schoolinfosystem.org
CJ Szafir and Libby Sobic: The latest attack is from Gov. Tony Evers’ appointed successor at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, Carolyn Stanford Taylor, who is refusing to allow private schools in the choice programs to count online (“virtual”) learning toward annual class-time requirements. She is doing so even though DPI has permitted public […]
Jessie Opoien: WILL’s most likely battle with Evers, Esenberg said, is over administrative rules — a “fight that only a wonk could love.” As Evers seeks to implement policies with a Republican Legislature opposed to most of his goals, he could direct state agencies to implement administrative rules — most of which WILL would be […]
Molly Beck: He said in the Milwaukee program especially, enrollment freezes in private voucher schools would disproportionately affect children of color living in low-income households. “Most of our families don’t have the kind of income where they would have realistic choices,” he said at the time. Under Evers’ proposal, voucher schools also would be banned […]
Eugene Volokh: Richard Esenberg, Tom Kamenick and Clyde Taylor at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty have just filed a lawsuit challenging the policy; you can read the Complaint, which lays out the facts and some of the Institute’s legal arguments. The ban on “offensive” speech is clearly unconstitutionally vague and likely viewpoint-based; and, […]
Anna Welch and Mckenna Kohlenberg: In the five years since the group’s inception, MOST has not given the public notice of its meetings times, dates, locations, and agendas, allowing little to no oversight. According to an internal document from a 2014 meeting, MOST formalized an “Action Team” that began meeting twice a month starting July […]
The Wall Street Journal: Teachers’ unions and their liberal allies are desperately trying to preserve the failing public school status quo. Witness how the Milwaukee Public School (MPS) system is defying a state mandate to sell vacant property to charter and private schools. Milwaukee’s public schools are a mess. Merely 62% of students graduate from […]
Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty: On this page, you can search WILL’s Performance Rankings for most Wisconsin schools. The Performance Ranking puts all schools on a level playing field to arrive at an estimate of the effect of that school on student outcomes. You can search for schools by grade level, sector, city, or […]
Patrick Marley: A group of teachers and parents sued, arguing the law didn’t apply to Evers because of the powers granted to him by the state constitution. A Dane County judge agreed with them in 2012 and the state Supreme Court upheld that ruling in 2016. In 2017, Walker signed a new, similar law. Evers […]
Dylan Brogan: Madison assistant city attorney Roger Allen has apologized for the police department taking more than a year to fulfill an open records request from Isthmus, saying the request accidentally “fell through the cracks.” He says the city is working to make sure that delays like this won’t happen again. “This [delay] was an […]
Todd Richmond: The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) filed a lawsuit directly with the Supreme Court. The lawsuit argues the Department of Public Instruction has been writing administrative rules without permission from the Department of Administration and the governor as required by the REINS Act. Republicans passed the act this summer. It requires […]
Wisconsin Supreme Court: ¶27 Applying these principles, we conclude that CAMRC was a committee created by rule under Wis. Stat. § 19.82(1). First, it qualifies as a “committee” for purposes of the open meetings law because it had a defined membership of 17 individuals upon whom was conferred the authority, as a body, to review […]
Annysa Johnson: At least 40 Milwaukee Public Schools buildings are vacant or underused, according to a new report by a conservative law firm that wants to see them sold off to private and public charter schools that will compete with the state’s largest public school system. The study by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & […]
Tony Evers (PDF): 1. Why are you running for State Superintendent of Public Instruction? I’ve been an educator all my adult life. I grew up in small town Plymouth, WI. Worked at a canning factory in high school, put myself through college, and married my kindergarten sweetheart, Kathy-also a teacher. I taught and became a […]
Nick Sibilla Occupational licenses are “one of the most substantial barriers to opportunity in America today,” a new study by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) found. According to WILL’s estimates, licensing laws raise prices for consumers by $1.93 billion each year and results in roughly 31,000 fewer jobs. Over the past two […]
Annysa Johnson: The city’s decision to move forward with the state-mandated sale of vacant or surplus Milwaukee Public School buildings to competing operators will hinder the district’s own reform efforts and its ability to serve returning students when private voucher and charter schools go belly-up, an MPS spokesman said Saturday. The common council on Friday […]
Wisconsin’s stürm and drang over “Act 10” is somewhat manifested in Madison. Madison’s government schools are the only Wisconsin District, via extensive litigation, to still have a collective bargaining agreement with a teacher union, in this case, Madison Teachers, Inc. The Madison School Board and Administration are working with the local teachers union on a […]
