Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 57. Sunrise is 7:03 and sunset 6:20 PM for 11h 17m 04s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 15% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1846, English astronomer William Lassell discovers Triton, the largest moon of the planet Neptune.
Corrinne Hess reports Wisconsin Public Schools have lost 32,000 students since 2019 (‘Lower birth rates, children moving to private, home schools have hurt public school enrollments’):
Wisconsin public schools have lost more than 32,000 students since 2019 due to an increase in private and home school enrollment and a decline in the birth rate, according to a new report by the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
At the same time, there are between 4,500 and 11,600 “missing children” from schools.
Using public, private and home school enrollment data since the fall of 2019, the report found thousands of school age children were unaccounted for during the 2022-23 school year, accounting for nearly one-third of the public school enrollment decline.
“These students would seem to be missing either because the data on them was not collected or, worse, because they disconnected from the education system in Wisconsin entirely,” the policy forum report found.
Department of Public Instruction officials noted in the report that private and home schools are not held to the same standard as public schools when it comes to reporting enrollment data, so there are likely those students who are being educated, but are not captured by state counts.
Private and home schools don’t collect data on students until they reach first grade, which could be a reason for the decline of younger students. But Ari Brown, one of the authors of the policy forum report said enrollment in grades first through fourth are also down.
There could be many other reasons for children not being accounted for in Wisconsin schools, including truancy, children being kept home to watch younger siblings or migration out of state, Brown said.
Enrollment is a challenge for many districts across the state. See School Enrollment numbers raise question of missing students. For numbers specific to Whitewater, see Report of Preliminary Third Friday of September 2023 Student Count and Enrollment.
Testing the Landing Gear for All Scenarios for NASA’s Mars Sample Retrieval: