that gap. “The demand is here,” she said. “Pennsylvania taxpayers will participate, but their money could go to another state. Why not keep it here?”

Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org.

After a transformational 15 years as head coach of the University of Wisconsin-River Falls football team, Matt Walker is leaving for Drake University. 

The post Matt Walker leaves UW-River Falls after national championship to coach at Drake University appeared first on WPR.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration took more steps Monday to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, announcing two additional interagency agreements with other departments that will transfer more of its responsibilities to those agencies.

Under the agreements, the agency will partner with the State Department on foreign gift and contract reporting and with the Department of Health and Human Services on family engagement and school support programs.

The 46-year-old department signed seven other interagency agreements in 2025 as part of an ongoing effort to dismantle itself, including with State and HHS, as well as Labor and Interior. 

“As we continue to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states, our new partnerships with the State Department and HHS represent a practical step toward greater efficiency, stronger coordination, and meaningful improvement,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement. 

Rachel Gittleman, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents Education Department workers, blasted the additional interagency agreements in a Monday statement. 

McMahon “is unlawfully dismantling the Education Department by moving programs and offices to other federal agencies despite a clear warning from Congress that she lacks the authority to do so,” Gittleman said. 

She added that “these moves come as the Trump Administration has attempted to fire large numbers of career public servants in these very offices — and is now trying to shift their critical work across multiple federal agencies with no educational expertise.”

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, also lambasted the announcement.

“These illegal agreements aren’t just creating pointless new bureaucracy that burdens our already-overworked teachers and schools,” she said in a statement Monday. “They are actively jeopardizing resources and support that students and families count on and are entitled to under the law.”

Foreign gifts and contracts

The Education Department clarified in fact sheets that in both agreements, it would “maintain all statutory responsibilities” and oversight of the programs involved. 

Under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965, colleges and universities receiving federal financial assistance are required to disclose any foreign gifts or contracts valued above $250,000 annually. 

Under the agreement, State will help the Education Department in managing its foreign funding reporting portal, where colleges and universities are responsible for disclosing such transactions. 

State will also “use its national security and foreign national academic admissions expertise to review and assess the industry’s compliance with the law, share data with the public and federal stakeholders, and identify potential threats,” the Education Department said. 

HHS portfolio grows

Under the agreement with the Department of Health and Human Services, HHS will take on a “growing role” in administering several programs that are currently housed under the Education Department’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. 

The programs include the School Emergency Response to Violence (Project SERV), School Safety National Activities, Ready to Learn Programming, Full-Service Community Schools, Promise Neighborhoods and Statewide Family Engagement Centers, the Education Department said. 

The School Emergency Response to Violence program helps schools recover from a violent event, according to the department. 

Ready to Learn Programming “supports the development of educational television and digital media targeted at preschool and early elementary school children and their families,” according to the department.  

The Full-Service Community Schools program offers academic, social and health services for students in high-poverty areas and their families. 

According to the department, a Promise Neighborhood is a “place-based, collective impact approach to improving results for children and families.” The program aims to make it so that participating children “have access to great schools and strong systems of family and community support.”

The Statewide Family Engagement Centers program seeks to provide financial assistance to organizations helping state and local educational agencies to improve family engagement.

Abolishing the department

Since taking office, Trump has sought to take an axe to the agency in his quest to move education “back to the states.” The U.S. Supreme Court in July 2025 temporarily greenlit mass layoffs and a plan to dramatically downsize the Education Department ordered earlier that year.

That plan, outlined in a March 2025 executive order signed by Trump, called on McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of her own department.

Meanwhile, Congress earlier this year rebuked Trump’s request to dramatically slash funding for the department as he and his administration seek to do away with it.

Trump signed a measure earlier in February that funds the department at $79 billion this fiscal year — roughly $217 million more than the agency’s fiscal 2025 funding level and a whopping $12 billion above what Trump sought.

Though the spending package does not offer ironclad language to prevent the outsourcing of the Education Department’s responsibilities to other agencies, the measure does direct the Education Department and the agencies that are part of the transfers to provide biweekly briefings to lawmakers on the implementation of any interagency agreements.

