In each of the past 15 years, the Public Policy Forum has surveyed nonprofit leaders in southeast Wisconsin to gain insight into the financial health of their organizations and their success in generating support from philanthropic and government entities in Greater Milwaukee. The Forum's effort to collect, synthesize and publish this information reflects the critical role played by nonprofit organizations in delivering a wide variety of services to southeast Wisconsin residents in areas like health, social services and the arts.
In June 2010, Wisconsin’s Joint Committee on Finance approved YoungStar, a new quality rating and improvement system (QRIS) for the state’s nearly 8,500 child care providers. YoungStar supporters believe the new system will improve the overall quality of childcare in Wisconsin by motivating and supporting providers to make quality improvements and by providing parents with the information they need to choose high-quality child care options. In this Research Brief, we examine several issues and challenges that have arisen in other states or jurisdictions with QRIS policies, how those entities have tackled those challenges, and the lessons their experiences might yield for Wisconsin.
Earlier this fall, the seventh People Speak poll solicited opinions from 436 residents of southeast Wisconsin about health care policy issues. Among the key findings is that a majority (62%) agree with Wisconsin joining 25 other states in challenging the constitutionality of the federal health care reform law.
When the U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to hear the case next spring, it specified the constitu-tional issue under consideration would be the law’s “individual mandate,” or requirement that all Amer-icans purchase health insurance or face a financial penalty. Respondents to the poll, however, do not seem to base their support of the legal challenge on the mandate provision.
In a 2006 analysis of City of Milwaukee economic development efforts, the Public Policy Forum lamented the absence of a comprehensive economic plan, suggesting such a plan was needed to mobilize the city’s business, community, and public sector leaders behind a unified agenda. Five years later, those leaders now appear fully mobilized. City government recently completed a comprehensive plan to guide policy, land use, and development decisions – the first such plan to cover every square mile of Milwaukee. In this report, the Forum re-examines Milwaukee’s economic development landscape.
For dedicated readers, this 14th Annual Comparative Analysis of the Racine Unified School District will
look quite different from the previous 13 reports. For the first time, we compare the district’s performance to its own goals, as well as to its peers and to its past performance. The peer comparison tables, which have been the hallmark of previous reports, appear in Appendix I. The body of the report is focused on the district goals established in 2009 as the North Star vision.
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