State DPI releases report cards for schools, districts



MADISON (WITI) -- The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) released its preliminary report cards for schools and districts on Tuesday, September 17th.

The latest report cards show the majority of Wisconsin’s public schools and school districts meet, exceed, or significantly exceed expectations established for report cards that use multiple measures of student achievement and engagement to describe performance. This is the first year for district report cards and the second for school report cards.

CLICK HERE to check the report card of your school, district

The report cards are based on standardized test scores. Each school and district is given an overall rating. There are individual scores for things like reading, math and student growth. When parents look at their schools and their scores, administrators say they shouldn't focus on just one year.

"It's looking at the school as a growth, looking at the last three years and look at the improvements that have been made from year-to-year," said Shannon Kilton, Principal of Parkway Elementary School in Glendale.

According to the state DPI, nine of the state’s 424 public school districts significantly exceed expectations, 133 exceed expectations, and 270 meet expectations. One school district, the Norris School District, was not rated. Milwaukee Public Schools failed to meet expectations. Ten districts met few expectations. Nine districts had point deductions from their priority area scores for missing student engagement indicators. To have no deductions for student engagement, districts and schools must have had test participation that was greater than 95 percent, absenteeism of less than 13 percent, and a dropout rate of less than 6 percent.

Overall, 1,401 schools received the same accountability rating for 2012-13 as they had last year, and 651 schools had a change in their rating. Another 32 schools that were not rated last year received ratings for 2012-13, and 27 schools were new and therefore did not have accountability ratings last year.