(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction has formed a committee to review and set new state report card standards.
The committee comes after a bill that would have moved the state back to 2021-22 standards passed the Wisconsin Legislature but was vetoed by Gov. Tony Evers.
The committee of more than two dozen educators and leaders from public, private, and charter schools will begin meeting in June. Names of the committee members were not released.
“Just as you wouldn’t rely on a decade-old GPS to find your way today, we can’t use outdated performance benchmarks to guide school improvement,” State Superintendent Jill Underly said in a statement along with the announcement. “In Wisconsin, where we maintain a high academic bar aligned to rigorous state standards, it is essential that our accountability systems keep pace with changes to performance measures — based on today’s data, today’s measures, and today’s expectations…not yesterday’s.”
Underly has been criticized for changing those standards over recent years.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty urged Evers to sign Assembly Bill 1, pointing out where the state lowered school report card cut points in 2020-21, changed the labels on those in 2023-24 and lowered the cut points again that year as well.
“While I have been critical of processes for recent changes to school scoring and standards, I am nevertheless vetoing this bill in its entirety because I object to the Legislature’s attempts to undermine the constitutional authority and independence of the state superintendent of public instruction,” Evers wrote in his March 28 veto.
The new standards from the committee will begin with report card grades released this fall.
DPI says the process will be “guided by” the Wisconsin’s Technical Advisory Committee and “facilitated by” the Center for Assessment.
