The armed officers claim was made Dec. 19 by school safety advocate Ryan Petty in an interview about a mass shooting Dec. 16 at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin.
Petty’s daughter was killed in the 2018 mass shooting at a Parkland, Florida, school, which did.
Petty said the connection is “proven.” He didn’t cite research to Wisconsin Watch.
Whether arming school resource officers “leads to net harms or benefits … could be addressed with strong scientific research designs or observational studies,” RAND said.
A 2023 University at Albany-RAND study found school resource officers reduce some violence and increase weapon detection, “but do not prevent gun-related incidents.”
A 2021 U.S. DOJ-funded study said “data suggest no association” between armed officers and deterring mass shootings.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Wisconsin Watch seeks a pathways to success reporter who will expand our coverage of issues surrounding postsecondary education and workforce training. The right candidate will be a curious, collaborative, deep listener who can understand bureaucracies and economic trends that affect peoples’ lives.
Wisconsin Watch provides trustworthy reporting that investigates problems, explores solutions and serves the public. We aim to strengthen the quality of community life and self-government in Wisconsin by providing people with the knowledge they need to navigate their lives, drive forward solutions and hold those with power accountable. We pursue the truth through accurate, fair, independent, rigorous, nonpartisan reporting.
Funding cuts and other financial pressures have forced higher education institutions to rely more heavily on tuition — increasing affordability challenges for students and affecting the quality of education. Meanwhile, Wisconsin faces a shortage of skilled workers, including in manufacturing, construction, health care, agriculture and information technology. This shortage is exacerbated by an aging workforce, particularly in rural areas, and a gap between the skills employers need and those job seekers have.
Reporting on this beat will help policymakers and civic leaders understand how to expand pathways to jobs. It will also help Wisconsin residents learn the skills needed to build thriving careers. We’re taking a different approach to higher education coverage than news outlets traditionally do. Rather than prioritizing breaking news or scandals at major universities, we’re centering the experiences of learners, families, and employers to better understand how the state’s broader postsecondary landscape meets their needs. That includes paying close attention to technical colleges and trades programs.
Job duties
The reporter will:
Work with the Wisconsin Watch managing editor and other colleagues to frame, report and write news stories. These stories will appear on Wisconsin Watch platforms and be distributed to news outlets across Wisconsin and the country.
Listen to those struggling to find family supporting jobs and to those unable to fill positions to find disconnects between workforce recruitment, development and training and those who are underemployed. Find evidence-based best practices to address this challenge.
Develop sources in secondary and postsecondary education, industries struggling to fill jobs, workforce development, labor and the general public to identify breakdowns in systems, information gaps and success stories that could inform pathways to success.
Research the jobs that will be in high demand for years to come to inform reporting on effective programs for gaining the necessary skills to perform these jobs, from jobs in nursing and health care, where demographics show increasing demand, to developing technologies, such as those in artificial intelligence and robotics.
Work with the Wisconsin Watch audience team to make sure this reporting reaches the people who most need the information.
Cultivate collegial and productive relationships with collaborating news organizations to gather and analyze data, research best practices and maximize impact on stories with national scope. This includes Open Campus, a national news network aiming to improve higher education coverage.
At Wisconsin Watch we make sure that we are producing quality journalism and give our reporters the time they need to make sure the job is done well.
Required qualifications
The ideal candidate will bring a public service mindset and a demonstrated commitment to nonpartisan journalism ethics, including a commitment to abide by Wisconsin Watch’s ethics policies. More specifically, we’re looking for a reporter who:
Has researched, reported and written original published news stories and/or features on deadline.
Has demonstrated the ability to formulate compelling story pitches to editors.
Aches to report stories that explore solutions to challenges residents face.
Has experience with or ideas about the many different ways newsrooms can inform the public — from narrative investigations and features, to Q&As and ‘how-to’ explainers or visual stories.
Has experience working with others. Wisconsin Watch is a deeply collaborative organization. Our journalists frequently team up with each other or with colleagues at other news outlets to maximize the potential impact of our reporting.
Bonus Skills:
Be able to analyze and visually present data.
Familiarity with Wisconsin, its history and its politics.
Multimedia skills including photography, audio and video.
Spanish-language proficiency.
Don’t check off every box in the requirements listed above? Please apply anyway!