"Wisconsin Today" spoke with the directors of two higher education child care centers about the needs of student-parents and the challenges they face when it comes to seeking child care and education.

The post Wisconsin’s campus child care facilities offer parents foothold in higher education   appeared first on WPR.

During its final planned floor session this week, the Wisconsin State Assembly passed a constitutional amendment proposal that would limit the executive partial veto power and a bill to eliminate the school revenue limit increases that are the result of Gov. Tony Evers’ 400-year veto. 

Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) said it was the “wrong decision” for lawmakers to finish their work in February and “take quite a long vacation.” 

“There is a lot left on the table for us to address but we all know that an arbitrary deadline has been set for us to go home,” Neubauer said. “Thankfully, it does seem like the tide is turning in this body and one day things will be different and operate under a different framework that is focused on people rather than politics and power.” 

Neubauer mentioned the passage of the postpartum Medicaid extension bill and the breast cancer screening bills that are now on their way to Gov. Tony Evers. 

The session wrap-up will free Assembly lawmakers up to campaign for reelection, and the body could look much different next session as some longtime lawmakers, including Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), are retiring. Under newly competitive maps, the balance of power in both the Assembly and Senate is up for grabs.

“We have a lot left to accomplish this session. There is still time for us to act on funding our public schools, protecting our rights and freedoms, lowering costs and helping Wisconsinites make ends meet,” Neubauer said. “This is the moment to act boldly and do the right thing for the people of Wisconsin.” 

Vos told WISN-12 on Friday that leaders and Gov. Tony Evers had not yet reached a deal on how to use the state’s projected $2.5 budget surplus. The leaders have been negotiating on ways to ease property taxes and provide funding to schools.

“We’re going to figure a way to get it done,” Vos said, adding that he wants the money to “go back to the people” while Evers wants additional investments. “The middle ground is a little of each.”

“We’ll probably have to come back in a special session or extraordinary session, something like that,” he said. 

Lawmakers passed proposals that were introduced in reaction to the veto as well as bills to ban phones in school, regulate app and social media companies and to provide state money towards “Trump accounts.” 

Fight over partial veto

The Assembly passed two proposals that took aim at the partial veto Evers used when he signed the 2023 state budget that extended an annual $325 per-pupil school revenue limit increase for 400 years. Evers, who recently defended the veto in his State of the State address, said he wanted to provide school districts with a consistent way to raise revenue in the absence of reliable state funding increases. 

The Assembly also approved in a 54-41 vote along party lines a third constitutional amendment to go before voters later this year. 

The amendments will go before Wisconsin voters in November. Two others, including one to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs from state and local governments and one to prohibit the state from ordering the closure of places of worship during a state of emergency, passed the state Legislature earlier this year. 

Constitutional amendment proposals have to pass the state Legislature in two consecutive legislative sessions before they go to voters. If approved, SJR 116 would prohibit partial vetoes from raising or creating any taxes or fees. 

Rep. Amanda Nedweski (R-Pleasant Prairie) introduced the amendment proposal  after Evers’ veto. 

“You never know for sure who’s going to be the next governor,” Nedweski said on the Assembly floor Thursday. “Choose wisely on this.” 

The Assembly also concurred in a bill that would outright eliminate the annual $325 per pupil revenue limit increases that are the result of the partial veto. The vote on SB 389 was 54-40 and it sends the bill to Evers, who is likely to veto it. 

Despite its likely rejection, Republican lawmakers still made the case for why Evers should sign the bill into law.

Rep. Karen Hurd (R-Withee) read a letter from superintendents on the professional advisory committee for the Cooperative Educational Service Agency 10, which serves parts of northwestern Wisconsin, urging Evers to reverse his veto. They argued in part that  $325 per pupil is not an increase that allows schools to keep pace with the rate of inflation, doesn’t fix chronic underfunding of special education funding and puts it all on property taxpayers.

The superintendents said that they thought the veto could impede reform of school funding in Wisconsin. 

