Ex-CEO at Google challenges UW to boost incomes

Can the University of Wisconsin-Madison discover innovative ways to boost the incomes of 10,000 people in Dane County over the next two years?

It’s a mighty big challenge, but it could pay off for both the people of Dane County and the university. And, possibly, for the rest of Wisconsin, too.

UW-Madison is one of four schools competing for funding from Schmidt Futures, a new philanthropic venture run by Eric Schmidt and his wife, Wendy, and backed by the Schmidts’ $13 billion fortune. UW-Madison joins Ohio State, Arizona State and the University of Utah, each of which will get an initial challenge grant of $1.5 million to develop proposals.

UW will assemble 10 collaborative teams that include both university and community groups to produce proposals, said Lonnie Berger, director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the university. At least one team from each school will receive more support in 2019.

Proposals will be due by Thanksgiving, reviewed by a combined UW-community board then sent to Schmidt’s Alliance for the American Dream for a second review. The teams will be interdisciplinary, involving researchers ranging from the humanities to STEM fields along with community representatives.

The idea is to boost shared prosperity and stabilize the middle class, Berger said, adding that even ideas that don’t make the final cut could be useful. Innovative partnerships — and thinking — will be encouraged.

“One of the things we’re trying to encourage is to get people to think about outside the box. We’re pushing people to get technology involved and to encourage public-private partnerships, to get business involved. … What we’re really trying to do is encourage broader and diverse thinking, including getting out and talking to folks who are on the cusp of the middle class.”

UW hopes to spread the impact beyond Dane County in subsequent rounds of the project.

Wisconsin’s middle class could use a hand.

Real median household income has never fully recovered from the Great Recession — never recovered, in fact, from the trauma of the Rust Belt breakdown of manufacturing in the entire upper Midwest years earlier.

And though Wisconsin’s unemployment rate is as low as it’s been in years (2.9% in April), pockets of the state remain virtually untouched by the good times. Overall, 12.7% of the state’s citizens live in poverty, according to the latest U.S. Census estimates, but in Milwaukee, more than 38% of blacks are impoverished and more than 41% of children.

Schmidt has dived into philanthropy since leaving as CEO of Google’s parent, Alphabet Inc., in December. He and his wife are investing $100 million to develop a new generation of scientific leadership, for example, including a postdoc program called the Schmidt Science Fellows.

Helping kids in crisis

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin just completed the third year of its “Kids in Crisis” reporting project with youth storytelling events in Milwaukee and Madison.

Over the past three years, reporters and editors have written dozens of sto-

ries to shed light on Wisconsin’s problem of teen suicide, hoping to break down the stigma of suicide by helping young people tell their own stories and offering support and solutions. The network organized 38 town hall meetings across Wisconsin, concluding May 10 with a “Day of Action” in Madison.

One of those storytellers was recent high school graduate Karlee Gross, who nearly lost her life to suicide two years ago (she was saved when her mother noticed an empty pill bottle on her nightstand and rushed her to the emergency room).

Her mom later told the Journal Sentinel’s Rory Linnane that she missed the warning signs, thinking Karlee’s struggles were just a normal teenage phase, in part because of the stigma that continues to surround mental illness.

“I wish I wouldn’t have ignored those signs,” Tricia Cull told Linnane. “But you are also in denial that there’s anything wrong with your child.”

The network intends to keep reporting on the problem.

Segregated by law

America’s cities are still segregated, and not by choice, author Richard Rothstein, an expert on housing policy, writes in his compelling and provocative 2017 book, “The Color of Law.”

They became segregated as a matter of law.

Rothstein argues in the preface of the book: “By failing to recognize that we now live with the severe, enduring effects of de jure segregation, we avoid confronting our constitutional obligation to reverse it.”

That happened through racialized zoning, segregated public housing, tax breaks for institutions that promoted segregation and many other means, he argues.

LISC Milwaukee and the Metropolitan Milwaukee Fair Housing Council are organizing a community book read of “The Color of Law” this summer to reach “a shared understanding of the past.” Rothstein will be in Milwaukee Oct. 16 for an event, and the Journal Sentinel plans a related event prior to his appearance. Details to come.

Save the date

The Green Bay Press Gazette will host a debate between candidates for the 1st District state Senate seat from 7-8 p.m. on Tuesday, May 29, in the Christie Theatre of UW-Green Bay. Republican Andre Jacque of De Pere and Democrat Caleb Frostman, the former executive director of the Door County Economic Development Corp., are running to fill the seat left vacant by Sen. Frank Lasee, R-De Pere, who left to take a job in Gov. Scott Walker’s administration. If you can’t make it to Christie, watch the Jacque-Frostman debate live on the Press Gazette’s Facebook page.

The Journal Sentinel’s James Causey is leading a storytelling event at 7 p.m. May 30 at Anodyne Coffee Roasting Co., 224 W. Bruce St., featuring stories from Earl Ingram Jr., Andre Lee Ellis and others on overcoming racism, sexism and homophobia. It’s the final event of the year for the Journal Sentinel’s 50Year Ache series, which examines where Milwaukee stands 50 years after the open housing marches of 1967 and 1968. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.

“Field Notes” is a weekly look at new research aimed at solving social problems. David D. Haynes is editor of the Journal Sentinel’s Ideas Lab. Email: david.haynes@jrn.com. Twitter: @DavidDHaynes