(The Center Square) – A bill looking to assure free speech is upheld at campus in the University of Wisconsin system and Wisconsin Technical Colleges would carry a punishment of two academic years of frozen tuition if a school violates any of the requirements of the bill multiple times in a five-year period.
The UW system said that its largest issue with Senate Bill 498 is the potential financial penalties for not following the rules.
“We have a concern with SB 498 and it really centers around some of the penalties prescribed in the bill that we believe would adversely impact our universities financially,” UW Vice President for University Relations Chris Patton told the Senate Committee on Universities and Technical Colleges. “Freezing state funding to our universities that put our financially health potentially at risk and really compromise the very mission and the efforts that we’re all attempting to undertake.
Lawmakers, however, are looking to have important enforcement behind the bill rather than having the bill pass and be only aspirational.
“It’s not to punish any of our institutions,” said Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara, R-Fox Crossing. “It’s to ensure that they’re following what’s already in the Bill of Rights.”
Rep. Amanda Nedweski, R-Pleasant Prairie, cited several studies and surveys including a UW System survey showing that UW Madison students and students across the country felt less comfortable speaking out if they are conservative, a Foundation for Individual Rights in Education survey showing that 35% of UW-Madison students believe it’s acceptable to use violence to stop a speaker on campus and data from The College Fix showing that more than 99% of donations from UW system professors went to Democrats, not Republicans.
“That (FIRE) number is disturbing on its own but it’s clearly even more chilling in light of the recent political assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk on a college campus,” Nedweski said. “When we accept the false premise that speech is equivalent to violence, we allow violence to replace speech as a means of debate.”
Nedweski also cited UW-Eau Claire professor José Felipe Alvergue for throwing a table of the College Republicans on its side and storming off.
The bill requires that the colleges not restrict free speech if the speaker is lawful or restict the time, place or manner of free speech on campus. The school cannot create a “free speech zone” and limit speech to that area, require a permit to limit expression or require a security fee be paid.
The school also cannot “sanction individuals or groups for discriminatory harassment unless the speech targets its victim on the basis of a protected class under law, and is so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively bars a student from receiving equal access to educational opportunities or benefits,” the bill states.
There are exceptions for the permit and security but “if a permit is required, the permitting process and any security fee must be content and viewpoint neutral.”

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s Republican U.S. Senator says there’s no need to continue the government shutdown, but he’s not predicting a quick end.
Sen. Ron Johnson told News Talk 1130 WISN’s Jay Weber that Democrats have “had plenty of time to do what makes sense.”
“This is spending a Biden-levels, this is what they voted for. Chuck Schumer has voted for continuing resolutions all the time,” Johnson.
Johnson said the Senate will vote again on a “clean CR” on Monday. The shutdown is now in its third week, and no one is guessing when it may end.
But Johnson said Democrats continue to believe they are winning.
“They think they’ve got the high ground because premiums because of Obamacare are going to continue to sky rocket,” Johnson said.
“They’re trying to [mislead] the American public that the reason premiums are sky rocketing is because [the Democrats’] temporary enhanced subsidies are expiring.”
Johnson said Congress can deal with the rising costs of health insurance, but not until after Democrats vote to reopen the government.
He also said he hopes that any deal on health care will not simply continue the unaffordable subsidies for the Affordable Care Act.
“We’ll talk about how to fix your horribly broken Obamacare,” Johnson added. “We’re happy to do that. We’ll fix the damage that’s already been done.”
Democrats in Congress continue to say the end of COVID-era Affordable Care Act subsidies will spike health care costs and could potentially leave hundreds of thousands of people in Wisconsin without access to care.
Wisconsin Democratic Ssen. Tammy Baldwin on Sunday put the blame for the shutdown on Johnson and the Republicans.
“The only way to get us out of this mess is for Democrats and Republicans to sit down together and negotiate a solution. So why, on Day #19 of Trump’s shutdown, are Republicans still refusing to do that?” Baldwin wrote on X.

