Wisconsin Public Education Network connects education advocates and professionals to information, actions and each other. WPEN is Wisconsin’s hub for positive, productive efforts to support our excellent public schools, organize education advocacy and inform our communities of the issues that matter locally. The Wisconsin Public Education Network is a project of the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools (WAES), a 501(c)(4) nonprofit. Our work is supported by the voluntary contributions of our partners around the state.
The Story of Education Advocacy in Wisconsin
by Tom Beebe
The history and journey to build capacity in communities around Wisconsin to advocate for public schools, especially school-funding reform and sustainability, has been long and winding.
One of the most successful players was the Institute for Wisconsin’s Future (IWF). Through successes, setbacks, and perseverance it built a network of individuals and organizations that evolved into the Wisconsin Public Education Network (WPEN)—the largest and most effective confederation working to ensure children receive quality school opportunities and to help our communities achieve their potential.
What started in 1994 as a think tank investigating, among other issues, how to make the Wisconsin’s school-funding system work for all children morphed into a capacity-building organization that visited with as many people in the state as possible to help citizens become part of making public policy.
IWF’s work was designed to help citizens fight for policies that maximize every individual’s opportunity to achieve educational, economic, and personal success. The mission of the non-profit, non-partisan group was to help all Wisconsin citizens, especially workers and families, become educated and engaged.
IWF campaigns on behalf of public schools included “Fair Funding for Our Future,” (http://dpi.wi.gov/budget/fairfunding) a proposal from the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) to improve the way our public schools are funded, and “A Penny for Kids” a one-cent increase in the state sales tax to make sure our schools have the resources needed to deliver to all of our children a quality public education that prepares them to succeed in the future.
The institute also authored “Funding Our Future: An Adequacy Model for Wisconsin School Finance.” (new link) This groundbreaking research linked the goals Wisconsin has for children—in order for them to have the opportunity for a world class education—to a scientific funding model that resulted in a per-pupil cost of that education.
Under the national Opportunity to Learn (OTL) framework—high-quality, highly prepared, effective and supported teachers; solid and challenging curriculum; equitable instructional resources; and expanded learning options—IWF projects included the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools (WAES), OTL-Wisconsin, OTL-Midwest, and projects that advanced effective teachers, early childhood education, expanded learning opportunities, rigorous curriculum, and resource equity.
WAES came into existence as an IWF project in 1998 as a network of parents, students, educators, community groups, and others organized to fight back against state aid cuts to schools and for reform of Wisconsin’s school-funding system.
Organizers trained by WAES traveled throughout Wisconsin to talk with community members about how important it is that schools have the resources they need to guarantee every child in the state the programs and services they need to learn in school and succeed in life. Equally as important, the organizers helped communities build the capacity to fight for their public school children.
Those organizers talked a great deal about accountability. Unlike most others, though, they talked about resource accountability and linking those resources to what we want young people to know and be able to do.
It is a story that is still being worked on today. Not only does Wisconsin need to change the way it funds public schools, but it also needs to restore cuts in school aid made in recent budgets ….. and begin building a public education funding system that actually supports high expectations and rigorous standards.
In 2009, IWF “gave birth” to the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools (WAES), an independent, non-profit group that carried on the work of capacity building in communities throughout the state. Although the mission was a success and public school advocates grew in numbers and importance, funding dried up and WAES returned to the IWF family in 2011.
As the same funding support that led to the demise of WAES as a separate organization began to trouble IWF, meetings were held with partners around Wisconsin. It was decided that the community-building model was successful and the goals too important to not try and move forward.
In 2013 the Wisconsin Public Education Network (WPEN) emerged as the next iteration of statewide public school advocacy. Although still within the IWF structure as another project, WPEN wasn’t an organization but a confederation or network of groups and individuals that came together to share experiences and information, learn from each other’s successes and failures, and work jointly towards common goals.
When IWF closed its doors in 2014, WAES retained its non-profit status and became the fiscal agent for WPEN. Under the direction of new coordinator Heather DuBois Bourenane and the WAES board, the network continues its work today—better and stronger than ever—with hundreds of partner organizations and countless individuals coming together for only one reason: Advocacy for public schools that serve the needs of all children and their communities.