Satisfaction with public schools seems to be rebounding in many areas of Wisconsin

What does the state of public opinion say about public schools around Wisconsin?

"It demonstrates that we've got some work to do," said Dan Rossmiller, executive director of the Wisconsin Association of School Boards.

Well, yes. Overall, the results of two education-focused questions that have been asked as part of the Marquette Law School Poll over more than a decade show a gradual decline in satisfaction with local public schools across Wisconsin and a rising resistance in recent years to increasing taxes to pay for schools.

The trends are particularly worth attention as more tangible tests of public opinion statewide approach. Voters in about 120 school districts (almost 30% of all districts in the state) will not only choose a president, a U.S. senator and state legislators on Nov. 5. They will also vote on about 140 referendum questions on whether to increase local school spending above the limits set by the state. Some communities will vote to raise money for school operations, some for school facilities, and some for both (in separate votes).

Referendum votes of this kind are not exact tests of public satisfaction with schools, but they presumably connect with broader opinion on the work of local education systems. And referendums have become increasingly frequent across Wisconsin as the state Legislature generally has kept state-imposed spending limits below the rate of inflation for more than a decade.

The success for school districts in going to referendum has been pretty strong over the years. But the percentage has declined steadily from more than 80% in 2018 to 50% to 60% recently, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum.

That is in line with results of a question the Marquette poll has asked a dozen times since 2013: What is more important to you, reducing property taxes or increasing spending on public schools? Opinion was almost evenly divided in 2013. But as finances got tighter and school leaders statewide increased their advocacy efforts, sentiment shifted toward favoring school spending.

Opinion on school spending is shifting

In February 2018, only 33% of Wisconsinites polled put their priority on reducing property taxes, and 63% favored increased school spending. That was the year that, in the race for governor, Democrat Tony Evers, who advocated for more money for schools, defeated Republican incumbent Scott Walker, who had held down school spending in eight years in office.

But the tide began shifting after 2018, with a slow rise in the percentage of people favoring property tax restraint over school spending. The property tax figure rose above 50% in a 2023 poll, and, in the most recent Marquette poll, in September 2024, 56% of those polled were on the property tax side of the question and 44% on the school spending side. The trend overall is very similar to the trend in decreasing approvals of school referendums.

School satisfaction is down — but still not all that bad

A second Marquette Law Poll question shows less satisfaction with public schools in Wisconsin in 2024 than in many prior years. In a round of Marquette Law polling in June, school satisfaction was lower than in any of 15 previous times a question on school satisfaction was asked since 2012.

The good news for public school advocates was that that the bad news wasn't all bad. In June, 8% of Wisconsinites said they were very satisfied with their local public schools and 44% said they were somewhat satisfied. The combined total remained above 50%. And there was a rebound in satisfaction in the late September poll, when 12% said they were very satisfied and 52% said they were somewhat satisfied. That combined total of 64% was closer to the totals on that question in the past.

The school board association's Rossmiller said somewhat lower ratings for local public schools recently might be connected to problems schools are having statewide — and nationwide. Student results in reading and math generally have been lower nationwide since the COVID-related school closures and disruptions of 2020 and 2021. Absenteeism has increased across the U.S., including in Wisconsin. Educators in schools in a wide range of communities say student behavior problems have increased. And mental health issues among kids, which were on the rise before COVID, are now more common and urgent. Improvement on these matters would lead to improved public opinion about schools, Rossmiller suggested.

Politics is playing a role in public opinion about schools

In addition, school politics in many communities in Wisconsin and beyond have become more contentious as political partisanship increasingly shapes school board races and as social issues such as gender and race-related matters split communities.

Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette poll, pointed out that the June dip in satisfaction statewide came at a time when fi nancial management issues involving Milwaukee Public Schools, as well as the Glendale-River Hills School District in suburban Milwaukee and the Monona Grove School District in suburban Madison, were getting much public attention.

Dissatisfaction is higher in the city of Milwaukee

Breaking down the results on school satisfaction by regions in the state suggests that satisfaction with public schools has generally been well above 50%, except for the city of Milwaukee. In the late September results, between 62% and 74% of those polled in the Madison area, the Green Bay area, the Milwaukee area (other than the city itself), and in the rest of the state said they were very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with their community's public schools.

But among those living in the city of Milwaukee, only 2% were very satisfied and 31% somewhat satisfied. Lower satisfaction ratings for the city of Milwaukee have been a fact in the Marquette polls for years, but the MPS administrative problems from the spring might have increased negative opinions.

In the long run, the fact that almost half of Milwaukee children receiving publicly funded education are enrolled in schools outside the conventional MPS system is also a likely factor.

On the other hand, Milwaukee voters passed a school referendum by a wide margin in 2020 and, by a narrow margin, passed in April 2024 a much bigger referendum, giving MPS an additional $252 million a year in property tax revenue.

U.S. secretary of education: 'Public education is under attack'

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, a strong proponent of public schools, was in Milwaukee in September. I asked him what lower satisfaction with public schools said. His answer emphasized the impact of criticism from advocates for school vouchers and other mechanisms for using public money to support schools outside the public system.

"Public education is under attack," Cardona said. "There are intentional campaigns to smear public schools so that voucher programs proliferate and take public school dollars to pay for private vouchers."

He added, "Our country's growth is dependent on how we support our public schools. There are folks that are really working to create disruption in our schools and create a bogeyman every year, But I'm here to tell you the public schools in our country are thriving."

New year will bring new Legislature. Will anything change?

School choice advocates argue that the growth of school options is a sign that what many parents want is education for their children other than what public schools are offering.

Come 2025, there will be a new Legislature in Madison, likely to have a changed balance of Republicans and Democrats. There will be a state budget to create. There will be continuing pressure on local schools over tangible and intangible issues.

And watching it all will be the public as a whole. The impacts of what people think of their schools are showing up in broad, although not seismic, changes in public opinion data, changes that illuminate the settings for hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin children to get education.

(I should disclose that I help work on the Marquette poll.)

Alan J. Borsuk is senior fellow in law and public policy at Marquette Law School. Reach him at .