(The Center Square) — Washington has become synonymous with polarization between Republicans and Democrats.Yet, legislation that would bar elected officials from owning stocks reveals an additional fault line: supporters tend to be affluent white-collar professionals, while opponents made their millions by founding businesses and/or making investments on Wall Street, an investigation by The Center Square found.
The divide contrasts with near uniformity among ordinary Americans for a ban on politicians trading stocks. They believe lawmakers use information gleaned behind closed doors to enrich themselves, such as members of Congress who bought or sold stock at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020 or before President Donald Trump’s announcement about the putative risk for pregnant mothers to take Tylenol.Capitol Hill lawmakers are required to report their trades within 30- or 45 days. As The Center Square has reported, many violate the deadline with little if any fine or punishment.This summer, 16 House members signed up as co-sponsors of draft legislation to ban lawmakers from trading stock. Half were Republicans. Half were Democrats. While their partisan affiliations differed, their income status did not. All but one were in the bottom half of the economic scale among 535 lawmakers, according to Quiver Quantitative, a website that tracks lawmaker’s wealth. U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican, the bill’s lead sponsor, is a former attorney, investment banking analyst, and congressional staffer. Despite his white-collar credentials, the 53-year-old has a net worth of $1.3 million, a figure that puts him as the 300th wealthiest lawmaker.
Roy’s main Democratic co-sponsor, U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner, of Rhode Island, has a similar professional background. Forty-two, Magaziner has a lower net worth, $651,000, a sum that puts him as Congress’ 373rd richest member.
Other notable co-sponsors include U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, a New York Democrat, whose net worth of $49,000 makes her the 475th wealthiest lawmaker on Capitol Hill, while Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican, is worth $41,500, a sum that puts him at the 477th wealthiest.
U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, said the bill would reign in wealthy investors on Capitol Hill. “No one sent to Congress should be enriching themselves through Wall Street while writing the very laws that regulates our markets,” Paulina Luna said at a press conference on Sept. 4. Her net worth, at $590,000, puts her as Congress’ 384th wealthiest member.In July 30, the 15 members of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs met to vote on legislation to ban the President, Vice President, and members of Congress from owning stock. The outcome was partisan. Only the bill’s sponsor, U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, joined all seven Democrats on the panel to vote to advance the legislation. Yet the bill’s most outspoken opponents were among Congress’ richest members.
One was U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican. A former co-founder of a plastics manufacturing firm, the 70-year-old Johnson has a net worth of $67.3 million, a figure good enough for 22nd place in Congress. At the committee hearing on July 30, Johnson said the legislation should be re-named “the career politician-protection act because it would make it so unattractive for people … to run for office and … give up their business and sell it unless some ethics committee said it won’t be a conflict of interest.”Another opponent was U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, a Florida Republican. Scott, 72, is the third wealthiest member of Congress, with an estimated net worth of $507.1 million.
At the July 30 hearing, he suggested his route to riches was different from white-collar professionals on the committee. Instead of attending “some elite university,” he worked his way up from growing up in public housing to founding and running businesses, including HCA Healthcare, one of the nation’s largest hospital chains. He was then elected governor of Florida and then Congress.
“Somehow, I’m suspect because I made money. Do any of you want to be poor?” Scott asked. “I don’t…It’s disgusting what’s going on here.”
By contrast, U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, graduated from an elite university, Harvard, and after serving in the Iraq War, was a political aide and state lawmaker. Gallego noted, correctly, he is one of the Senate’s poorest members, with a net worth of $121,500. “If we don’t put guardrails in,” Gallego, 45, said at the July 30 committee hearing, “there will be members of Congress that are going to benefit from this, without a doubt, and there will be a further erosion in trust, among Democrats and Republicans, in government.”
Craig Holman, lobbyist for Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group, told The Center Square he was not surprised by a class divide over the stock ban. “Wealthier members of Congress are the ones who would make the most by exploiting stock trading and have the wealth to take those types of risks,” he told The Center Square. “Less wealthy members invest their savings in something more long-term.”
