Competition made America great
If the Brewers can compete why can’t our schools?
State school boss Jill Underly in her annual State of Education address last week asked Wisconsin voters to cough up more tax dollars and while we’re at it, stamp out competition to the government school monopoly. Because (the part she didn’t say), public schools can’t compete. Not on education results, not on price, not on parent satisfaction. At least, not all of them, all of the time.
Speaking in the Capitol Rotunda 09-24-26, Underly blamed “decades of below-inflation funding,” and attacked school choice as a diversion of public dollars into “unaccountable, private systems,” according to the Heartland Post.
Unaccountable? Except to the parents who CHOOSE those schools. As more parents are doing, especially in David Crowley’s Milwaukee. More money? The Wisconsin Policy Forum finds public school enrollment has plummeted 9.2 percent since 2011 even as overall staffing rose 7 percent.
Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce puts current statewide average funding per student at $18,592. That’s double the amount 25 years ago and 50 percent higher than a year of tuition at UW-Madison.
We quote again the Reforming Government Institute:
Madison’s district is squandering immense financial advantages. … middle-class Madison ranks in the 89th percentile among big districts nationally in school funding. They pay 1 adult for every 6 students, relying on local taxpayers to fund the lowest ratio [students to staff] of Wisconsin’s 15 biggest districts.
[While] Madison’s test scores are near the state’s bottom. Controlling for poverty … Madison ranks 13th of Wisconsin’s 15 biggest districts on the Forward Exam and 12th on the ACT.
———-
Notes and links on the taxpayer funded Wisconsin DPI and Jill Underly.
“Did you know my school was bad like this when you decided to put me here?” she asked.
Madison’s district, despite an elite university pipeline, hypereducated leadership, and a shiny, new strategic plan, suffers the same frailties as Milwaukee’s: basement performance, backbreaking spending. But while Milwaukee is pulling out of its tailspin due to courageouschoices from the top, Madison is ponderously ambling to nowhere. Just ask the locals. “You need the marketing, and you need the product,” as a parent told a reporter. “I’m missing the product.”
2025-2026 Madison 4k-3rd grade Early Literacy Screener report: The bar moves faster than the kids.
Joe Gothard, Becky Kundert and Sonia Spencer Remarks on Madison’s K-12 Literacy Crisis.
2026-2027 Madison K-12 $pending continues to grow, fueled by a 9.7% (!) property tax increase. Total spending will be at least $706,000,000 for 25,003 students, or $28,236 per student.
May 2026 Madison School District Presentation: 7,095 adults for 25,003 students (3.52 students per adult!)
2024-2025 Early Literacy Screener Map.
Map: Foundations of Reading Results: 2015–2024
Where have all the students gone?
3,887 Madison 4 year old to third grade students scored lower than 75% of the students in the national comparison group.
Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average k-12 tax & $pending. This despite our long term, disastrous reading results. May, 2026: 7,095 Staff for 25,003 students; $pending > $26k per student!
Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability
The taxpayer funded Madison School District long used Reading Recovery…
The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.
When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?
China’s PhD Glut Drives Top Graduates to High School Teaching Jobs
