All News
Building Equity-Focused School Leadership: Wisconsin’s Role in a National Partnership
October 16, 2025 | By Karen Rivedal, Office of Research & Scholarship
How can universities and school districts work together to prepare school leaders who champion equity in education?
A recent study published in the Journal of Professional Capital and Community explores this question through the lens of the Equity-Centered Pipeline Initiative—a six-year, $102 million nationwide effort funded by The Wallace Foundation.
WCER’s Field Day Collaborates with Wisconsin Sea Grant to Develop Shipwrecks Game
October 16, 2025 | By Karen Rivedal, Office of Research & Scholarship
To kick off creative thinking for the game, Field Day sponsored a brainstorming event at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc that brought together Field Day game designers with maritime archeologists from the Wisconsin Historical Society, Sea Grant staff, and Wisconsin teachers who would eventually use the game in their classrooms.
2025 MSAN Student Conference Offers Equitable Paths to ‘American Dream’
October 15, 2025 | By Karen Rivedal, Office of Research & Scholarship
The conference, offered every fall for high school students by the Wisconsin Center for Education Research’s Multicultural Student Achievement Network (MSAN), seeks to develop student leaders dedicated to developing solutions that eliminate racial disparities in schools and that cultivate belonging, increase achievement, and expand opportunities for all students—starting with the students’ own schools. Each conference features an action-planning day, when students meet in district teams to identify a challenge and develop ideas and solutions to implement in their schools upon their return.
WCER Team Creates National Platform for More and Better Jobs for People with Disabilities
October 14, 2025 | By Karen Rivedal, Office of Research & Scholarship
On the project website, created to funnel targeted training and practical tools at no cost to state vocational rehabilitation agencies trying to better serve people with disabilities, server logs show:
- Website visits totaling 1.1 million.
- 15,081 total active website members.
- Visitors from all U.S. states and territories.
UW–Madison Team Honored for Course in Multi-Institution Project Advancing Inclusive Teaching for Nation’s STEM Faculty
September 16, 2025 | By Karen Rivedal, Office of Research & Scholarship
Benefiting an estimated one million undergraduates, including many from marginalized backgrounds, annually since 2021 through improved teaching practices, the free class consists of six linked modules targeting mainly early-career STEM instructors.
New UW–Madison Report Finds Wisconsin School Districts Rejecting Teacher Performance Pay
September 4, 2025 | By Karen Rivedal, WCER Communications
The report found that in practice, using teacher performance as a major pay factor fell out of favor for four main reasons cited by the districts:
- staff discontent,
- principals’ inability or unwillingness to make performance distinctions,
- the effort and complexity of the required administrative process, and
- perceptions that flexibility led to inequities.
New Research Examines How Hands-on Arts Training Improves Teaching
September 3, 2025 | By Karen Rivedal, WCER Communications
This study advances a growing body of literature on the intersection of arts education and social-emotional learning by offering a replicable model for integrating arts-based methods into teachers’ professional learning. It also shows how such experiences can shift educators’ perceptions of their role and relationships with students.
New UW–Madison Study Reveals Keys to Graduate Student Wellness, Belonging, Persistence
August 25, 2025 | By WCER Communications
A new study from the University of Wisconsin–Madison sheds light on the unique challenges Black men face when adjusting to graduate engineering programs—and offers actionable insights for improving program persistence and support for underrepresented students.
Published in the journal Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, the research highlights the importance of sociocultural adjustment in achieving success in graduate school, even more so than academic preparation. The study also draws lessons from Black men’s experiences and offers recommendations on how these lessons can be applied to a broader audience of graduate students.
Improving College Access: UW–Madison’s Odle Helps Launch One of the Largest Education Research Studies of the Century
July 31, 2025
In a groundbreaking project that could reshape the national college admissions landscape, the state of Tennessee launched TN Direct Admissions last week, a pilot program offering automatic college admission and personalized financial aid estimates to approximately 41,000 high school seniors. At the heart of this ambitious effort is Taylor Odle, an assistant professor of educational policy studies and principal investigator at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, as well as a faculty affiliate of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER).
Rob Hubal Announced As Inaugural SimLab Director
July 28, 2025 | By WCER Communications
The Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s School of Education is pleased to announce the appointment of Rob Hubal as the new director of the SimLab, effective July 28, 2025.
WEC Report on Community Learning Centers Featured in Media Story on Funding Cuts
July 11, 2025 | By WCER Communications
A report co-authored by UW–Madison’s Wisconsin Evaluation Collaborative (WEC) provides key impact data in a recent story by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about proposed federal cuts to out-of-school learning programs in Wisconsin and nationally. WEC’s review of the 21st Century Community Learning Center program, in collaboration with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) and the Consortium of Applied Research at UW–Green Bay, showed 62% of students in Wisconsin CCLC programs improved attendance, 63% increased classroom engagement, and 50% raised their GPA.
Game Incubator Event Fuels Educator, Research Partnership At UW–Madison
June 9, 2025 | By WCER Communications
The brainstorming and design event will produce a game that supports student learning about life sciences, such as bioengineering, genetics, conservation biology, human geography, or fungal biology, by letting players assume the role of a field researcher at work.
Krauskopf Wins 2025 Excellence in Science Education Award
May 6, 2025
The Wisconsin Society of Science Teachers recently honored UW–Madison’s Sara Krauskopf, a researcher at the School of Education’s Wisconsin Center for Education Research, for her outstanding work advancing science education in the state.
UW–Madison’s McQuillan Chosen for Prestigious Early-Career Program
April 29, 2025 | By School of Education/WCER Communications
The prestigious program, sponsored by the William T. Grant Foundation since 1982, focuses on developing junior scholars working in the social, behavioral, and health sciences to improve the lives of young Americans. Honorees receive $425,000 over five years to help support research and mentoring plans proposed by the applicants to advance their research skills and knowledge.
Brighouse Among Four Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
April 28, 2025 | By UW–Madison/WCER Communications
Brighouse is the Mildred Fish Harnack Professor of Philosophy of Education and the Carol Dickson Bascom Professor of the Humanities in the Department of Philosophy. He is also an affiliate professor of educational policy studies. His research focuses on political philosophy, applied ethics, philosophy of education, and educational policy and practice. Brighouse is the director of WCER's Center for Ethics & Education.