Calls to restrict lawmakers from owning stock began as least as far back as 2012 when President Obama in his State of the Union Address said, “Let’s limit any elected official from owning stocks in industries they impact.” No members of Congress stood up or applauded Obama’s plan, but lawmakers have warmed to proposals in the face of overwhelming public support for a stock ban.According to a 2023 University of Maryland poll, 86 percent of registered voters said they supported prohibiting members of Congress from trading stocks.
Lawmakers have sponsored numerous legislative proposals since 2020. Democrats have been more likely than Republicans to sign on as co-sponsors. But getting a true reading on the partisan divide has not been possible. Neither the House nor the Senate has ever voted on legislation to prohibit or restrict lawmakers from buying and selling stock.
In 2022, stock ban proponents thought their time had come. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat and a former opponent of a stock ban, expressed openness to scheduling a vote on the bill. But six weeks away from the congressional mid-term elections, a time when Democrats could have sought to protect their majority by voting on a strongly popular bill, Pelosi scuttled the measure.
Pelosi, 85, is among Capitol Hill’s wealthiest lawmakers. According to Quiver Quantitative, her net worth, at $269.6 million, ranked fifth. Her husband, Paul, is a venture capitalist who invests in real estate and technology stocks.
One issue does unite many elected officials regardless of their economic circumstances: They show few if any signs of wanting a stock ban applied to them.
Three years ago, President Trump announced his support for a ban on lawmakers buying and selling stocks. “We want a ban on members of Congress getting rich by trading stocks with insider information,” he said at the announcement for his third presidential bid at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. “And many of our great members agree with that.”
One member who did was U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican. Hawley is the main legislative sponsor of a measure that would ban stock trades not only by lawmakers but also the President and Vice President. When Trump learned that the bill would apply to him, he denounced Hawley as a “pawn” of Democrats and “a second-tier senator.” After Hawley amended the bill to exclude Trump, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt clarified that the President “supports the idea of ensuring that members of Congress and United States senators who are here for public service cannot enrich themselves.”
Members of Congress who support a ban would likely not be subject to one for more subtle reasons. They are running for statewide office.
The month before his press conference at the Capitol on Sept. 3, Roy, the bill’s sponsor, announced he was running for Attorney General of Texas next year. U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, a South Carolina Republican and the bill’s wealthiest original co-sponsor, had also announced, in July, he was running for governor of the Palmetto State.
Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a Virginia Democrat, sponsored a House version of the bill from 2020 until she stepped down from Congress in January. Now she is the Democrats’ nominee for governor of the Old Dominion State.
John Feehery, a lobbyist, columnist, and former spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, a Republican, said lawmakers’ runs for higher office show that a stock ban is a bad idea.
“It’s popular and populist, but it reinforces the idea that members are corrupt,” Feehery told The Center Square. “How much do they want to prostrate themselves at the altar of the American people? It hurts the institution.”
Then again, Feehery said a ban could become law. “Some of these populist bills take on a life of their own, and they could pass.”

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s top education official has claimed that a story about how her department conducts investigations is inaccurate and demanded a public correction on an article claiming that the Department of Public Instruction has hidden its investigation into 200 cases of sexual misconduct and grooming from school staff.
“The reporting is not only incomplete and misleading – it is dangerously irresponsible,” Superintendent Jill Underly wrote. “It distorts the nature of the DPI’s work in this area, omits crucial legal and procedural facts, and undermines public trust in the very systems designed to protect Wisconsin students.”
The story claimed that 200 investigations from 2018 to 2023 into teachers for sexual misconduct and grooming were shielded from the public.
“We stand by our reporting and expect to have a more complete response Monday,” Capital Times Editor Mark Treinen told The Center Square late Friday afternoon.
Senate Committee on Education Chairman John Jagler and Vice Chairman Romaine Quinn asked a series of 12 questions of Underly and demanded to get a response within 24 hours on if she will be willing to testify before the committee.
Rep. Amanda Nedweski, R-Pleasant Prairie, scheduled a hearing for 11 a.m. on Thursday to address her concerns.
Underly said in the letter that the investigations followed state law and the results of investigations are released “as soon as practicable and upon request” through open records requests.
