This year’s Report Cards are notable because these are the first to be released after DPI made updates to them over the summer. Two years ago, DPI changed the cut scores for state tests, resulting in more students attaining proficient status. This had knock-on effects to the Report Cards, which DPI dealt with last year using a temporary measure. The newest fix came over the summer when DPI 1) adjusted the Achievement score on the Report Cards to account for more students testing as proficient, and 2) adjusted the cut scores that determine if a school is meeting expectations or not.

While this most recent set of changes was necessary, it was a fix to a problem of DPI’s own creation. And, after two years of changes that lowered expectations and further muddied the waters, we hope that this year’s Report Cards will at least represent a new and stable baseline for future years.

Key Findings

• Citywide results are flat—65% of students are enrolled in schools rated Meets Expectations or better

• A concerning trend continued as enrollment in 1 star schools increased

• Bright spots include strong gains for public charter and private schools on average

Analysis

While this is a new year under the updated Report Cards, the citywide outcomes for Milwaukee look pretty similar to how they looked last year. In the 2023-24 school year, 64% of students were enrolled in schools rated three stars or better (i.e., schools that are Meeting Expectations or better). This year, that number nudged up slightly to 65%.

The figure above depicts the distribution of student enrollment in each rating category for the past two years. There are fewer students enrolled in two and three star schools, more in four star schools, and about the same in five star schools. The concerning movement is in the one star rating—Fails to Meet Expectations.

Fails to Meet Expectations

Enrollment in one-star schools has increased for the second year in a row. Last year, 13% of students were enrolled in these schools. This year, that number is up to 15%. What makes this most concerning is that this is happening in the context of the changes DPI has made over the past two years that make it easier for schools to score higher.

What does it mean for a school to be one star? The state labels the school as Fails to Meet Expectations, but what does it mean for students in those schools? In terms of being on grade level, just 8% of students in one-star schools are proficient in ELA and 6% in Math. In terms of student growth, one-star schools have an average growth rating of 49.6 on the School Report Card, well below the 66.0 that would signify average growth. This means schools aren’t even keeping students on pace, they are losing ground.

So, what does it mean to be a one-star school? To put it in very simple terms, students in these schools are behind, and they are falling further behind every year.

Returning to the original observation that enrollment in one-star schools increased this year—what explains that? The figure below depicts how many schools changed from one Report Card rating to another, broken down by school sector. (This one’s for the data nerds, it might take a moment to orient yourself to the axes!)

Here’s what this figure is showing us:

• MPS had 32 one-star schools last year; this year, six of them improved to two stars, but that was offset by eight schools dropping from two stars to one

• Public charters had a single one-star school last year, but they advanced two rating categories to three stars this year

• Private schools had four one-star schools last year; two schools advanced out of the rating, but an additional four schools dropped down

Of the 40 one-star schools this year, 34 are MPS, 6 are private, and none are public charter. In terms of enrollment, there are 1,304 more students enrolled in one-star schools: 1,036 students in MPS district-operated schools, 663 more students in private schools, offset by 231 fewer students in public charter schools.These schools are predominantly located on the north side of the city, and they serve a student population that is 69% Black, 19% Hispanic, 3% white, 84% economically disadvantaged, and 19% students with disabilities.

Performance By Subgroups

Disaggregating Report Card results by subgroups yields even more stark disparities. We find majorities of MPS’ Black (64.3%) and economically-disadvantaged (53.0%) students enrolled in schools not meeting expectations, along with more than one-third of MPS’ Hispanic students (36.2%).

In comparison, only 26.1% of Black private school students, and just 17.3% of Black public charter school students are in 1- and 2-star rated schools. For low-income students, just 14% of private school students and 9.3% of public charter school students are in such schools. And, among Hispanic students, 10% or less of both private and public charter school students are in schools not meeting expectations.

Bright Spots

While the citywide averages do not show much change from last year, there are indeed bright spots to be celebrated this year. For those who took the time to add the numbers from the School Rating Transition graphic above, you probably noticed that there was a fair number of school that improved their rating. Notably, all but one public charter School either maintained or improved their ratings. It was more of a mixed bag for MPS and private Schools.

Looking past the count of schools to see how many students these numbers represent, and clearer picture emerges. As you might expect, public charter Schools showed the strongest gains in terms of the share of students enrolled in school meeting expectations or better. Even though private Schools saw more schools decline in Report Card rating than improve, the share of students in schools meeting expectations improved. Finally, MPS ticked down slightly, which is in line with their slightly higher number of schools declining ratings than improving.