Molly Beck: The conservative legal group Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty in a court filing this week asked the state Supreme Court to reverse an appeals court decision that upheld Evers’ rule-making authority related to education. The brief was filed on behalf of the state’s largest business lobbying group Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the […]
Jill Tatge-Rozell, via a kind reader: Kenosha parents whose autistic child was not admitted into Paris Consolidated School through open enrollment have joined a lawsuit that claims Wisconsin’s open enrollment rules violate federal disability law. Specifically, the suit claims open enrollment violates the Americans with Disabilities Act because it denies students with disabilities the benefits […]
Kelly Meyerhoffer:
Pat Schneider: The conservative legal group Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty has brought suit against Madison’s public schools through a plaintiff who does not have standing to bring the “scandalous” allegations of violations of teachers’ rights included in its complaint, school district officials claim in a court filing. Plaintiff David Blaska, a conservative blogger, […]
Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, via a kind reader:
Today, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty sent a letter to Superintendent Evers of the Department of Public Instruction, raising serious concerns about whether the DPI is misapplying the open enrollment laws in a way that discriminates against students with disabilities in violation of state law as well as Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (“ADA”) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
Explained CJ Szafir, WILL Education Policy Director, “Every school year, hundreds of students with disabilities are denied the right to open enroll by their school district. When parents appeal the decision, records and interviews with parents have shown that the DPI is not protecting the rights of those students but is instead approving the rejections without conducting the analysis that it is legally required. The whole process leaves parents frustrated, and trapped in a school district that does not serve the needs of their child.”
The purpose of Wisconsin’s open enrollment program is to allow parents to choose a school district for their child other than the school district where they reside. But, students with disabilities have their applications for open enrollment rejected at a much higher rate than those without a disability. A major cause of this disparity is the resident school district claiming that they would incur an “undue financial burden” if the child leaves the school district.
Seeking to counter a recent trial judge’s ruling in a public labor lawsuit, a Milwaukee teacher and four others from Wisconsin are suing to force the union elections called for under Gov. Scott Walker’s signature legislation.
With teachers from La Crosse, Waukesha, Brookfield and Racine, Nicholas Johnson of Milwaukee Public Schools filed the lawsuit in Waukesha County Circuit Court with legal help from union opponents at the National Right to Work Foundation and the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.
The lawsuit seeks to force the state Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission to hold recertification elections to determine whether the unions in their districts can officially represent school employees. The rules for the recertification elections make them difficult for unions to win, and many labor groups faced with them have chosen not even to hold them.
Dane County Circuit Judge Juan Colás last year found Act 10 was unconstitutional for teachers and local government workers, saying it violated their guarantee of equal protection under the law and infringed on their freedom-of-association rights.
Under the new contracts clerical and technical employees will be able to work 40-hour work weeks compared to the current 38.75, and based on the recommendation of principals, employees who serve on school-based leadership teams will be paid $20 per hour.
Additionally, six joint committees will be created to give employees a say in workplace issues and address topics such as planning time, professional collaboration and the design of parent-teacher conferences.
Kerry Motoviloff, a district instructional resource teacher and MTI member, spoke at the beginning of the meeting thanking School Board members for their collective bargaining and work in creating the committees that are “getting the right people at the right table to do the right work.”
Cheatham described the negotiations with the union as “both respectful and enormously productive,” adding that based on conversations with district employees the contract negotiations “accomplished the goal they set out to accomplish.”“Madison is in the minority. Very few teachers are still under contract,” said Christina Brey, spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Education Association Council. Fewer than 10 of 424 school districts in the state have labor contracts with teachers for the current school year, she said Wednesday.
And while Brey said WEAC’s significance is not undermined by the slashed number of teacher contracts, at least one state legislator believes the state teacher’s union is much less effective as a resource than it once was.
Many school districts in the state extended teacher contracts through the 2011-2012 school year after Act 10, Gov. Scott Walker’s law gutting collective bargaining powers of most public employees, was implemented in 2011. The Madison Metropolitan School District extended its teacher contract for two years — through the 2013-2014 school year — after Dane County Judge Juan Colas struck down key provisions of Act 10 in September 2012.
