IRG Poll: Milwaukee Parents Struggle to Navigate a School System in Crisis

Feb 12, 2025 | Press Release

IRG Poll: Milwaukee Parents Struggle to Navigate a School System in Crisis

Delafield, Wis. – The Institute for Reforming Government (IRG) announced results from a poll of Black and Hispanic parents on the North and South Sides of Milwaukee on Wednesday. The poll uncovered how and why parents choose schools for their children. For more, tune in to 620 WTMJ at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday to hear from Quinton Klabon, IRG Senior Research Director.  

 

WHY IT MATTERS: The urgency could not be greater. Milwaukee is likely to lose over 20% of its schoolchildren by 2040. Why? Parents are sick of the educational chaos and are moving out, hindering prospects for a prosperous city and state. With fewer students, schools will be forced to make big changes.

 

THE QUOTE: “Massive student turnover, low academic performance, and distaste for Milwaukee are the consequences of a school system that overwhelms parents,” said Quinton Klabon, IRG Senior Research Director. “Families will continue to leave the city without higher-quality schools and an easy way to discover them.” 

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Parents must travel far for what they want. Parents most wanted schools with great academics (35%) and extracurriculars (15%), but also preferred a school that was close (22%). But too few good options are near their homes; 25% of parents had switched their child’s school within the last 3 years. Seeking quality, 85% sent their children to a school outside their neighborhood. In fact, 29% enrolled in a school more than 15 minutes’ drive away.
  • Parents with the least resources struggle to choose schools. Parents who were unmarried or cohabitating, lower-earning, seldom-worshipping, and younger were less likely to know of great schools, prioritized distance over academics, and switched schools more often. For example, only 27% of parents earning under $40,000 made academics their top reason for choosing their kids’ schools, while 43% of parents earning over $40,000 did.
  • Parents cannot choose Milwaukee’s highest-performing schools if they do not know what they are. 38% of North Siders had not heard of Saint Marcus. 34% of South Siders had not heard of Reagan. Nearly 50% had no name recognition of terrific options like UCC, LUMIN, and ALBA.
  • Parents make Milwaukee Public Schools their default choice. 90% of parents who picked a traditional MPS school for their oldest child also enrolled their other children in traditional MPS schools. However, only 75% of private-school parents and 55% of charter-school parents had all of their children in choice. Many parents only use choice-school alternatives after trying MPS.
  • Parents do not want their children to stay in Milwaukee. Only 32% of parents wanted their children to settle down in Milwaukee someday, and only 20% more hoped for Milwaukee County. Black and low-earning parents were especially skeptical.


The survey of 542 voters in Milwaukee was conducted online on October 14-30, 2024. Field work for the survey was conducted by RMG Research, Inc. and the sample was targeted to include only Black and Hispanic parents of school aged children in Milwaukee. The margin of sampling error for the full sample is +/- 4.2 percentage points. View more here.