The veto doesn’t stop lawmakers from being able to put more state funding into schools, but Republican lawmakers have refused to do so. During the state budget process, Republican lawmakers angered by the veto opted not to provide any increase in general school aid in the 2025-26 or 2026-27 fiscal years. School advocates said the decision would only further exacerbate the funding issues they face, especially since their decision on whether to use the additional $325 increase would rely only on property tax increases. 

“Every year we put together a budget, a budget that has to be sustainable. There may be a year that we could put more aid into schools than $325 per student. We have to look at that each year,” Hurd said. “We are people that are trying to fund the schools in every way that we can, but when it is set at $325 per year for the next 400 years, then that opportunity for us to work within the budget and increase it has been ripped away.”

Democrats said that before taking away authority from schools, lawmakers should consider improving the state’s system for funding schools. Rep. Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) said that the annual school revenue limit increase is the “only predictable source of revenue” for  Wisconsin public schools.

“We should not close public schools,” he said, alluding to Republican lawmakers who have proposed consolidating school districts as a way of helping with funding challenges. “We should fund them.”

Rep. Angelina Cruz (D-Racine) said the GOP bill does not answer the question of how to fund schools and provide relief to property taxpayers

“The answer is to reconnect school funding to inflation. The answer is to increase state aid so local property taxes are not the backstop. The answer is to modernize the formula to reflect demographic realities. The answer is to fulfill our constitutional obligation to fully fund public schools,” Cruz said. 

AB 460 would allow siblings of students in the state’s school voucher program to qualify for participation even if their family no longer meets the family income requirements. It passed on a voice vote. It now goes to the state Senate.

“I’m not going to do anything that further exacerbates the zeroing out of the state’s resources on public schools or expands privatization on the Wisconsin taxpayers dime, particularly Wisconsin property taxpayers dime,” Phelps said. “Unfortunately, this bill proposes removing income caps  on the students that Wisconsin property taxpayers would be funding to attend private schools.”

Cell phone ban, online regulations

AB 948 would require school districts to adopt policies that prohibit the use of cell phones for the entire school days, taking a step further than the recent law signed by Evers that bans phones during class. It passed via voice vote and will now go to the Senate.

Rep. Alex Joers (D-Waunakee) said he would support the bill but thought it was the “easy way out,” saying he wasn’t sure with advancing technologies in the future that to “blanketly ban things” would be an effective solution.

Rep. Alex Penterman (R-Hustisford), who has worked as a substitute teacher, said students in middle and high school can become a “social piranha” if they don’t have the latest smartphone. 

Rep. Lindee Brill (R-Sheboygan Falls) said the bill would encourage students to engage with each other and bring back “loud lunches” where “kids aren’t on the phones but instead negotiations are happening between peanut butter and jelly and grilled cheese and not Snapchat. We need to go back to kids making their after school plans while they’re eating their lunches instead of bullying each other online.”

Goeben said her bills would support the “God-given constitutional right of parents to protect and guide their children, not tech platforms.” 

The Assembly also passed a set of bills meant to put regulations on apps and social media companies that are intended to give parents more oversight over their children’s activity.

Rep. Joy Goeben (R-Hobart) said the bills were aimed at protecting children in “digital world that was not built with their safety in mind.”

“We’re living in an age of online predatory behavior, instant access and algorithm driven exposure. Children are encountering explicit material at younger and younger ages and many parents feel that they are fighting a losing battle.” 

“We cannot pretend that warning labels will solve every problem but we can insist on honesty and accountability from those who profit from this content.” 

AB 961 passed 61-34. It would would require digital distributors of media to display prominent “explicit content” warning labels on material that “predominantly appeals to the prurient, shameful, or morbid interest of children,” “is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable for children” and “lacks serious literary, artistic, political, scientific or educational value for children.” 

The bill calls for the warning label to be displayed on the front page of digital platforms, the label would need to appear for at least 10 seconds or until a user acknowledges the warning.