The story said that the investigations, which previously were not public, were obtained through open records requests and quoted experts who said the transparency and process Department of Public Instruction goes through is “inadequately protecting students.”
“The licensure status of every educator in Wisconsin, including those who are under investigation, revoked, or surrendered, is publicly accessible on the DPI’s website,” Underly wrote. “Suggesting otherwise is not only misleading; it is a blatant mischaracterization of fact.”
The story said that the licensure status of a teacher is available on the website but that the reason the credential was surrendered is not divulged and quoted an expert saying that not providing the reason “contributes to a culture of secrecy around educator grooming and sexual misconduct.”
Nedweski has proposed bills that will create a crime of grooming along with provide guidelines for communication between teachers and students.
Underly’s letter indicates that the department is open to further law changes that will increase the department’s authority to investigate.
“The statutory definition of ‘immoral conduct’ does not currently include grooming or professional boundary violations, limiting our agency’s ability to obtain critical pieces of information,” Underly wrote. “Despite these constraints, DPI investigators work tirelessly within the bounds of law to remove unfit educators from classrooms and prevent further harm.
“I welcome a long overdue discussion about the need to both modernize our licensing systems, and update existing statutes to clarify, broaden and deepen the limited statutory authority the DPI has in these serious matters.”

(The Center Square) – A group of Wisconsin lawmakers are proposing a law that would allow mobile sports wagering across the state through the state’s current tribal operators.
The law would allow for a similar sports wagering model as Florida where the state’s sportsbook operators have servers on federally recognized tribal lands while users can be in the state of Wisconsin.
The proposal cites the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 decision not to hear a challenge to the sports wagering pact between Florida and the Seminole tribe of the hub-and-spoke sports wagering model.
Legal sports wagering is currently only allowed on tribal lands in Wisconsin while prediction markets such as Kalshi are now legal across the U.S.
The Ho-Chunk Nation currently has a lawsuit filed against Kalshi for operating in the state.
The bill is being proposed by Reps. Tyler August, R-Walworth, and Kalan Haywood, D-Milwaukee, along with Sens. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, and Kristin Dassler-Alfheim, D-Appleton.
“This legislation is an important step to bring Wisconsin in alignment with the majority of the country in regards to sports wagering,” Haywood said in a statement. “For too long, illegal, offshore entities have profited from consumers through unregulated sports wagering, without generating revenue for local economies.
“By regulating this multi-billion-dollar industry, we can provide a safer mobile wagering experience for Wisconsin consumers, and generate much needed revenue to invest into our communities.”
Wisconsin receives payments that are a portion of the net win from tribal casinos but does not separately reports sports wagering payments.
In 2024, the state received more than $66 million in shared revenue payments with nearly $66 million in 2023 and nearly $57 million in 2022.
Sports wagering is legal in 39 states with 31 allowing mobile sports wagering.
Sponsors sent out the proposed legislation to fellow lawmakers this week asking for co-sponsors before Oct. 22.
“This bill does not authorize gambling on its own; it only is one part in a multi-step process to create the legal framework necessary for Wisconsin to participate in mobile sports wagering under tribal compacts,” the proposal said. “Gaming compacts between states and tribes need to be federally approved by the U.S. Department of Interior before going into effect.”
Making a sports bet in the state is currently a misdemeanor offense and the bill would exclude from the legal term “bet” any mobile sports wager with an approved sportsbook with servers located on tribal lands.
The bill estimates it will bring hundreds of millions of illegal bets into legal sportsbooks in the state, stating the change “generates new revenue through tribal gaming compacts and reduces consumer risk from offshore operators.”

(The Center Square) – A hearing is scheduled for 11 a.m. on Thursday to address concerns about sexual misconduct and grooming in schools.
Committee on Government Operations, Accountability and Operations Chair Rep. Amanda Nedweski, R-Pleasant Prairie, scheduled the hearing and invited State School Superintendent Jill Underly, along with law enforcement.
Nedweski announced Thursday night she would be introducing three bills related to the case including a grooming law, standards for communication between students and faculty and to end a “loophole” where educators can surrender their teaching license rather than facing further investigation.
