schoolinfosystem.org
Dave Cieslewicz: So, the Regents wanting to part ways with their own president (the one they had selected), isn’t all that surprising or all that unusual in the annals of corporate, nonprofit or governmental settings. But usually this plays out in predictable ways which it did not in this case. Having been part of these […]
Kelly Meyerhofer:
Becky Jacobs: Nearly 550 faculty members at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are set to receive pay raises this month as part of efforts to attract and retain faculty in high-demand fields of study. State lawmakers provided $27 million annually and created an annual appropriation to the UW system in the current state budget for the […]
Kelly Meyerhofer: Ousted Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman cast the UW Board of Regents as dysfunctional and called for changes, such as fewer and better-educated board members. “The change must start at the top with the Board of Regents,” he wrote in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel op-ed. Rothman lost his job April 7 when the […]
Jay Rothman: When I started in June 2022, it was clear that the status quo was not sustainable. I am proud of what my team accomplished during nearly four years. But now it is time to look to the future and the change that still needs to be done. While I regret that I will […]
Wisconsin Right Now: Amy Bogost, the president of the UW Board of Regents, told a panel of concerned lawmakers that the Regents are “not political hacks,” but revealed that fired President Jay Rothman’s performance review was not documented beyond her own personal notes, which she hasn’t released. State Sen. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield) asked Bogost to […]
Scott Bauer The Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents scheduled a Tuesday vote to consider firing the system’s president, who refused their offer to quietly resign because he said no reason had been given for the surprise ouster. Jay Rothman said in two letters sent to regents that he would not resign from leading the 165,000-student system without […]
Recent news that current Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman is being pushed out (and voting today, with several uncontested races….) brought back memories of chats with local and state elected officials over the years. As an aside, spring, 2026 election day is likely a convenient time to push Rothman out. A friend mused that […]
Scott Bauer: The president of the 25-campus Universities of Wisconsin said in a letter obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday that he’s been told to either resign or be fired, but has been given no reason and won’t step aside from the 165,000-student system. Jay Rothman, president of the university system since 2022, said […]
Sabine Martin: UW system leadership last month attributed the slight increase in systemwide student enrollment to an 8% decline in the number of international students, according to preliminary estimates. UW system President Jay Rothman said in October that the availability and timeliness of securing visas had an impact on international student enrollment. “It’s an area that we […]
Sabine Martin: In-state undergraduate students at the Universities of Wisconsin would pay hundreds more in tuition in the 2025-26 academic year under a proposal President Jay Rothman announced Tuesday. The plan to raise tuition by up to 5% for in-state undergraduate students would be the third consecutive increase since 2023 after the end of a 10-year freeze. Tuition […]
Becky Jacobs and Andrew Bahl: The leader of Wisconsin’s 13 public universities said without additional funding in the next state budget, he expects more branch campus closures, decreased affordability for students, layoffs and program cuts. “All of which will hit hardest at our most vulnerable UWs,” Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman said on social media. […]
Becky Jacobs “What upsets me the most about these … is very rarely are there actual metrics attached to it,” Wilde said. Mnookin will qualify for the $150,000 if she continues as chancellor through June 30 and “her performance remains satisfactory,” according to her contract with the UW system. Although her contract doesn’t specify what […]
Jay Rothman: Last week I sent a letter to our Congressional delegation in Washington, D.C. to express my concerns about federal financial aid amid the ongoing budget process. 1/
Kimberly Wethal: Universities of Wisconsin schools would keep in-state undergraduate tuition steady for the next two academic years if lawmakers hike state aid by $855 million of state dollars as part of the upcoming budget cycle, UW system President Jay Rothman said in a budget request Monday. The proposed budget, which goes before the UW […]
Chancellor Mark A. Mone Today, I recommended to Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman that the Board of Regents discontinue the program of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s (UWM) College of General Studies (CGS) and its three academic departments: Arts & Humanities, Math & Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences & Business, pursuant to Regent Policy Document (RPD) […]
Kimberly Wethal UW-Stevens Point leadership is warning that its two branch campuses in Marshfield and Wausau can’t survive unless enrollment increases. The campuses’ enrollment has dropped nearly 70% in the last 13 years. UW-Stevens Point Chancellor Thomas Gibson said in a viability report to Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman this spring that other revenue […]
“Facts & Trends” In December 2022, the Board of Regents approved a five-year Strategic Plan for the Universities of Wisconsin for 2023-28. The broad objectives of the plan include enhancing the student experience and social mobility; fostering civic engagement and serving the public good; creating and disseminating knowledge that contributes to innovation and a better […]
