Governor vetoes bill to undo changes to student testing standards

Gov. Tony Evers vetoed a bill Friday that would have undone changes to student testing benchmarks.

The Department of Public Instruction introduced new testing standards in June 2024, describing it as a routine process.

Those new standards lowered the threshold for what is considered proficient on the Forward Exam state test, and replaced terms like “below basic” with “developing.”

After that, the fraction of Wisconsin third-through-eighth graders testing proficient in reading and math jumped from less than 40 percent to almost half.

State Superintendent Jill Underly has argued that new standards better reflect what students should know at a given grade level. Meanwhile, critics like Assembly Leader Robin Vos, R-Rochester, have accused Underly of wanting to “make it easier for failing schools to somehow seem like they’re succeeding.”

The GOP-backed bill sought to restore standards to those used in 2019-20, which had been set by Evers’ DPI the previous year. The bill passed the Senate and Assembly largely on party line votes.

The governor had called the DPI’s process for the changes a “mistake,” saying he believed schools were caught off guard.

But in his veto message, Evers said that even while “reasonable minds can disagree” over how to measure academic achievement, he objects to “the Legislature’s attempts to undermine the constitutional authority and independence” of the DPI superintendent.

He claimed the bill would make DPI unable to update benchmarks in the future without legislative approval.

Sen. John Jagler, R-Watertown, sponsored the bill. He called Evers’ veto “disappointing.”

“(Evers) called the process in which it was done flawed, and we presented him with a path to restore his standards,” Jagler said.

He said legislators “purposefully went back to his old standards” to avoid inserting themselves into the process.

“We didn’t insert ourselves, we just restored his path,” he said.

Meanwhile, Underly praised Evers’ veto in a statement. She said the GOP bill “undermined the authority of the state superintendent.” She said “teachers had direct input in the decision to align test cut scores with Wisconsin’s academic standards.”

Evers’ message said the DPI superintendent should answer “to the people of Wisconsin, not any other politician.”

Underly will face challenger Brittany Kinser in Tuesday’s DPI superintendent election. Kinser has said she would make it a priority to “restore high standards.”

“If people in Wisconsin want high standards, they know what they need to do,” Jagler told WPR.

In their March primary, Kinser got 154,135 votes to Underly’s 160,097. As of Wednesday, Underly’s campaign has received about $850,000 from the state Democratic Party, while Kinser’s netted almost $1.7 million from the state GOP.