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Friday, February 21, 2025
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Assembly lawmakers vote to reverse DPI state testing benchmark changes

Along party lines, Assembly lawmakers voted to reverse the new state testing standards Wisconsin State Superintendent Jill Underly has defended.

In a 54-44 vote along party lines, lawmakers passed a Republican-backed bill Wednesday that would change how students’ academic achievement is measured in Wisconsin. 

The bill would require the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) to revert state testing standards to those of the 2019-2020 school year after DPI introduced new performance level standards last year, a decision State Superintendent Jill Underly has repeatedly defended. The measure now heads to the state Senate. 

In 2024, the DPI made two changes to the cut scores of Wisconsin test-takers. First, updated terms were assigned to describe student achievement: “advanced,” “meeting,” “approaching” and “developing.” Previously, the DPI used “below basic,” “basic,” “proficient” and “advanced.” 

Underly said the updated terms are “not only clearer, it also recognizes the endless potential each of our students has as learners.” 

The second change to the students' “cut scores” came after a standard-setting meeting held in June. According to the DPI, about 88 educators attended the meeting, with representatives from each of Wisconsin’s CESAs, the five largest school districts, private schools in the school choice program and rural, suburban and urban school districts. 

The changes received criticism from some Republicans and Gov. Tony Evers.

“I just think there should have been some information and dialogue happening with all sorts of people before that decision,” Evers said at a press conference in January.  “It’s hard to compare year-to-year if one year you’re doing something completely different. I think it could have been handled better.” 

For the PreACT and ACT with Writing in English, Reading and Mathematics, the bill would require the DPI to use the same cut scores, score ranges and pupil performance categories of the 2021-22 school year as well as require the terms “below basic,” “basic,” “proficient” and “advanced” to be used for pupil performance categories on these assessments. 

If the bill is approved by the Senate and signed into law by Evers, Wisconsin will revert to evaluating educational assessments using the cut scores, score ranges and qualitative terms that DPI used for report cards published for the 2019-2020 school year. The bill would also require DPI to align standardized exam cut scores, score ranges and pupil performance categories to the cut scores, score ranges and pupil performance categories to those set by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).  

The Republican co-authors of the bill noted that 94% of schools in Wisconsin fell in the “Meet Expectations or Higher” category, according to the school and district accountability report cards released in November. 

Bill author Sen. John Jagler, R-Watertown, said if the goal of rewording category labels was to be kinder to children, the move would result in negative effects on children's mental health. 

"I've heard mentioned in an interview 'it hurts kids' feelings to be, and parents' feelings, to be told that they're 'below basic' … it affects their mental health. You know what really affects their mental health? Not being able to read when other kids can," Jagler said on the Assembly floor. 

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Students in Wisconsin take standardized tests every year. The state test, known as the Forward Exam, previously aligned its cut scores with the NAEP, a widely followed program used in all 50 states.

Education experts reported that the NAEP is difficult, requiring students to perform better than on other tests to be considered "proficient." Underly has said the NAEP tests students about a grade level above their abilities, which makes students appear to be performing academically worse than they are.

Underly has defended last year’s testing benchmark changes, arguing that tying Wisconsin’s standards to NAEP’s created a “misalignment” in how student success was measured. 

State superintendent race heats up as education takes center stage in state Legislature

Underly and newcomer Brittany Kinser advanced to the April 1 general election after a three-way primary for the state superintendent position Tuesday. 

Underly received 38% of the vote with Kinser, an education consultant without a teaching license, came in second with 34.6%. 

Kinser has criticized the changes put in place by DPI under Underly for lowering the bar for student performance and called to “restore high academic standards cut by Jill Underly.” 

“It’s not OK that only three out of 10 children are reading, writing and doing math,” Kinser said. “And we know that we can raise the standards and we can do better for our children.”

This bill is just one of a number of education-related bills debated on the Assembly floor Wednesday. The discussions reflect a broader legislative effort to shape Wisconsin’s education system.

In both Evers’ State of the State and budget addresses, the governor emphasized the importance of investing in education at all levels, calling his biennial budget proposal the “most pro-kid budget in state history.” In addition to proposing major investments in higher education, Evers called on the Legislature to invest more than $3.1 billion in general and categorical aid for K-12 public schools. 

Evers’ budget proposal includes a $154.8 million investment to provide breakfast and lunch to students free of charge, over $80 million to improve student reading and literacy and roughly $300 million over the biennium for comprehensive school-based mental health care in Wisconsin’s schools. 

Republican lawmakers, who control the state Legislature and the budget-writing process, have pledged to throw out the governor’s proposed spending plan and write their own, with Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, saying Evers’ spending proposals are "dead on arrival.”

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