Middleton-Cross Plains Area School District reported its highest-ever score after the most recent Department of Public Instruction (DPI) report cards were released, but the figures no longer reflect previous scoring based on racial disparities in the achievement gap.
The yearly report cards across Wisconsin’s 421 districts and their respective schools gauge how it’s performing based on test score achievement, growth between years on tests, target growth outcomes for its bottom performing 25% of students and on track to graduation. In previous years, these report cards weighed scores on factors such as racial disparities in the achievement gap. However, measures no longer explicitly factor in achievement gaps and now opt for the population of students who are economically disadvantaged.
The previous measure to factor in racial disparities helped bring light on how schools fared in combating the issue. In Wisconsin, the state frequently gains attention for its schools having the worst achievement gaps in English and Math scores between its white, Black and Latino students.
“We used to have a priority area on the report cards called ‘Closing Gaps.’ That was replaced in 2020-21,” said Patrick Chambers, education consultant with DPI. “In theory, this was a good measure for understanding gap closure, but in practice, in reality, it had a ton of problems.”
Issues in closing the Closing Gaps metric could not account for schools and districts with specific student populations — in this case, Black, Asian, Indigenous and Latino students — that were less than 20. That minimum figure allows results per school and or district to be statistically significant, Chambers said.
Also, a sample size of less than 20 makes students more easily identifiable and can strip their anonymity from the results.
“Conversely, we found a lot of schools in which they would have 21 students one year or 19 the next, and then back up 22,” Chambers said. “All this kind of back and forth would result in huge scoring fluctuations that would be really confusing to schools anyway.”
Economically disadvantaged is the new metric to target students most in need. The replaced measure targets the bottom 25% of students in report card scoring categories based on the previous year’s assessments.
That measure allows for more consistent targeting with frequent applicable sample sizes that are statistically significant.
Economically disadvantaged does not technically target students of color who are affected by the achievement gap — but in some ways it still does.
Students of color are more inclined to be economically disadvantaged than their white peers, according to the Stanford University School of Education.
Middleton-Cross Plains Area School District reported its highest-ever DPI report card scores this year. Its overall rating of 84.4 officially brought the school from its longstanding four-star rating to five stars.
Its portion of economically disadvantaged students is rated at 17.2%, with a higher weighting on its achievement scores compared to other categories. A look at its Black student population and Forward Exam results sheds a little light on why the increased rating.
Middleton-Cross Plains experienced an increase in its Black student population, rising from 4.6% to 4.9%. Reading scores on the Forward Exam show an increase from 27.3 to 31.5; and 19.7 to 24.5 in math, according to data presented by Blacks for Political and Social Action Dane County during its annual Parents Summit.
Data in the district report card shows a decrease in the number of Black students in the “developing” and “approaching” categories across English and math. Black students have increased in “advanced” and “meeting” categories as a result.
Middleton-Cross Plains attributes the increase to its efforts in its “Engage. Empower. Evolve” vision and “A Cardinal Journey” framework in a statement.
The former looks to a “dynamic and inclusive learning environment” grounded in practices in equity, innovation and collaboration. A Cardinal’s Journey framework looks to inspire curiosity, community-orientation, accountability and self-awareness.
When asked about what Middleton-Cross Plains did specifically to help the performance of students of color, the district did not return requests for comment.
Many other school districts report a broad increase in scores, like Middleton-Cross Plains, under the current measures for report cards this year.
In 2024-25, 94% of school districts are shown to have met or exceeded expectations, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. There has been criticism that measuring schools and districts by their economically disadvantaged student population inflates scores and does not give a truly accurate picture of student performance.
