WEC Report on Community Learning Centers Featured in Media Story on Funding Cuts
July 11, 2025 | By WCER Communications
WEC’s review of Wisconsin's CCLC program, now threatened by funding cuts, found student gains in attendance, engagement and GPA.
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 community learning centers improved attendance, 63% increased classroom engagement, and 50% raised their GPA.
Despite those results, under the U.S. Department of Education (ED)’s 2026 budget proposal summary from President Donald Trump, community learning centers for the first time would receive zero dedicated federal funding—down from $1.329 billion nationally in 2025. Instead, states are directed to use their block grant for all purposes from the ED and, within that, create “competitive subgrants to school districts or community-based organizations” for the 21st Century Community Learning Center program.
The WEC report, released in August 2024, examined the Wisconsin program’s community learning centers during the 2022-2023 academic school year.
During 2022-23, community learning centers in Wisconsin served a total of 18,703 students across 148 sites, with the average site serving 126 students, according to the report from Brie Chapa, Dan Marlin and Grant Sim of WEC—which is housed in the School of Education’s Wisconsin Center for Education Research—and their collaborators.
By 2024-25, nearly 20,000 students were taking part in community learning center programs at 168 sites in Wisconsin, according to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story, with more than 75% of participating students identified as economically disadvantaged in 2023-2024.
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, community learning centers have received dedicated federal funding since 2002 to provide academic activities that enrich students’ skills before and after school, on weekends, and during school breaks.
Last year, Wisconsin received $19 million in federal funds administered by DPI to fund community learning centers. In Madison, the school district receives just over $1 million in federal funds for community learning centers in 11 sites, according to a recent story from Wisconsin Public Radio.
Read the full article on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel website. (Subscription required)