What this means is that nine in ten students in public charter Schools are in +3 star schools, eight in ten private school students, but just five in ten MPS students.

Conclusion

While the citywide numbers for Milwaukee School Report Cards in 2024-25 seem level with last year’s numbers, they mask trends underneath the toplines. On the worrying side, the share of Milwaukee students enrolled in school that are Failing to Meet Expectations continues to increase—made all the more concerning by the fact that these schools are serving our city’s most underserved and vulnerable students. On the bright side, real gains were made, especially in the public charter schools.

This year’s release is the second to come after DPI made changes both to how all state tests (Forward for grades 3-8, and ACT for HS) are evaluated, as well as to the Forward Exam itself. We’ve previously shared our concerns with these changes, and the lowering of expectations for students they reflect. These changes mean that scores this year are not directly comparable to years prior to last year (2023-24), and they make it more difficult for stakeholders to identify trends and answer important questions.

How well are students recovering from pandemic-era school closures and disruptions to learning? What is the impact of implementing Act 20, Wisconsin’s Right to Read literacy Bill? We still don’t know because of DPI’s decision to lower standards.

We now have two years of data under the new assessment scoring regime, so we can compare this year’s results to last year. We cannot, however, glean meaningful insight as to how well students are recovering from the pandemic because we can’t say how these scores compare to pandemic-era scores. To reiterate, this is because of the changes made by DPI to the assessments.

Key Findings

1. Stagnant results across the state: Under the year-old, lower standards for student learning, just over half of Wisconsin’s students earned a rating of Meeting or higher on the spring 2024 state assessments.

   1. Statewide, 50% of students met new state standards in English Language Arts (ELA), and 51% of students met these standards in Math.

   2. In Milwaukee, across all sectors, 25% of students met new state standards in ELA, and 21% of students met new state standards in Math.

2. Lowered expectations persist: The state’s definition of meeting expectations no longer aligns with rigorous national benchmarks for what students should know and be able to do to be ready for college or for a career.

   1. Statewide, over 6,700 eleventh-graders were in a new category of “Meets Expectations, Below College Ready” in Math.

3. Inequities and gaps remain: Gaps between traditionally advantaged groups and disadvantaged groups remain in place.

   1. By race/ethnicity: Just 1 in 10 Black students are proficient in both Math and ELA, and just 1 in 5 Hispanic students; meanwhile, over half of white students are proficient in both subjects

   2. By family income: Economically disadvantaged students have proficiency rates that are half that of their wealthier peers

   3. Special Education: Just 1 in 20 special education students are proficient, a rate that is 5x worse than their peers without disabilities

4. Milwaukee’s Academic Crisis Persists: Milwaukee’s academic crisis persists, with the gap between overall city and state performance the same as last year at about 30 percentage points

   1. In ELA, 30% of students in both public charter and private schools in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP or vouchers) met state expectations, compared to 22% of students in MPS district-operated schools

   2. In Math, 29% of students in public charter schools and 27% private school students in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program met state expectations, compared to 17% of students in MPS district-operated schools.

Milwaukee 2024-25 Results

The table below shows the percent of students Meeting or better on the state tests (note that Meeting has replaced Proficient in the state’s language). Data includes all tests across all grades.

Fewer than 1 in 4 Milwaukee students is Meeting or better–even under the new, lower standard set by DPI. Public charter and private voucher schools score comparably, with charters slightly higher than private schools in math. Both are above traditional public schools in MPS. The city as a whole remains well behind the rest of the state.

Methodology Notes

City Forward Collective’s definition of the school sectors reflects the following:

• MPS District-Operated Schools: these are schools under the direction of the MPS superintendent and staffed by MPS; these include traditional public schools and instrumentality charter schools

• Public Charter Schools: these public schools are either authorized by an independent authorizer (i.e., 2r/2x charters) or non-instrumentality charter schools authorized by a public school district

• Private MPCP/Voucher Schools: these private schools participate in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program and are either a) located within the city of Milwaukee, or b) serve a student population of which at least 75% are MPCP students

We source all of our data from public DPI data reports. These reports have limitations such as data redactions in cases where the group of students is fewer than 20 students. While these reports are our best source of information, we believe it is important to note their limitations.

Finally, we have removed Academy of Excellence from our Milwaukee calculations because the majority of its students are outside Milwaukee and opt out of testing.

