Wisconsin State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly said the state’s schools are underfunded and the state needs to step up during her annual State of Education Speech on Thursday in Madison.
She also called the federal government the “biggest schoolyard bully” that Wisconsin schools face.
Critics, however, say that the way Wisconsin schools spend money is a large problem with the state’s education system.
“Dr. Underly complains that funding is ‘inadequate,’ but the average school district in Wisconsin now has nearly $18,000 in revenue per student,” Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty Policy Director Will Flanders wrote in response. “A class of 20 students represents $360,000 in taxpayer value. Money is not what is holding our schools back.”
The Institute for Reforming Government wrote its own State of Education on Thursday, saying the state received record budget increases for the second straight budget but test scores have not improved.
The state’s public schools have a record amount of staff as the state’s schools are now facing decreasing enrollment but public schools have a lack of classroom teachers in specialized areas.
“The real state of education in Wisconsin is that the education bureaucracy keeps blocking progress, and it’s students and taxpayers who are paying the price,” Quinton Klabon, Senior Research Director at the Institute for Reforming Government, said in the group’s Real State of Education. “After consecutive years of record-breaking investment, parents, and taxpayers deserve results, not excuses.”
Underly went on to say that state legislative leaders are starving public schools to benefit private schools by pulling resources from public schools.
“Decades of insufficient investment have forced a historic number of districts into an impossible situation,” Underly said. “Turning to referenda, year after year, just to survive. All while facing micromanaging from Madison and endless finger-pointing from lawmakers who too often choose politics over partnership.”
Flanders, however, showed that inflation-adjusted spending for public schools in Wisconsin has nearly doubled since the 1970s.
Underly closed by issuing a challenge to give more funding to public schools and see better results.
“This is our wake-up call,” Underly said. “This is the mirror we must face. And we have to ask ourselves: Is this who we want to be? Will we be the generation that looked away as our schools crumbled? Or will we be the ones who stood up, kept our promise, and chose to write a different story?”
