By Bill Barth
Several years ago I wrote a line that went something like this: If the Wisconsin Taxpayer Alliance didn’t exist it would be necessary to invent it.
That nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization was that good. Today, the only thing that has changed is the name. In 2018 the Alliance and the Public Policy Forum of Milwaukee merged, creating the Wisconsin Policy Forum. It’s still nonprofit and nonpartisan. Its research is golden. Its facts can be trusted, even in our often fact-averse world.
I’ve spent more than four decades covering news around Beloit and south-central Wisconsin, so I can say unequivocally that Wisconsin Policy Forum’s meaty “datatool” provides the kind of deep insights that withstand all the thin barstool rhetoric that usually befouls modern conversations. The tool was created to examine the School District of Beloit, which has defied well-meaning improvement strategies for many years. The tool, which measures finance, demographics, attendance trends, staffing issues, academic performance and more, has the capacity to change the awareness base and, in the process, elevate the community conversation.
I wanted to know more about how the tool was created, why Beloit was selected and how the creators think it can be applied in pursuit of better outcomes. Wisconsin Policy Forum’s President Jason Stein and Deputy Research Director Sara Shaw accepted the invitation to talk.
Shaw said the first tool was created for Sheboygan “and that ended up being a model for Beloit.”
Beloit College emeritus economics professor Jeff Adams, a former Wisconsin Taxpayer Alliance board member, along with others at the Beloit Public Library believed this community could benefit and enlisted the Forum’s help.
“The thought was that if we could put data out there without partisan comment it could create a single source of truth that would become the basis for conversations,” Shaw said. “That was very much in keeping with our mission to be seeding data-driven decision making with the best facts available without taking a stance one way or another in the use of those facts. Beloit was of particular interest to us because it is a district that has factors that put it at a real disadvantage statewide.”
The Beloit district presents the community’s most vexing public policy challenges. Enrollment has declined by thousands. Test scores rank near the bottom of all state districts. Leaders come and go like changing socks. Exasperated parents pull their kids and place them in alternative schools. Staff turnover is high, with the most frequent complaints revolving around lack of leadership support and discipline issues. Chronic absenteeism has been common.
One cannot know where to go or how to get there without first knowing where one starts. That’s the purpose of Wisconsin Policy Forum’s datatool.
Those who wish to see how it works can view the Beloit model at wispolicyforum.org/school-district-of-beloit-datatool/)
“(Beloit) is a community where the students have needs, where the property values are low in comparison to other districts, where multiple referenda have failed,” Stein said. “It really matters a lot for the students and families of Beloit, as well as the people who work in the schools.
“What we would hope is that taxpayers in the community could look at the financial information and have a better sense of what it’s costing to run the schools and what the outcomes are. We hope, bottom line, the district and the community collectively make more informed decisions.”
Fact-based considerations can guide strategies.
“There’s a degree to which a dashboard like this can be useful for the district itself and be able to see themselves reflected back in these high-level data points,” she said. “For Beloit there’s a real opportunity for more dialogue on a common set of facts for the district and the community.”
The researchers understand that all the answers will not be found inside school walls. Full community engagement – including efforts to improve early childhood literacy – is critical.
“You have to have some kind of accountability for the school district in the sense that we want to better the lives of those students. The school is one of our main tools that we can leverage to do that,” Stein said. “At the same time, if we’re expecting the school to address all of those challenges in a student’s life, that’s probably not taking a realistic view of what kind of tools a district has.”
In this reporting, it occurred to me that many other Wisconsin school districts could benefit from deep factual research like this. So far, Wisconsin Policy Forum has created tools for Beloit, Janesville and Sheboygan. Stein and Shaw said they’re willing to do more in partnership with interested communities.
It was refreshing to hear unbiased views from smart people. I think it’s common these days for public education to face severe criticism, and for school officials to react from a defensive crouch. That’s an impediment to improvement.
As a journalist, I believe progress begins with truth. This tool can be a beginning not just in Beloit, but around the state.
Bill Barth is the former Editor of the Beloit Daily News, and a member of the Wisconsin Newspaper Hall of Fame. Write to him at bbarth@beloitdailynews.com.