AB 962 passed 58-37. It would require app developers and app stores to verify the age of users and get parental consent before children are able to download or purchase apps or make in-store purchases. Accounts belonging to a minor would have to be affiliated with an account owned by a parent.

AB 963 passed 60-35. It would require social media platforms that bring in more than $1 billion in revenue per year to take several steps, including estimating the age of users and for minors,  setting their privacy to the most private settings, turning off addictive features and prohibiting profile-based, paid commercial advertising in their feeds. 

Trump accounts

The Assembly also approved bills to provide state funds to the “Trump accounts” program. 

The federal tax and spending bill signed into law by President Donald Trump last year included a measure to allow parents to create dedicated “Trump accounts” similar to IRA accounts, for their children. Parents of babies born between Jan. 1, 2025 through the end of 2028 and who are U.S. citizens with a valid Social Security number will be eligible to have $1,000 deposited in the account from the federal government. 

AB 996 would provide a state match for the accounts. AB 997 includes the $60 million in annual funding for the 2025-27 budget cycle for proposal. Both passed 62-35 with eight Democrats joining Republicans in favor.

“People are not saving at the right pace for retirement,” said the author of both bills, Rep. Elijah Behnke (R- Town of Chase). “The reason this is the best possible policy is because you’re investing in your kids’ future.” 

Joers said the money should be invested in other priorities that could help children and parents more and expressed concerns about the federal program not being up and running yet.

“I think that we need to do a lot better for our kids and our parents,” Joers said. “This bill takes money that we should be giving to our children and our parents right now and instead takes it and gives it to a federal program that has not even been set up yet. I know the president wandered around stage with Nicki Minaj, but this program has not started yet.” 

“Kids need this money now, not 18 years from now. They need it now in their schools they need this money. Let’s keep the promise that we made in our budget to fund special education reimbursement.”

“Immoral conduct” investigations

The Assembly also approved two additional bills that were introduced after an investigation by the CapTimes that found there were over 200 investigations into teacher licenses due to allegations of sexual misconduct or grooming from 2018 to 2023. 

The bills seek to provide new rules on how “immoral conduct” investigations are conducted.

AB 1003, which passed on a voice vote, would prohibit the Department of Public Instruction from ending an investigation into a license holder accused of immoral conduct without a determination on whether there should be a license revocation or termination. The prohibition wouldn’t apply if a licensee permanently surrenders the licenses and waives their rights to a future appeal. 

AB 1004, which passed 87-8, prohibits public and private schools from entering agreements that would suppress information on the immoral conduct of an employee, would affect the report of immoral conduct by an employer or employees or require an education employer to expunge information about allegations of findings or immoral conduct. 

Other bills on the issue that have passed the Assembly or Senate include one to create a “grooming” crime in Wisconsin, one to ensure school districts have policies on appropriate communications and one to require DPI to maintain an online licensing portal that is searchable by the public at no cost. 

The Sauk Prairie School District in partnership with the Village of Prairie du Sac and the Sauk Prairie Area Chamber of Commerce began construction of a new early learning childcare center

The post Wisconsin’s rural superintendents plea for compromise on school funding, property tax relief appeared first on WPR.

North Division High School had always been a staple in Milwaukee’s Black community. 

But a Jan. 19, 1976, order by federal Judge John Reynolds for Milwaukee Public Schools to desegregate almost changed that. 

The ruling led MPS to propose changes three years later with the goal to integrate the 97% Black North Side high school. 

The solution? Close North Division as the neighborhood knew it and reopen it as a citywide magnet school for medical and science technology. Magnet schools offer special instruction and programs that are typically not available elsewhere.  

The district had utilized a similar strategy in the years prior to integrate Rufus King High School and Golda Meir School by changing them to magnet schools. 

The proposal for North Division would integrate the school by drawing more white students from other parts of the city but would also limit enrollment options for students in the surrounding neighborhoods. 

Residents quickly fought back, organizing the Coalition to Save North Division. 

Howard Fuller, who led the coalition, remembers the community’s reaction when the plan was first announced.  