She had previously been working on the grooming law and bill on communications standards after the case of Kenosha teacher Christian Enwright, who pleaded guilty to 12 misdemeanors for his conduct sending hundreds of Snapchat messages to a student that resulted in a sentence of 450 days in jail and three years of probation.
“Since the Kenosha County Eye exposed Christian Enwright’s predatory behavior toward a student, I have been working on anti-grooming legislation that will establish harsh penalties for any adult convicted of grooming a minor for sexual activity,” Nedweski said in a statement. “This proposal will be modeled after comprehensive laws passed in other states and will give our law enforcement and prosecutors the tools they need to keep children safe.”
Senate Committee on Education Chair John Jagler and Vice Chair Romaine Quinn asked a series of 12 questions of Underly and demanded to get a response within 24 hours of the Thursday afternoon letter on if she will be willing to testify before the committee.
The Senate committee leaders had not heard back from Underly or her office as of 11:30 a.m. on Friday.
The Capital Times report showed that 200 investigations into teachers for sexual misconduct and grooming were shielded from the public by DPI and that accused teachers were able to forfeit their teaching license to avoid further investigation into alleged grooming.
The Center Square was unable to get comment from Underly or Gov. Tony Evers before publication.

(The Center Square) – Some students in Wisconsin will soon see different grades on their report cards, and there are some worries that those grades may not be enough.
Eau Claire Area Schools last week became the latest school district in the state to shift to standards based grading.
The district’s director of secondary programming and post secondary readiness, Michelle Radtke, said standards based grading is a shift away from traditional A.B,C,D, and F grades and a shift toward a new scale to better measure “when learning occurs.”
“Standards based grading is about teacher practices and feedback and student goal-setting,” she said at last week’s school board meeting.
Standards based grading uses a 4-point scale to measure student learning. And things like attendance and class participation are not included.
That’s what worries Cory Brewer with the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty.
She told News Talk 1130 WISN that a simple point scale could be useful for children in younger grades. But standards based grading may not be as useful for older students, particularly when you are looking to measure reading, writing, or math proficiency.
“On a scale of one-to-three, what is a three? Is that a 90% or a 98%? Is my child excelling, or is she just meeting the minimum expectations? What does that cover? How are parents supposed to know,” Brewer asked. “Another issue we see with this is grade inflation.”
Brewer said parents can very easily get the wrong idea about how well their kids are doing in school.
“If it’s going to be used, it should be used in the very early grades,” Brewer added. “But when you get into the higher grades, I think it’s not the best option. And it can tend to lower the bar.”
WILL has been vocal about the concerns of lowering the bar in Wisconsin public schools.
WILL has opposed changes to Wisconsin’s state tests, and the reworked state standards that its says has made it impossible for parents to compare how their kids are reading, writing and doing math to years past.
“I don’t want to say that all standards based grading is a terrible, woke idea. I don’t think that would be accurate,” Brewer added. “But one of the things that we are seeing is the recommendation that teachers never give a zero. Ever. Even if something isn’t turned in.”
Brewer said doing the work, paying attention to detail, and finishing assignments is just as important in school as learning the core subjects.
Eau Claire Schools are one of several that have adopted standards based grading either this year, or in recent years.

(The Center Square) – A Wisconsin legal group is fighting against a transmission line being placed on a Saukville property to serve a new mega data center in Port Washington.
The Port Washington data center has been the subject of public backlash as the $8 billion data center is planned to use the same amount of electricity as the city of Los Angeles, becoming the largest energy user in Wisconsin history with Vantage asking for 1.3 gigawatts of energy to be available by 2027 and ultimately 3.5 gigawatts of power.
The data center is approved to be part of a tax increment district that exceeds the state’s 12% limit on the amount of taxable property in a municipality allowed to be part of a TID.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty is arguing that American Transmission Co. does not have the right to use eminent domain to take the property of Tom and Mary Uttech because there are other options on where to build the transmission line or using on-site power generation and eminent domain should only be used as a “last resort,” WILL Deputy Counsel Lucas Vebber said in a statement.