The proposed FY 2026 MPS budget represents a significant departure from past practice in both form and substance. After years of bloated, incomprehensible documents that ran to over 1,000 pages, Superintendent Cassellius delivered something radically different: an accessible summary that's honest and direct about the challenges facing the district.

Her candor about MPS's academic and financial realities marks a sea change from previous leadership. She acknowledges two truths that we at CFC have long asserted: MPS' academic outcomes are flatly unacceptable, and with roughly $18,500 per pupil in core revenues, MPS must take "decisive action" to address its unsustainable financial condition and projected $100M+ deficit.

As the Superintendent aptly put it, "MPS must make systemic changes to ensure students – particularly the most vulnerable, are at the center of every decision." It's both an entirely accurate statement and a long-overdue sentiment.

This transparency is especially important given MPS's new revenue reality. Now one of the best-funded school districts in the state, with 41 cents of every local property tax dollar and $1.5 billion in total funding, MPS has ample resources to work with. Hardworking families and taxpayers, both here in Milwaukee and across the state, have more than done their fair share to ensure MPS students have the necessary funding to thrive. MPS's fiscal challenges—and to be clear, real challenges remain—are no longer solely or even primarily about needing more money.

The road ahead requires sustained urgency and realistic expectations. MPS didn't get into any of its myriad messes in one day, and it will take time to undo the consequences of past mistakes, missteps, and deferred decisions. While we may not agree with every line item or decision, we appreciate the necessary break with the past that Superintendent Cassellius’ first budget represents. In our assessment, this budget provides a promising directional framework for the district's more than 58,000 students, and represents a strong start to the long-term work of righting the ship.

We commend Superintendent Cassellius for maintaining her focus on students and classrooms, even in the face of loud opposition from the leaders of special interest groups defending the status quo. The question ahead is whether new MPS leadership can continue to work with urgency to translate its newfound transparency into the sustained transformation Milwaukee's students and families deserve.

Read on for CFC’s complete assessment of the proposed FY 2026 MPS budget:

By the Numbers: MPS’ $1.5B FY2026 Proposed Budget

Superintendent Cassellius has proposed a $1.549B spending plan for FY 2026, including $1.212B in the district’s primary School Operations fund (which excludes revenues tied to MKE Recreation and facilities). The total budget now roughly equals the property-tax funded budget of the City of Milwaukee ($1.53B), and exceeds the budget of Milwaukee County ($1.4B).

The proposed MPS budget includes $982M in staff salaries ($626.9M) and benefits ($355.9M) for 9590.2 budgeted positions (FTEs), a small increase of 16 FTEs from the district’s current budgeted staffing.

MPS reported average salaries by position type for the first time in this year’s budget - by the district’s figures, the average teacher salary for next year is projected to be $81,927, while the average principal’s salary is projected at $139,707 for 11 month employees (mostly at elementary schools), and $156,711 for 12 month employees (primarily at secondary schools).

As with any K12 school, staffing-related costs are the district’s single largest area of spending; at 63% of its total budget, MPS’ staffing costs sit at or slightly below citywide averages. Notably, this year’s budget clearly lays out MPS’ fringe benefits rate of 53% - meaning that for every dollar spent by the district on staff salaries, an additional 53 cents is needed to pay the district’s share of employee benefits.

MPS’ budgeted revenues for FY26 include an additional $51M in funding under revenue limits, as a result of the 2024 referendum which will phase in a total of $252M in new revenues for MPS over the next three years. While state funding will not be finalized until later this summer, we anticipate most of this year’s revenue limit increases will be funded by the state, after last year’s 30 percent property tax increase. MPS’ budgeted revenues for federal aids show a significant decline of 13%, largely reflecting the completion of the expenditure period for one-time COVID recovery funding under ESSER.

A simple calculation of MPS’s school operations revenues divided by the total number of students within MPS’s Local Education Agenda (including both MPS district-operated schools and all MPS-authorized charter schools) yields an estimated districtwide per-pupil state & local funding level of $18,555 for the upcoming school year.

We would note, however, that this is a preliminary and rough projection: in part because MPS counts non-instrumentality charter school students in its districtwide enrollment totals, but funds these students at a lower, statutory number provided by the state to other independent charters, City Forward Collective uses a different methodology to calculate per-pupil revenues. Funding levels under our preferred approach will not be available until after the state budget is completed, and DPI school finance figures are released later this summer.