“We ended up filling up the auditorium at the board meeting at Central Office,” said Fuller, who went on to become superintendent of MPS from 1991 to 1995. “That’s when I gave the speech and ended by saying ‘enough is enough.’ That then became the slogan for the Coalition to Save North.”

Fuller said the group organized marches and meetings, canvassed across the neighborhood and eventually took legal action and won.

Desegregation at MPS

Lawyer and politician Lloyd Barbee, among others, filed a lawsuit against the Milwaukee Public School Board of Directors in 1965 to desegregate MPS, Milwaukee historian and author James Nelsen said.  

The suit alleged that the district’s policy of assigning students to their neighborhood school maintained school segregation because of the widespread residential segregation across the city. 

The case ran until 1976, when Reynolds ruled that Milwaukee Public Schools needed to take action to desegregate the district. 

Reynolds then established a monitoring board to enforce and oversee districtwide desegregation plans.

Nelsen said shortly before the ruling, the Board of Directors welcomed new Superintendent Lee McMurrin, who had implemented magnet schools in Toledo, Ohio.

Once he came to Milwaukee, McMurrin pushed to rebrand some neighborhood high schools as magnet schools, encouraging students from across the city to go to different schools.

When a new North Division building opened in 1978, the district tried attracting white students to the school but was unsuccessful. 

This, in combination with low performing grades at the school, led McMurrin to target North Division to become the city’s newest magnet school. The school would open a medical and science technology program for high schoolers across the city.

“We’re not satisfied with the results at North Division,” McMurrin said in a 1979 Milwaukee Sentinel article. “We will not have a change about unless we make it a brand new school.”

Community pushes back

Fuller, students and the neighborhood had major concerns about the new plan. 

“The thing that concerned me the most was that once they built the brand-new building, then the first thing they were going to do then was to put all of the neighborhood kids out,” Fuller said. “In part, it was also a pushback against the way that desegregation was being implemented in the city at that time.”

North Division’s student council organized a rally in which 400 students walked out of school and marched to the Central Office in protest, according to local news reports. 

The plan would close enrollment to freshmen and sophomores. Willie Washington, then a North Division junior, spoke out against the plan during the protest.  

“We feel that we should not be used as guinea pigs for integration,” Washington told the Milwaukee Journal.

Fuller said the coalition spent the summer going door to door in the neighborhood, held community meetings and built a parent group.

When the new school year started in September 1979, Fuller and over 200 students gathered for a mass meeting on North Division’s front lawn. Fuller told students to study hard and “demand that they be educated.”

After months of protesting, Fuller said, the coalition escalated to legal action through the monitoring board, established to observe desegregation efforts.

Success at a cost

Fuller said the Board of Directors eventually reached an out-of-court settlement and dropped the plan.

“It was the first battle where the board reversed its decision on closing a school in the Black community because all of the protests before had never gained any traction,” Fuller said. 

The school would remain a neighborhood school but also offer a career specialty program, according to the settlement. 

The agreement said the school should aim for about 2,000 students, 60% Black and 40% white. A set number of seats would be set aside for non-Black students, and Black students could not fill those spots.

As those changes were implemented, problems at North Division High School continued, Fuller said. 

Fuller said nobody knew he would eventually become a superintendent of MPS. When he took on the role in 1991, he gained access to documents and information nobody thought he would see. 

An assistant superintendent at the time told him that the board had taken actions to sabotage North Division after the coalition won.

“Some of the problems that exist at North today can be traced back to the conscious attempt to sabotage North once we won in court,” Fuller said. “There was such anger on the part of the administration that they had to do this.”

For example, Fuller said the coalition worked with North Division Principal Bob Jasna to set up a program and curriculum for the school, then replaced Jasna with a middle school principal who knew nothing about the work he and Fuller did.

“That sabotaged the entire effort that we had made,” Fuller said.

Today, North Division High School remains predominantly Black — 90.5%, according to the latest state report card. The school scored an overall 54.9 on the report card, meeting few expectations, according to the Wisconsin Department of Education.