Vebber argued that “even then, (it) should be used only when the public need is so absolute there are no alternatives. This is not such a case. We will do all we can to protect the Uttech family’s private property rights.”
The Uttech family has a 52-acre property that includes Tom Uttech’s artistic studio and WILL believes the transmission line will lead to “irreparable damage to the natural beauty and wildlife” there.
“This land is our home, and my wife and I have spent decades cultivating and caring for its natural beauty,” Uttech said in a statement. “As an artist, this land continues to be my inspiration for all that I do. My wife and I do not want to sell and certainly do not want this land stolen from us just to benefit a privately owned data center.”
WILL argues that the data center is a private company and does not fall under the “public use” stipulations in both the Fifth Amendment and Wisconsin Constitution.
“Many alternatives exist, from different and less impactful routes, to allowing the data center to generate power on site,” WILL wrote. “Taking land from our friends and neighbors to benefit private business is not why the eminent domain power exists.”

(The Center Square) – The leaders of Wisconsin’s Senate Committee on Education are asking for answers from the state’s Department of Public Instruction following a report showing that 200 investigations into teachers for sexual assault and grooming were shielded from the public.
Senate Committee on Education Chair John Jagler and Vice Chair Romaine Quinn asked a series of 12 questions of DPI Superintendent Jill Underly, including when she was made aware of the 200 cases, why she believes she shouldn’t be directly responsible for addressing concerns in the report and if local law enforcement was notified of any of the investigations.
“Allowing teachers under investigation to simply resign to stop an in-depth probe of the alleged abuse is a moral disaster,” the letter stated. “We also wholeheartedly reject the attempt to pin this on the legislature due to an alleged lack of funding. The first dollar spent by DPI should be ensuring that our kids are safe. Full Stop.”
The Capital Times report showed that DPI investigated more than 200 cases involving teachers, aides, substitutes and administrators from 2018 to 2023 involving accusations of sexual misconduct or grooming toward students without revealing that those investigations occurred.
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, a Republican candidate for governor, told The Center Square through his campaign that citizens are asking the right questions in response to the report.
“Wisconsinites are rightly asking how these incidents could be hidden from the public, and the bottom line is that this is failed leadership, starting at the top with the so-called ‘education governor’ Tony Evers and his accomplices Sara Rodriguez and Mandela Barnes,” Tiffany said. “If an educator’s license is revoked or an investigation finds misconduct, the DPI should consistently track this information and establish a clear system for parents to know the truth, just as our state does for nurses and accountants.
“Educating children and prioritizing their safety should be DPI’s top responsibility, but instead, we have seen resources diverted to DEI initiatives and woke gender ideology in schools. As governor, I will ensure we have a transparent and honest system in place.”
The letter asked:
• When were you personally made aware that more than 200 sexual assault cases were under investigation?
• You declined to be interviewed for this story, citing a “conflict of interest”. What is the conflict of interest and why shouldn’t the state’s top education official be directly responsible for addressing child safety and educator misconduct?
• Was local law enforcement contacted to help investigate any of these allegations? What policies are in place that would trigger when law enforcement is notified? Are there clear guidelines DPI staff follows in this regard?
• What statutory or administrative authority allows DPI to close cases through license surrender without a formal finding?
• Are local school districts notified when DPI begins an investigation? Is there a clear policy on when the local schools should be notified and are their guidelines on how immediate in the process that notification occurs? What records are kept at DPI recording these cases, including the cases where a staff member resigns or voluntarily gives up their license?
• What safeguards exist to prevent educators who resign or surrender licenses from re-applying at a later date?
• Are future districts warned when these staff apply for other jobs?
• Why are disciplinary outcomes for educators not published in the same manner as other professional licensing boards in Wisconsin? Shouldn’t transparency, when it comes to safety of our children, be a top priority?
• The DPI spokesman blamed this inadequate record keeping on a lack of funding. If this is accurate, why was this issue not addressed in your last budget request or voiced in your State of Education Speech?
