MPS is heading toward a crucial moment with the April referendum
The United Community Center calls it the “Raise the Roof” campaign.
That is a factual statement. The thriving complex with multiple programs on the south side is nearing completion of a $6 million improvement project that includes adding a third floor to what was previously the two stories of the largest of its several buildings. More than 1,000 students attend Bruce-Guadlupe Schools’ kindergarten through fifth grades in the “raise the roof” building.
“Raising the roof” could be taken as a broader description of what is going on in parts of Milwaukee’s education scene, not including the Milwaukee Public Schools system itself. New buildings, expanded programs, fresh spending on staff, new leadership — all are occurring in schools across the city.
And then you have MPS, which is heading toward a crucial moment: The April 2 election, when Milwaukee residents will decide whether to add $252 million a year to the MPS budget, sharply increasing property taxes. The goal for the additional money, as MPS leaders have described it, is generally to keep things from getting worse — to avoid cuts in programs, cuts in staff, increases in class size, and possibly closures of some schools.
My purpose here is not to take sides on the referendum, although I hope everyone will listen to the arguments pro and con and then vote. My goal is to offer broader context at this important moment for what is happening on the Milwaukee education landscape. I describe four facets of the scene in Part 1 of this column, with four additional facets as the focus of Part 2 of this column, to be published Wednesday.
The two halves of the Milwaukee scene
Just under 50% of Milwaukee children who receive publicly funded education are enrolled in schools that are not part of the MPS system. That includes those using school vouchers at more than 100 private schools, the large majority of them religious, as well as thousands who are enrolled in charter schools that are operated outside the normal school district system and thousands who are using the state’s open enrollment system to attend public schools in the suburbs or to take part in virtual schools run by districts elsewhere in Wisconsin. Consider this the “school choice” half of the landscape because no students are assigned to go to these schools.
Like it or not, choice is a huge factor in Milwaukee education — and a bit more than 50,000 kids are enrolled in schools outside the conventional MPS system.
Then you have about 59,000 students who are in MPS schools. That total has gone down almost every year since the mid-2000s, although it did not change notably between fall 2022 and fall 2023.
The declining school population
According to data I’ve been compiling for about 15 years, there were almost 121,000 Milwaukee children receiving publicly funded education in fall 2014. At the start of the current school year, the number was under 110,000.
My colleague, Marquette Lubar Center researcher John Johnson, put together a graph recently that shows the close relationship between the number of children born in Milwaukee and the number of first-graders in all Milwaukee schools six years later. Both lines (births and first-graders six years later) have been trending down in recent years in almost parallel fashion.
This strongly suggests that, with fewer births, there will be fewer first-graders for at least the next half-dozen years. This has implications for all schools, but it is likely MPS will feel this the most.
The declining enrollment in MPS
Enrollment is a key to the vitality of a school or school district. In fall 2008, MPS administrators reported enrollment in the main roster of MPS schools of 78,148. In the fall of 2023, the figure was 58,522. That is inescapably a key to why MPS revenue has not kept up with the rate of inflation, since enrollment is a factor in setting revenue limits.
Statewide, action by the Legislature has held increases in school revenue below the inflation rate. That cannot be dismissed as a reason for the financial straits of MPS or dozens of other school districts in Wisconsin. But, as an analysis by the Wisconsin Policy Forum shows, the MPS spending per student has stayed about the same over recent years, even as budget increases have been below the inflation rate. This is not to say that MPS doesn’t need more money. But there are different ways to look at its financial situation.
The money picture for each half of the school scene
The non-MPS schools got big boosts from the state budget passed last summer. Annual state payments for each charter student and voucher student went up by as much as $3,000. MPS (and almost all public schools in the state) got an increase of $325 this year and $325 more for next year. The non-MPS schools had lobbied hard to close the gap between MPS revenue per student and the revenue per student in non-MPS schools.
Although pinpointing the differences between sectors is more complicated than a lot of people want to think, overall, MPS revenue per student remains higher than voucher and charter revenue per student, but the difference is much smaller than in prior years.
More: If it seems Wisconsin school districts are asking voters for money more often, it's because they are
There are reasons for the difference, including the fact that MPS has higher percentages of students with special needs and has greater spending commitments for employee benefits than most non-MPS schools have. Overall, the sizable bump in per-student revenue on the non-MPS side and the modest increase on the MPS side is having considerable impact already, which is spurring support for the MPS referendum. By the way, the non-MPS schools would not get any of the money from the referendum if it passes.
Coming Wednesday: Four more facets of Milwaukee’s complicated and worrisome school landscape.
Alan J. Borsuk is senior fellow in law and public policy at Marquette Law School. Reach him at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee Public Schools referendum 'crucial' for district's future
Solve the daily Crossword
