More than half of Wisconsin's public school students in grades three through eight, 51.2-percent, were proficient or advanced in English language arts last year, but only 43.7-percent did as well in math, according to results released last week of the state’s standardized tests.
The data has been released to individual school districts and will be released to the public via the Wisconsin Department of Public Instructions online WISEdash portal in March 2016.
Boscobel scores, which lag well behind the state averages, were released by operations advisor Steve Wacker on request.
English Language results for Boscobel School District were:
• 12.4 percent advanced
• 27.3 percent proficient
• 27 percent basic
• 32.7 percent below basic
Mathematics results for Boscobel School District were:
• 11.8 percent advanced
• 17 percent proficient
• 38.2 percent basic
• 32.4 percent below basic
“We are going to have to sit down ourselves as a school to figure out our next step,” said Wacker.
Wacker does believe that there may be a mistake in the school’s fifth grade scores and is currently working with DPI to correct it. Ifhe is correct, that mistake will not be reflected in the state report until next year when it would be used to assess the score in the school report card.
The scores from the newly implemented Badger Exam suggest improvements over the 2013-14 school year, but DPI officials cautioned against making comparisons. The results came from different exams and scoring mechanisms.
As in past years, the statewide assessment shows stubborn achievement gaps between white and minority students, and similar gaps for English language learners, disabled students and those living in poverty when compared with their peers.
“These achievement gaps are most troubling,” state Superintendent Tony Evers said in a statement accompanying the limited release of the results, five months behind schedule.
“Overall results for the WSAS are a good starting point for Wisconsin’s more rigorous testing program,” said State Superintendent Tony Evers. “Though the Badger Exam is a one-year event, our new Forward Exam will be administered this spring and will provide an opportunity to improve over time.”
Both the Badger and Dynamic Learning Maps (DLM) exams, which made up the WSAS for grades three through eight, are aligned with Wisconsin Academic Standards adopted in 2010. In mathematics, students in grades three and four had stronger overall proficiency levels than students in higher grades. This may possibly be attributed to full implementation of the Wisconsin Standards for Mathematics, which served as the foundation for mathematics instruction since these students began school