• The story lists that of the 416 teachers investigated, 207 have kept their licenses and are continuing to work with children. What standard do you have to exonerate those under investigation?
• Does DPI have a written policy for how these cases are identified and how the department takes action to address them? Please provide our offices with any of these records.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s latest enrollment numbers show some good news for choice schools in the state, but there’s also a warning sign.
School Choice Wisconsin said choice enrollment hit a new record high of 60,972 students.
“Parents are speaking loudly and clearly about what they want for their children: more educational options different than those offered by public schools,” School Choice Wisconsin Vice President Carol Shires said.
The nearly 61,000 choice students this year is up from less than 34,000 in the 2016-2017 school year.
And, Shires said, the new record-high comes just as Wisconsin’s choice school enrollment cap expires.
“Lawmakers in Madison should continue to prioritize protecting these private-school options for all students,” she said.
But there are also warnings about the limits of choice school enrollment growth.
Quinton Klabon with the Institute for Reforming Government said choice schools will soon face the same demographic challenges that traditional public schools are facing.
He said the “baby bust” from the 2008 recession has arrived, and all schools will see enrollments fall because there are simply fewer school-aged children.
“School choice supporters and opponents alike have projected rapid, continued growth, but new data suggest the programs are affected by declining birth rates, school participation, or parent choices,” IRG noted.
“School choice supporters cannot be complacent,” Klabon said. “Informing parents, expanding high-quality schools, and protecting schools from hostile red tape are high priorities. Otherwise, the baby bust will close choice schools.”
The new enrollment numbers show Milwaukee’s choice program added 235 students this year.
Racine’s school choice program lost 14 students, and the state’s special needs choice program gained 419. But it was the statewide school choice program that saw the largest enrollment increases. The Wisconsin Parental Choice Program added 1,814 students this fall.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin has paid billions of dollars in recent years for outside investors to manage most of the state’s retirement funds even though it has an expansive team of highly paid investment employees, according to state data.
State auditors this year urged the state of Wisconsin Investment Board to create specific plans that might shift more of that management to state employees “because external management is more expensive,” a recent report by the Legislative Audit Bureau said.
The bureau’s analysis of the Investment Board’s performance last year found that the state paid about $1.2 billion to non-employee investors, who managed about 61% of the state’s retirement funds.
That percentage is more than triple the limit that is stipulated by longstanding state law. But the board has determined it is not beholden to the limit.
A spokesperson for the Investment Board said it manages a larger share of investments than other public retirement systems and that its decisions have yielded returns of about $5 billion more in the past five years than its benchmark goal.
“This approach has proven quite successful,” Jay Risch, the board’s communications and government relations manager, told The Center Square.
Meantime, the board’s employees are by far the highest paid among Wisconsin’s state agencies, according to state salary data. Nearly 40 of those employees have annual compensations of at least $500,000 each, and the top three have been paid more than $1 million each.
Part of their pay is from performance bonuses that total tens of millions of dollars each year.
It’s unclear whether the board has formulated plans to keep more of the investment management with its staff.
“As a general rule, SWIB does not comment on its investments and strategies,” Risch said, using an acronym for the Investment Board.
A law change
Investment Board employees are charged with overseeing about $150 billion that funds the Wisconsin Retirement System.
That includes a primary fund that comprises the bulk of that money and a variable fund of about $12 billion that employees can select for half of their pension contributions. The variable fund has a riskier investment strategy with the possibility of higher returns.
In the past five years, the performance of those funds has exceeded the board’s benchmark goals, according to the latest state data. The investment returns for the main fund have averaged about 8% in that time, compared with a benchmark of about 7%. The variable fund’s returns have been about 12.8% – slightly higher than the benchmark. The board’s long-term rate of return expectation is at least 6.8%.
State lawmakers in 2007 broadened the Investment Board’s authority over how it can manage the money.
Before that, the board’s strategies were limited by statutes that specified what types of investments were allowable. The law also limited outside-of-government management of the retirement funds to 20% of their total.
But the law change gave the board permission to “manage the money and property with … care, skill, prudence and diligence.” Attorneys general in two separate opinions in 2008 and 2022 concluded that it empowered the board to invest in ways that are counter to the longstanding restrictions.
