{"id":14867,"date":"2025-01-20T19:29:09","date_gmt":"2025-01-20T20:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=14867"},"modified":"2025-01-21T17:06:37","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T17:06:37","slug":"taking-the-blindfold-off-k-12-accountability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=14867","title":{"rendered":"Taking the Blindfold Off K-12 Accountability"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This post originally appeared at <a href=\"https:\/\/will-law.org\/taking-the-blindfold-off-k-12-accountability\/\">https:\/\/will-law.org\/taking-the-blindfold-off-k-12-accountability\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>January 21, 2025<\/p>\n<p>By Will Flanders, Research Director<\/p>\n<p>Since at least 2020, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction has made changes that obscure the true performance of schools, making it harder for Wisconsin families to make informed decisions about their children\u2019s education. Today, Senator John Jagler (R-Watertown) and Representative Bob Wittke (R-Caledonia) introduced new legislation (<a href=\"https:\/\/will-law.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/25-0976_3.pdf\">LRB-0976<\/a>) aimed at restoring transparency and accountability to Wisconsin\u2019s K-12 testing regime.<\/p>\n<p>The bill represents an important step in restoring the ability of parents, policymakers, and taxpayers to assess how well Wisconsin\u2019s schools are doing across the public, charter, and private voucher sectors. Here, we will explain what the bill does, but we first begin with a look at what a mess DPI has made of accountability over the past few years.<\/p>\n<p>Beginning in the 2020-21 school year, DPI has made a number of changes to Wisconsin\u2019s academic accountability standards that have made them far less rigorous.\u00a0 These changes were all made unilaterally by the Department without any input from the legislature or Governor. The key changes were:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li data-leveltext=\"\uf0b7\" data-font=\"Symbol\" data-listid=\"2\" data-aria-posinset=\"1\" data-aria-level=\"1\">2020-21 School Year: <a href=\"https:\/\/dpi.wi.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/imce\/accountability\/pdf\/Whats_New_for_2020-21_02_2022.pdf\">DPI lowered the cut points<\/a> on the state\u2019s report cards, allowing more schools and districts to be rated as three stars or higher (\u201cMeets Expectations\u201d or above) without any improvement in performance.<\/li>\n<li data-leveltext=\"\uf0b7\" data-font=\"Symbol\" data-listid=\"2\" data-aria-posinset=\"2\" data-aria-level=\"1\">2023-24 School Year: <a href=\"https:\/\/dpi.wi.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/imce\/assessment\/pdf\/Assessment_Perfomance_Levels_handout.pdf\">DPI changed the labels<\/a> on the categories for outcomes on the Forward Exam.\u00a0 \u201cBelow Basic\u201d became \u201cDeveloping,\u201d\u00a0\u201cBasic\u201d became \u201cApproaching,\u201d and\u00a0\u201cProficient\u201d became \u201cMeeting.\u201d \u00a0The \u201cAdvanced category was left the same.<\/li>\n<li data-leveltext=\"\uf0b7\" data-font=\"Symbol\" data-listid=\"2\" data-aria-posinset=\"3\" data-aria-level=\"1\">2023-24 School Year:<a href=\"https:\/\/dpi.wi.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/imce\/assessment\/pdf\/2024_Forward_Exam_Performance_Level_Standard_Setting.pdf\">\u00a0DPI lowered the cut points<\/a> on the Forward Exam and ACT\/PreACT, allowing students to be judged proficient at lower scores. \u00a0This broke the tying of proficiency standards on the Foward Exam to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). \u00a0Not only can school districts not create long-term trends of student performance after this change, but we can no longer compare Wisconsin students to national benchmarks.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These changes, made behind closed doors with little public input, have resulted in some absurdities that call into question whether schools can be held accountable for academic failures at all. Milwaukee Public Schools jumped from 15.8% proficiency in Reading to 23.4% proficiency from 2023 to 2024. They have also helped the district achieve three stars\u2014or \u201cMeets Expectations\u201d on the state report card, despite their consistently poor performance.