School Report Cards Being Updated, But Major Changes Need Legislative Approval
DPI says updates are a necessary step to ensure the system remains fair.
School lockers. Photo by Phil Roeder (CC BY 2.0)
This week, educators from across Wisconsin are working to update the state’s school report card system for the first time since it was released in 2012.
The state Department of Public Instruction said the updates are a “necessary step to ensure the system remains valid, fair, and aligned with current expectations.”
But parents and caregivers shouldn’t expect drastic changes.
DPI can only work within the confines of state law.
“I think what you can expect is a group that’s really putting their minds together and their expertise together to really make report cards meaningful and fair for schools and communities,” said DPI spokesperson Chris Bucher. “We facilitate the publication of these report cards, but we go with what is in state law.”
State report cards measure a school and a school district’s overall rating by looking at four priority areas for three school years: achievement, growth, target group outcomes and on-track to graduation.
Based on this, schools and districts receive one of five ratings: significantly exceeds expectations (five stars), exceeds expectations (four stars), meets expectations (three stars), meets few expectations (two stars), and fails to meet expectations (one star).
For some, one of the most confusing aspects of the report cards is that sometimes those stars don’t align with student proficiency rates in math and reading.
And that isn’t likely to be changed this go-around.
For example, about 84% of Wisconsin’s public schools met or exceeded state expectations for the 2023-24 school year, according to report cards released in November 2024.
At the same time, Wisconsin public school student proficiency rates in math were 49% during the 2023-24 school year, according to the state Department of Public Instruction.
Part of the reason for the gap is that DPI weighs student growth more than student performance in calculating overall scores in low-income districts.
That has caused controversy with Republican lawmakers and several other groups, including the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which says there is no way to get an apples-to-apples comparison of districts across the state.
In 2021, a bill was introduced that would have given all four priority areas equal weight.
Gov. Tony Evers vetoed the bill.
In his veto message, Evers said he objected to the Legislature’s “continued efforts to politicize our schools and our classrooms.”
“Over the course of the last three years, we have worked diligently to support and improve school quality after a decade of disinvestment,” Evers wrote.
Colleston Morgan Jr., who leads City Forward Collective, a nonprofit and advocacy group in Milwaukee, said continuing to grade students on a curve distorts student performance.
“I want to know my sixth grader is able to do sixth-grade work,” Morgan said. “Both proficiency and growth matter. … It troubles me that we have a sliding scale at all, and that that sliding scale is so extreme that it distorts the picture.”
What is DPI doing this week to update report cards?
This week, about two dozen educators from private, public and charter schools across the state have been meeting in Madison.
The meetings are open to the public.
The group is working to update the “cut scores” that determine where the schools and districts fall on the star scale of expectations.
In a statement released in May, State Superintendent Jill Underly said since the report cards were launched almost 15 years ago, state law and performance measures have evolved to better capture student growth, so it’s time to update the cut scores.
“Just as you wouldn’t rely on a decade-old GPS to find your way today, we can’t use outdated performance benchmarks to guide school improvement,” Underly wrote. “It is essential that our accountability systems keep pace with changes to performance measures — based on today’s data, today’s measures, and today’s expectations…not yesterday’s.”
The work is being facilitated by the Center for Assessment, a national expert in accountability systems.
Their recommendations will be submitted to Underly and will be implemented beginning with 2024-25 report cards.
Report cards are released in November.
Wisconsin’s school report cards getting an update, but major changes will require new state law was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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