MADISON, WI — One City Schools and One City Advocates today released a formal statement in response to the $1.8 billion bipartisan budget deal announced May 11, 2026, by Governor Tony Evers, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos.

In a state where just eight (8) percent of Black fourth graders read at grade level (on the national NAEP exam), One City Schools is proving that number doesn’t have to define Wisconsin’s future. Yesterday’s budget deal ensures we cannot scale what’s working.

We thank Governor Evers, Senate Majority Leader LeMahieu, and Assembly Speaker Vos for what this agreement delivers: an historic 50 percent special education reimbursement rate, $300 million in additional general school aid, statewide property tax relief, and a $16 million biennial increase for choice, independent public charter, and open enrollment students. These
are real investments that will help real children.

But this deal is also a serious missed opportunity. It fails to address our state’s longstanding 50th-place ranking among 50 states in the educational achievement of Black children, invests nothing to rectify our state’s teacher shortage, and invests nothing in early childhood education.

What Wisconsin needs to do, and what this deal does not do:

  1. Invest in Pandemic Recovery in our schools. Schools continue to respond to serious learning losses, social-emotional dysregulation, and mental health challenges stemming from school closures during the global pandemic, along with serious shortages of certified teachers and specialists, yet there is no targeted investment in these issues.
  2. Fund reading and STEM. Just five percent of Wisconsin’s Black fourth graders read at grade level, and five percent are proficient in math. These are the foundational literacies of the AI economy, and Wisconsin is dead last in both.
  3. Fund innovation. The Demonstration Public School Act (AB 818 / SB 818) was not included. There is no investment in innovation in this deal.
  4. Develop a new state funding model for 4K-12 education that does not hide costs or create inequity.
  5. Consolidate the state’s 421 traditional public school districts to respond to declining birth rates and enrollment, generate real cost savings, and reinvest those savings into our schools.
  6. Decouple independent public charter funding from the state aid formula and pay it directly from General Purpose Revenue, as Senator Jagler and former Representative Schutt proposed in 2023.
  7. Fund childcare. Wisconsin’s early childhood system is in crisis. It is foundational infrastructure. for every educational outcome that follows.

None of these things were done. This is business as usual, with funding and tax relief on top. Consider what that means at One City Schools. We receive $12,369 per Scholar from the state, plus approximately $2,000 in federal reimbursement aid. Our actual cost is $24,496 per Scholar. MMSD’s true per-pupil expenditure, when $264 million in excluded expenditures are added back, is approximately $29,160. We privately raise $3.7 million annually, which is 45 percent of our budget.

MMSD counts 265 One City Scholars who live in Madison toward its revenue limit and tax levy, even though MMSD does not educate these children. This is not MMSD’s fault; the formula has to change. But it is not fair to our children, families, or staff that MMSD receives 100 percent of its revenue from public funding while we must raise 45 percent of ours privately.

Same kids, higher needs. Similar costs. Greater accountability. Half the funding.

This is what we deliver with half the resources: 98.7th-percentile academic growth among all middle schools in Wisconsin and #1 in Dane County, 75.8th-percentile growth among elementary schools in the state, and two consecutive “Exceeds Expectations” ratings in both of our independent public charter schools. Our innovative partnerships, including Project Read AI
and the UFLI Upper Midwest Training Hub, are reaching hundreds of thousands of students and educators worldwide, and more than 5,000 classrooms here in Wisconsin.

And this is all we get.

The same Legislature that could not pass the Demonstration Public School Act, decouple independent public charter funding, fund reading and STEM, or fund childcare still managed to vote 95 to 1 to appropriate $14.6 million for UW Athletics to offset other costs so they can fund Name-Image-Likeness (NIL) deals. It leaves us wondering: if nearly every elected official in our
State Capitol can see the value of enabling three universities to give millions of dollars to a few handfuls of athletes who already made it to college, why can’t they find $4 million to fund hundreds of children who represent the 99 percent who will never get there without effective education strategies and adequate financial support?

Fewer than 1 percent of Wisconsin’s Black high school students achieve ACT scores competitive for admission to UW-Madison in either reading or math. The AI economy is rewriting every entry-level pathway and rewarding exactly the literacy and quantitative skills our schools are failing to build. Thousands of children are being left behind in real time.

Imagine a Wisconsin where every public school child is equitably funded, where reading and STEM are state priorities and funded as such, where innovation is rewarded rather than punished, and where a child’s zip code does not predict whether they will be ready for the economy waiting for them. That Wisconsin is within reach. We have the evidence. We have the
model. What we need is the policy and the funding.

We are asking Governor Evers, Speaker Vos, and Senate Majority Leader LeMahieu to commit to including the Demonstration Public School Act, charter funding decoupling, and a statewide investment in reading and STEM in the proposed school funding and tax relief package being voted on tomorrow. The window is now.

We are grateful for what was done. However, we are not satisfied with what was left out. We can, and must, do better for our children. The legislature found $14 million for NIL deals so college athletes can profit from their image, but couldn’t find $4 million to invest in the actual education of children. Maybe our students should start practicing their 40-yard dash.
Onward,
Kaleem Caire
Founder and President
One City Advocates, Inc.