Report Card Day for Wisconsin Public Schools

The Department of Public Instruction will unveil new reports cards for Wisconsin public schools Monday.

The report cards will rate each school on a scale of 0 to 100. Schools will be classified in one of five categories based on their numerical rating ranging from significantly exceeding expectations to failing to meet expectations.

Lynee Tourdot is the Assistant Superintendent of Schools for the Beloit district.She says initially the report cards may cause some confusion, “There’s so much to them that I think parents and the community in general are going to have a difficult time understanding them. They’ll see a number but that number isn’t necessarily reflective of what’s happening in the school, especially right now.”

DPI calculates the report cards based on the past *three* years of data on student achievement and growth, closing gaps, and college and career readiness. Tourdot says for some schools like Beloit that have made progress recently the first few years of report cards won’t accurately reflect recent successes.

The report cards are also factored using new tougher testing standards. Troy Harcey, the Associate Superintendent of the La Crosse School District, says the bar has been raised, “The report cards in my estimation signal a new era for school accountability. What it means to be college and career ready. For our students today it’s very different then it was even five, ten, 15 years ago.”

The new report cards are part of a new accountability system that was central to the approval of Wisconsin’s waiver from the federal No Child Left Behind law.