Officials fear data flaws will skew new ‘report cards’
By Jennifer Eisenbart
Staff Writer
When the state of Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction issues its preliminary report cards to school districts next week, expect the grading curve to be a little steep – and maybe to change.
Local School District officials went over the formulas being used to evaluate both schools within the district and individual students Monday night at the Burlington Area School District School Board Curriculum Committee.
Preliminary data will be released on Monday, though district officials are already stressing that the information is exactly that – preliminary.
“You always hate that when something comes out and people know there are errors,” said BASD Assistant Superintendent Connie Zinnen, who said the district has already contacted the DPI to address errors in the data and has been told it will be corrected.
However, there is no guarantee the data will be corrected by the preliminary release next week. A letter is being sent home to parents this week to explain the new process.
“Once it hits the paper, once it gets in anyone’s hands in the public, it’s very hard to go back and change people’s perception,” said Zinnen, who added that the DPI is getting phone calls from across the state.
“They could not give me a guarantee.”
Schools will fall into one of five categories based on the new accountability determination: “significantly exceeds expectations,” with a score between 83-100; “exceeds expectations,” with a score between 73-82.9; “meets expectations,” with a score between 63-72.9; “meets few expectations,” with a score between 53-62.9; and “fails to meet expectations,” with a score below 53.
The goal, Zinnen explained, is to address which schools need improvement, and the state will intervene at schools that don’t meet the minimum level.
Schools that are at “significantly exceeds” or “exceeds” will be used as example schools for training purposes, while schools that “meet expectations” will be subject to local control of improvements.
Schools that fall into the bottom two categories can expect the state to intervene.
The new state “report cards” are part of Wisconsin’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act waiver process – the waiver to be released from the ESEA or what is more commonly called “No Child Left Behind.”
As a result of getting an exception from that waiver, the state will be changing its evaluation of students. While the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Exam (WKCE) is still being used, the standard will eventually shift to a new test.
State Superintendent Tony Evers would also like to see all districts implement the ACT test suite – the EXPLORE test in eighth grade, the PLAN test in 10th grade, the ACT in 11th grade and the ACT work keys for students who are not planning on attending college or post-secondary schools.
Zinnen did a presentation on the ESEA waivers two weeks ago, the gist of which highlighted two key points. Wisconsin students are going to be held to higher standards on standardized testing, and that closing the gap between students who do well and students who don’t is a priority.
Students will be asked to reach a higher level of proficiency with the WKCE (and the tests that follow), meeting the NAEP – the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The report cards issued to each school within a district will measure not only how students perform on that test, but also student growth, closing gaps between specialty groups (special education, English language learners, etc.) and regular students, as well as on-track and post-secondary readiness indicators.
In explaining the new testing two weeks ago, Zinnen warned that fewer students will test as above proficient or better – simply because the standards are changed.
In fact, in cautioning against the lower numbers, Zinnen said most districts are expecting to drop from 75-85 percent proficient to 35-45 percent proficient.
However, the new testing and school report cards will take into account testing over a three-year period, track students within peer groups, graduation rate, attendance rate and test participation rate.
“We’re hoping the test is going to measure more accurately what kids need to know,” Zinnen said.
Among the drawbacks to the new system, aside from the fact that the preliminary data does appear to be flawed:
• The new testing system for grades 3-8 will not be in place for two years.
• The tests will still likely only be given once, although they will track students over a period of time and testing scores over a three-year period.
• Because closing gap scores are measured by “cell” sizes of at least 20 students, accurate school report cards in smaller schools will likely include “super cells” – meaning instead of cells being just special education or English language learners, the super cell could include both.
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