Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent Brenda Cassellius appeared on UpFront last week as MPS faces a $46 million deficit and her schools continue to fall behind other school options in both reading and math, despite receiving $252 million in a referendum in April of 2024. In Milwaukee specifically, students in private choice schools outperform MPS students by measurable margins, with proficiency rates roughly 4-5 percentage points higher in both English language arts and math on average. More recent findings show even wider gaps when accounting for demographics, with some analyses showing double-digit advantages for choice and charter students in Milwaukee. At the same time, families are increasingly leaving lower-performing districts like MPS due to a lack of confidence in their results.

The district’s broader performance trends only deepen those concerns. Milwaukee Public Schools currently holds a “meets few expectations” rating from the state, which is one of the lowest possible, and dozens of schools fall into the bottom tiers, including 36 schools rated as “fails to meet expectations.” Beyond test scores, nearly half of Wisconsin’s lowest-performing schools are located in Milwaukee, with a significant share tied to the public system. Meanwhile, in order to attempt to fix their $46 million deficit, MPS leadership is proposing staff cuts and delayed raises just to stay solvent.

More funding alone is unlikely to fix Milwaukee Public Schools. With student outcomes continuing to lag and systemic issues unresolved, simply increasing spending risks continuing a cycle of higher costs without meaningful improvement for Milwaukee students. Instead of attempting to shift the cost to taxpayers by unraveling Act 10 and reversing its years of success for our state, MPS needs to make serious internal reforms so they can prepare our young students for success in the future.