Milwaukee
1 in 7: Wisconsin's Special Ed Share Hits a Record
For most of the past two decades, Wisconsin's special education share held steady near 13%, fluctuating in a narrow band. That stability ended around 2019. In the six years since, the share has climbe...
Multiracial Students Tripled in Wisconsin, and They're Still Growing
In 2011, when federal reporting rules first required Wisconsin schools to count students identifying as two or more races, the category barely registered: 13,197 students, 1.5% of enrollment. Fourteen...
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 ...
Nearly Half of Milwaukee Students Are Chronically Absent
Milwaukee Public Schools is Wisconsin's largest school district and its largest attendance problem. In the 2024-25 school year, 46.2% of Milwaukee's 61,367 students were chronically absent, meaning th...
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...
150,000 Fewer White Students in 19 Years
Wisconsin lost 67,640 public school students between 2006 and 2025. White students alone lost 150,475.
Milwaukee Has Lost One in Four Students
In 19 years of Wisconsin enrollment data, Milwaukee Public Schools recorded a single year of growth. It was 2016-17, when the district added 473 students. Every other year, the line moved in one direc...
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...