“For me, this struggle around North Division has never ended,” Fuller said. “It’s been ongoing for 30, 40 years.”

Alex Klaus is the education solutions reporter for Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.

How Milwaukee residents rallied to save North Division High School from closure during 1970s integration fight 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.

She Slangs Wood's Tonda Thompson is on a mission to educate and empower people in Milwaukee through woodworking.

The post She Slangs Wood on a mission to empower, educate Milwaukee appeared first on WPR.

Junior high school student, Sophia Knetter, discusses the common misconceptions about starting a youth-run business, noting the advantages of being young.

The post Wisconsin high school student addresses lack of ‘critical’ funding support for youth entrepreneurships appeared first on WPR.

I have visited many after-school and summer programs across Wisconsin, from large urban sites to small rural schools, and what I’ve seen has stayed with me. I’ve watched students immersed in creative writing, acting and robotics. I’ve observed staff working one-on-one with kids navigating intense emotional challenges. And I’ve seen the smiles on middle schoolers’ faces as they reconnect with trusted mentors at the end of the school day. These programs are not “extras”; they provide crucial support to kids, families, and entire communities.

The access gap

And yet, for far too many Wisconsin families, these opportunities remain out of reach. According to the latest America After 3PM report, nearly 275,000 Wisconsin children who would participate in after-school programs are not enrolled because none are available. Four in five children who could benefit from these supports are missing out. Parents cite cost, lack of transportation, and a simple lack of local programming as the biggest barriers.

The benefits are clear

The impact of these programs is undeniable. Parents overwhelmingly rate their children’s after-school programs as excellent or very good, reporting that they keep kids safe, build social skills, and support mental wellness. Research in Wisconsin shows that students who participate in extracurricular activities are less likely to report anxiety or depression and more likely to feel a sense of belonging.

Out-of-school time programs often provide the space for deep, long-term mentoring, a powerful protective factor in a young person’s life. While teachers are often stretched thin during the academic day, out-of-school time  staff can focus on the relational side of development.

The cost of instability

When funding is unstable, it undermines the very connections that make these programs transformative. Recently, a Boys & Girls Club director shared the human cost of budget constraints: they were forced to reduce a veteran staff member to part-time. This didn’t just trim a budget; it severed a multi-year mentorship. When that bond was broken, several youths stopped attending entirely.

Wisconsin lags behind national trends

Across the country, after-school and summer programs are increasingly viewed as essential to youth development. Twenty-seven states provide dedicated state funding for these programs; Wisconsin provides none. States as different as Alabama and Texas recognize that federal funding alone is not enough. So do our  Midwestern neighbors.

• Minnesota and Illinois have invested in these programs for years.
• Michigan established a $73 million grant program to expand before-school, after-school, and summer learning statewide.
• Pennsylvania created the $11.5 million Building Opportunity through Out-of-School Time (BOOST) program.

The opportunity to act

Public support for these programs is strong and bipartisan. Families across Wisconsin want safe, enriching opportunities for their children. With a significant budget surplus, Wisconsin is uniquely positioned to invest in its future.

State leaders should view out-of-school programming as a foundation for safety, mental health, and long-term economic opportunity. We have the resources; now we need the will. By committing to consistent state funding, we can ensure that every young person in Wisconsin has a place to belong when the school bell rings.

Marquette was one of 41 colleges named in a recent report that alleges the schools encourage low-income families to take out Parent PLUS loans while they at the same time offer financial aid to upper-income students.

The post Marquette University accused of pushing lower-income families toward risky loans appeared first on WPR.

Michael Clayville and Erin Lesser of Appleton attended the ceremony in LA, where their group Alarm Will Sound won for their recording of Donnacha Dennehy’s “Land of Winter.”

The post Wisconsin musicians celebrate Grammy win for chamber orchestra performance appeared first on WPR.

UW-Milwaukee is consolidating several student cultural and resource centers into a new “unified, student-focused hub.” That's leaving some students worried about access.

The post Merger of cultural, resource centers at UW-Milwaukee leaves some students, faculty concerned appeared first on WPR.