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CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – Yesterday Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction released its school report cards. Remember a year ago State Superintendent Jill Underly changed the way schools are graded. Tests were dumbed down, so data for the last two years can’t be compared with older results. Wisconsin’s results can’t be compared with other states.
And yet, in our wisdom, Jill Underly was reelected for another term.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty says the fix is in. The new metrics inflate the report cards of districts with higher poverty rates. Poor schools appear to be doing better than they actually are. Indeed. There’s one school where only 13% of their students are proficient in English, yet the school got a grade of “exceeds expectations.” Only 31% of 4th graders around the state read at grade level, yet no school was tagged with 1-star, needs improvement.
The very idea that there are different, lower, standards for poor kids is a farce. Someone who is educated, whether they be rich or poor, knows how to read, how to speak properly, and knows how to do basic math. To let kids who can’t just slide by is a gross disservice to them.
Milwaukee’s public schools, which, despite the largest administrative offices in the state and still couldn’t get their state and federal aid applications in on-time, is graded as 2-stars, or “meets few expectations”. Despite getting the most state aid per-student in Wisconsin, 36 MPS schools are listed as failing to meet expectations. Only 54% of MPS students are classified as on-track to graduate.
Candidate for governor Tom Tiffany says the results are actually worse than they seem. He proposes going back to the old achievement tests and grading schools with a standard report card A-through-F. The first step to solving any problem is to acknowledge how bad it is. Wisconsin isn’t there yet.
Chris Conley
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