Do school vouchers save the taxpayer money, or do they add to taxpayer burdens? Which groups of taxpayers are most affected, and do they gain or lose? What is the financial impact on public school districts? Usually, these questions are debated in the abstract. Now it is possible to get more concrete answers from the nation's longest-running…

This paper compares the personal background characteristics and voting behavior of Wisconsin state legislators in two legislative sessions separated by 40 years (1965-1966 and 2005-2006). The study uses cluster analysis to graphically display the differences in the voting patterns of the two sessions, an indicator that can be used in this and…

This study was conducted in 1979-80 to obtain baseline opinions of members of the Wisconsin Legislature about vocational education. Sixty-six of the 132 legislators responded to 84 questions regarding the need for, financing of, quality of, and methods of delivering secondary and postsecondary vocational education in the state. The responses were…

Individual members of state legislatures wield the greatest influence in state level policy formation. This was one of the findings of a study that identified the power and influence context of state-level policymaking. Data were gathered from six states (Arizona, California, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Illinois) using an instrument…

A report based on a conference on the impact of cost information on statewide budgeting and planning is presented. The conference was organized around case-study reports on the use of cost information in higher education budgeting in Florida, Indiana, Washington, and Wisconsin. Rather than publishing convention proceedings, the case studies were…

The current status of state policy on minimum competency testing in Wisconsin, and the political process that produced that policy, are explored in this report. The document presents the preliminary findings of research conducted for a doctoral dissertation. The research methodology, mentioned only briefly, involved participant observation,…