The contract ratified by the members Monday will be in effect until June 30, 2015.On Thursday, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty emailed a letter to Cheatham and the School Board warning that a contract extension could be in violation of Act 10.
Richard Esenberg, WILL president, said he sent the letter because “we think there are people who believe, in Wisconsin, that there is somehow a window of opportunity to pass collective bargaining agreements in violation of Act 10, and we don’t think that.”
If the Supreme Court rules Act 10 is constitutional all contracts signed will be in violation of the law, according to Esenberg.
Esenberg said he has not read the contract and does not know if the district and union contracts have violated collective bargaining agreements. But, he said, “I suspect this agreement does.”The contract does not “take back” any benefits, Matthews says. However, it calls for a comprehensive analysis of benefits that could include a provision to require employees to pay some or more toward health insurance premiums if they do not get health care check-ups or participate in a wellness program.
Ed Hughes, president of the Madison School Board, said that entering into labor contracts while the legal issues surrounding Act 10 play out in the courts was “the responsible thing to do. It provides some stability to do the important work we need to do in terms of getting better results for our students.”
Hughes pointed out that the contract establishes a half-dozen joint committees of union and school district representatives that will take up issues including teacher evaluations, planning time and assignments. The contract calls for mediation on several of the issues if the joint committees cannot reach agreement.
“Hopefully this will be a precursor of the way we will work together in years to come, whatever the legal framework is,” Hughes said.
Matthews, too, was positive about the potential of the joint committees.Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty:
WILL President and General Counsel Rick Esenberg warns, “The Madison School Board is entering a legally-gray area. Judge Colas’ decision has no effect on anyone outside of the parties involved. The Madison School Board and Superintendent Cheatham – in addition to the many teachers in the district – were not parties to the lawsuit. As we have continued to say, circuit court cases have no precedential value, and Judge Colas never ordered anyone to do anything.”
He continued, “If the Madison School District were to collectively bargain in a way that violates Act 10, it could be exposed to litigation by taxpayers or teachers who do not wish to be bound to an illegal contract or to be forced to contribute to an organization that they do not support.” The risk is not theoretical. Last spring, WILL filed a lawsuit against the Milwaukee Area Technical College alleging such a violation.The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty’s letter to Madison Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham (PDF).
The essential question, how does Madison’s non-diverse K-12 governance model perform academically? Presumably, student achievement is job one for our $15k/student district.
Worth a re-read: Then Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman’s 2009 speech to the Madison Rotary Club:“Beware of legacy practices (most of what we do every day is the maintenance of the status quo), @12:40 minutes into the talk – the very public institutions intended for student learning has become focused instead on adult employment. I say that as an employee. Adult practices and attitudes have become embedded in organizational culture governed by strict regulations and union contracts that dictate most of what occurs inside schools today. Any impetus to change direction or structure is met with swift and stiff resistance. It’s as if we are stuck in a time warp keeping a 19th century school model on life support in an attempt to meet 21st century demands.” Zimman went on to discuss the Wisconsin DPI’s vigorous enforcement of teacher licensing practices and provided some unfortunate math & science teacher examples (including the “impossibility” of meeting the demand for such teachers (about 14 minutes)). He further cited exploding teacher salary, benefit and retiree costs eating instructional dollars (“Similar to GM”; “worry” about the children given this situation).
Matthew DeFour, via a kind reader’s email:
Wisconsin law requires boards to release the identities of at least five candidates to the public upon request when there are at least five applicants, according to a 2004 opinion by then-Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager.
The opinion doesn’t specify when the names must be disclosed.
School district officials said Friday they were still reviewing the newspaper’s request. On Tuesday district lawyer Dylan Pauly told the newspaper the district would respond to the request within 10 business days.
Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, said the School Board “is clearly violating the spirit of the law” by not making the names public before the board made a decision. The law calls for records to be provided as soon as possible.
“For the district to pick a superintendent candidate without first meeting its statutory obligation to identify (at least) five candidates considered most qualified delegitimizes the selection that is made,” Lueders said.Related: Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, via a kind reader’s email:
It’s also illegal. Government entities cannot require a requester to come into the office to get a copy of a record except in the rare circumstance where it is not possible to copy the record. Wisconsin law provides plainly that “any requester has a right to inspect a record and to make or receive a copyof a record that permits photocopying.” Wis. Stat. 19.35(1)(b) (emphasis added). Decades ago, the law actually permitted the government to choose whether to provide a copy or require the requester to come in and copy it. In 1991, however, the legislature amended the law to remove that choice when a request is not made in person. State ex rel. Borzych v. Paluszcyk, 201 Wis. 2d 523, 527, 549 N.W.2d 25 (Ct. App. 1996) (describing the legislative history and noting that “[b]y statute, [the custodian] was required to photocopy and send the material requested”).
