Appleton
Two in Five Wisconsin Districts Hit All-Time Low
Nine of the 10 largest school districts in Wisconsin enrolled fewer students in 2025-26 than in any other year on record. Milwaukee, Green Bay, Kenosha, Racine, Appleton, Waukesha, Eau Claire, Janesvi...
Wisconsin's English Learner Population Grew 43% While Schools Shrank
More than half the students in Abbotsford are classified as English learners. In Arcadia, the figure is 44%. These are not urban school districts absorbing waves of international arrivals. They are sm...
Only 28% of Wisconsin Districts Have Recovered from COVID
Not one of Wisconsin's 10 largest school districts has recovered the students it lost during the pandemic. Not Milwaukee, not Madison, not Kenosha. Zero for 10. Statewide, only 116 of 420 districts, 2...
One in Seven Wisconsin Students Is Now Hispanic
In 2006, roughly one in 15 Wisconsin public school students was Hispanic. Today it is one in seven. That shift, from 58,939 students to 116,817, represents a 98.2% increase over 19 years, and it happe...
COVID Gave Wisconsin Charters a 7,500-Student Boost They Never Gave Back
In a single school year, Wisconsin's charter sector gained more ground than it had in the previous five years combined. Between 2019 and 2021, charter schools added 7,570 students -- a 17.5% increase ...
Wisconsin Lost 8,121 Students in a Single Year, and It Wasn't Even the Worst Recent Drop
The number that flashes brightest in Wisconsin's enrollment data is the one from the pandemic: 25,024 students gone in a single year, 2020-21. That was the crisis everyone saw. What the state is livin...
Wisconsin Hits an All-Time Low: 805,881 Students
Every year since 2014-15, Wisconsin's public schools have opened with fewer students than the year before. The streak has now reached 10 observed years with no interruption, no plateau, no sign of a f...