Mary Pat Dries, Brookfield “letter to the editor” in the Journal-Sentinel
I hate to say “we told you so,” but we told you so! Do you remember in 2011, when there were mass protests for months at the Wisconsin State Capitol and democratic members of the Senate fled the state to deny a quorum for the Act 10 Bill?
Now 15 years later, a report from the Department of Public Instruction found that 1,700 potential teachers who finished an education degree in 2023-24 didn’t go on to teach in Wisconsin (“Report highlights red flags for state’s retention of new teachers”).
A Green Bay based roundtable, led by State Superintendent Jill Underly, discussed reasons contributing to the teacher shortage in Wisconsin. It’s no surprise that compensation was a major factor pointing to budget short falls in school districts.
One statistic in this article stood out to me. When considering inflation, since 2010, before Act 10, teacher compensation has fallen $25,000 in 2024. If you were fresh out of college with loans for undergraduate and graduate degrees, would you stay in Wisconsin to teach?
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If not to teacher salaries, where is this money going?
Wisconsin school spending exceeds pre-Act 10 levels even after inflation – Badger Institute