Wisconsin Watch is dedicated to building an inclusive, diverse, equitable, and accessible workplace that fosters a sense of belonging – so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to still consider submitting an application. You may be just the right candidate for this role or another one of our openings!
Location
The pathways to success reporter should be located in Wisconsin. Wisconsin Watch is a statewide news organization with staff based in Madison, Milwaukee and Green Bay.
Salary and benefits
The salary range is $45,500-$64,500. Final offer amounts will carefully consider multiple factors and higher compensation may be available for someone with advanced skills and/or experience. Wisconsin Watch offers competitive benefits, including generous vacation (five weeks), a retirement fund contribution, paid sick days, paid family and caregiver leave, subsidized medical and dental premiums, vision coverage, and more.
Deadline
Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. For best consideration, apply by Jan. 10, 2025.
To apply
Please submit a PDF of your resume and answer some brief questions in this application form, and send links or PDFs of four published writing samples to Managing Editor Jim Malewitz at jmalewitz@wisconsinwatch.org. Contact Jim if you’d like to chat about the job before applying.
Wisconsin Watch is dedicated to improving our newsroom by better reflecting the people we cover. We are committed to diversity and building an inclusive environment for people of all backgrounds and ages. We especially encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply, including women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and people with disabilities. We are an equal-opportunity employer and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age, or any other status protected under applicable law.
The value of food imported into the U.S. exceeds what is exported.
That’s a recent reversal of a long-term trend, as U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden stated Dec. 2.
But it doesn’t necessarily mean the U.S. is “beholden on other nations,” as the western Wisconsin Republican claimed.
The U.S. was an annual net exporter of agricultural products from at least the 1970s through 2018, but since then has mostly been a net importer, and the gap is widening.
In fiscal 2025, the value of agricultural imports is projected at $215.5 billion and exports $170 billion.
William Ridley, a University of Illinois agricultural and consumer economics professor, said the U.S. produces more food for itself than ever, but it’s a net importer because of demand for imported food, much of it from allies.
Some imports, including out-of-season produce, come from foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies, said Steve Suppan, of the nonprofit Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Wisconsin Watch is seeking an intern to report on information and accountability gaps in rural Wisconsin communities that lack robust news coverage, telling stories that explore solutions to broken systems and center the voices of community members.
This internship is available through a Scripps Howard Fund/Institute for Nonprofit News partnership, which in 2025 is supporting 13 paid internships for journalism students in newsrooms across the country.
Applications for the INN/Fund internships close on Jan. 31. Apply here.
The Wisconsin Watch reporter will:
Work with the Wisconsin Watch managing editor and other colleagues to frame, report and write news stories that fill information and accountability gaps and seek solutions to challenges faced by rural Wisconsin residents. These stories will appear on Wisconsin Watch platforms and be distributed to news outlets across Wisconsin.
Cultivate collegial and productive relationships with collaborating news organizations. This could include sharing bylines on high-impact stories.
At Wisconsin Watch we make sure that we are producing quality journalism and give our reporters the time they need to make sure the job is done well. Stories could take anywhere from one week to one to two months to report and write, depending on the complexity and timeliness of the issue and access to data.
This intern will be expected to work approximately 40 hours per week throughout the reporter’s time at Wisconsin Watch. No additional benefits are included.
Location
This reporter must live in Wisconsin (the exact location is negotiable) and would have opportunities to work within Wisconsin Watch’s Madison and Milwaukee newsrooms. Wisconsin Watch is a hybrid workplace, meaning work on some days can be performed remotely. But the intern would be expected to conduct some of the reporting in person, depending on the story, and would work with the managing editor to map out a schedule for occasional work from the newsroom.
Duration
This is a temporary position, with the expectation of work full time (40 hours/week) over 10 weeks.
Compensation
The reporter will earn $15 per hour.
Once selected, an intern can apply to the Fund for an additional grant to help with housing, relocation and other expenses to support the ability to accept an internship. Those applications will open in the spring.
About Wisconsin Watch
Wisconsin Watch is a nonpartisan, independent nonprofit with offices in Madison and Milwaukee.
Our mission is “to increase the quality, quantity and understanding of investigative journalism to foster an informed citizenry and strengthen democracy.” Our multimedia journalism digs into undercovered issues, documents inequitable and failing systems, puts findings into regional and national contexts and explores potential solutions. We aim to generate impact that improves people’s lives and holds power to account. Wisconsin Watch also trains diverse groups of current and future investigative journalists and entrepreneurs through workshops, internships and fellowships, mentoring and collaborations with journalism classes and news organizations. And we share information about journalistic practices, ethics and impact with the public.