Be aware, though, that the government entity can charge you the actual postage cost to mail the copies. Wis. Stat. 19.35(3)(d).
When the Education Action Group ran into this kind of excuse from a school district* in northern Wisconsin last week, they called us. We wrote a letter to the school district’s superintendent, and the very next day EAG got an email saying the records were in the mail.
Know your rights when it comes to open records! If you ever want some advice about how to file a record request, what to ask for, or whether the fees being charged are lawful, give us a call.
WILL The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) announced its newest addition to the education policy team. Daniel Buck is a senior visiting fellow at WILL, where he will write and advise on projects related to K-12 education policy. Daniel will play a key role in WILL’s Restoring American Education initiative. The Quotes: WILL […]
Daniel Buck: Walking into a classroom my first year of teaching, I experienced less a transition shock and more a disgraceful-lack-of-preparation shock. It turns out the university lectures on self-care and transgender literacies didn’t quite prepare me for a student calling another student’s mother an indecorous word. Nor did a few sample lesson plans equip […]
Wall Street Journal: Mr. Trump lost Wisconsin by 20,682 votes, and he lagged the state’s GOP Congressmen by 63,547. Split tickets by Republicans more than explain why Mr. Trump fell short. Drop boxes were an unlawful delivery method, but if real Wisconsinites put real ballots into them, as instructed by local officials, that isn’t “fraud.” Judges are […]
WILL: The ongoing discussions about public school education continues to be divisive and difficult. The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) provides these model school board policies as an addition and alternative to the limited options that school boards have access to. WILL offers these model policies with goals of increasing parents’ rights and […]
Eugene Volokh: The claims arise out of “UPMC’s purported disclosure of their confidential medical information to [child protection authorities] for the purpose of targeting them with highly intrusive, humiliating and coercive child abuse investigations starting before taking their newborn babies home from UPMC’s hospitals shortly after childbirth.” Scott Girard: At issue is an April 2018 […]
Chris Rickert: or the second time in less than two weeks, the Madison School District is being sued over its response to a public records request. The conservative Milwaukee-based Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, or WILL, filed suit Thursday asking a judge to order the district to release staff training materials entitled “LGBTQA+ 101.” […]
Wisconsin institute for law and liberty: On Saturday, February 19, 2022, Concordia University Wisconsin suspended Rev. Dr. Gregory Schulz, a full professor of philosophy and Lutheran pastor. At first, Dr. Schulz did not know why he was suspended because the University locked him out of his email account and banned him from campus properties. By […]
Wisconsin institute for law and liberty: UPDATE: UW-Madison quietly updated their announcement, nearly a month after it went out, to suggest their mental health counselors will not serve students exclusively on the basis of race. WILL Deputy Counsel, Dan Lennington, said, “While we don’t necessarily oppose counselors claiming certain expertise in issues facing students of […]
Wisconsin Institute for law and liberty: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) submitted public comment to the United States Department of Education against the adoption of a proposed grant program to prioritize Critical Race Theory in federally funded American History and Civics Education. WILL’s public comment emphasizes our concern that the Biden Administration is attempting to push […]
Benjamin Yount: There are new numbers to go along with claims that online classes are leaving school kids in Wisconsin behind. Milwaukee Public Schools on Wednesday said just over 30% of high school students failed the fall semester. Data from Milwaukee schools showed 30.3% of MPS high schoolers failed last fall, compared to 18.8% in […]
Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty: Union leave policy results in public subsidy to labor unions, violates Constitution’s ban on compelled speech The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) filed a Notice of Claim, Thursday, on behalf of a Milwaukee resident challenging a Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) union leave policy. Under this […]
Matthew Cash: A recent study completed by Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty shows school districts across the state saw a dramatic decline in fall enrollment as educators navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. Fall enrollment numbers collected in October shows districts saw an average of 2.67% decline in enrollment. For districts that started the school year […]
Caitlin Sievers: Some schools are considering fighting it. The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, a conservative nonprofit law firm based in Milwaukee, says it’s illegal. But the City of Racine is standing by its Health Department’s most recent COVID-19 order that requires all private and public K-12 school buildings within the jurisdiction of its […]
Nick Viviani: ane County officials are hunkering down for a fight over its health department’s order barring in-person instructions in local schools, including religious and private ones, for most students. “The order for schools is lawful and we will defend it vigorously, because the reason Public Health put it in place is worth fighting for—the […]