Assessing the MPS Proposed Budget: CFC’s Key Findings

1. Refreshing Candor About MPS’ Real Challenges

One of the emerging hallmarks of Superintendent Cassellius’ still-short tenure has been a commendable level of clarity and candor about the myriad challenges facing MPS. Dr. Cassellius’ budget presentation continues this course – directly acknowledging MPS’ anemic outcomes on NAEP, the Nation’s Report Card, and laying out the need for right-sizing and restructuring to close a still-staggering, $100M+ projected deficit even after two permanent property tax increases.

Instead of burying budgetary gimmicks and unrealistically-inflated staffing projections deep in the recesses of the budget book - a practice that we at CFC as well as the Wisconsin Policy Forum have repeatedly called out - this year’s budget summary includes a short, plain-language explanation of vacancy adjustments (which, judiciously deployed are a legitimate part of budgeting for any large enterprise), alongside a commitment to reduce the district’s past overreliance on this mechanism going forward.

Superintendent Cassellius is especially to be commended in our view for speaking to the unacceptable academic outcomes for MPS students using gold-standard NAEP data, rather than now-compromised state assessment results under DPI’s lowered benchmarks. As I’ve often said in this space, nothing can be changed until it is first faced - and facing up to Milwaukee’s worst-in-the-nation outcomes, especially for our city’s Black students, is the necessary first step in changing an unacceptable reality.

2. Right Areas of Focus, But Still Painting in Broad Strokes

Superintendent Cassellius’ proposed budget focuses on four priority areas, each of which directly aligns with CFC’s prior work and our calls to action. Improving academic outcomes, addressing declining enrollment, prioritizing teaching and learning in classrooms, and addressing financial realities - these are the critical challenges MPS must resolve to right the ship.

While the brevity of this year’s budget documents is a welcome departure from past practices, it does make it more difficult for us to assess specific budgetary shifts that have been made year-over-year. Moreover, while the public-facing materials are a summary and not the complete budget book, it’s also clear that this budget is a transitional one, and that it reflects just an initial downpayment on the deeper structural and cultural overhaul of the district that’s sorely needed.

We take particular note of her direct calls for a proactive plan to consolidate schools, and her past statements indicating her intent to “marry” the district’s ongoing facilities planning work with the forthcoming findings from the Governor’s Academic Audit. This right-sizing is long overdue; the urgency to act is only further underscored by the tens of millions of dollars that will be needed to address lead paint and deferred maintenance which have been at the center of recent headlines.

3. New Fiscal Realities, Same Old Funding Inequities

For decades, the entrenched narrative has been that MPS is an underfunded district, compared to both its suburban counterparts and statewide peers. This year’s budget makes clear that it is time to bury that old story once and for all: at more than $1.5B and with more than 9500 employees, Milwaukee Public Schools is now the largest and best-funded unit of local government in the state of Wisconsin.

Residents and taxpayers, here in Milwaukee and across the state, have more than done their part to address MPS’ disparities in revenues. Milwaukee’s property taxpayers now contribute 41 cents of every dollar to MPS; the district is also now in the top ten in state funding on a per-pupil basis. Put it all together, and MPS’ “core” revenues remain on a trajectory to cross the $20,000 per-pupil threshold in the next three years.

And, in acknowledging MPS’ newfound status as a highly-funded school district, we also cannot lose sight of the other, long-standing and still-true story of school funding in Milwaukee: the unfair and unequal funding of nearly 50,000 publicly-funded Milwaukee students served outside of MPS, who once again face thousands of dollars in per-pupil funding gaps that will grow in future years without action. As state lawmakers take up K12 funding in the coming days, I again echo our calls for state leaders to invest in the education of ALL of Milwaukee’s students, regardless of their choice of school.

4. Fair Questions - And Bad Faith Critiques

As with any budget of this size and scale, there are some areas where reasonable concerns have been raised. We would raise issues with MPS’ use of a special interest group’s widely-circulated but factually inaccurate mischaracterization of the (very real) issue of inflation and its impact on the district’s finances. We also share in questions raised by grassroots community leaders about a proposal to centralize school budgets, through the lens of our own guiding principle of autonomy and our strong belief in making decisions closer to students.

