President Barack Obama will visit Madison Nov. 4, according to a statement released by the White House Tuesday.
Obama plans to speak about education, although the specific content of his speech has not yet been disclosed.
Charles Franklin, UW-Madison political science professor, said he expects Obama to address issues facing K-12 education.
Franklin said poor results of the latest evaluation of the gap in scores between blacks and whites make Wisconsin a ""reasonably good state"" to talk about education issues.
""We provide a platform that he can address all of these kinds of concerns,"" Franklin said. ""Excellence in education, ... racial disparities, ... and education reform in the broadest sense.""
He said the reason for Obama's visit might include political motivations.
""Obama won the state big but needs to hang on to it, and then just possibly he might have a conversation with Mayor Barrett about running for governor,"" he said.
Franklin said he would be surprised if a conversation with Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett did not come up during Obama's visit, although he speculated that any discussion would be a private one.
""Barrett is now the only Democrat left standing of the original top-tier candidates, so it's certainly to the Democratic Party's interest to have the strongest candidate they can get in the race.""
Molly Rivera, chair of the UW-Madison College Democrats, said the College Democrats are ""really excited"" for Obama's visit. She said depending on where the event is held, the organization will work on rallying students to attend the event.
""If it ends up being open to the public, then we will have lots of opportunities to let students know about the event and tell them where they can go and things like that.""
Details on the location of the event have not yet been released.