Chris Rickert: A group of parents and private religious schools is asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to void a Dane County order barring in-person school for most students, saying the order issued in response to the COVID-19 pandemic infringes on the right to worship and to an education. “This case challenges the authority of one […]
Scott Bauer: A 16-year-old Wisconsin high school sophomore who had symptoms of the coronavirus and posted about it on social media was ordered by a sheriff’s deputy to delete the posts and threatened with being taken to jail, her attorney said Friday. The teenager is a student in the Westfield School District in Marquette County. […]
Todd Richmond: A group of parents filed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging the Madison school district’s transgender policy is unconstitutional because it prohibits teachers and staff from informing parents that their children want to switch sexes. Conservative law firm Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty filed the lawsuit on the parents’ behalf in Dane County Circuit […]
Alice Herman: For individuals and organizations seeking state records, Wisconsin law is clear: the state guarantees public access to government business, barring “exceptional cases,” and identifies a lack of transparency as “generally contrary to the public interest.” Despite the fact that the public right to state information is baked into Wisconsin legal code, freedom of […]
Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty: Today, on behalf of a public school teacher who has refused union membership, attorneys at WILL have filed a motion to intervene in the latest lawsuit over the 2011 collective bargaining reform law (“Act 10”). This month, labor unions revived a dormant lawsuit in federal court to bring against […]
Wall Street Journal: We wrote in 2015 about how MPS blocked charter and private school purchases of empty school buildings, which prevented high-performing schools like St. Marcus Lutheran from expanding. The state legislature then passed a law ordering the city and school district to sell vacant public school buildings. Well, what do you know, the […]
Simpson Street Free Press: Open records watchdogs and clean government advocates call responses by Madison school officials to open records inquires “ugly.” A recent report distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council and published in the Wisconsin State Journal says the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) would not fulfill a request for information about […]
Annysa Johnson: A proposal by a military-style voucher school to purchase a vacant Milwaukee Public Schools building is scheduled to go before the city next week. Right Step Inc., which is being sued by a group of parents for allegedly abusive practices, is proposing to open a boys-only campus for up to 150 students in […]
Norman Sannes Nothing has changed in the past 30 years. The love affair between the Madison School Board and Madison Teachers Inc. Executive director John Matthews is still in full bloom. The latest pending agreement to extend the existing union contract is proof. The ensuing litigation could cost Madison taxpayers a great deal. The Wisconsin […]
WILL: The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) filed a Title IX complaint with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) and with U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi (DOJ) against Westosha Central High School for endangering the safety and privacy of multiple female students. Over parent objections, the school allowed […]
WILL: The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) released a new report called “Shining a Light: Enhancing Transparency and Accountability in Wisconsin’s Public Records Process.” The report highlights several actionable reforms that would enhance government transparency and make it easier for citizens to hold their government accountable. The Quote: WILL Policy Director, Kyle Koenen, […]
WILL The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) is inviting school board members, district administrators, and key staff and faculty, for a day of professional development to better the educational experience Wisconsin’s students receive. The 2nd Annual School Board Summit will be held on May 9th. It will bring together experts from several facets of education […]
WILL: The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) secured another significant victory for true equality in a new ruling from the Wisconsin Court of Appeals against the Evers Administration, which runs a racially discriminatory scholarship program called the “Minority Undergraduate Retention Program.” Most Wisconsin students are excluded from the program because of […]
WILL The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education against the Wauwatosa School District (WSD) for its plan to shut down the Wauwatosa STEM School, currently ranked the fifth-best elementary school in Wisconsin by U.S News and World Report. The District’s racially discriminatory plan also includes phasing […]
Andrew Mark Miller: Attorneys for the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty argue on behalf of their client Mrs. Colbey Decker that a “troubling” and “unlawful” policy in the Green Bay Area School District “explicitly prioritizes reading support resources based on race, thereby violating the U.S. Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” […]
WILL: The News: As K-12 education leaders across the country face an increasingly complex Title IX regulatory regime, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), the Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies (DFI), and the Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF) released today a crucial resource guide. Titled “Protecting Title IX: A Resource Guide for School […]