In acknowledging space for legitimate questions, we’d also call out that the loudest voices opposing this budget and recent Central Office restructuring are from leaders of special interest groups with a vested interest in defending the status quo. It is heartening that most School Board members haven’t buckled under this pressure to date. We urge the Board to continue affirming Dr. Cassellius’ efforts in setting a much-needed new direction for MPS, even as they fulfill their governance role in reviewing her proposed budget over the coming weeks.

Hard Choices Ahead

MPS’ fiscal challenges are no longer primarily about revenues: setting aside still-festering financial reporting issues, this budget makes clearer than ever that more money alone won’t fix what ails the district.

The budget proposal still paints a vision in very broad strokes, with a comprehensive plan not yet articulated and key details remaining to be filled in. At this stage, this is reasonable - Superintendent Cassellius has been in her seat for fewer than 90 days, and she’s faced an unenviable series of immediate crises. But Milwaukee’s students, families, and residents deserve more than just a readable budget—we still need a comprehensive plan. We will look towards the next set of critical budget deadlines in October with the hope and expectation that we will see concrete actions that advance this new direction.

While we may not agree with her recommendations on every budget line item, or endorse every decision she makes in the days ahead, we applaud the bold break with the past that Superintendent Cassellius’ first budget represents, and we stand with others across the city in support of her efforts to chart a new course for MPS, one rooted in clarity, honesty, and transparency.

The False Claim: “Happy ‘Third Friday’ to all who celebrate.”

The Fallacy: Public charter and private schools neither receive the full amount of per-pupil funding at one time, nor based on their enrollment at one specific count date. Rather, their funding payments are made on a similar schedule to public school districts, based on their actual current enrollment.

When do schools count student enrollment?

• Every school receiving public funding is required to count students twice each year: once on the third Friday of September, and again on the second Friday in January

How do schools receive state & local funding for enrolled students?

• Schools receive state funding for enrolled students in four quarterly allotments, with exact dates set by the Department of Public Instruction each year.

• Public school districts – but not public charter or private schools – receive local property tax revenues in one annual payment, early in the calendar year (February).

Do all schools receive funding based on current year enrollment?

• Public school districts receive funding based on a three-year, rolling average of student membership.

• Public charter schools and private schools are funded based on enrollment in the current year.

What happens if a student transfers from one school to another during the year?

• Public school districts receive annual adjustments to funding levels in September, based on changes in their three-year average membership.

• Public charter and private schools receive adjustments to funding levels after each count date – the first two quarterly payments are based on September counts, while the third & fourth quarter payments are based on January recounts

What steps are taken to ensure that counts are accurate?

• Districts must reconcile differences between September and January counts

• DPI annually audits 25% of public school districts’ enrollment counts

• Public charter and private school enrollment counts must be independently audited, with results submitted to DPI

• DPI is required to deduct any overpayments to schools from the following year’s funding, as was the case in the fall of 2024 for Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS). Additional sanctions may apply for schools that fail to submit or falsify audits.

It's not a new line for regular readers of this space, but James Baldwin’s wisdom once again fits: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” The statewide results are sobering - and the results in Milwaukee are a five-alarm fire - that we must face head on. Here are our four key takeaways from today’s NAEP scores:

1. Stagnant Statewide Performance - And Troubling Long-Term Trends

• Wisconsin has made no significant progress since 2022 across all four tested areas - reading and math in both 4th and 8th grades.

• Reading scores in both grades show a consistent downward trend over the past two decades, while math scores remain flat.

2. Wisconsin’s Black-White Gap, Worst In the Nation (Yet Again)

• Wisconsin continues to have the largest Black-White performance gaps among all 50 states, in every tested grade and subject - and in several areas, these disparities grew over the last two years.

• The crisis extends to our Hispanic students as well, where Wisconsin’s math performance gaps now rank among the ten largest across all states in both 4th and 8th grades.

3. Academic Outcomes at Milwaukee Public Schools, Worst In the Nation (Yet Again)

• MPS consistently ranks in the bottom 3 among its large urban district peers, alongside Detroit and Cleveland. The NAEP Proficiency rates tell a devastating story:

  • 4th Grade Reading: 9% proficient (compared to 26% for large cities)

  • 8th Grade Reading: 15% proficient (compared to 26% for large cities)

  • 4th Grade Math: 12% proficient (compared to 33% for large cities)

  • 8th Grade Math: 8% proficient (compared to 23% for large cities)

• MPS’s 4th Grade Reading results - reflective of students who were in K and 1st grade during the 2020-21 pandemic school closures, and a critical point for lifelong educational outcomes - are particularly dire, and call for an urgent, citywide response.

