As I See It
Like magic, Wisconsin test scores rise sharply
It sounds good. Perhaps too good to be true. But the state of Wisconsin is reporting a marked increase in student’s test scores across the state. The latest numbers show that 51% of Wisconsin public school students were measured at being proficient in English and Language Arts. That is up significantly from last year, when only 39% of students were rated as proficient or better. Similarly, this year’s math test scores measured Wisconsin students as 53% proficient in math, up from 41% last year. Those are big jumps. How did it happen? Are students working harder? Are teachers doing a better job? Perhaps those are true, but the higher numbers are largely the result of the state changing the way it measures testing performance. They have moved the bar. They changed the way they score these standardized tests by lowering the score at which a student is considered proficient or advanced. Some students who were rated as average in prior year’s tests are now considered proficient. State Superintendent Jill Underly denies the state is lowering its standards. But if a student got the same number of answers correct this year as last, but now got a higher score, it is hard to see how the state is not dumbing-down how they score these tests.
Bob N.
October 10, 2024 at 9:57 am
Right in line with “Participation Trophies”. These are the same educators who want to do away with report cards since too many bad ones make the teachers look inept.
“Some rise to the occasion, others lower the occasion”.
walden
October 10, 2024 at 1:23 pm
This type of “cooking the books” makes it impossible to establish meaningful academic benchmarks that reveal the efficacy (or lack thereof) of public education. Your question is a good one…”what are they hiding?” An honest education system would report out the test results using both old and new metrics for the year of change, so the actual impact would be known (parallel analysis). Instead, they present it as apparent “magic.”
Following COVID, public schools also made much of standardized testing optional. Those not likely to perform well and those in the “don’t care” categories were self-eliminated from the pool of students tested, which also artificially increased the average test scores of those who did test. Therefore, the actual academic results are worse than indicated by test scores.
Thank you for writing about what is a scandal. This is the type of issue school boards should be laser focused on instead of dithering over what boxes to check this week. If you cant’ measure it, and you refuse to talk about, you cannot fix it. That is public education as we know it.
Tom
October 11, 2024 at 9:33 am
Thank you for putting this out. This is News. It is worthy of followup.
David
October 11, 2024 at 2:23 pm
Not following the logic. Are we now considering 51% (English and language) and 53% (math) good?