<\/p>\n<p>Under the bill, all of these changes would be reversed\u2014restoring the various aspects of the accountability system to how they functioned prior to the 2020 school year, including:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>The legislation would restore the clearer, more straightforward accountability category names that were previously used. Terms like \u201cbelow basic\u201d and \u201cbasic\u201d clearly convey the need for improvement and encourage action to boost student performance. In contrast, the newer terms, such as \u201cdeveloping\u201d and \u201capproaching,\u201d can give the misleading impression that a student is on track, potentially downplaying a need for improvement. \u2013 <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/will-law.org\/wisconsin-dpi-re-defines-mediocre-student-achievement-to-meets-expectations\/\">READ MORE<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The Report Card cut points would be also restored to those that allowed for greater variation in the performance of schools and districts rather than compressing almost all of them into the upper three categories. Under the current report card cut scores, zero school districts fell into the \u201cFails to Meet Expectations\u201d category and only 28 districts \u201cMet Few Expectations.\u201d \u2013 <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/will-law.org\/wisconsin-dpi-re-defines-mediocre-student-achievement-to-meets-expectations\/\">READ MORE<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Perhaps most importantly, the bill would restore a proficiency standard that is tied to national NAEP standards for the Forward Exam and college readiness for the ACT\/PreACT, giving Wisconsinites a far clearer idea of where students stand compared to other states. DPI\u2019s arbitrary cut score changes to the Forward Exam, make comparing student proficiency difficult to compare to other states and previous year\u2019s results. As a result of DPI\u2019s changes, school districts experienced an average boost of 14% in math proficiency and 13.2% in ELA proficiency, despite average proficiency dropping on average across the nation. \u2013 <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/will-law.org\/more-on-dpis-report-card-changes\/\">READ MORE<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Under the bill, many school districts might see a reduction in their proficiency rates and even in their report card scores. \u00a0But the system as it stands now is effectively one that rewards mediocrity and failure\u2014a Lake Wobegone where everyone is above average. Academic accountability standards require a clear-eyed look at the data to identify rather than excuse problem areas.<\/p>\n<p>There is some reason to hope that these reforms could make it through the legislative process. Governor Evers served as Superintendent of DPI when the previous standards were in place, and he has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbs58.com\/news\/gov-evers-critical-of-dpi-lowering-test-standards-surprised-by-decision\">expressed<\/a> surprise and frustration with the changes made in recent years. Speaker Vos has also<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Emilee_Fannon\/status\/1877039809706791255\"> expressed interest<\/a> in returning to higher educational standards.\u00a0 Having high standards for our schools should not be a partisan issue, and we simply can\u2019t keep lowering the bar when those standards aren\u2019t met.<\/p>\n<p>Read More:<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jsonline.com\/story\/opinion\/2024\/11\/17\/schools-wisconsin-education-tests-dpi\/76338666007\/\">Op-Ed: Your Child May Not Be Doing as Well in School as You Think<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/will-law.org\/gaming-the-system-wisconsins-forward-exam-scores-now-useless\/\">Gaming the System: Wisconsin\u2019s Forward Exam Scores Now Useless<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/will-law.org\/wisconsins-school-report-cards-are-broken-heres-how-to-fix-them\/\">Wisconsin\u2019s Report Cards are Broken, Here\u2019s How to Fix Them<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/will-law.org\/wisconsins-state-report-cards-mask-troubling-proficiency-rates\/\">Wisconsin\u2019s Report Cards Mask Troubling Proficiency Rates<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/will-law.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/2021-12-2-Report-Cards-FINAL-1.pdf\">The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations: Wisconsin\u2019s Report Card Fails to Meet Expectations<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/will-law.org\/taking-the-blindfold-off-k-12-accountability\/\">Taking the Blindfold Off K-12 Accountability<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/will-law.org\">Wisconsin Institute for Law &amp; Liberty<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This post originally appeared at https:\/\/will-law.org\/taking-the-blindfold-off-k-12-accountability\/ January 21, 2025 By Will Flanders, Research Director Since&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":2296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14867"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14868,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14867\/revisions\/14868"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}