4. Jill Underly & DPI’s Honesty Gap, Exposed

• Across all NAEP tested grades and subjects, we can now quantify the honesty gap created by DPI’s lowering of the bar for students - with differences of 15-20 percentage points between NAEP’s benchmarks and DPI’s new, lowered standards:

  • 4th Reading: 31% NAEP Proficient vs 52% Meeting on Forward Exam

  • 4th Math: 42% NAEP Proficient vs 54% Meeting on Forward Exam

  • 8th Reading: 31% NAEP Proficient vs 48% Meeting on Forward Exam

  • 8th Math: 37% NAEP Proficient vs 51% Meeting on Forward Exam

Our Take

Today’s NAEP results must serve as a wake-up call. The status quo is failing our children, and we can no longer accept excuses or lowered expectations. This isn’t “just one test on one day”, and the decade-long trends of stagnant performance for all students, and widening gaps for Black and Hispanic students especially in Milwaukee, aren’t aberrations.

Milwaukee's students - especially our Black and Hispanic students - need all of us to face these brutal facts and act with urgency. The NAEP results show clearly that we're failing to prepare our children for a thriving and productive life. This isn't about politics or bureaucracy - its never been and still isn’t about right vs left – it's about ensuring every child receives the high-quality education they deserve.

Until our state - beginning with its political and educational leaders - takes this crisis in academic achievement seriously, we will continue to see more of the same unacceptable results for students in Milwaukee and across the state.

The way forward demands an honest evaluation, high standards, and urgent action. While lowering standards and telling parents to “get their hands dirty” may provide comfort to adults, it does not benefit our children's success. Every child in Milwaukee deserves an education that fully prepares them for a productive future. The time for transformation is now.

Last Tuesday, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) released statewide assessment results for the 2023-24 school year, including Forward Exams for students in grades 3-8 and the ACT test series for high school students. In this post, we will try to help put these changes and the resulting test results in context. 

Notably, this year’s release is the first to come after DPI made changes both to how all state tests (Forward for grades 3-8, and ACT for HS) are evaluated, as well as to the Forward Exam itself. We’ve previously shared our concerns with the secretive, closed-door process by which these changes were made. Now that the full statewide results are available, we’re able to show how these harmful changes have muddied the picture of student outcomes and school performance, both in Milwaukee and statewide.

These changes mean that scores this year are not directly comparable to past years’ results, and they make it more difficult for stakeholders to identify trends and answer important questions. How well are students recovering from pandemic-era school closures and disruptions to learning? What is the impact of implementing Act 20, Wisconsin’s Right to Read literacy Bill? We don’t know this year because of DPI’s decision to lower standards.

And, we are already getting indications from DPI that this mess is only likely to get worse with next month’s release of School and District Report Cards - with further manipulation of the results to try to address the worst of the issues created by these changes.

Students, families, and educators deserve a rigorous, high bar for student expectations, and honest, transparent, and clear information about how our state’s schools are performing. This year’s results only further demonstrate that DPI is failing to meet the standard.

Key Findings

1. More Students Meeting Lower Standards: Under new, lower standards for student learning, just over half of Wisconsin’s students earned a rating of Meeting or higher on the spring 2024 state assessments.

   1. Statewide, in 49% of students met new state standards in English Language Arts (ELA), and 50% of students met these standards in Math.

   2. In Milwaukee, across all sectors 25% of students met new state standards in ELA, and 21% of students met new state standards in Math.

2. Lowered Expectations: The state’s definition of meeting expectations no longer aligns with rigorous national benchmarks for what students should know and be able to do in order to be ready for college or for a career.

   1. For the ACT, this means that students are now rated as meeting standards with a composite score of 19 - well below the ACT’s College Readiness Benchmark of 22. Statewide, over 7,000 eleventh-graders were in a new category of “Meets Expectations, Below College Ready” in Math.

   2. For the Forward Exam, this means that students are now expected to demonstrate only “partial mastery of the knowledge and skills that are fundamental for proficient work at a given grade.”

3. More Inequities, Wider Gaps, & Disproportionate Subgroup Impacts:  As anticipated by DPI staff, while the new lower standards resulted in across-the-board increases in students rated as meeting standards across all subgroups, these changes had less benefit for historically under-educated groups of students

   1. By race/ethnicity: the percentage change in White students who met the new, lower state standards was 2-3x larger than for Black and Hispanic students.