Wispolitics: Oshkosh Chancellor Andrew Leavitt announced the university’s Fox Cities campus will close in June 2025 due to low enrollment — the sixth two-year campus in two years to either end in-person instruction or shut completely. Leavitt confirmed the news Thursday after Outagamie County Exec Tom Nelson blasted him and UW President Jay Rothman for […]
Liam Beran: The UW System hopes to downsize its remaining branch campuses amid declining student interest in associate degrees and ongoing enrollment struggles, according to an October briefing by UW System President Jay Rothman Isthmusobtained via records request. Five campuses have already been targeted for closure or a transition from in-person learning — UW-Platteville Richland will be completely […]
Becky Jacobs: When in-state undergraduates start classes this fall, they’ll pay more to attend the Universities of Wisconsin. That extra money will go toward rising health care costs and pay increases for university employees and financial aid for students, among other things. Earlier this month, the UW Board of Regentsapproved a 3.75% tuition rate increase for […]
By Ava Menkes and Liam Beran Republican lawmakers and University of Wisconsin System President Jay Rothman reached an agreement in December to restructure diversity, equity and inclusion positions, but records show other systemwide plans were taken out at the last minute. A Music Hall restoration, a mandate to have UW System employees complete a module to address “ideological […]
Sarah Lehr: A newly released third-party analysis raises concerns about the financial future of multiple state universities. Last year, a forecast from the Universities of Wisconsin projected structural deficits at 10 of Wisconsin’s public universities ranging from millions to tens of millions of dollars. Only three campuses — Madison, LaCrosse and Stout — were projected to generate enough revenue […]
Corrinne Hess: Wisconsin’s in-state undergraduate students will see a tuition hike of 3.75 percent in the fall, Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman announced Thursday. The proposal will be considered by the Board of Regents April 4. This year tuition increased 5 percent. That was the first increase in 10 years. It came after the state […]
Dave Cieslewicz You can blame Gov. Tony Evers and the majority of his appointments to the UW Board of Regents. The grand compromise that Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman negotiated with Vos was a great deal for the UW. Vos has been withholding inflationary pay increases for UW employees, approval of a much needed […]
MacIver: While the numbers of administrators increased, instructional faculty and staff have decreased. Years of DEI focus has pushed down enrollment of white students so they are now underrepresented. Unrestricted PR balances are higher than they were when the legislature uncovered the secret slush fund a decade ago. Admissions changes have brought in more underprepared […]
Kelly Meyerhofer: The UW System spends about $13.6 million annually on 185 administrators related to DEI, with most of the positions concentrated at UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee, according to records first reported on by WisPolitics. The $13.6 million in salaries represents about 0.2% of the UW System’s $6.9 billion annual operating budget. Vos called for eliminating […]
Alan Blinder, Stephanie Saul: The board of Wisconsin’s public university system voted on Tuesday to fire President Jay O. Rothman, who angered Democrats and faculty members for bargaining with the Republican-led State Legislature and recently defied regents who had pressed him to resign. The decision was unanimous, with 17 members of the board — which […]
Kate Morton: NEWS: Universities of Wisconsin President @JayORothman says he is “disappointed” in UW-Milwaukee’s agreement with student protesters related to a pro-Palestinian encampment: “I am continuing to assess the decision-making process that led to this result.”
Erin Gretzinger: Declining enrollments. Changing demographics. Tightening budgets. And, above all, an “evolving student marketplace.” All these elements led Jay O. Rothman, president of the University of Wisconsin system, to announce in October that the system was closing one two-year campus and ending in-person instruction at two others. More closures may be on the horizon, […]
In recent years, a raft of research has called attention to the importance of effective teaching in influencing student achievement. Yet federal and state accountability policies continue to focus primarily at the school level: using schools as the unit of performance, identifying “failing schools,” and more recently targeting “turnaround schools” for special intervention. One of the best-kept secrets in educational research, it seems, is the fact that differences in the quality of instruction from classroom to classroom within schools are greater than differences in instructional quality between schools. This finding has been documented in a variety of studies, most of which used indirect measures to evaluate instruction (such as relying on teachers’ perceptions or looking at curriculum materials to determine how much time they spent on particular topics). Despite the limitations of these measures, these studies have suggested that there is considerable variation in practice even among teachers in the same building.
Over the past five years, however, researchers led by Brian Rowan, the Burke A. Hinsdale Collegiate Professor in Education at the University of Michigan, have asked teachers in 112 schools to keep detailed logs of their actual practice. The newly released results of the Study of Instructional Improvement (SII) document dramatic differences in the kinds of skills and content taught from classroom to classroom. For instance, the study showed that a fifth-grade teacher might teach reading comprehension anywhere from 52 days a year to as many as 140 days a year. Similarly, first-grade teachers spent as little as 15 percent to as much as 80 percent of their time on word analysis. Thus, the study found, students in some classrooms may spend the majority of their classroom time on relatively low-level content and skills, while their peers in the class next door are spending much more time on higher-level content.Jay Matthews has more.