As a result, the board has delegated more of its investing to outside firms, often to gain access to private investment funds.
In 2020, just over half of the assets were managed by state investors, according to the Legislative Audit Bureau. In 2024, about 61% were managed by outside investors.
“Historically, SWIB’s goal had been to increase the percentage of assets managed internally,” a bureau report this year said.
The report noted the fees paid to outside investors, partly based on investment performance, have regularly eclipsed $1 billion annually in recent years. It also noted that the paid fees have increased for all investment types.
Auditors recommended the board create a plan that might prescribe which investment strategies are managed internally and the equipment, skills and staff numbers needed to do so.
The board declined a request from The Center Square to reveal the status of that plan or provide a draft of it.
State lawmakers who lead committees that oversee the Investment Board and Gov. Tony Evers’ office did not immediately respond to requests to comment.
Highly paid employees
In the auditors’ most recent analysis of board staff salaries, they found that the average compensation for the nearly 300-person board staff is about $150,000, but many make considerably more.
Investment Board employees represent about three-quarters of the state’s 100 highest-paid employees, according to state data. The list excludes university, legislative and judicial branch employees.
Edwin Denson, the state’s chief investment officer, was paid about $1.3 million in 2023, according to the most-recent state data. Anne-Marie Fink, a top investment officer, was paid about $1.2 million. Todd Mattina, a head economist, made $1.1 million.
Performance bonuses paid to the employees more than doubled from 2019 to 2023, the auditors found, even though they had been managing less of the investing over time. The board paid $13.9 million to 172 employees in 2019. It paid $30.6 million to 262 employees in 2023.
Two executive employees were awarded bonuses of $1 million and $510,000 in 2023, the audit report said, although it did not identify them.
Risch said the pay is meant to be competitive with other public pension systems and private firms.

(The Center Square) – Tuition at the University of Wisconsin has been “like a rollercoaster” with tuition freezes followed by hefty increases over the past 50 years, according to Rep. David Murphy, R-Hortonville.
That’s why he is pushing Senate Bill 399, which would tie future tuition increases to the consumer price index for the prior year rather than allowing the schools to increase tuition further in an individual year.
Murphy began pushing the bill while the state was in a tuition freeze for the University of Wisconsin campuses, at which point there was support for the bill from university system advocates, according to Sen. Andre Jacque, R-New Franken. He read from Badgers United testifying for the policy in 2019.
Jacque told The Center Square this week that a lack of guardrails on tuition increases has allowed to University of Wisconsin to spend like “drunken sailors” and avoid taking hard looks at expenses surrounding the system while increasing student tuition costs.
An audit earlier this year showed an increase in staff and salaries over the past 10 years while student enrollment has dropped by 16,000.
Representatives from the University of Wisconsin were at public hearings in the Senate Committee on Universities and Technical Colleges for the tuition cap and several other potential changes, including an attempt to block online class fees unless the university could prove the fees are tied to actual expenses.
Universities of Wisconsin Interim Vice President of Finance and Administration Julie Gordon said that affordability is always at the forefront for the Board of Regents and that it is sometimes difficult to fully realize the additional online course costs immediately.
Those costs can include training for professors, technology, student verification and test-taking integrity checks.
Gordon said the university system is in the process of simplifying bills so they don’t read like telephone bills with extensive lists of add-on costs and instead provide a clear cost of tuition.
“Ease and clarity of message is incredibly important,” Gordon said.
Jacque said that he has worked on affordability in the University of Wisconsin System since he was part of student government at UW-Madison. He wants to make certain the university is prioritizing affordability and applauded UW-Green Bay for not taking the optional 1% increase in tuition that was approved this summer after the Wisconsin budget was approved.
The Board of Regents approved a 4% tuition increase along with a 1% optional increase on its campuses in July in the weeks after the new state budget included a two-year $256 million budget increase with the schools receiving $1.13 billion in capital budget and $316 million for operational budget.
“Have we looked at every other option first before going to students?” Jacque asked.