   2. By family income: the percentage change in non-economically disadvantaged students who met the new, lower state standards was 25% larger than for economically disadvantaged students.

   3. Special Education: the percentage change for non-special education students was 4x as large as for students with identified disabilities.

4. Milwaukee’s Academic Crisis Persists: Milwaukee’s academic crisis persists, with the gap between overall city and state performance growing by 4 percentage points under the new standards.

   1. In ELA, 28% of students in both public charter and private schools in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP or vouchers) met state expectations, compared to 22% of students in MPS district-operated schools

   2. In Math, 27% of students in public charter schools and 25% of private school students in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program met state expectations, compared to 16% of students in MPS district-operated schools.

Milwaukee 2023-24 Results

Ordinarily, the majority of this brief would be taken up by this section. We would provide an overview of this year’s results, and we would elevate trends we identified in the data that point to worrying or laudable developments. Because DPI lowered standards this year, that is not possible.

Instead, we will briefly provide this year’s overall numbers for Milwaukee, such as they are. The remaining majority of this brief will aim to put this year’s scores in context, given the lowered standards, and help the reader interpret the results as best we can.

First, Milwaukee’s results—the table below shows the percent of students Meeting or better on the state tests (note that Meeting has replaced Proficient in the state’s language; more on that below). Data includes all tests across all grades.

Fewer than 1 in 4 Milwaukee students is Meeting or better–even under the new, lower standard set by DPI. Public charter and private voucher schools score comparably, with charters slightly higher than private schools, and both are above traditional public schools in MPS. The city as a whole remains well behind the rest of the state.

Now, as promised, we will shift to a more instructive conversation that attempts to contextualize the lowered standards.

Moving away from high standards

For more than a decade, Wisconsin’s standards have been among the strongest of any state in the country. Originally set by then-Superintendent Tony Evers, the standards aligned with those of the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), better known as the Nation’s Report Card. 

Under those high standards, Wisconsinites could be confident that a student testing as proficient on the state’s tests would be career or college ready when they graduated. Under the new, lower standards, that is no longer the case.

Dr. Jill Underly, the current superintendent, is on record lamenting how Wisconsin’s standards are among the highest in the nation. In the 2023-24 school year, she initiated a process to reset the standards. Specifically, DPI took the following steps:

1. DPI lowered standards: DPI changed the numerical scale for the test and the cut scores needed to achieve each of the four test results. This means students testing as “meeting” this year does not mean the same thing as students testing “proficient” last year - and 

2. DPI changed its language: DPI changed the assessment level names. These levels bucket students into four groups based on test score, and this is how the state has designated whether students are “proficient” or not. With the new names, students are now designated as “meeting” instead of proficient.

The lowered bar

 When we say DPI lowered standards, we mean it made the tests easier to pass. It’s like a 75% on a test last year would have gotten a C, but this year it gets a B. To make matters worse, it’s not clear where on the scale of the new standards a student needs to score to be “on grade level.”

DPI is on record saying that a student meeting grade level expectations is probably somewhere between Approaching and Meeting. Contrary to that assertion, DPI’s own explainer document defines Meeting as:

The student is meeting the knowledge and skill expectations described in the Wisconsin Academic Standards for their grade-level and is on-track for future learning.

That sounds like Meeting is the bar for being on grade-level, but ACT test results indicate that grade level is actually somewhere between Meeting and Advanced, as the officials said.

ACT

DPI’s ACT Statewide certified data reports how many students scored in each test result level. The report also indicates whether students are college-ready. In past years, the top two levels (Proficient and Advanced) were both aligned to be college-ready—students who scored in those levels were college-ready.

This year, however, the Meeting level straddles the line. Some students who score as Meeting are not college ready, while others are.

The ACT can serve as a validation point this year because unlike the Forward exam, the ACT is nationally generated and out of the reach of DPI. This means we can still make year-over-year comparisons using raw ACT scores, and the test therefore serves as our clearest indication that DPI didn’t just reset standards, they lowered them. 

Statewide, the ACT average score in ELA was 17.9 this year, down from 18.1 last year. In math, the average score increased from 19.0 last year to 19.1 this year. Though the average ELA score declined, the percentage of students Meeting increased by 4.2 percentage points. The average ACT math score nudged up slightly, and yet the percentage of students Meeting increased by 12.4 points.