Wisconsin Watch embraces diversity and inclusiveness in our journalism, training activities, hiring practices and workplace operations. The complex issues we face as a society require respect for different viewpoints. Race, class, generation, sexual orientation, gender, disability and geography all affect point of view. Reflecting these differences in our reporting leads to better, more nuanced stories and a better-informed community.
We especially encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply, including Black, Indigenous and other people of color, LGBTQ+ people and people with disabilities.
Act 10, which effectively ended collective bargaining for most Wisconsin public employee unions, has saved taxpayers billions of dollars.
The 2011 law could be reviewed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court because of a recent judge’s ruling.
The law achieved savings mainly by shifting costs for pension and health benefits for public employees to the employees.
The nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum found in 2020 that state and local governments saved $5 billion from 2011 to 2017 in pension costs alone.
PolitiFact Wisconsin reported in 2014 that public employers saved over $3 billion on pensions and health insurance.
Getting rid of Act 10’s pension, health insurance and salary limits would raise annual school district costs $1.6 billion and local government costs $480 million, the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty estimated in September.
However, the recent court ruling doesn’t invalidate Act 10’s higher employee contribution requirements, said attorney Jeffrey Mandell, who represents unions in the pending case.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford was among attorneys who sued seeking to overturn Act 10, a 2011 law that effectively ended collective bargaining for most Wisconsin public employee unions.
The law spurred mass protests for weeks in Madison.
At the time, Crawford said the law violated Wisconsin’s Constitution and was “aimed at crippling public employee unions.”
In 2014, the state Supreme Court upheld Act 10, calling collective bargaining “a creation of legislative grace and not constitutional obligation.”
Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel, Crawford’s conservative challenger in the April 1, 2025, election, made the claim about Crawford Dec. 1, 2024. Crawford is a Dane County judge.
On Dec. 2, Dane County Circuit Judge Jacob Frost struck down Act 10 in a lawsuit in which Crawford is not listed as an attorney.
An appeal notice was filed the same day. Appeals are likely to reach the Supreme Court, which has a 4-3 liberal majority.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Voters Nov. 5 amended the Wisconsin Constitution to limit voting to citizens. Republican supporters said it would prevent any move allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections, as some U.S. jurisdictions allow.
Over 9% of voting-age U.S. citizens (21.3 million people) cannot readily access proof of citizenship, because they do not have it or could not access it easily, a University of Maryland survey released in June said.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
The sale of raw or unpasteurized milk generally is illegal in Wisconsin, although “incidental sales” are legal.
An incidental sale is when a dairy farm sells raw milk directly to a consumer at the farm.
But those sales are illegal “if done as a regular business, or if they involve advertising of any kind.”
Robert Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to head the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, has indicated he would promote raw milk.
Public health authorities consider raw milk a health danger because it hasn’t been pasteurized — heated enough to kill illness-causing bacteria such as E. coli. But 13 states allow raw milk sales in stores. Advocates say it’s more nutritious, though experts say there isn’t enough evidence to prove that.
A Wisconsin Senate bill introduced in December 2023 would have created licensing for farms that want to sell raw milk. It failed to pass the Senate.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
The average time the U.S. Senate takes to approve nominees to a president’s administration is more than six months.
The nonprofit Center for Presidential Transition reported that as of Nov. 11, 2024, the average number of days has more than doubled under presidents elected since the 1980s:
Joe Biden: 192
Donald Trump: 160.5
Barack Obama: 153.3
George W. Bush: 108.2
Bill Clinton: 100.3
George H.W. Bush: 64.7
Ronald Reagan: 69.4
The nominees include more than 1,000 leadership positions, including Cabinet posts such as attorney general.
One reason for the six-month average: Any senator can “hold” a nominee’s confirmation, sometimes to extract something in return.
An August research paper concluded it is doubtful that reducing the number of positions needing confirmation would speed up confirmations.
Trump has said he wants the Senate to allow “recess appointments,” which wouldn’t require Senate confirmation, for his next administration.
The issue was raised Nov. 21 by U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who called for streamlining confirmations.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Milwaukee counts absentee ballots at a central location and reports the totals only when they are finished.
