Rock County School Districts – A Bait and Switch

October 21, 2024

October 2024

WHY DOES THIS MATTER?  

Educational freedom refers to the ability of parent’s to select the best educational opportunity for their children. It recognizes that all children are unique, full of potential, and deserving of a high-quality education that meets their individual needs.  For someone to be truly free, they must receive a high-quality education which allows them to maximize their full potential in life.  

Recently RCF announced the top performing public school districts and schools in Rock County.    RCF recognizes and thanks teachers and students for their commitment to excellence, and to educational freedom!

Financial freedom from a local perspective is largely driven and controlled by local taxation.  Most notably property taxes – School District, County and City – are a major annual expense for Rock County homeowners and indirectly, renters.  With school districts being the highest portion of one’s property taxes. Most people in Rock County know their property taxes are high, but few realize Rock County’s property taxes are higher than 96% of all counties in the US!  This is based on the percentage of personal income, or people’s ability to pay (Source).  

This is truly astounding independent information. Who is educating Rock County citizens of this, and other facts such as this?  Answer:  Rock County First.  Educational and financial freedom of our citizens are non-partisan issues which RCF focuses upon.

If you have interest in the Educational Freedom of your/our children/grandchildren in Rock County, it is important to educate yourself on the results provided in your district report card report.  A good way to see a snapshot of district performance is in the RCF Did You Know (DYK) document, Rock County School Districts – What’s Going Up and What’s Going Down.

What is the truth about the relative performance of our Rock County school districts?

School districts and DPI generally do not like district performance judged based upon the DPI scorecard results.  They say it is not fair to compare one district’s performance vs another, nor is it wise to compare a district’s scorecard results from one year to the next.  While there may be some truth to this, the only way people have a way to compare performance trends over time, or between districts is with a consistent test given to all students in all districts.  The test DPI uses the Forward Exam, which is given to all students in the state (less the few students who do not take the test).

What makes this comparative analysis more difficult is when DPI changes (lowers) the test standards from one year to the next.  This was done as recently as 2020 and now again in 2024.  What this results in is perceived higher student/district performance but this is due to the lowering of the test standard, not improving student performance.  Therefore it is impossible to compare one year to the next, but we can still compare one district’s performance to another in a given year.

To learn more about the lowering of standards in 2024, please read this excellent analysis from the Institute for Reforming (WI) Government (IRG) – Testing our Patience: How Wisconsin Lowered Standards, Widened the Achievement Gap, and Busted Its State Exams.

Here is a recap of the IRG analysis of these new standards:

  • DPI has made so many changes to scoring that it is impossible to understand what they mean
  • Previously, the scores were traceable to national standards, but are no longer comparable
  • Education professionals do not understand the importance and significance of the scores, so parents and citizens have no hope understanding them
  • Proficient and Advanced rating no longer translates to predictive college performance
  • Parents and students do not know where they stand
  • Local school systems should define their own standards
  • Getting back to basics is required

A snapshot of comparative school district performance in 2023-2024 Forward Exam results

The latest WI Department of Public Instruction (DPI) published district report card information is provided in our recent Rock County School Districts – What’s Going Up and What’s Going Down DYK document.  This includes information through the 2022-2023 school year.

Last week, DPI published preliminary results from the Fast Forward (and ACT) testing conducted during the 2023-2024 school year.  This does not include all the same information provided in the district report cards but CLICK HERE for a snapshot of the recently released results.

Important to note:

  • The percentage of students with scores in the Meeting or Advanced categories has NO relation to proficiency scores in previous years.  This is due to the new, lowered test standards rolled out with these 2023-2024 Forward Exam results.
    • This is obvious when comparing the 2023-2024 Forward Exam results vs the prior year.  The 2023-2024 results are from 10 – 25 points higher than the previous year.  Which we all know is impossible but it does look better to the uninformed!
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