Wisconsin’s public school students have now been back in school for nearly a month. For many parents, teachers and students, the start of a new school year means a return to familiar problems.

Academic performance has moved steadily in the wrong direction. Wisconsin students have lost the equivalent of nearly an entire grade level in reading performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, since the state’s recent peak. At the same time, teachers increasingly report classrooms where disruptive and sometimes violent behavior makes it harder simply to teach.

A recent Badger Institute analysis by Daniel Buck, a former Wisconsin teacher and school administrator now with the American Enterprise Institute, offers solutions. Rather than simply putting more resources into a system producing disappointing results, policymakers should focus on reforms that improve how public schools function.

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