This post originally appeared at https://www.badgerinstitute.org/dpi-says-wisconsin-students-are-now-developing-rather-than-failing/

Bureaucrats apparently don’t want parents to know when their kids can’t read or do math 

Triumphant news, Wisconsin: There will no longer be any students in our entire state who are not proficient in reading or math.  

This is a new development. You may have been dismayed to learn previously that of all Wisconsin third-graders in the 2022-23 school year, only 37% were “proficient” or better in reading.  

That meant that 61% of third-graders statewide were able to read at only a “basic” or “below basic” level, on track to being cheated out of an education. 

No more. The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction announced this week that no child’s abilities would be “below basic” or even “basic” any longer.  

That isn’t because of an epochal improvement in reading. It’s because the DPI changed its wording. Now, children will be described as “developing” rather than “below basic.”  

And while the lowest category used to mean that a child “demonstrates minimal understanding of and ability to apply the knowledge and skills for their grade level,” now it will mean he “is at the beginning stages of developing the knowledge and skills” you’d expect. If he gets better at reading, he doesn’t move up to “basic” but to “approaching.” If he improves further, he could reach not “proficient” but “meeting.” 

In other words, “below basic” becomes “developing.” “Basic” becomes “approaching.” “Proficient” becomes “meeting.” Tellingly, the category of “advanced,” the result no one wants to hide, stays the same.  

The words no longer are adjectives, describing ability. They’re verbs, implying progress about students who may well not be approaching anything at all or developing any skills.  

After all, while 61% of third-graders statewide were “below basic” or “basic” at reading in the most recent figures, the number was a less catastrophic 60% just before the pandemic. One might be nostalgic about only 55% missing the mark in 2015-16.  

In other words, the share of third-graders who are “meeting,” to use the new term, is not “developing” in any upward direction but seems to be “spiraling.”   

Alarm 

The DPI says the old judgy terms are “outdated” and that the new nomenclature “improves feelings of encouragement and motivation among students,” which is like reading a thermometer in Celsius so a fever sounds less alarming. These scores, especially when aggregated to judge a school or a district, are an alarm. When policymakers or the public learn that, for instance, 85% of Milwaukee Public Schools’ third-graders are less than proficient in reading (three percentage points worse than just before the pandemic), they don’t need it put in cheerier, more optimistic terms. They need to be alarmed.  

If the state’s education bureaucracy cannot live with holding students (or, more to the point, their schools) accountable for poor results, it’s really slow in holding school districts accountable for much else. 

As a result, people were alarmed this week over MPS’ fiscal bungling: The district was so late in turning in basic financial data to state authorities that the DPI finally threatened to withhold its state aid, and the school board paid the superintendent to go away.  

A retired long-time superintendent of the district, Bill Andrekopoulos, told the Badger Institute that it’s a moment for disruptive reform. He suggested that Gov. Tony Evers take charge in finding the reforms to turn around the district.  

On his watch 

It wouldn’t be the first attempt. Thirty years ago, reformers could detail decades of failed reform efforts. In 2009, the then-governor and Milwaukee’s then-mayor proposed a takeover but backed off. A 2015 law to bring new leadership to MPS’ worst-performing schools remains on the books, never used because the head of the reform chickened out.  

In theory, if anyone has the background for the job, it would be Governor Evers. The political protégé of teachers unions, he headed the DPI for 10 years before taking the governorship.  

Milwaukeeans desperate for better results, and Wisconsin taxpayers looking for a better return on the $18,882 per child in public revenue that the district gets, can and should expect Evers to have some idea of what can be done.  

Except for this: Evers has been atop the hierarchy of Wisconsin public education, as state superintendent or governor, every moment that this year’s graduating seniors were students. On his 15-year watch, the share of Milwaukee fourth-graders scoring “below basic” on the national NAEP test has risen from 61% to 67%, and the city’s schools have fallen farther behind as comparable urban districts have improved. Evers, and the public school establishment he comes from, can and should already have stopped at least two generations of educational malpractice, especially in Milwaukee. 

Instead, the DPI ignored bad management and spent its time coming up with new words for poor performance to protect a dysfunctional establishment from blowback. It’s been one set of adults protecting another set of adults, and kids are paying the price.

Patrick McIlheran is the Director of Policy at the Badger Institute. Permission to reprint is granted as long as the author and Badger Institute are properly cited.

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