A depressing look back at the year that was in Madison
A Perspectives column for the Dairyland Sentinel by Brian Fraley
Wisconsin government had a bad year in 2025. Not the kind of bad year that comes from factors beyond its control. The kind born from bad choices, weak leadership, and routine avoidance of accountability. From the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, to the Department of Corrections and from the Wisconsin Elections Commission to the Department of Natural Resources, state officials kept missing the basics of good governance.
Here are five big failures.
1. DPI Changed School Scores and Report Cards, Then Hid the Reason
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction spent 2025 telling parents and taxpayers that student performance was improving, while quietly changing the way performance is measured. The result: report cards that say nearly every district is doing well, even though real proficiency rates remain unimpressive.
DPI altered the benchmarks that decide whether a school “meets expectations.” Those changes reduced the rigor of test classifications and made it much easier for schools to earn above-average ratings. Meanwhile, Dairyland Sentinel pressed the department for the documents explaining how and why those changes were decided. To date, DPI has refused to hand them over, even though Wisconsin’s open records law requires public agencies to disclose internal communications on decisions affecting public policy.
That refusal is not a technicality. It is a refusal to be held accountable. When an unelected bureaucracy changes the rules used to evaluate 380 school districts statewide and then withholds the explanation, that is a failure of transparency and a failure of leadership.
2. Teacher Misconduct Was Exposed, Then Ignored
An in-depth and extremely well done yearlong investigation by The Cap Times detailed hundreds of cases where school employees engaged in inappropriate or exploitative behavior toward students, and school systems handled the allegations inconsistently or quietly. Some educators left their jobs without clear warnings to parents or future employers. Others remained in the classroom with minimal oversight.
The public outcry was immediate as lawmakers scheduled informational hearings and social media buzzed with parents demanding answers.
Wisconsin’s education leadership responded by avoiding scrutiny. Superintendent Jill Underly skipped one legislative hearing entirely. That absence was widely noted as a demonstration of the department’s unwillingness to engage openly with this crisis.
DPI’s pattern in 2025 was simple: Resist transparency, retreat from accountability, and hope the issue goes away. It did not. It will not.
3. DNR’s Wolf Policy Confused Everyone
The Department of Natural Resources works best when it operates as a science-based agency. In 2025, their credibility was battered.
The agency convened a Wolf Advisory Committee without clearly defining its purpose, membership criteria, or how its recommendations would be used. That left hunters, rural residents, and conservationists wondering whether the committee was real policy input or political theater.
No population goals will be established, putting any real future hunt to control the wolves in doubt.
At the same time, audits of DNR management showed internal weaknesses in oversight of fish and wildlife accounts, leadership turnover, and unclear prioritization.
People expect wildlife management to rest on data and consistent, long-term plans. What they got instead in 2025 was confusion and contradictory messaging from Madison.
4. Department of Corrections Exposed Flaws in Supervision and Safety
If any agency deserved scrutiny and condemnation in 2025, it was the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.
State prisons continue to struggle with staffing shortages, dangerous working conditions, and persistent safety issues, and admin snafus that Dairyland Sentinel and other outlets chronicled throughout the year. Waupun Correctional Institution remained a focal point of criticism after inmate deaths and internal investigations exposed procedural lapses and leadership failures. The governor vowed to cut the prison population in half. No matter what. His prison closure plan lacks support, but he’s a lame duck and is pressing on.
The problems in community supervision were even more glaring.
In November, Morgan Geyser, a woman conditionally released from institutional care and living in a Madison group home, ripped off her ankle monitor and left the premises. It took more than 10 hours before local law enforcement was notified. Geyser was eventually found in Illinois. Three Department of Corrections unnamed staff members were eventually placed on administrative leave amid an ongoing investigation.
The official response included changes to when law enforcement is notified after a monitor tamper alert. That admission alone tells you how badly DOC failed. If alarms are going off and no one acts quickly, supervision means nothing.
Wisconsin citizens pay for a corrections system that protects communities and keeps people safe. In 2025 it failed both.
5. Election Oversight Failed Basic Accountability Standards
Wisconsin’s election system came under fire this year. Again.
Federal law requires an administrative complaint process for voters to raise grievances related to elections. The U.S. Department of Justice warned that the Wisconsin Elections Commission lacked such a process, placing the state in violation of federal requirements. Instead of fixing that shortfall, WEC leaders disputed the need and delayed action.
At the same time, local clerks referred irregularities to prosecutors. That flurry of referrals reflected inconsistent processes and confusion at the local level about how to enforce election laws.
Elections are not simply about results. They are about trust in the system that produces those results. When administrators can’t even enforce their own complaint procedures, confidence erodes. Justifiably.
Dishonorable Mention
The Activist Wisconsin Supreme Court’s neutering of the legislature’s Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules. Without a robust JCRAR the current and future governor’s administrations will be able to ignore legislative intent when implementing Wisconsin law.
What ties these five failures together is not an unhappy accident. It is purposeful avoidance.
When parents ask for real test-score data, bureaucrats hide behind spreadsheets. When misconduct is exposed, officials avoid hearings. When wildlife policy raises skepticism, agency leaders muddle the discussion. When public safety is at risk, corrections supervisors alter procedures after failure is publicly exposed. When election integrity is questioned, administrators dodge fundamental reforms.
Wisconsin deserved better in 2025. This year we saw what happens when public power protects itself instead of the people it serves.
These are just five instances we know of. There very well could be dozens of equally troubling lapses at the state level. For example the Evers’ Administration is flat-out refusing to reply to demands from the feds for the state’s voter file and Foodshare (food stamps) rolls.
Question: What are they afraid of?
Answer: The ramifications that come with real transparency.
On final note:
It was not that long ago that mainstream news outlets here would have competed with each other to expose and doggedly get to the bottom of these instances of government secrecy and failure. While these scandals received some attention, only the Cap Times’ series on teacher misconduct was persistent and aggressive. Sadly, it came after the spring election for State Superintendent. Society is worse off for the lack of journalistic drive.
