Wisconsin’s public schools are losing students faster than districts are downsizing their staff, analysis of data from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction shows.

Statewide, the number of students enrolled in a traditional district-run public school fell to about 791,956 in the 2024-25 school year. The number has been in steady decline since a slight bump in 2013-14 to over 873,500 students. The rate of decline increased after the 2019-20 school year, with a drop of more than 25,000 students.

Over nearly the same period, the number of teachers employed in the state has hovered between about 60,000 and 63,000. As a result, the ratio of teachers to students has generally increased.

Wisconsin state legislators recently introduced a series of bills to help working families across the state. Among these proposals is one that calls for providing free breakfast and lunch for all schoolchildren.

At first glance, the initiative seems straightforward and compassionate — after all, who would oppose ensuring children have enough to eat?

However, a closer look reveals that this measure is yet another push by advocates of expansive government to fund assistance programs for households that likely do not need them.

The mainstream media has tried to turn the Trump Administration’s focus on federal grants into just another squabble between the two political tribes. It’s actually part of a much more fundamental dispute over whether Americans should adhere to the Tenth Amendment.

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people,” states that part of the Bill of Rights.

As Madison wrote in Federalist 45, those powers delegated to the federal government are supposed to be “few and far between,” those remaining with the states “numerous and indefinite.”

It has been a long, long time since anyone in Washington took that seriously.

The number of students enrolled in private school in Wisconsin via choice programs increased by about 3,800 this year, data from the Department of Public Instruction’s third Friday headcount show.

Most of the growth over the previous school year came from increases in the so-called statewide Wisconsin Parental Choice Program, which includes all areas of the state other than Milwaukee and Racine, both of which have their own programs. The state Choice Program grew to 21,638 students, an increase of 12.8% over the 2023 headcount.

“I am the President of Ascension Academy and a supporter of family options. This year Ascension enrolled in Wisconsin School Choice and educated 20 students whose families would have had stressed budgets if the program was not available. To keep this trend moving in the right direction we need to inform the public that the application window is from Feb. 3 to April 17. Families cannot wait until fall. They need to act NOW!”

— Robert R., Cumberland, WI
Comment submitted on Wisconsin school enrollment 

“[Voter ID] is another common sense issue that can be justified by comparing it with several other security matters in society. We recently moved to Texas where a very diverse population does not find voter ID to be a problem or discriminatory.”

— Don S., Aledo, TX
Comment submitted on Supreme battle shaping up over voter ID

A trio of Republican lawmakers wants voters to decide whether Wisconsin’s governor should maintain the authority to veto individual words in bills that reach his or her desk. This week Rep. Scott Allen and Sens. Julian Bradley and Cory Tomcyzk proposed amendment language that would allow the governor only to veto entire sections of a bill. According to the legislators, the governor’s partial veto authority “has turned our chief executive into a super lawmaker.”

Commenting on Gov. Evers’ use of the partial veto last session, Mike Nichols adds, “The partial veto makes a mockery of the legislative process, and of our state.”

Shall section 1m of article III of the constitution be created to require that voters present valid photographic identification verifying their identity in order to vote in any election, subject to exceptions which may be established by law?

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