WILL: The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) has filed its 12th lawsuit against the Biden-Harris Administration, this time targeting the U.S. Department of Education’s McNair Post Baccalaureate Achievement Program. This $60 million program provides financial and educational opportunities to students nationwide who want to pursue graduate studies. But many college students […]
WILL: The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) has filed an Amicus Brief in the Wisconsin Supreme Court in a case against the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA). WILL urges that because the WIAA has monopolized high school sports and has binding power over the public, including nearly 90,000 student athletes, their […]
WIlL: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) has filed its 12th lawsuit against the Biden-Harris Administration, this time targeting the U.S. Department of Education’s McNair Post Baccalaureate Achievement Program. This $60 million program provides financial and educational opportunities to students nationwide who want to pursue graduate studies. But many college students are ineligible […]
WILL The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) has filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Jordan Cernek, a former teacher in the Argyle School District, for violating Mr. Cernek’s Title VII rights, as well as his First Amendment right to Free Exercise of his religion under the United States Constitution and Article […]
Noah Diekemper: A recent case before the Wisconsin Supreme Court threatened to replace the state’s legislative maps with new maps drawn by partisans and picked by the court. The case was ultimately mooted, but the bad social science advanced by the experts retained by the court deserves comment. As background, the court had previously determined that […]
Corrinne Hess: Other findings include: Family Unity: Percentage of births to unmarried women, women currently married, and children with a single parent. Wisconsin ranks 16th. Family interaction: Percentage of children who are read to every day in the past week, children who watched four or more hours of television in the past week, and children […]
WILL: The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) and Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF) are demanding that the University of Wisconsin-Madison treat all student organizations fairly and not punish a conservative organization for its viewpoints. Young America’s Foundation (YAF) is hosting Daily Wire conservative commentator and author Mike Knowles on Wednesday, March 13th. […]
WILL: The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) just released its newest report, Behind the Lines: Investigating the Efficiency Gap in Redistricting. The report provides insight into the so-called Efficiency Gap, which left-leaning groups rely on to redraw legislative maps in courtrooms in Wisconsin and across America. What is the Efficiency Gap? The efficiency gap […]
WILL: The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty released “Truancy Troubles: Chronic Absenteeism in the Badger State,” a new report which investigates truancy trends in the Bader states. From several years of truancy data collected from school districts across the state, this study’s findings show the number of kids missing school is on the rise in […]
WILL: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) has filed a federal lawsuit against the Biden Administration’s “disadvantaged business enterprise” (DBE) program, alleging illegal discrimination against two clients—Mid-America Milling Company LLC (MAMCO) and Bagshaw Trucking Inc. The federal DBE program is the largest, and perhaps oldest, affirmative action program in U.S. history. It is administered by […]
Daniel Buck: Walking into the classroom for his first day of teaching, Milwaukee Educator Daniel Buck experienced less a transition shock and more a “disgraceful lack of preparation shock.” He walked away from class that day with the understanding that self-care and transgender literacies didn’t quite prepare him to educate the next generation of students […]
WILL: The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) has filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit seeking to overturn Wisconsin’s Legislative Districts. The lawsuit was brought by several Left-leaning attorneys, who are trying to relitigate issues resolved just a year and a half ago. Overturning the current maps would be unprecedented, and would deny […]
WILL: The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) and School Choice Wisconsin (SCW) released a new report examining amount of special needs students in Wisconsin’s choice schools serve students with disabilities. Serving All: Students with Disabilities in Wisconsin’s Parental Choice Programs shows that schools in Wisconsin choice programs serve far more disabled students than […]
Will: Today, the Waukesha County Circuit Court ruled in favor of Wisconsin parents in a monumental case brought by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) and Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). The Court held that the Kettle Moraine School District violated parents’ constitutional rights to raise their own children by allowing minor students to change gender […]
Ameillia Wedward: Janet Protasiewicz’ recent confirmation as a member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court earlier this month has conservatives worried about the possible end of a decade of conservative reforms, from Act 10 to voter ID laws. But another concern receiving less attention is the prospect of challenges to Wisconsin’s school choice programs. School choice has stood […]