Those results were delayed a few hours this year because election officials in Milwaukee recounted about 30,000 absentee ballots during the night of Nov. 3 into Nov. 4 because doors on the ballot tabulators were not properly sealed.
In a Nov. 11 social media post, user End Wokeness claimed a 3:30 a.m. “ballot dump” lost candidate Eric Hovde the Senate race in Wisconsin. The chart in the post shows no evidence of fraud, just Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s vote total increasing when Milwaukee reported its absentee ballot results.
Baldwin received 82% of votes from the city’s absentee ballots and 78% overall, the Milwaukee Election Commission reported.
Wisconsin law requires clerks to post the number of total outstanding absentee ballots by the close of polls.
Baldwin won with 49.4% of the vote to Hovde’s 48.5% statewide, according to unofficial results.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford has opposed the state’s voter identification law.
The 2011 law requires proof of identification to vote. Because of court challenges, it didn’t take effect until 2016.
Crawford was one of three lawyers in a 2011 lawsuit challenging the requirement, which the Supreme Court rejected.
In 2016, Crawford said the law would be “acceptable” if voters could sign an affidavit swearing to their identity rather than providing proof of identification.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison study estimated the law prevented 4,000-11,000 Milwaukee and Dane county residents from voting in the 2016 presidential election.
The University of California, Berkeley, reported in 2023 that many studies found voter ID laws have little to no impact on voter turnout nationally, while others indicate “a disproportionate negative impact” on minority groups.
Crawford, a Dane County judge, is running April 1, 2025, against conservative Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Higher-income Americans have received the largest savings from the 2017 tax cut law signed by President Donald Trump, but the top 1% have not received 83% of the savings.
The 83% claim was made Nov. 10, 2024, by U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis. He alluded to the expectation that Trump will aim to get Congress to renew the cuts, most of which expire after 2025.
The law cut individual income tax rates across the board.
In 2025, the top 1% of income tax filers will receive about 25% of the total benefits, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center projected.
In 2027, the share for the wealthiest 1% rises to 83%.
However, that’s because most individual tax cuts would have expired, but corporate tax cuts, which benefit higher-income people, would remain.
If the tax cuts are extended, their 2026 value would be about $400 billion, with the top 1% receiving $100 billion.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Wisconsin has 4.27 million inactive voters and 3.66 million registered voters.
Inactive voters are not registered and are not eligible to vote unless they re-register on or before an Election Day.
Republican Eric Hovde added the numbers together in claiming Wisconsin has “almost 8 million registered voters on our voter rolls with only 3.5 million active voters.”
Hovde raised election administration questions one week after losing Nov. 5, 2024, to U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis. Unofficially, Baldwin won by less than 1 percentage point.
People are made inactive when they die, move and register in another state, are convicted of a felony, are adjudicated incompetent to vote, or have their name purged.
Purging occurs every two years. The Wisconsin Elections Commission is required to make registered voters inactive if they have not voted in the past four years and have not responded to a mailing about their registration status.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Less than 8% of minors in the U.S. use antidepressant prescription drugs, the latest data indicate.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., campaigning in Milwaukee for former President Donald Trump, claimed that “40% of our kids are on antidepressants.”
Two Kennedy organizations did not provide information to back his claim.
A 2022 federal estimate based on surveys done from 2013 to 2018 said 6.6% of individuals ages 3-17 used a psychotropic medication such as an antidepressant during the previous 30 days.
In 2022, 2 million adolescents ages 12-17 filled at least one antidepressant prescription, according to a 2024 University of Michigan-led study. That’s 7.9%.
Also in 2022, antidepressants were obtained for 2.7% of children 17 and under, according to a federal agency.
Antidepressants are often effective in treating depression and anxiety in children and teenagers, but rarely “there can be severe side effects,” including suicidal thinking, according to Mayo Clinic.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Milwaukee ballot tabulation machines are not connected to the internet.
“Tabulation machines are not connected to Wi-Fi and the idle speculation suggesting they are vulnerable is simply incorrect,” Mayor Cavalier Johnson posted on Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024.
For years, the city has used flash drives — thumb-size data-storing devices — to transmit results.
Flash drives are cleared and reformatted before being put in sealed envelopes; the process is witnessed, and both a Democrat and a Republican are among the observers who certify the process. After all ballots are processed, voting results from the tabulation machines are exported to the flash drives. Witnesses also sign a document certifying the exports.
