Wisconsin schools got their report cards Tuesday. See how your school fared.
· Yahoo NewsData released by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction on Tuesday showed that 84% of Wisconsin public schools met, exceeded or significantly exceeded expectations for the 2023-24 school year.
That number is up slightly from the 2022-23 school year, when 83% of the state's public schools met, exceeded or significantly exceeded expectations. It's about the same as the 2021-22 school year, when 84% of public schools met those thresholds. The numbers include districts represented by just one school.
Looking at school districts as a whole, rather than individual schools, 94% in 2023-24 met, exceeded or significantly exceeded expectations, the same as in 2022-23.
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Some private schools are also given state report cards if they receive public funding through voucher programs. Of those that were scored, 85% met, exceeded or significantly exceeded expectations in the 2023-24 school year, an increase from 2022-23, when 80% met, exceeded or significantly exceeded expectations.
Milwaukee Public Schools received a "meets expectations" rating for its 2023-24 school year state report card. That was the same rating it received for the 2022-23 school year.
Why do the report cards matter?
Each year, the DPI produces report cards for all public schools and districts, publicly funded charter schools and private schools participating in a parental choice program in the state. The report cards rate performance in a given school year and are a way to measure how schools and districts are doing overall, beyond standardized exam scores.
On those report cards, the DPI focuses on four priority areas: achievement, growth, target group outcomes and on-track to graduate. The achievement and growth priority areas are "weighted based on a district or school percentage of economically disadvantaged pupils, as required by state law," according to the agency's news release about the 2023-24 report cards.
What do the priority areas measure?
According to the DPI, achievement measures students' knowledge and skills compared to state and national standards, including a composite of English language arts and math performance on state standardized tests.
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Growth measures how students perform in English language arts and math over time.
Target group outcomes focus on students with the lowest test scores in their school and outcomes "are displayed for achievement, growth, chronic absenteeism and attendance or graduation rate."
On-track to graduation shows how students are doing in meeting goals that predict success after high school, including attendance and graduation rates.
A school or district's overall accountability score places it into one of five overall accountability ratings: "significantly exceeds expectations," "exceeds expectations," "meets expectations," "meets few expectations" and "fails to meet expectations."
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The 2023-24 report card uses up to three years of data, including achievement data, from the 2021-22, 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years.
What's new in this year's report cards?
The report cards reflect changes to the way state standardized testing was updated this year.
Due to the changes in cut scores, the percentage of students at each achievement level reflects those changes. To compare data from the 2023-24 school year to prior years, the DPI adjusted the scales for this year only to make the scores comparable.
The DPI said in the coming year it will gather a group of educators "to help align the report card cut scores to accurately communicate the success of schools and districts."
What were the top-rated school districts in Wisconsin as ranked by their state report card scores?
The top 10 school districts in Wisconsin based on overall accountability scores on their state report cards are:
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- Swallow School District (K-8 district in Merton)
- Whitefish Bay School District
- Fox Point-Bayside School District (referred to as Fox Point J2 by the DPI; also a K-8 school district)
- Merton Community School District (K-8 school district)
- Hartland-Lakeside School District (referred to as Hartland-Lakeside J3 by the DPI; also a K-8 school district and in Hartland)
- Geneva J4 (a K4-8 school district in Lake Geneva)
- Cedarburg School District
- Lake Country School District (K-8 school district in Hartland)
- Richmond School District (K-8 school district in Lisbon)
- Kohler School District
Where can school report card results in Wisconsin be found?
Visit apps2.dpi.wi.gov/reportcards/ to see how your school and district performed. The website also allows you to see past years back to 2011-12. To find other data related to your district or school, visit wisedash.dpi.wi.gov/Dashboard/dashboard/22275.
Rebecca Loroff contributed to this report.
Contact Alec Johnson at (262) 875-9469 or alec.johnson@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @AlecJohnson12.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: See how your school did on its Wisconsin report card for 2023-24