Corrinne Hess In the 2021-22 school year, Wisconsin’s public schools received a total of $16,859 per student, which came from a combination of local property taxes, federal sources and the state. Of that, about $7,728 came from the state, according to the Department of Public Instruction. “In fact, some of the federal funding factored into […]
WILL: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights (OCR) following a troubling incident that occurred at Sun Prairie Area School District (SPASD), where an 18-year-old biological male exposed himself to four female girls in the shower and stated “I’m trans, by the way.” […]
Joshua Nelson: A Wisconsin school district charged a legal group over $11K to fulfill their open records request regarding an incident that involved a transgender woman allegedly violating the privacy rights of four other female students. The Wisconsin Institute of Law and Liberty (WILL) on April 19, 2023, wrote a letter to the Sun Prairie Area […]
MD Kittle: The Star News Network is suing the Federal Bureau of Investigation alleging the law enforcement agency has broken a critical First Amendment guard in repeatedly denying Freedom of Information Act requests seeking the Covenant School killer’s manifesto. Filed Wednesday, the federal lawsuit asks the U.S. District Court for Middle Tennessee to order the FBI to release […]
WILL: Dear Members of the Board of Education: Our attorneys at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) recently became aware of an alarming incident involving a violation of freshman girls’ privacy while in a Sun Prairie East High School (EHS) locker room. Although the parent who reached out to WILL attempted to resolve […]
WILL: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) issued a new policy report,Priced Out of House and Home: How Laws and Regulation Add to Housing Prices in Wisconsin. The report examines the ways in which government regulation has contributed to the rising cost of home prices in Wisconsin. The report makes recommendations for both state […]
Will Flanders & Dylan Palmer : Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a much greater focus by parents and concerned citizens on what is being taught in schools around the country. For the first time, many parents were exposed to what was being taught to their children, and they didn’t like […]
WILL: The News: Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge William Hue issued a summary judgment decision that holds the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (WIDOC) violated state law and the state constitution when the agency barred Catholic clergy from ministering in-person to the spiritual needs of inmates under a COVID-19 visitor policy. The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) sued the […]
WILL: The Milwaukee Public School Board voted to amend a union leave policy, subject of a lawsuit from the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), to make clear that employees may only use such time for activities that are politically and ideologically “view-point neutral.” WILL sued the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) in July, on behalf of a Milwaukee […]
Elizabeth Beyer: In Natasha Sullivan’s AP English class at La Follette High School, students are assigned books by prominent Black authors alongside works like Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.” At Memorial High School, English teacher Maureen Mead aims to help her English language learners develop their language skills instead of penalizing them if they enter […]
WILL The News: Governor Tony Evers vetoed curriculum transparency legislation (SB 463/ AB 488), Friday, denying parents access to the classroom materials in our public schools. The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) supported the legislation to require all public schools to publicly provide access to the material taught in our public-school classrooms. The Quotes: WILL Director of […]
WILL: Reform proposal would arm parents with the ability to access, review controversial curriculum material The News: A new report from the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) is urging the adoption of curriculum transparency legislation to arm parents and taxpayers with the ability to access and review controversial curriculum material in public schools. WILL recently issued […]
WILL: School district refuses to respect parents’ decision about transitioning at school The News: Two sets of Wisconsin parents are suing the Kettle Moraine School District (KMSD) for a policy that facilitates and “affirms” a minor student’s gender transition at school, even over the parents’ objection. The Kettle Moraine School District’s policy violates parents’ constitutional rights to raise […]
WILL: Federal law grants all parents the right to “observ[e] classroom activities” in public schools. The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) issued a letter, on behalf of a parent, to Kenosha Unified School District (KUSD) Superintendent, Dr. Bethany Ormseth, urging the district to allow parental classroom observation as provided by federal law and […]
Heather Curry: Co-sponsored by more than two dozenstate lawmakers, including state education committee chairs Senator Alberta Darling and Representative Jeremy Thiesfeldt, Wisconsin’s Senate Bill 463 (and its companion version, Assembly Bill 488) would require public schools to disclose to parents and the public a listing of the actual materials making their way in front of students in K-12. […]
Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty: Dear School Boards, Administrators, and Concerned Parents of Wisconsin: It has come to our attention that, in the guise of providing (unsolicited) advice, the Wisconsin chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has sent a letter to district administrators purporting to tell them what the law “requires” that they […]
