On Tuesday, November 11, Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction (DPI) released School and District Report Cards for the 2024-25 school year. Every school in the state that receives public funding—i.e., traditional public, public charter, and private schools participating in a Choice program—receives a report card. While the Report Cards aren’t perfect, they remain the best tool we have to compare how schools are doing.
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.