It’s difficult to reconcile these numbers because of how the state lowered standards. Before this year, a Wisconsin student needed a 20 in ELA and a 22 in math to achieve Proficient. Both of these cuts have matched and continue to match ACT’s College Readiness Benchmarks. This year, however, the cut score to achieve Meeting is 19 for both. Since the cut score for math was lowered by a greater magnitude (three points, compared to a single point for ELA), the percentage change for that score is larger than the change for the ELA score.

Forward Exam

Though we can’t make direct comparisons between Forward Exam results from this year and past years, we can make inferences based on how the scores changed. Statewide, the percent of students scoring Meeting or better was 9.3 percentage points higher than the percent of students scoring Proficient or better last year. In math, scores were 12.4 points higher.

Again, this does not mean that students are doing better than last year—we simply can’t make that determination because of the change in standards. What we can say is that these numbers fluctuate a bit from year to year, but changes are generally of a much more modest degree.

For instance, the statewide percentage point change last year compared to 2021-22 was 2.8 in ELA and 1.2 in Math—and those changes were arguably inflated as test scores were still rebounding from COVID declines. In three years preceding the pandemic, score changes ranged from a decrease of 2.1 points to an increase of 0.7 points.

Changes hurt most vulnerable students most

These changes were not the same for all groups of students. Wealthier white students fared comparatively better under the new, lower standards than historically marginalized groups. For instance, schools in Milwaukee, which serves a student population that is predominantly low-income and non-white, saw more modest gains than their statewide peers.

Testing levels

The reason for this is that a large share of Milwaukee’s students—43% in ELA and 54% in Math—were scoring in the lowest level (Below Basic) under the previous standards.  Following the new lowered standards, more of these students moved up one level to Approaching, but this still falls below the threshold of the Meeting standard.

Conversely, the rest of the state had a larger share of students in the Basic level, and the lowered standards helped them reach the Meeting level. The percentage of students scoring in the Approaching level is where we see the greatest divergence between Milwaukee and the rest of the state, and the second greatest is in the Advanced level.

The share of students in the Approaching level increased in Milwaukee as students were bumped up from the lowest level (Meeting), while a commensurate share of students was not also bumped up from Approaching to Meeting. Outside of Milwaukee, a large enough share of students moved from Approaching to Meeting–or even up two levels from Developing to Meeting–to offset the share moving from Developing to Approaching.

Student groups

The widening of the gap is not limited to the gap between Milwaukee and the rest of the state. In ELA, the share of Milwaukee Black students Meeting or better increased by 3.7 percentage points, while the same rate for white students increased by 9.5 points. In math, Black students’ scores increased by 4.1 points, and white students increased by 13.9 points.

The same can be said of Hispanic students, Economically Disadvantaged students, and students with disabilities compared to their more advantaged peers. To differing degrees, the lowered standards were more beneficial to traditionally advantaged groups of students.

Conclusion

It’s hard to overstate the impact of this year’s changes to assessment standards. The changes lowered Wisconsin’s previously-rigorous standards, and it made test results harder to interpret. Not only is it impossible to make comparisons with past years and analyze trends (especially important as schools continue to recover from COVID), but it is also unclear what test results tell us in terms of whether a student is on track to graduate with the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed in college or a career.

On top of everything else, the changes essentially broke how the School and District Report Cards work. The details here are outside the scope of this post, but the end result is that DPI will be adjusting the Report Card scoring methodology this year AND next year. To put it another way, this year’s Report Cards will be different from last year’s, and next year’s will be different from this year’s. Assuming there are no further changes, we will have to wait three years from now to have Report Cards we can compare with the previous year.

We will have more to say on this matter when Report Cards are released next month, and we will continue to advocate for high standards and the quality of education that every Milwaukee student deserves.

Methodology Notes

City Forward Collective’s definition of the school sectors reflect the following:

• MPS District-Operated Schools: these are schools under the direction of the MPS superintendent and staffed by MPS; these include traditional public schools and instrumentality charter schools

• Public Charter Schools: these public schools are either authorized by an independent authorizer (i.e., 2r/2x charters) or non-instrumentality charter schools authorized by a public school district

• Private MPCP/Voucher Schools: these private schools participate in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program and are either a) located within the city of Milwaukee, or b) serve a student population of which at least 75% are MPCP students

We source all of our data from public DPI data reports. These reports have limitations such as data redactions in cases where the group of students is fewer than 20 students. While these reports are our best source of information, we believe it is important to note their limitations.