On Election Day afternoon, election officials restarted the absentee ballot count after an observer noticed panel doors on Milwaukee’s 13 tabulators weren’t properly closed.
City election officials said there was no indication any of the tabulators had been tampered with.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Only registered Wisconsin voters can use Wisconsin’s MyVote website to request absentee ballots by mail.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission told Wisconsin Watch that MyVote does not automatically send an absentee ballot to the requester. Requests generate an email to the requester’s municipal clerk, who determines whether the voter has provided information, including a photo ID, to receive an absentee ballot.
MyVote is the most common way Wisconsin voters request absentee ballots.
Wisconsin-based HOT Government, which alleged fraud in Wisconsin in the 2020 election, falsely claimed Nov. 2, 2024, that “anybody from around the world” can use MyVote to “illegally order absentee ballots for anyone and ship the ballots anywhere in the world.”
In 2022, the organization’s president Harry Wait was charged with four crimes for allegedly using MyVote to request absentee ballots for two Wisconsin elected officials be mailed to his Racine-area home. The case is pending.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
The government revises job numbers annually as more information becomes available.
Former President Donald Trump falsely stated in Milwaukee that the Biden administration “fraudulently claimed” to have created 818,000 jobs.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced Aug. 21, 2024, “in accordance with usual practice,” its estimate of the annual “benchmark revision” of jobs numbers. The revision will occur in February 2025.
The estimate said the number of jobs added in the year ending March 31, 2024, was 818,000 fewer than had been previously shown in monthly reports.
Monthly figures come from employer surveys; the annual revision comes from unemployment records.
“Economists across the ideological spectrum” said the revision was not manipulation, PolitiFact reported.
The revision of 0.5% was higher than the 0.1% average and the highest since 2009.
Under Trump, there was a 0.3% downward adjustment of 514,000 jobs for the year ending March 31, 2019.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., has backed efforts to reduce prescription drug prices:
Cosponsored 2024 legislation to cap annual out-of-pocket costs at $2,000 per individual and $4,000 per family for people with private health insurance. No action has been taken.
Sent letters in January 2024 along with other senators to drug manufacturers demanding information on “exorbitant” asthma inhaler prices.
Sponsored 2023 legislation to require drug manufacturers to provide details of and justification for certain price increases. No action has been taken.
Supported the Inflation Reduction Act, which became law in 2022. It requires Medicare to negotiate the price of certain drugs.
Baldwin’s challenger in the Nov. 5, 2024, election, Republican Eric Hovde, stated that Baldwin “always talks about, ‘I’m going to lower drug prices.’ She’s done nothing on that.”
Average U.S. prescription drug prices are 2.78 times higher than in 33 other nations, the RAND think tank reported in February.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Republican Eric Hovde supports raising the retirement age for receiving Social Security, but only for younger Americans, despite misleading attacks on him.
Hovde is running Nov. 5, 2024, against U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.
Hovde said Oct. 21: “Nobody who’s on Social Security or heading to Social Security with any reasonable time frame should have Social Security touched.”
But because life expectancy has increased since Social Security was created, the retirement age should be raised for younger people. “You could start someplace in the 40s,” Hovde said, reiterating previous campaign comments.
Retirees can start receiving partial Social Security benefits at 62; the age for receiving full benefits varies.
Baldwin in an ad and on social media has attacked Hovde without saying his proposed eligibility change would apply only to younger workers.
Advocates say raising the retirement age would protect Social Security, which is projected to remain solvent only through 2033.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration estimates that more than 10,000 chemicals “have been authorized or are considered generally recognized as safe for use in food, or in contact with food in the U.S.”
The chemicals include food additives, color additives and chemicals used to make additives.
An Institute of Food Technologists journal reported in 2011 that the U.S. allows 10,000 additives in human food. An estimated 66% were approved by federal agencies, such as the FDA.
“Manufacturers and a trade association made the remaining decisions without (FDA) review by concluding that the substances were generally recognized as safe,” the researchers wrote.
The lead researcher, Thomas Neltner, told Wisconsin Watch he believes the count of chemicals is now 11,000.
Using the word “ingredients,” U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said Sept. 24, 2024, he heard the 10,000 statistic in testimony.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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