November 11, 2025
Today, DPI released report cards for the 2024-25 school year. Once again, the agency has quietly changed the standards that determine how schools are rated—making it easier to appear successful without actually improving student performance. WILL offered thoughts to DPI on how to improve the report card system, but those thoughts were ignored. Nonetheless, the report cards do provide an important window into the performance of Wisconsin schools that deserves to be examined. Below are four key takeaways from this year’s report card data.
Achievement Gaps Persist
The report cards allow us to compare schools on a level playing field by controlling for various factors that impact student performance—such as poverty rate—simultaneously. While a full analysis will have to wait for our annual Apples to Apples report, we can make some preliminary conclusions here.
Figure 1 shows some of the key results of a regression analysis accounting simultaneously for a number of variables in relation to proficiency in English Language Arts (ELA). The interpretation of these variables is the level of proficiency that would be predicted for a school where 100% of students were in this category relative to a school where no students were in this category.
As has been found in numerous other analyses over the years, Wisconsin has significant achievement gaps. A school with all low-income students would be expected to have 37.90% lower ELA proficiency than a school with no low-income students. In other words, a school made up entirely of low-income students would be expected to perform nearly 40 percentage points lower in reading proficiency than a school with no low-income students. Similar achievement gaps are found for African American students (28.2% lower proficiency) and for English Language Learners (25.6% lower proficiency). The number of Hispanic students in a school was accounted for in this analysis but not found to have a significant relationship to performance. This is possibly due to the inclusion of the English Language Learner variable, which is negatively related to outcomes.
Changes in the Distribution of Schools?
Despite stagnant or declining proficiency rates statewide, fewer schools are being rated as underperforming—suggesting that DPI’s new cut scores are masking real declines in student achievement.
Table 1 shows the percentage of schools in Wisconsin that were rated in each category of the report card for this year and last. Despite DPI claims that the changes wouldn’t lead to much of a shift in categories, the percentage of schools in the state rated in the lowest three categories has actually gone down once again. The largest increases were in the “Significantly Exceeds Expectations” category.
Some of the schools rated in the higher categories continue to defy any reasonable standard. Table 2 lists the public schools in the state with extremely low proficiency rated as “Meeting” or “Exceeding” expectations. For instance, Maple Tree Elementary is rated “Exceeds Expectations” despite 12.70% proficiency in ELA. All these schools are located in Milwaukee. No accountability system can be credible when a school where just 1 in 8 students read at grade level is rated as “Exceeding Expectations.”
Sector Performance
It is also possible to compare the performance of Wisconsin’s various school sectors with this data. Note that—because disability status is mismeasured by DPI in choice schools, it cannot be included legitimately in analysis of choice school performance. That deeper dive will have to wait for Apples to Apples, but the data can nonetheless be somewhat informative here.
We separate the data between Milwaukee and the rest of the state because roughly half of all students participating in Wisconsin’s private school choice programs reside in Milwaukee. For private school choice, we see a consistent positive relationship with proficiency in both math and ELA. This relationship holds in both Milwaukee and the rest of the state. On average, private school choice schools have proficiency 11.2% higher in ELA in Milwaukee and 10.4% higher statewide after controlling for factors such as economic status and race.
The lone exception to this higher performance is charter schools in math outside of Milwaukee, where significantly lower performance was noticed. This is consistent with recent Apples to Apples reports and warrants a deeper investigation.
Academic Growth
While proficiency rates provide a snapshot of how many students are performing at or near grade level, academic growth tells us how much progress students are making from one year to the next. This measure helps capture whether schools are helping students learn, regardless of where they start. It’s an important measure because it recognizes the efforts of schools that make meaningful gains with students who may enter behind, providing a fairer and more complete picture of school performance. Growth should not be a shield for persistently low academic achievement, but it does offer important insights into whether schools are helping students catch up when they are behind academically.
Table 3 shows the top 10 and bottom 10 districts for academic growth on a 100 point scale. Some of the state’s elementary-only districts lead the way in this category, which makes sense as growth is generally higher in the early grades. The Swallow School District had the highest growth in the state, while Merrill Area had the lowest.
Conclusion
While DPI has tried to sweep proficiency challenges under the rug, they have not been able to hide reality on this year’s report cards. The stubborn achievement gaps by income, race, and language status remain deeply concerning. The relative strength of private school choice programs, particularly in Milwaukee, underscores the value of offering families diverse educational options. In light of the continued failure of Wisconsin’s educational system to deliver consistent results for all students, transparency will be key to ensuring that report cards reflect real progress rather than statistical adjustments—and to helping every Wisconsin student reach their full potential.