The Wisconsin Institute for law & liberty: The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) filed a lawsuit in Milwaukee County Circuit Court on behalf of a Milwaukee resident challenging a Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) union leave policy. Under this policy, MPS pays public employees full wages and benefits to engage in union-related activities instead of […]
Matt Beienburg: It should not be this way, and fortunately, it doesn’t have to be. The Goldwater Institute’s Academic Transparency Act model language, which has been adapted into legislation passed by the Arizona State Senate and the North Carolina House of Representatives this spring and is now also being advanced in Wisconsin—would provide parents unprecedented […]
Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty: The News: A new report from the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) is urging the adoption of curriculum transparency legislation to arm parents and taxpayers with the ability to access and review controversial curriculum material in public schools. WILL recently issued identical open records requests to nine large Wisconsin school […]
The Wisconsin Institute of law and liberty: Background: A fundamental and long-recognized “inherent right” protected by the Wisconsin (and United States) Constitution is the right of parents to “direct the upbringing and education of children under their control.” This means parents are the primary decision-makers with respect to their minor children—not their school, or even […]
Empower Wisconsin: An email from MTI faculty representatives urged teachers to report to the district before 8 a.m. last Thursday that they had COVID-19 symptoms. “I’m sure we all feel exhausted, or have consistent headaches, not really feeling our usual energetic selves. Are you picking up what I’m putting down here?” the email states. “We need them […]
https://www.reopenourschools.org. Scott Girard: Political affiliation and union representation were more strongly related to Wisconsin school district decisions to opt for virtual or in-person instruction this fall than COVID-19 positivity rate, according to a new report. The study from the conservative Wisconsin Institute For Law & Liberty (WILL) published Monday found that 14% of districts in the […]
Will Flanders: Among education reform advocates, improving urban education is often the focus. That’s no surprise since tens of thousands of kids in cities suffer from decades of educational failure and limited opportunity. But often overlooked are the challenges and problems plaguing rural education. Sometimes opportunities for success are just as limited, or even more so, […]
Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, via a kind email: Madison West High School students were separated by race for group discussions The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) issued a letter to administrators at Madison West High School urging the school to reconsider a series of school-sponsored racially segregated Zoom discussions. […]
Will Flanders: The coronavirus, and the resulting responses from state government, have disrupted the lives of most Wisconsin families in some way. Of particular importance has been the disruption of K-12 education, as families, teachers and schools adjust to home-based learning. But how well is this unprecedented system functioning? To answer that question, the Wisconsin […]
WILL: The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) sued the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) on behalf of a West Allis family, Heritage Christian Schools, and School Choice Wisconsin Action (SCWA), after the department adopted an illegal policy to block a family from enrolling in the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program (WPCP) – the statewide […]
Darrel Burnette II: Across the nation, hundreds of school districts are trapped in a death spiral of declining enrollment that forces dramatic budget cuts which then trigger more student departures. State officials, who have the power to merge or dissolve districts to create more financially stable systems, are often reluctant to interfere in a process […]
Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty: On the first day of National School Choice Week, a new study (here) estimates how further growth of Wisconsin’s parental choice programs could result in $3.2 billion in new economic benefits to Wisconsin over the next two decades. Ripple Effect, authored by Will Flanders, PhD, builds upon a recent study which documented […]
CJ Szafir and Cori Petersen Of the Wisconsin school districts with an achievement gap, Madison’s is one of the worst. According to 2018-19 Forward Exam scores, only 34.9% of Madison students are proficient in English, well below the statewide average of 40.9%. But in Madison only 10% of African-American students are proficient in English, compared […]
Rick Esenberg & Luke Berg: SHARE THIS Facebook Twitter Email Rick Esenberg and Luke Berg: The doublethink of the campus free speech debate By Rick Esenberg and Luke Berg | president and deputy counsel, Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty Aug 30, 2019 3 min to read ben shapiro speech (copy) UW-Madison student Cody Fearing, […]
Wisconsin Institute of Law Liberty: The Problem: Wisconsin’s K-12 education system is not working. Reading and math achievement has been stagnant for two decades while the rest of the country has experienced significant growth. About 80% of the students at Milwaukee Public Schools, the biggest district with 77,000 students, are not proficient in English. The […]