Republican bill to reset student testing benchmarks headed to governor’s desk

Republicans sent a bill to the governor’s desk Tuesday that would reset the way the state measures standardized test scores after Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction overhauled the system last year.

Under the DPI’s oversight, terms like “below basic,” “basic,” “proficient” and “advanced” that had been used since 2014 were replaced with “developing,” “approaching,” “meeting” and “advanced” to describe students’ skill levels on the statewide Forward Exam, which is given to kids in grades 3 through 8.

The DPI’s new metrics don’t align with the scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, test. The change also made it more difficult to compare this year’s Forward Exam scores with previous years.

Under the GOP bill that passed the Senate Tuesday, the state would have to revert to standards used in the 2019-20 school year, which align with national standards.

Sen. John Jagler, R-Watertown, accused the DPI of dumbing down the standards, giving parents a false impression of how their kids are doing in school, and how schools are doing in Wisconsin.

“They’ve messed it up,” Jagler said of the DPI. “They’ve altered the dial so much we will never know where your kid was at in fourth grade or where he is now at sixth, seventh.”

Republicans have also accused DPI Superintendent Jill Underly of altering the benchmarks to artificially inflate test scores ahead of her April 1 election. Underly is being challenged by Brittany Kinser.

Underly has argued the changes in terminology were aimed at making test results more meaningful for parents and teachers, an argument repeated by Democrats Tuesday.

“When things are changing, it doesn’t mean that it is for the worst,” said state Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee. “Standards have not been lowered. They’ve been updated.”

The bill passed on a party-line vote. It passed the Assembly on a similar vote last month.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who was elected state superintendent three times before he became governor, has been sharply critical of the change overseen by Underly, telling a WisPolitics forum in early March that it caught people by surprise.

“Something like that should have been vetted in some fashion, publicly,” Evers said. “So that people knew what was coming.”

But Evers told reporters after the forum he would “probably veto” the GOP bill, saying he believed the DPI should be an independent agency.

“They can make those decisions,” the governor said. “So having the Legislature suddenly say, ‘Well, we’re the experts here, and this is what the cut score should be,’ I think that’s wrong-headed. It’s an independent agency for a reason.”