More taxpayer-supported spending on education doesn’t equal better academic results. That’s the central finding of the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty’s September 2026 report, The Wisconsin Education Comeback: A Roadmap for Student Success, released the day before State Superintendent Jill Underly’s State of Education address. WILL documents and lays out what the real state of K12 education in Wisconsin – near-record per-pupil spending, slow pandemic recovery, declining NAEP scores on the Nation’s report card from pre-pandemic highs, and a weak link between extra dollars and better student outcomes. Wisconsin once ranked among the nation’s strongest academic performers, but progress slowed after the reforms of the 2010s. NAEP scores have declined from pre-pandemic levels despite record levels of funding.
Wisconsin remains above average in eighth-grade performance but has slipped in some earlier grades and subjects, and its standing looks worse after demographic adjustment. Wisconsin still has the largest black-white achievement gap in the country among states. Recovery from pandemic learning loss has been slower than in many states, and WILL notes that Wisconsin’s decision to close public schools during COVID was devastating. Among states with available data, Wisconsin ranks 33rd of 38 in math recovery and 30th of 35 in reading recovery since 2022. Students remain roughly one-third of a grade level behind their 2019 peers in math and more than half a grade level behind in reading.
What’s more, DPI has made those trends harder to track. Wisconsin once aligned Forward Exam proficiency with NAEP benchmarks. In 2023-24 the department changed that approach. The new categories are not comparable with prior years, so parents and policymakers cannot easily measure long-term progress.
The money is already substantial. Average revenue per student stands at $18,746, placing Wisconsin in the middle of the pack nationally. Enrollment has fallen 5.8 percent since 2013-14 and is projected to drop another 11 to 16 percent over the next decade. The number of non-charter public schools fell only about 2 percent. Staffing rose 13.5 percent. Districts have gone to referendum at record rates while avoiding meaningful consolidation. At the same time, Mississippi moved from 49th to 9th in fourth-grade reading between 2013 and 2024 while spending well below the national average. Utah spends less per pupil than almost every state yet ranks among the top performers. Both examples, and a large body of research, show that how dollars are used matters more than how much is spent.
Wisconsin already offers private choice, charters, and open enrollment. Research finds positive academic outcomes for choice participants at lower public cost, about $5,980 less per K-8 student and $3,486 less per high-school student. However, nearly 70 percent of families remain ineligible for the statewide parental choice program because of income caps. Entry-point rules also block many students who attended private school the prior year. Other states have moved to universal eligibility. WILL also warns of renewed efforts to roll back choice and Act 10.
Underly called the funding formula deeply inequitable and simply not working, cited more than 90 percent of districts going to referendum in nine years, and described decades of below-inflation funding that forced program cuts, larger classes, and higher local taxes. She urged voters to elect “pro-public school, pro-child and pro-Wisconsin” leaders. Choice programs were framed as a diversion of public dollars into unaccountable private schools. That view reflects a familiar liberal premise: the system is under-resourced, inputs should rise first, and the traditional district model must be protected.
WILL organizes 26 recommendations around seven principles: expand educational opportunity, respect parental authority, put students before systems, increase transparency and accountability, fund what works, form capable citizens, and empower excellent educators. Concrete proposals include removing income and entry-point caps on choice, moving toward weighted student funding so dollars follow the child, decoupling choice and charter funding from local property taxes (an estimated $400 million in annual relief without cutting public-school resources), protecting Act 10, reversing Gov. Tony Evers’ 400-year veto, realigning state exams with NAEP, moving to an A-F report card, expanding charters and open enrollment, adding curriculum transparency and a parental bill of rights, limiting classroom technology, improving early numeracy, and opening alternative teacher pathways. Act 10 has saved local governments more than $35 billion since 2011. Repeal, WILL estimates, would cost school districts and local governments more than $2 billion a year.
You can read the full report here.
One side measures success by the size of the appropriation and the survival of existing systems. The other measures it by whether every child, regardless of zip code or family income, can attend a school that works, whether parents are the primary decision-makers, and whether a diploma means a student is prepared for work and citizenship. Wisconsin already spends at a high level. The WILL report argues the next dollar should go to policies that have actually moved results.
